God’s “NO!” is not rejection, but a loving intervention to protect your soul. Jonathan Edwards taught reality from a holy perspective. The Holy Spirit does at times stand in front of our happiness, “No, walk away. Do not seek the shallow happiness of a good day.  Return to the deep, intoxicating joy of the Lord!  The Lord will frustrate the plans of the self reliant. God knows the business success we  hoped for, the relationship we  dream of, the move we were planning, the pleasure we were secretly nurturing. His ways are not our ways. Just when we thought the door was about to open, heaven closes it with a force that feels like rejection. It felt like punishment, but in the Spirit realm of reality, it is deliverance. Many naively believe that if God loves us, He will make us happy. If He is pleased with us, things will flow. If we pray enough, obey enough, sew enough, God will bless our plans, honor our dreams, and fulfill our desires. We are therefore shocked when the spirit starts frustrating those desires. We may rebuke the devil, blame people, or doubt God.

We never imagine that the One blocking the road is not the enemy of our soul, but the guardian of it. That the hands holding us back are not hands of anger, but His mighty hand of mercy. Jonathan Edwards wrote that God sometimes exercises His greatest kindness by denying what the soul most violently desires.  Our Father knows every unspoken desire of our heart. God knows what would lead the soul away from His plan, and His greater purpose. This is the severe mercy of God at work. He looks beyond our desire into eternity. He sees not only what we want, but what it will slowly cause. He knows the path that seems right to a soul, yet what ends in death. Proverbs 14:12. Our merciful Father chooses to disappoint us now, rather than lose us later. The Holy Spirit would rather break our heart than watch us destroy God’s plan for us. Reflect on the hardest seasons of your life and embrace the upsetting way things went. They were not attacks, they were interventions. The opportunity that collapsed at the last minute, the city you could not move to, the door that stayed closed while you wept and fasted. You may have called it warfare, injustice, or God’s abandonment, but heaven called it rescue. The severe discipline of a heavenly, all knowing Father refuses to let His child run joyfully into a pit. Hebrews 12:6 “The Lord disciplines the one He loves.”

At times His discipline comes as a violent interruption of what you thought would make you happy. In the moment, all we feel is the sting. Others seem to be thriving in relationships, careers, and pleasures that God tore out of your hands. The Holy Spirit is not dealing with you as a son, or as a daughter of the most High. He knows the exact mixture of temptation and desire that would intoxicate your heart and quietly lead you away from the Father. God’s love for you is not generic, it is surgical. When God stands against your desired plan for happiness, it exposes what you truly worship. If the thing God removes from your life feels more precious than His presence, the removal reveals an idol. If His no makes you feel abandoned, His no reveals that your heart had already moved away from Him. The spirit is not being cruel when He interrupts your joy. He is revealing that your joy had shifted onto something that could not save you. Psalm 119: 67 “Before I was afflicted, I went astray, but now I keep Your word.” Affliction brought the David back. What looked like punishment was the rope that pulled him from the edge. So hear this warning from the Holy Spirit. There are desires in your life right now that feel harmless, even holy, but would become the slow death of your love for God if He let them grow unchecked. There are paths you are begging God to bless that would end in a cold heart, a numb conscience, as it drowned His voice. Because God loves you, He will stand in your way. He will frustrate. He will block. He will say no to happiness that leads to hell.

If you have ever felt God stop you on a path that looked beautiful, only to later realize he was saving you from yourself, praise God for it.  The Holy Spirit did not gently nudge you aside, He pulled you back into a closer relationship with God. We falsely assume anything that frustrates our dreams must be the enemy, because we secretly treat our desires as sacred.  The Holy Spirit does not obey our ambitions. He brings them before the will of the Father. When He sees that the future you are chasing would quietly bury your soul, He will not stand by while you dig your own grave. He will interfere. He will close what you keep trying to open and weaken what you insist on rebuilding. The Apostle Paul longed to go into certain regions to preach, yet Acts 16:7  “The spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” Not demons, not persecution, but the Spirit blocked an apostle’s mission for a higher purpose. Our disappointments may have been the fingerprints of a God who has already read the final page of your story. Every disappointment carries two stories, the one you feel and the one God sees. You feel the sting of something precious slipping away. He sees the slow erosion of your soul if it stayed. You feel blocked by a closed door, but He knows there is a serpent coiled on the other side. You may feel humiliated because what you announced did not work. He knows that success in that direction would have swollen your pride until you could no longer hear His voice. What looks like punishment is often heaven cutting off a path that would have led you quietly away from Gods plan for you.

