A Mission or Just an Idea?

Dear Stander, 

A lot of people are NOT going to stand with you. My advice is to just stand, and pray that God reveals to you the people who are standing with you. Now, if you are unsure about your stand maybe THIS is the reason for the hesitancy you may see around you. I finally had to tell my friends and family that I was standing--no matter what--no matter HOW bad it got. AND if they were my friends then they would REMIND me that I said I would NEVER give up...and to NOT let me. Yes, I was THAT serious; IF I wavered I needed people to stand alongside of me, even if they thought it was crazy. I wanted them to REMIND me of what I said. It didn't get to that point. The reason was not because I was so strong but as we build ourselves up in the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit to come alongside and encourage us DAILY, asking God to confirm His words in our heart it's really difficult to change our minds and go against the Heart of God. If He gave you a word to STAND, then He isn't changing your mind. He hasn't changed His mind; He is right there. WE choose to walk away from the mission. Family will SEE your resolve. Does this mean you won't hurt....oh, I promise you will. If your heart is soft it will WEEP with a pain you can't imagine. BUT this is GOD; he wants to give you HIS heart for the lost. Your prodigal is LOST. WEEP for them. "Standing" is not just an idea, if it is....you won't be able to stand for long. 

Now, some of you have children!  Many of your friends might think you are teaching them to accept sin and bad behavior.  In regards to your children, maybe this is the reason you are having the questions. In your stand, are you displaying faith in the impossible?  Are you steadfast?  Are you loving God and the sinner? Are you displaying your stand for the covenant?  Are you praying for the lost? How can this be a wrong example for your children? Are you excusing sin? My children, without doubt, KNEW/KNOW that sin is unacceptable and displeasing to our Father. They knew Josh's behavior was unacceptable, so it's not that you are standing for sin being right; God deals with the sinner. You are standing for the covenant to be upheld. Make sense? 

We have received DOZENS of e-mails the last month, and so many keep saying "our stories are alike."  Yes, because the master of deceit, lies, and evil is the same no matter the person. Satan seeks to destroy destinies, and he really doesn't have any new tactics. Things look the same, because it's the SAME spirit. 

BUT, be encouraged, the Spirit that lives inside of you is MUCH stronger, and if GOD be for you WHO can be against you? God is FOR YOU!!! He does impossible things!! Stand with Him! Gain confidence in your stand, and your friends will see that you mean business. Are you passionate? People want a mission--give them one!! 

"Finally,brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run swiftly and be glorified, just as it is with you, and that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men; for not all have faith. But the Lord is faithful, who will establish you and guard you from the evil one." II Thessalonians 3:11

I will be praying for you. Thank you for sharing your stories with us; it helps us to know how to pray!  

Much love, 
Serena Abdelaziz

Bare Knuckled Books First Release

Many of you have inquired about what we have been up to this last year. Let us share with you, Josh just finished his book Zombie Killer: A Bare-Knuckled Approach to Christian Living.  It was almost a year ago that he was one of many featured authors at the 2012 Convergence Conference at Resurrection Fellowship in Loveland, CO.  It has been quite a journey for us to bring this book to publication.  However, the time has finally come for this message to be made public.

This book is about our need to die to our flesh daily.  Too often we assume that we can live our new-found Christianity through our old habits and vices.  When we try to do this we wind up discouraged and frustrated.  Many of us have given up the faith because we lost heart.  Hopefully, through this book the Lord will allow us to overcome the things that cause us to stumble in our walk.

We chose to make this book available through Amazon.com as an e-book.  We chose this avenue to hopefully reach more readers with the truth that is expressed within its pages.  Although we have released it exclusively for Amazon’s Kindle, you do not have to have a Kindle to read it.  You can easily download a Kindle e-reader for PC/MAC.  We have made it available for only $2.99, a reasonable price.  It is also available through Amazon’s lending library which would cost you nothing.  This is not about making money for us; it’s about getting the Gospel out.  And for those that don’t feel like spending the money to purchase, Josh will be making it available for free downloads from time to time.

Our desire is to have it ready and available for hard copy purchase in the near future.  However, that costs money.  If you feel led to contribute to investing in this ministry and the needs associated with this endeavor, you may contribute via Paypal. (see link below or on the main blog page) 

Our prayer is that this is just the first of many books that the Lord will pen through us.  Thank you for your belief in us and the Lord’s work.
            We will continue to speak into your marriage and help in any way we can. Many of you have asked if there was another way to see the life of a returned prodigal, and this will give you a picture of the things that were necessary to keep the zombie, in Josh, dead.  Feel free to leave reviews and comments on here or on Amazon. Thank you for your continued love and support, as we put ourselves back on the front lines of battle.

