To be sold out for Jesus

To be sold out to Jesus means to be dead to self, and that will cause your spirit to be quiet and at peace.

After spending ten days in America on a ministry trip, I can’t wait to go home! But when I arrived at JFK airport I found out that our flight had been delayed for at least 24 hours or longer. Inside of me everything said “No, no, no! Please Holy Spirit help me!” I ran to the ticket counter to find an alternative and the attendant informed me that the quickest way home is to fly to Atlanta and to take a flight from there back to South-Africa. This option will result in a ten hour delay, but at least I will be on my way home again.

I realised that I did not put a web letter on last week, but my schedule was just too hectic to find time to write. I was flying all over States doing Spirit Schools. How blessed we were at each of these meetings! Holy Spirit did an amazing work in every one that attended, even in me!

While I was away the spiritual fight was on big time back home as Aldo faced heavy battles. By now I have learned to just keep on fighting in the spirit and to speak the Word of God into his spirit when stormy winds start blowing. I have no fear anymore because I know what God has promised us in Revelations 12:11: “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

The enemy hates it that the truth is being revealed to God’s children. For so long we all have been blinded by the spirit of pride. My spirit is so quiet today because I am covered by the Blood of Yeshua. I am at peace even though I experience a dark cloud of fear all over America. Everywhere I went I had to fight it because it is so forceful and it wants to enter every fibre of your being that is not fully surrendered to God.  When we feel fear we need to fall on our face immediately and repented of fear and then surrender everything to God again. That is the only way that the enemy will not have access to us – if we are fully surrendered (body, soul, and spirit) to God!   

Our Abba wants to teach us His ways, which means we must think and speak true “Wisdom” in a higher realm of the spirit. Not with our soulish feelings, but as living sacrifices that are surrendered to God’s purpose. Because of this dying to self and living to Christ we will have a completely new nature – the nature of God.

It saddens me to see that so many times people know all about Jesus and they even try to use His name for power, but they don’t have the real victory that lies in having His nature.

I saw with my own eyes how people think that they are on a high and lofty spiritual plane and that they know everything. Do you know that there is just nothing as ugly as spiritual pride?! Even Adam was in Paradise when he fell. Knowing all about Jesus is not the answer – the key is to have His nature in you. His nature is a humble, loving, meek heart that is willing to learn and willing to submit to God. Pride is what whispers to us: “You know everything! You are always right.” It was pride that cost me so much pain in my life because I did not listen. I was not humble enough to see what God saw. I could not discern the tactics of the enemy and he played all kinds of tricks on me and my family.  

Today I know that the enemy has so much legal ground to kill, steal and destroy in the lives of Christians just because of pride!!! That veil makes us blind. Before your “higher” knowledge and religious experiences make you overly self-confident, recall with me the account of King Solomon. He was the heir to King David and he wrote three books of Scripture – Proverbs, Ecclesiastics, and Song of Songs. He gazed upon God, and he received Wisdom – yet, in the end, he fell. 

God said to me “Retah, it is real wisdom to recognize that you do not know all there is to know concerning spiritual warfare. Not all of my children are humble enough to come and learn the wisdom of the spirit realm. They think they can find it all in knowledge.” I was one of them. Today I can only thank God for His grace and mercy upon me and my family. He himself taught us all about these deeper things of the spirit and it makes life so much easier, but in order to receive it you need to have a humble heart. Not everybody really wants to be free. No, they find comfort in their own strength and abilities to carry them through.  Proverbs 20:18 says “Plans are established by seeking advice; so if you wage war, obtain guidance.” God wants us to seek Him in everything we do!

Eccl. 9:14-17 says: “There was a little city with few men in it; and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great snares around it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that same poor man. Then I said: “Wisdom is better than strength. Nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, And his words are not heard. Words of the wise, spoken quietly, should be heard rather than the shout of a ruler of fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good.”

It doesn’t matter how bad your situation is – even if is the destruction of a nation or the collapse of a city – we need God to teach and guide us. The Holy Spirit reminded me every time that what the people of America need is wisdom, like it says in Ecclesiastics: “Wisdom is better than strength... wisdom is better than weapons of war.”

Something that Wisdom talked to me a lot about on this trip is: an uncrucified thought life. That is one of the great battles we all face. I see a lot of Satin’s assaults on people’s lives are aimed at their thoughts. Do you know that your “fiery thoughts” that are lit from hell are weapons the enemy uses against you and other people? In most cases this is what the enemy uses to ‘fight’ against Aldo. We need to keep his walls (the walls of his city – his soul) protected and closed to the enemy because those are the channels that Satan uses to fight in the realm of the spirit.

We will be accountable for every word and thought: But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment (Matt. 12:36). All of us need to be renewed in our minds. The areas of our nature which are unguarded, and the open doors of our soul, give Satan an easy target. These will be the places where we are hurt most through assaults, gossip, and deadly words and thoughts. Can you see why you need to forgive your brother and sister and not to walk with evil in your heart against anybody? Satan uses these evil things we harbour against each other as a springboard to attack us. And do not think that it will only hurt the other person; it will hurt you too, because all sin leads to death (Rom 6:16). We need to repent of our sin and forgive others the way we want God to forgive us. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt. 6:14-15).