A very interesting study of Jonathan Edwards and the ancestors of this one other man. Jonathan was a preacher, and theologian. The study included 1,200 descendants of his descendants. Jonathan was born on October 5, 1703 in Windsor, Connecticut. At the age of 13 Jonathan entered Yale University and kept notebooks known as “The Mind.” This youth stood firm on the Word of God, and became a pastor. Jonathan was the 5th child of 11 in his family. He often retreated to the woods to pray. He married Sarah, whose father was the founder of Yale University. In a study of their descendants we find 13 presidents of colleges; 65 professors; 100 attorneys; 85 officials in the military; 80 held public positions; 3 senators; 3 mayor’s and one Vice President of the United States. Within this couple’s life of faith, a generational blessing produced a heritage of contributions, with zero debt to society.

In the same study of opposing generational influences, a man named Max Jukes who spent time in prison. Out of 1,200 of his descendants; 440 relatives lived in disobedience to God’s Word. 339 were homeless; 190 prostitutes; 100 alcoholics; and 7 murderers. Without contribution, their cost to society was estimated at 1 million dollars. It is obvious that wounded people seek bitter revenge as their faithless ways and attitudes of self-hate and bitterness injures countless others. Our Father asks us to forgive others as we have been forgiven. Broken people choose to use their tongues to speak both blessings and curses, and this should not be!

Dear heavenly Father, we come to You humbly, asking for Your grace and forgiveness. Thank You for calling us, and choosing us, just as we are. Thank You for adopting us into the family of God where there are no generational curses, but rather generational blessings. According to Your Word, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. We thank You for the deliverance You have brought to us as we come into agreement with Your Word. We confess our sins, and the sins of our family members, all the way back to Adam. By the power of the blood of Jesus, we command that every legal hold of Satan is hereby destroyed for the generational sin of _______. We welcome and receive healing, wholeness, deliverance, health, peace and joy into every area of our lives. We reclaim our identity in Christ. We were chosen to be in the royal priesthood, therefore, we joyfully work out our salvation by examining our hearts. Father, thank You for choosing, adopting, forgiving, changing, healing and sealing our minds and hearts with the Holy Spirit. We praise You Father and we love You for Who You are, the righteous Judge of all. Thank You for Your plans for us. We invite the Holy Spirit to shed His light into all areas of our life so that we can be holy as we represent the King of kings. Holy Spirit reveal anything in us that is not of the Father. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. AMEN

“Dear Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, we give You permission to examine our hearts for any wicked way. We purpose and choose to covenant with You Father, that when the Holy Spirit reveals anything that does not honor You or reflect Your character, we agree to confess it and ask for forgiveness. We set aside this time for You Lord and ask that the Holy Spirit be in charge. In the name of Jesus, and with His authority, we bind all evil spirits and command them to depart from us and NOT to interfere. We pray knowing that the Spirit in us, is listening and restoring and making all things new. In the powerful name of Jesus, we ask You Father to forgive us for any fear, pride, or resistance to Your truth. Father. we reject the spirit of bitterness, and we ask that You forgive us for entertaining painful regrets, or things that we wish we could have been different. All memories filled with pain, bitterness, rejection or unforgiveness, we purpose and choose to release to the Father for His healing. Father forgive us for holding onto any bitterness or unforgiveness for our part in the generational sin of _________. Because we believe that the Father has forgiven us, out of obedience, we choose to forgive ourselves. In Jesus name we forgive the person who offended us and we cancel any debts to us. In the name of Jesus Christ, we cancel all Satan’s authority over us and we shut off his influence in how we remember the past. Father You gave us a spirit of reconciliation, and we invite the Holy Spirit to break the cycle of rehearsing painful events. We release and allow the Holy Spirit to replace all regret with JOY for what the Lord has done. All bitterness, blame, shame, envy, jealousy, judgement, or any spirit of rejection is erased and DONE. Today the generational curse associated with _______ is OVER! Holy Spirit come and heal my heart and tell me Your truth …..”

Without our willingness to forgive — there is ZERO reconciliation, peace or joy. Satan is always at work to separate us from God and from each other. Evil is visible as we witness split personalities, broken relationships and split churches. “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8 A split personality is one who behaves differently during the week than they behave on Sunday. Our Father knows all, He knows our intentions, our motives and our thoughts before we speak a word. Nothing is hidden from God. We were created in His image and holy Scripture confirms that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. We hang onto the truth about us and our role as our Father’s hope for reconciliation with Him and His entire Body of Christ. Our Father teaches us and He disciplines those He loves. “Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” In other words capture every thought and compare it to the Kingdom of Light. If it does not honor God, be silent and wait on the Lord before you speak. Proverbs 16:24 Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.” Proverbs 17:22 ” A merry heart does a heart good like a medicine; but a broken spirit dries up the bones.” Scientific research confirms that a merry heart is the best medicine. We choose to forgive and let God do His work.

