theology Archives - From His Presence®

October 16, 2018 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 23 Comments

Finding Refuge Under the Shadow of God’s Wings

Do you feel unsafe, exposed to the world, unprotected, and in need of comfort today? If so, I have an encouraging word for you.

Some time ago, during my quiet time alone with God, the Holy Spirit gave me a mental picture (a vision) of what it looks like to be hidden under the shadow of God’s wings.

This mental picture encouraged me so much. Many times, I have gone back to that picture in my mind and just meditated on it. It’s beautiful, and so I wanted to share this vision with you today. I believe it will encourage you, too, as you pray and ask God to stabilize your emotions.

The vision was based on Psalm 91, verses 1, 2, and 4, which say:

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust'” (Psalm 91:1-2).

and:

“He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler” (Psalm 91:4).

The vision was this:

[Read more…]

July 5, 2018 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 59 Comments

The Sixfold Blessing of the Tithe

If you’ve decided to travel down the path of–and work toward–a financial rebirth, the first thing to do is to break the curses off your finances.

I’m very burdened about three specific curses that can sit on people’s finances, so we’re going to talk about the first one today–and about the sixfold blessing that you get when you break this curse. There’s even a free, printable bookmark down farther in the post, so you can pray for all six blessings every day! 🙂

First, you need to know:

How is a curse broken? When you get rid of its cause.

Proverbs 26:2 says:

Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight.”

Every curse has a cause. And as soon as we get rid of the cause, slamming the door in the enemy’s face, BOOM! We are free to step into blessing.

The cool thing about today’s subject is that the WAY you get rid of the curse actually carries its own, sixfold blessing with it.

So when you do the thing necessary to break the curse, God automatically promises that He’ll bless you. Neat, huh?

June 12, 2018 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 5 Comments

How to Feel Like God Loves You: My Story

This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series How to Feel Like God Loves You

“The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” Jeremiah 31:3 NKJV

Before I got married, there were many years when I was really lonely. I had a pretty messed-up background, and I felt rejected and unloved by almost everyone.

During my formative years, I was bullied a lot by other kids at school. They said and did horrible things to me. I became depressed, gradually got more depressed, and eventually decided I didn’t want to live anymore.

Then God broke through my hopelessness with the radical gift of a black Corvette, and I actually thought for the first time in my life like He might love me. I suddenly had hope, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior soon after that.

But, that still didn’t change the fact that I was pretty messed up.

I had some major issues to work through. One of my issues was that I felt rejected everywhere I went. I felt like nobody loved me. I knew that God loved me–I believed in my mind that He loved me–but I still didn’t feel loved, even by Him.

One day, I remember telling the Lord that I wanted to meet my husband “so I would feel like someone loves me.” All of a sudden, I saw clearly how wrong that mindset was, because:

God is supposed to be my source of love (and He is, now). He’s my source of everything.
If I’m willing to receive something from someone else that I’m not willing to receive from God, that’s idolatry. (I’m putting someone else before God.)
So God couldn’t give me a husband before I was willing to receive love from God Himself. Having a husband would have drawn me away from Him. It would have affirmed my idol.

Oops. I had never realized that before.

So I immediately prayed and asked the Lord to show me how to receive His love. Only He would be able to break through the walls I had put up. Only He could heal the wounds of so many years.

I had just finished reading a book entitled The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts (see my review here) by Gary Chapman. This book, which I highly recommend, says that there are five ways people give and receive love in relationships with other individuals. Those five ways are:

Gifts;
Acts of service;
Physical touch;
Quality time; and
Words of affirmation.

When the Lord showed me that He wouldn’t put me together with my husband until I learned how to receive His own love first, He also showed me–just a sudden understanding!–how to go about receiving His love.

He showed me that every time He does one of these acts of love toward me–giving me a gift, serving me, touching me, spending time with me, and speaking words of affirmation to me–that He is openly demonstrating His love for me. These things are Him loving on me.

So gifts, acts of service, physical touch, quality time, and words of affirmation are what love feels like.

I began to change right away when I started to understand this. As I’ll discuss in the rest of this series, I started meditating on what it feels like to be loved by God. In the process, I actually started FEELING like God loves me.