Josh and Serena

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A Prophetic Repentance

From the prodigal to the stander:

There are some things that I need to say to you.  When you read this I may not even be at the place in my life where these words can actually come out of my mouth.  However, I know that somewhere deep down locked away in my heart these words desperately want to come out.  Even though I am sorry, this is more than just an "I'm sorry"; this is a prophetic repentance.

I need to apologize for who I have become.  Who I am right now is not the person that you married.  The person that you married would never hurt you or do you harm.  I am confused, lost, and sick.  I don't know who I am.  I cannot seem to find my bearings to get home to you.  I am so sick that everything that I once held dear I have forfeited and sold so that I could remain sick.  Any sane person would have sold everything to find a cure for their illness but I have sold everything so that I could become sicker.  The person that you married was strong and secure.  They were unafraid to put a ring on the finger and be called yours.  But the person that I was on our wedding day was replaced by a deranged individual that wants to hurt you.

I need to apologize for lying to you.  I told you that I would love you forever.  I told you that I would be there in sickness and in health.  I said I would be there for richer or for poorer.   I said I would love you for as long as we both lived.  Our love was supposed to be the one that made everybody else jealous.  We were supposed to be together until death.  When you ask me if everything is OK, I lie to you.  I'm not OK.  I have been struggling for a long time.  You have never judged me but I feel as though if I told you how I was struggling, you would.  It is my own insecurities that make me this way.

I need to apologize for being extremely selfish.  I have not cared for a moment about the consequence of my actions.  I have only been interested in the things that made me happy.  Actually these things I have been doing and involved in didn't really make me happy.  They appeased me for a moment.  It feels like I am addicted to doing the wrong thing.  My actions give me a temporary buzz but afterwards, when I am alone, I feel completely empty.  I don't remember the last time I felt complete.  Wait!  Yes, I do remember.  The last time that I felt whole and complete and truly happy...was with you. I want to come home.

I need to apologize for breaking your heart.  I took your most precious gift and tore it all to pieces.  I did not think for a moment about what I am doing and how it would affect you.  When we became husband and wife, and probably some time before, you gave me all the pieces of your heart.  The good, the bad, the ugly. You entrusted me with all those pieces.  And I took them and have used them as a weapon against you.  I took your heart, broke it, stepped on it, and spat on it.  I took the only thing that ever really mattered to me and destroyed it.

I need to apologize for destroying your ability to trust.  You trusted me to keep your heart safe.  You trusted me to act as though you were physically standing next to me, even when you weren't.  You trusted me to make decisions that were in the best of us, not just me.  You trusted me to share only with you my most intimate parts; physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I took those things and gave them to someone else.

I need to apologize for failing you.  You used to lean on me for strength when you were weak.  I used to protect you from everyone.  I promised to love you.  I promised to be there.  You trusted me.  You loved me.  You were always there.  And I failed to hold up my side of the covenant.

I need to apologize for turning from and running from God.  He is the One that brought us together.  He is the One that was going to keep us together.  He still is.  However, right now I left Him.  I don't feel like I can even approach Him.  It feels like I can't come back to Him because of everything that I have done.

You know me better than anyone else.  You always have.  I think that is what makes all of this so difficult for you.  Who you see in me now is not who you have always known.  But the me you have always known is still here.  I am covered in sin, filth, and shame right now.  And I don't want you to see me like this.  It makes me feel uncomfortable.  That's why I always put on a front when we are around or when we talk.  I might come off as carefree and uncaring, or mad and unavailable, or cold and calculating.  But I have to act that way to push you away because the way that you love me makes me feel unworthy.  I know that you want us back together.  I do too but I don't know how to get there.

The way that I look on the outside is not how I feel on the inside.  I still love you.  But I put myself into this extremely dangerous cycle that I don't know how to break.  This cycle that I find myself is going to kill me if I don't get out of it.  Will you please help me break it?  Will you pray for me?  Will you pray that God finds my weak spot?  Will you pray that in that weak spot God pours His powerful grace though it?  Will you pray that His grace breaks me to my very core and allows the person that you married to be made right again?  Will you pray that who you know I really am to come back into the foreground?  Will you pray that who I have become is destroyed?  Because I want to come home.

I know that the road home is going to take a whole lot of hard decisions.  I know that getting us back to where we are supposed to be is going to take a whole lot of work.  And I am sure that I am going to act as though I don't want to do it.  But deep down, I am willing to do anything to get us back.  I want to come home.

Can I come home?  Will you help me find my way?

Your prodigal

This may not seem true to life for you right now but it is the truth.  You may never hear this from your spouse but this is what is going on inside of them.  These are things that you need to know.  This is a prophetic repentance from a former prodigal (Josh) that is now a stander.

Do not lose heart in your stance.  Your prayers do not fall on the ears of a deaf god.  Our Heavenly Father hears every one of your prayers.  Stand strong, friends.