Dear Heavenly father, in the name of my Lord Jesus, I ask You to forgive me for my pride, my resistance to forgive, my bitterness and fear. I purpose and choose to forgive myself and release myself from all assigned tormenting spirits. In the name of Jesus, I cancel all Satan’s power and his evil authority over me. I reject Satan’s plan to destroy me with a stubborn spirit unwilling to forgive. I fiercely reject the spirit of self-hate which seeks to destroy my identity in Christ. I command the spirit of bitterness and self-rejection to leave me NOW. I now confess and renounce the sins of my forefathers who were responsible for bringing a long list of generational curses. How many in my family tree lived with a broken heart? Who was the agent that Satan used to betray us. Who in my family lived as a narcissist? Was there a cycle of depression repeated? Is a pattern of suicide, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, bi-polar or debilitating depression in my family? Oh Lord, let Your cleansing blood cover me. Heal me Lord, change me into who You created me to be. Thank You Holy Spirit for revealing the truth in my family.

We were created with free will and we are responsible for our choices. We must choose each day what voice we will listen to, and who we choose to follow. We become a servant of the voice we choose to obey. God’s Kingdom of Light, or Satan’s kingdom of darkness. If the voice tempts you to hang onto justified bitterness, hate, anger, lust, greed, revenge, gossip, critical, shame, pride, rejection, envy, jealousy, slander, unkind, unmerciful, or self-condemnation or self-hate — PRAY to be forgiven for any envy or jealousy over a sibling, a competitor, or a church member who is gifted in a different way.

Agree with God, that life in Jesus Christ is AMAZING! “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Philippians 4 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

“I bless you with an anointing of God’s peace and grace that you can pass onto others. Spirit, I bless you with an ever growing spirit of reconciliation with God. I bless my spirit with an ear to HEAR what the Holy Spirit is saying and respond in glad obedience. I choose to confidently follow the inner prompt, the guiding compulsion to share the power of repentance with others. I bless you with a glowing peace that attracts others to God’s wonder working light. I bless you as a child of God to have a willing heart to speak the truth in love. May your spirit draw others to inquire what gives you such peace and grace in the midst of trials and chaos. I bless you with Spirit filled words that will reach the broken hearted. I bless you with a vast harvest of family, friends and strangers that you will be willing to be an agent of change for the Kingdom of light.”

Declare who you are in Christ. I belong to Jesus and I live in peace and joy regardless of the circumstance. My Father has given me ears to hear what the spirit of God is saying and a willing heart to obey. I am a child of the King of kings, adopted, sealed and equipped to do my Father’s will. As a child of God my smile reflects His pleasure in me. As His beloved, I avoid blaming others as I take full responsibility for my words and actions. I am a minister of Truth, an ambassador of Christ, and I live, move and breathe by His grace. I am His and He gave me a sound mind. I am redeemed, restored, satisfied and content. My motive is to please God with my obedience, even as it stretches me past my natural abilities.

Holy Spirit, come and restore my heart from any adverse event or past trauma. Give me back the peace that the enemy stole and cleanse my mind of every smell, image, sound, taste, feeling, and all memories that cause me pain. In the name of Jesus, I cancel Satan’s power and authority over me and I come out of agreement with his evil schemes that I may freely participate in God’s plan and purpose for my life. I command the deceivers lying spirit, or the accusing spirits to leave me now! I command all fear and past traumas to depart from me NOW! Lord I feel so encouraged that the Holy Spirit will never depart from me, but shall ever remain as my Healer, my Counselor, my Comforter, my Protector and my Teacher. Thank You Father for entrusting me and preparing me to live the life you planned for me. AMEN

Heavenly Father, I ask the Holy Spirit to take hold of my tongue. Help me Holy Spirit to look and find the good You intend in every situation. Prompt me to focus on “What is the lesson, what is the good, how is God’s hand in this?” Allow me to perceive God at work behind the scenes. Holy Spirit give me the courage to forgive and encourage those I have forgiven. Father I ask You to loose me from any fear of rejection, loneliness, natural disasters, allergies, germs, fires, being judged, disease, change, criticism, failing, of being controlled, or harmed. AMEN — Father, in the name of Jesus, I bless my bones, heart, kidneys, thyroid, lungs, brain, memory, spinal cord, nervous system, digestive system, muscles, hair, teeth, and nails to be healthy and strong. I bless my fighter cells, my endocrine system, and sinuses to operate according to their original design. I bless my tongue to speak works that edify, that uplift and draw those with the ears to hear what the Spirit of the Lord is speaking through me. I speak healing to all areas of my body to function property as You restore them. All glory to my Loving Father for creating me in Your image. Wonderful are Your works. AMEN

Halleluiah! Our names are in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Therefore, we are Signed in His Book, Sealed by the Holy Spirit and Delivered by His grace. Rejoicing all year!