Have you ever heard the saying in Christian circles, “never trust anyone who doesn’t walk with a limp?” This saying is so common now that it sometimes can sound rather trite, but it’s not, not when it comes from a place of suffering and humility. When it’s used by someone who hasn’t been to that place, and doesn’t know of that suffering, it’s usually brought without the humility that characterizes its veracity. Continue reading
Category Archives: Teaching
Joy Came in the Morning (pt 3)
Early August 1998
We had a beautiful suite with a separate bedroom and a kitchenette off the full-size living room. From the moment we walked in, I felt the presence of God, and I began to realize that something truly supernatural was in store for me that night.
Because I knew it would be an emotional time, I went to the bathroom, took my contacts out, and washed my face. While I was putting my pajamas on, Chris and Jolene prepared the living room. They placed boxes of tissues in various spots around the room, and they decorated one of the tables with a white linen tablecloth with lace trim. Continue reading
Joy Came in the Morning (pt 2)
Early August 1998
That summer, my new friends Chris Harper and Jolene Dreisbach had been to a post-abortion healing conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I’d never even heard the term post-abortion before that time, but I knew God was dealing with me about the abortion issue, and I knew that’s why he had brought Chris and Jolene into my life. I also knew it was time to leave Master’s Commission but did not yet know what I would do after that. Pastor Barnett had asked me to go to L.A. and help start the LAIC, the outreach that eventually became the Dream Center. Jack Wallace, who had been teaching the singles’ class the Sunday in 1989 when I made a commitment to Christ, was now pasturing a church in Detroit and wanted me on staff there. It would be a paid ministry position, and that would be a first for me.
As I prayed for direction, God started putting all the puzzle pieces together, and by August, Chris, Jolene, and I had decided to start a ministry to help bring healing to women who’d been through abortions. Before we formalized our plans to start Truth Ministries, the girls had told me they wanted to hold a memorial service for me. They’d been working on the ideas they’d learned at the Milwaukee conference, which had been not just for helping women heal emotionally after abortion but also after miscarriage and SIDS. “If we incorporated the Holy Spirit into the memorial,” they told me, “incredible things could happen.”
“Lori, think of it this way,” Chris said. “You never had a baby shower or did any of the things that would commemorate having a child. That’s what this memorial will do.”
“Or think of it this way,” Jolene added. “If you’d had a still born child or even a miscarriage, friends would have consoled you, and you would have mourned. But women who’ve had abortions—women like us—actually had the same kind of loss, yet we never had the experience of grieving for our children.”
I thought the idea of holding a memorial service for me sounded kind of strange at first, but they persisted.
“This is a way to deal with the abortions once and for all and to bring closure on the past,” Chris said.
Jolene agreed. “Please let us do this for you, Lori.”
We scheduled the memorial for the last weekend in August, right before my birthday. The week prior to that, God started softening my heart. I had always been the strong one, the one people came to with their problems. That week I became mush. Pastor Barnett rarely mentioned abortion from the pulpit, but that week he mentioned it twice, Sunday morning and Wednesday night. For some reason it was on his heart; he didn’t know I was that reason. He preached that abortion was wrong, but he also expressed compassion for women who had felt they had no other alternative.
On Wednesday night after church, Chris and Jolene told their families good-bye, then we drove to neighboring Scottsdale, where they had rented a one-bedroom hotel suite. We planned on staying until Friday night, so the fact that Chris and Jolene’s husbands were taking care of their kids for two days so we could be free to do this was a big deal to me. I didn’t think I deserved it. I was always telling people that God had great things in store for them, but I didn’t believe I would ever have the great things of God because the sin I had committed—abortion—was so horrible. I felt I would have to live with the pain and the emptiness, the loss and the shame, no matter how great a Christian I became. As we drove to Scottsdale, I sensed God saying to me, “Let these people minister to you.”
…..more to come.
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 1
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 3
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 4
Joy Came in the Morning (pt 1)
“Jamie Charles Bakker was born December 18, 1975.” Jim was pretending to narrate a biography of his son.
The four of us— Jim and I, Jay and Amanda—were traveling from L.A. to Muskegon, Michigan, for the Bakker family reunion, and Jim was using the occasion to fill me in on some of the family history. Jim continued his story, but my mind stopped and focused on that date. December 18, 1975.
“Lori, you sure got quiet,” Jay said after a few minutes. “Are you carsick? Or just mesmerized by our life stories?” The others laughed.
“No, I…Sorry, Jay, I just had a major reality check when I heard your date of birth.” I swallowed hard. “You’re the same age my firstborn son would have been.” That realization had hit me like a ton of bricks. If I had carried my first pregnancy to term, the baby would have been born in late December ’75 or early January ’76.” I was looking at a flesh-and-blood son—soon to be my son, or at least my stepson—with his arm around his girlfriend, and he was the same age my firstborn would have been. “You guys could have been really good friends,” I said wistfully.