Josh and Serena

Who are you?

Identity.

          Your identity.

                           

When we say identity we don't mean what it says on our government-issued ID.  There is a whole lot more to us than our name, address, weight, and whether or not we are an organ donor.  When we say identity we don't mean what we do for a living, who we are married to, whose parent we are, or our social status.  Who we are is not defined by the circumstances (good or bad) that surround us.  When we say identity we mean WHO we are; the person that is revealed when all of the external things are stripped away.  When we remove everything (our address, job, family, hobbies, etc.) who is left behind?  Our identity is not defined by what is happening externally to us; our identity is defined by Who is living internally.  The person that we are is defined by our relationship with Jesus.

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that we are fierce believers in Jesus Christ.  We recognize that He is the foundation for everything.  We can do nothing apart from Him and we are nothing apart from Him.  It should come as no surprise to you that we point you back the Risen One when we speak about our identities.  Not many of us would point to Jesus when asked who we are.  When in reality who we are can only be found in Him.

As we learn more about walking out our Christian faith and grow deeper in our relationship with Jesus, the more that we learn about the importance of our identity.  It seems that one of the primary reasons for our sinning against the Father and against one another stems from issues with our identity.  Whether it is a conscious choice to not be associated with our identity or an unconscious forgetting, our identities are paramount to our decision-making abilities.  We begin to act wrong and make wrong decisions when we do not know WHO we are.

So, who are you?

This whole idea of identity is one of the things that we had to learn during our time of healing the past few years.  In separate encounters with the Holy Spirit on different occasions, we both had the Father speak to us regarding our identity.  Somewhere in our individual journeys growing up we had suffered an injury to our identities.  For Serena, this did not cause her to fall away from God but it did cause some issues that needed to be dealt with by God the Father.  For Josh, his identity issues were caused by a severe emotional wound that had never healed properly.  As a result of improper healing, a callous was formed between him and God over the wound, that did not allow God (or anyone else, for that matter) in to those deep areas. No one was allowed to properly repair and heal the offense, or even know about it.  But both of us had a deep need to hear God Himself declare who we are.  And God, in His faithfulness, spoke to us in ways that ministered to our very need.  For Serena, God affirmed who she knew she was but often had a hard time allowing herself to feel it.  For Josh, it was a little more invasive but God spoke to the wound and rebuilt his identity.  In our own ways and in our own time both of us were able to hear God tell us who we are.

When we come to a place where we are able to hear God Himself declare our identity to us in a way that only we will understand, it is very difficult for the enemy to steal that from us.  This is why the enemy wants to destroy our marriages.  Our marriage is one of our deepest relationships outside of our relationship with Christ.  Our marriages are a reflection of Christ and His bride, the church.  The enemy wants both of those relationships to be torn down.  The enemy will use our spouse, the one that we pledged our life to, to tear our identity down.

When a spouse cheats, leaves, or divorces they have in some way lost or left their identity.  However, OUR identity does not change.  Circumstances and situations do not change our identity.  Our circumstances and situations may change how WE feel about our identity but our identity can only be changed by the One who gave it to us.  And He is not fickle or temperamental like we are.  He does not change His mind about our identity because of what we have done or have not done.  No matter what our spouse may say about us or do to us, our identity did not, and will not, change.

How do we respond to a spouse that has lost/ left their identity?  We continue to respect and honor them based on the identity that the Father gave them, not by their reaction to it.  Yea, it's going to be hard.  Yea, it's going to be ugly.  Your husband left?  Honor him as the man of God that he IS, not how he's currently acting.  Your wife is cheating?  Love her as Christ does the church and give yourself for her.  If we find ourselves in a place where our spouses are making poor decisions, understand that they will continue to make poor decisions until they learn or remember who they are.  So, pray for them.  Pray that God, the Author of their identity, will reveal their identity to them and cause them to remember WHO they are.

So, who are you?

You are a child of the King.  You are a marvelous work of God's creation.  You ransom was paid for by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.  God, the Father, had you in mind at the time of creation and has ordained each of your steps.  You are one that the Father treasures so highly that He has numbered each and every hair on your head.  He has commanded the angels to bottle each one of your tears that you have shed.  You were not a mistake or an accident.  Nothing has happened to you through chance or happenstance.  The situation that you find yourself in is one that the Father already knows about and is currently working on the miraculous redemption for.  You have been chosen.  You are not forgotten.

Whatever is happening to us on the outside cannot diminish who we are on the inside.  We never find out who we are by looking inside of our wallet.  We find out who we are by looking to the Everlasting Father.  He has always known who we are because He was the One that made us.  He is always ready to make His child's identity known to them.  All that we have to do is ask.

Josh and Serena