It was no longer just an intellectual knowledge. I actually felt loved, and chosen, and special… for the first time in my life.

And I’ve never gone back.

What about you? Are you tired of merely hearing people tell you God loves you? Do you want to actually FEEL His love for yourself?

You can feel loved, and chosen, and special, too. God loves you, and you can learn to feel and receive His love.

So please, read this series and meditate on the truths it will show you. From my own journey, I will share how to feel like God loves you. And you will learn how to feel God’s love, just like I did.

Read the rest of the posts in this series:

The link above to The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts (see my review here) by Gary Chapman is my Amazon affiliate link. Read my affiliate disclosure here.

April 12, 2018 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 17 Comments

The Real Reason You Exist (and It’s Not To Worship)

There’s a Christian fallacy out there that’s really popular. That fallacy is the teaching that the reason you exist is to worship God.

There’s only one problem with that: the reason you exist is NOT to worship Him.

“Whaaaat?” (All the religious and spiritual people just gasped in shock.)

That’s right. I know people say that the reason you exist is to worship God. It sounds spiritual. It sounds Biblical. It sounds really noble, and worship is spiritual and noble and Biblical and necessary and wonderful and more. I love to worship and am not belittling worship or saying it’s not important at all; it’s one of the most important things we could ever do.

But worship is not the reason you exist, and the paradigm that it is has caused a lot of pain in the Body of Christ.

Why pain, you ask? [Read more…]

April 1, 2018 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 22 Comments

Ask And You Will Receive, That Your Joy May Be Full

Do you really, really, really want something from God–but you feel like maybe you shouldn’t ask? If so, the Lord gave me an encouraging word for you today.

Here’s what He told me:

I was spending time with Daddy God this morning and just telling Him how much I love Him. All of a sudden, I saw a picture in my mind’s eye of Him giving me a big bear hug and kissing my forehead. I felt Him squeeze me tight to His chest. Then I heard Him say, “What do you want?”

I was taken aback by this question. I kind of shook my head and said, “Father, I just want You.”

And He said, “No, no, no. That’s not what I mean. I want to give you something. I want to do something for you. What would you like Me to do?”

And suddenly I could feel His passion and the intensity of His love.

I could feel the burning love in His heart that was looking for a way to express itself. He wanted to do something for me because He loves me so much, and He just wanted to demonstrate that today. He is, after all, a Giver. He loves to give.

In total awe of our amazing Father, I asked Him for something specific that has really been on my heart lately. And He said He would give it to me. He just wanted to bring me joy today, because He loves me.

Then He told me to share this with you, and that He wants to do the same thing for you.

[Read more…]

March 29, 2018 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 9 Comments

So Much Blood: A Bystander’s Tale

Let’s end our Holy Week series with this, shall we? I have never written fiction before, but the Lord downloaded this short story for Easter while I was meditating on the flogging of Christ some time ago. I pray it will bless you as we remember and honor the suffering of Jesus. – Jamie

I stand in the courtyard as an angry mob mills all around me. I’ve found a post to lean on the outskirts of the crowd, and I think I’m safe here. The cobblestone pavement is gray and cold. The sun has just come up on this spring morning. But the chill in the air pales in comparison to the chill in my spirit.

They’re angry at this man, this prisoner. They’re angry and they want to kill him, and nothing seems to get in their way. Not truth, not right, not justice, not the law. They’ve abandoned all sense—common and uncommon—and are shouting murderous threats. I ought to leave, but I can’t… this is too big, too sensational, not to see how it turns out.

My thoughts interrupted by a new wave of noise, I look up and stand on my tiptoes so I can see. A soldier is coming—wait, he’s coming right toward me. He’s pulling the prisoner, but the prisoner isn’t fighting him at all. Huh; strange prisoner. Most folks would be fighting to get away, or at least fighting for fair treatment, but not this one.

The soldier approaches me and the crowd parts. Oh, wait – it’s not me he wants. It’s the post I’m leaning on. I’m not sure what they want with the post, but I move to the side. Don’t want to get in the way of the Romans; it’s better to just move when I’m told.