The moment passed awkwardly, Jay didn’t know what to say, and Jim simply looked sad. He reached over and took my hand. As much healing as I have had, the old, familiar grief can still reach out and squeeze my heart in a split second. IT doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is very real. Every time I looked at Jay for the next few hours, I thought of the son I never had because of my own choices. Gradually those thoughts faded.
Such thoughts, while painful, no longer overwhelmed me because of a deep inner healing I had experienced in 1994. That event remains the single most precious moment of truth in my life.
…..more to come.
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 2
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 3
Joy Came in the Morning – Part 4
The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 2)
Faith – it’s a word we have used and overused in our country, our churches, and our own personal lives. People have faith in many things; faith in people, systems, governments, sociologies, economies, and the big one for our somewhat humanistic generation: relationships. Social relationships are taught, sought and sometimes bought in our politically charged and socially driven generation of ambition seekers…. and this includes some in the general church population. Continue reading
The Trial of Your Faith (Pt. 1)
Our recent show guest, John Shorey, and I touched on a subject that is probably one of the most pertinent to the Times in which we are living – the trial of your faith. This is a subject worth exploring and I am going to do a series of blogs on it.
For me, the trial of my faith has taken on many different forms and spanned many decades. One would think that things would get easier as you go along in your Christian walk, but I’ve found that is not the case when you are on the front lines. Continue reading
Hearing from God in the Last Days
We’ve been talking on the show lately about the importance of hearing from God about everything! In the times we are living in, it’s not just a nice thing, it’s a necessary thing to hear from God and know what He is saying.
The primary way we can hear from God is reading His Word, of course. But, there are other ways that God communicates to His people that are very Biblical as well. God says in Joel 2:28 and again in Acts 2:17 that in the Last Days, He will pour out His Spirit on men and women alike, and they will have dreams and they will see visions.
Another way God communicates with His people is by speaking directly into their spirit. The Bible says that God is spirit and we are made in His image. That means we are a spirit too, living in an earthly body (for the time being.) The idea of God speaking to us directly should not be foreign to us.
Our family has certainly experienced the above scriptures vividly, and we continue to experience dreams and visions almost daily. There were three of us; Nena, myself and Jim who recently had dreams of an impending catastrophic disaster. We don’t take them lightly. We take them as a warning to prepare for what is coming.
Early in my Christian journey, I was walking along the beach one day and God started to speak to me about my future ministry. He told me that one day I would speak to wave after wave (representing million of people) about abortion. At the time, I didn’t know how this could possibly happen. But, when God brought Jim and I together and I began to speak at conferences across the nation and talk to television audiences that spanned the globe, I recalled that vision.
I just want to encourage each of you that God will give you dreams and visions, and He will speak to you directly when you believe and trust that He can. Jeremiah 33:3 NLT says to “Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come.”
I don’t know about you, but I need to hear from God on a daily basis for everything! I believe He can and will show us every step to take and every move to make in the Last Days.
Call on God today. He is there. He is willing. He will do it!
God Loves to Come Full-Circle – Mourning to Joy
When I was young and foolish, I destroyed the ability that God gave me to be a Mother. I suffered tremendously because of my decisions back then, especially as I matured and realized what I had done. I had wanted to be a Mother since I was a young girl. I loved to play with dolls and play that I was a Mother, even from the very early years of my life. To have that taken away from me was devastating, and I grieved over it for a long, long time and still do at times.
But God has a plan for all of His people that does not include grief and sorrow. Instead of the ashes of my barren life, God gave me 5 beautiful children to love and raise. He is a God that loves to restore and bring your life full-circle back to what He intended for you from the beginning. He loves to give you beauty for ashes, and He will when you love Him and seek Him with all your heart.
I love the beauty for ashes verses in the Bible. Isaiah 61 reads like my own personal memoirs from God:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me”…oh yes, it is! He has given me His Spirit!
“Because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor” …oh yes, He has! I preach whenever I get a chance that God has a better life for you to live, God has a better plan and He will show you that you don’t have to be poor in spirit; you don’t have to grieve over past sin and past hurts your entire life.
“He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” …oh yes, He has! I love to tell people that God is not mad at them! He does not hold sin against you when you are brokenhearted over it yourself! He wants to heal your heart, and heal your spirit. He wants you to come full-circle and back around to what He intended for your life from the start.
“To proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” …you see, just as God has a plan for your life from the very beginning, in this fallen world we have an enemy in the devil, and He will do everything he can to steal, kill and destroy the plan of God for you. Sometimes we succumb to the enemy and he gets us all bound up in sin and unable to get free. But God knows how to get us free and He will do it! Once you get free of the enemy’s grasp, you can’t stop telling of the Lord’s freedom! I will never stop telling people that you too can be free! You too can be out of the prison of sin and free from its effects!
“To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God” …God said that vengeance belonged to Him alone. God loves to put the devil in his place. I like to think of the big hand of God just smacking the devil away as we repent, love God, praise Him, and thank Him for His loving kindness! When we do this, a miracle occurs; God exacts his vengeance through us, the born again ones, in the form of FAITH. Faith in God destroys the enemy! When you believe God, and you resist the devil – He has to flee!