In Luke 11: 35 Jesus gives a stern warning: “Take heed that the light which is in you be not in darkness.” The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord (Prov. 20:27). Our spirit, illuminated by the spirit of Christ, becomes a lamp of the Lord through which He searches our hearts. There is indeed a glory light, a holy radiance, that surrounds a true Spirit filled Christian. Aldo always says to me, “Mom, we need to be transparent. Only then will His glory light shine through us.” This basically means that nothing should remain in darkness. The enemy loves to keep things in darkness, but Jesus is asking of you and me to bring it to Him – into His light – so that He can cleanse us and purify us through His blood so that we can stand transparent and justified before God. Satan has legal access, given to him by God, to dwell in the domain of darkness. The enemy can live and move in any area of darkness in our lives. That is why I truly believe that real and lasting deliverance comes by real repentance.

When you expose and confess your sins to Jesus they are no longer covered by guilt and shame in the cloud of darkness. Even the laws of nature agree with this: When you turn on a light in a dark room, the darkness is turned into light. This is what happens when you bring your sins from out of the darkness and expose them to the light... they vanish in the light of God’s forgiveness and mercy; and because of the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, you can be washed of all guilt, shame and sin and stand transparent.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:8-9)

Satan’s worst fear is that people will embrace true repentance. It really makes me wonder why so many people fight repentance. You then have to ask yourself: Am I from the light or from the darkness?

The second thing Satan hates is a humble heart. May the King of Glory help us all to have a humble heart! As we surrender our soul to Him, humility and total dependence on Him will keep us in His presence.  Not coming in and out of it all the time, but constantly being in His presence.

I receive so many mails from people who say that they feel sorry for me for having to travel so far to preach and working for the King. Some even think I should stop! Please don’t look unto me – keep your eyes on Jesus. This is my life – it is not a ministry, it is my life. When I gave my everything to God, He asked me: “Who shall I send?” I answered and said that I would go.

For my family and me this is what we are called to do. This ministry and our lives cannot be separated, for our lives are called to be a ministry to the King. So I can’t stop that – it is who I am, who Tinus is, who Aldo is, and who Josh is. I will do what I need to do and go where I need to go until Jesus comes to fetch us. It is not about my comfort. When I stood in front of Aldo’s bed in ICU seven years ago God asked me to do this and then He saved my son’s life. How can I tell Him now, “Lord I think it is time to stop now”? No, the calling on your life will go on until Jesus comes! It is not a job – it is my life.

I am sitting at Atlanta airport waiting for my flight home later tonight. I can’t wait to see my family, but it will only be tomorrow afternoon at 6 o’clock. They are sleeping now in South Africa, so I can’t even phone them. This is a good time to pray, to read the Word, and just to worship God in my spirit.

I miss my little Josh so much! The last thing he said to me on the telephone was, “Mom, remember to bring me M&M’s please. Mom, can I sleep in your bed when you come home?”

Aldo is busy fighting some soul-wounds that are not fully dealt with yet. It is so painful for me to know that he is going through this, and the root of it all is rejection. But I refuse to see only the bad in it! It is wonderful that all the soul wounds that have been lying in the darkness are coming to the light. I would rather work through it now than to see after another year how the darkness lures the enemy. Every day of my life I pray over all of us: “Lord Jesus, please let your Glory Light shine in our souls.” That is what uncovers these soul-wounds and helps us to deal with the pain in our lives. Praise the Lord for this, even if it is not always easy.

I even do it with myself and Tinus. When we spend time together I always ask him to show me a part of his heart that is still hurting. That way nothing stays in darkness and I will also know what buttons not to push. Now we can rather pray together about it and help each other in love. We all need to bring our pain to the light. It is pride that makes us keep it to ourselves.

My mom went to visit my sister while I was in the USA.  She wants my sister to open up her heart to her, because with my dad we learned that all the darkness and pain in our hearts lead to our hearts becoming hardened.

“Come on Mom, you don’t need to do that?” I told her. “Retah,” she replied, “I am not going to die one day without knowing what is going on in my children’s hearts. Didn’t you learn from your dad’s situation? It was the pain that he carried in his heart all his life that made him such a hard man. But when he brought it all in the light Jesus changed him.”

“But Mom, I thought we are all just getting over it?”

“No Retah, Jesus told me that He wanted me to go to everyone in my family. He not only came for some, He came for all! All the sick, all the poor, all the rich, all the lost and for all those who are caught up in religion. He came for all, and if I love Him I will go and do my best to reach those I can.”

We must all do the same. We can start by praying for them, by standing in the gap for them, by blessing them, and by loving them! To just leave them alone is not the answer! Love your neighbour like you love yourself.  Jesus asks of all of us if we will do that for Him.

At least my delayed flight gives me some time to become quiet and to think. What is man that you are mindful of Him o Lord? Of me? Jesus, of me? I make so many mistakes and I don’t really know how everything works. I just do what You tell me to do step by step. Jesus, I love You so very much. I am going to sleep in Your arms tonight Lord. Please let my family enjoy Your love even in their sleep.

Love from Atlanta airport,

Retah.