I can only move a few steps away. The crowd is too thick for me to get away. As I reposition myself to the side, I catch the prisoner’s eyes by accident. I’m shocked by what I see there. [Read more…]

March 26, 2018 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 26 Comments

How To Plead The Suffering Of Jesus Over Broken Relationships

Do you have any broken relationships? If so, they can be healed… and all because of what Jesus suffered.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ hung on a Roman cross.

Putting Jesus on the cross was not an arbitrary execution method. It was the method chosen by God to inflict the utmost suffering on Jesus, by which He could purchase complete and total wholeness for you and for me.

Including wholeness of relationships.

We live in a world of imperfect people. And too often, friends, family members, acquaintances, ministry partners, and even people that we don’t know might say or do something that offends us. Then…

Anger and hurt creep in.
Unforgiveness and bitterness creep in.
And people that God intended to dwell in unity together become separated from each other by sin.

Yet we know that God desires us to live in unity with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Check out these Scriptures: [Read more…]

October 24, 2017 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 8 Comments

Feeling the Father In Your Heart

This entry is part 20 of 23 in the series 31 Days of Supernatural Encounters

For Day 23 of our 31 days of supernatural encounters (series index here), we are practicing feeling the Father in your heart.

Read: John 14:10-20

Know:

A lot of people will tell you that Jesus is in Heaven; that Father is in Heaven; and that Holy Spirit is the only One of the Godhead who is here on earth with you.

But it’s not true.

Personally, I hate that line of thinking. Not only is it formed out of a lack-based, orphan-spirit mentality, but, fortunately for us, it’s not even true. It’s not Biblical at all. [Read more…]

August 20, 2017 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 41 Comments

10 Prayers That Draw Me Closer To God Than Any Other Prayers

Have you ever been alone with the Lord, when all of a sudden you feel a deep-down, gut-level connection with God that feels different than ordinary prayer?

You know…

It’s that feeling you get when you know you’re speaking deeply to His heart, and He is listening hard and speaking deeply right back.
That feeling of knowing the Holy Spirit is right there with you, and you’re in the most intimate communion with the Father.
It’s when your heart is laid bare before Him, but you’re safe there and you know it.

Yeah. That feeling.

There’s really nothing like it. Just being with Him, opening your soul, and knowing that He’s receiving it all and that He’ll take care of you.

How would you like to experience that kind of connection with Him every time you pray?

You can.

How do I know? Because I love to spend time with the Lord in prayer, but some prayers draw me closer to Him than others. Sometimes I feel His presence and His heart more than I do at other times, and I’ve noticed a pattern.

I’ve noticed that certain, specific prayers seem to spur that connection with Him where all the deep parts of my heart are laid open, and it’s all right.

For me anyway, there are 10 prayers that draw me into this level of intimate closeness with the Lord during my quiet time. Well, actually, 11 prayers, because the first prayer is always asking the Lord to fill me with the Holy Spirit anew and afresh today. That’s THE most important prayer of all.

But after that, there are 10 specific prayers that draw me closer to God than any other prayers. I thought I’d share them with you today, in case you’d like to pray them yourself.

What’s special about these prayers? Well … [Read more…]

August 6, 2017 By Jamie Rohrbaugh 4 Comments

Slaying the Green-Eyed Monster of Envy

I used to feel envious of other people a lot, but I didn’t recognize envy for what it was.

Then one day I watched a bunch of little kids preach at a youth conference. Instead of being happy for them, I got upset with God. (#Facepalm) I wanted to preach; why couldn’t that be me? At that point, I recognized this ugly sin of envy in my life.

I took it to the Lord and read a book on the subject. (The book is Envy: The Enemy Within: Overcoming the Hidden Emotion That Holds God’s Plans Hostage by Bob Sorge [affiliate link].) This book is awesome and really helped me.

In this book, Bob Sorge says that envy–“the biggest sin nobody has”–is when we despise the gifts and the call the Holy Spirit has given to us, and lust after someone else’s instead.

Basically, if I envy someone else’s gift, that essentially means I don’t value the gifts the Holy Spirit gave to me. I don’t respect the Holy Spirit as being wise enough to know what’s best for me and when. Instead, I only want someone else’s calling and opportunity.

Just writing this brings tears to my eyes. [Read more…]