“To comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” …there it is! This is what God will do for all of His people who come to Him heavy laden with sin! As soon as you repent and give your heart to God, He starts bringing your life full-circle back to where He intended you to be. He takes the stick that the devil beat you with and hands it to you so that you can beat the devil back. Your mess becomes your message, your test becomes your testimony! You can’t stop telling about the goodness of God and His restoration of all parts of you; that child that loved to play Mommy, that little boy that loved to preach, that teen-ager who wanted to change the world for Christ…. When the devil comes in like a flood, God raises a standard against him. God’s standard is truth and justice.
“For I, the Lord, love justice” …
There are many out there who are broken-hearted over sin. You have gone down a wrong path and you want desperately to turn around. You can do it today. You can be restored to everything God intended for your from the beginning. You can come full-circle in your life. God can bring you right back to where you need to be. Call out to Him. Come to Him and you will see that His arms are wide open and He is ready and waiting for you. He loves you and He hasn’t changed His mind about you. He will receive you and He will comfort you and restore you. He will give you beauty for ashes, and joy instead of mourning!
The Proverbs 31 Woman Prepares!
Not many people think of the Proverbs 31 woman with a characteristic of being prepared for emergencies or natural disasters. But, the Bible does bear out that this woman, the example of a virtuous woman for all generations, does indeed prepare ahead of time for any situation.
The society we live in doesn’t really assign much value to a virtuous woman – but God does. That’s why we have a context in the 31st chapter of Proverbs to help us understand what real virtue looks like.
First, this woman is a thinker. She has her priorities in order and she pays attention to the things she knows are right – those things which are beneficial for herself and her family. And I’m going to add here, since we’re 21st century Christians, she also knows her Bible and she bases her life on its precepts.
When I’ve done all I can do, then I will rest in the Lord. I have always said “faith without works is dead.” While others say they will just trust in the Lord – I believe we should act on our faith.
James 2:17,18 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.”
While television, movies and magazines will try to convince today’s woman that her priorities lie in looking good and a variety of other petty issues – the Proverbs 31 woman knows that beauty fades and charm is deceiving, but her strength is in her virtuous character.
Oh, I know what you’re thinking…. but Lori, you always look so ‘put together.’ Ladies, when you see me on television, that’s not really me. The real me has her hair in a pony tail with a baseball cap on, and no makeup! And I know you’ve heard Jim tell on the air that my favorite thing to do is clean the house! It’s true!
But one thing that is constantly on my mind is emergency preparedness. Why? Because I believe we’re living in the Days of Revelation and it’s only a matter of time before some catastrophe or event challenges our status quo lifestyle. I’m not afraid of what’s ahead, but I do respect the warnings in the Bible that there will be Times of Trouble.
I don’t know exactly what this ‘trouble’ may be, but I’m not going to take chances with the lives of the ones I love. It’s my responsibility to see to it that my family has their best chance of survival when a catastrophe hits. If I can alleviate any of their suffering, why wouldn’t I? I believe that’s why the Bible tells us ahead of time that these things are coming…. so that we can prepare!
“She looks well to the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness.” Proverbs 31:27
“She is not afraid of the snow for her household, For all her household are clothed with scarlet.” Proverbs 31:21
“Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future.”
Proverbs 31:25
Surrounded by your Enemies
In the Last Days, the Bible says that Israel will be surrounded by her enemies on all sides (Luke 19:43, Zechariah 12:3, Luke 21:20). We’ve all seen this play out in the news every day. Israel is indeed surrounded by her enemies, and we can be sure that without God’s divine hand upon her and His covenant that He established long ago with her, she would have little chance of survival in such a hostile environment.
When the agenda by your neighbors is to “wipe you off the map,” there is little peace or time for carelessness. Indeed, Israel is ‘on guard’ every hour of every day. She has a solidarity among her people that is based in survival. They know that they must stand together in unity and they have united together under Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak with one voice.
Lately, in our world, all of Christianity has felt the same encircling by the enemies of Christ. The antichrist spirit is at work in our nation and in our world. Christians are coming under persecution by a world system that is moving rapidly towards not just a secular mindset, but a full-fledged antichrist agenda. What is the antichrist agenda? It is to rid the world of Christ and to eradicate all Christians.
Of course, this is not going to happen, but as the Last Days play out, Christians will feel more and more surrounded by their enemies and we will need each other to make it through the offensive this is mounting. It’s even more important to remember that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, and rulers of high places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
You would think that it would be easy for Christians to know their enemies, and to know the spirit of the antichrist by which they operate, but it’s not all that clear-cut. Sometimes, it’s the enemy within that challenges the plan of God for His Church and His People in the Last Days. Have you noticed that instead of a great coming together in the End Times against a common enemy (like Israel has done), Christians today are fighting each other with a fierceness that is very disturbing?
I’m convinced that a major strategy of the devil in the Last Days is to ‘divide and conquer’ God’s Church. There’s no better way to do that than to convince each group or individual that they alone are the holders of the entirety of God’s truth, and that the rest of the Christians who hold differing viewpoints are all enemies.
In a paraphrase of a famous line: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”