Identity, Soul Sickness and Bodily Affliction

The Lord spoke to me tonight through a conversation I had with a good friend. I realized that everything I've been struggling with, it all comes down to identity--or rather I should say, a lack of identity. She said something that is really key to the purpose of the trials and the difficulties we go through, and what it is we are really waiting on God for. But often we don't realize it, because we are focused on the external, or the flesh. "The breakthrough is not in the finances, or in the healing, the breakthrough is what happen's in you." I've thought that the breakthrough will have come when my body is healed or when all the money I need for missions has arrived. But the true breakthrough that I need is in the heart, it's in me. That's what our Father is after--like my friend said--for us to be perfected in love. Jesus asked if He would find faith in the earth when He returns. If my body is healed, but I continue walking in anxiety, fear, and unbelief, the true miracle has yet to happen--transformation in my heart. I've put the blame on the disease as the cause for all the fear and anxiety I've faced trying to avoid the foods that harm my body and find the right ones to fix it. But the real disease-fear, anxiety, all the things that are not of the Kingdom, what if these are the sickness in my soul that made my body sick? So many words and testimonies I can think of that seem to attest to the spiritual or soulish roots behind disease. One example, found in Scripture, is the thorn in Paul's flesh. We could interpret that this thorn was Paul's pride, & it was afflicting His body, yet the Lord refused to take it away. Why? The Lord's reply was, "My grace is sufficient for you. For my power is made perfect in weakness." Maybe because it was precisely that thing that the Lord used to weaken his pride, as later on we hear Paul declaring his boasting in infirmity & weakness, b/c it was through this weakness that meekness was formed, and through the very weakness that Paul experienced the power of God. Doesn't it often seem that those who have gone through some of the most difficult circumstances come through with the most powerful testimonies of experiencing God? I'm believing the same for my life. The disease I was medically diagnosed with, called Celiac, is an auto-immune disorder that causes an intolerance to gluten, resulting in much damage to the intestines & can cause a host of other problems too. I find it interesting that more and more people are being diagnosed with Celiac or other similar conditions. If you think about the role that our immune system plays--to protect us from harmful substances/organisms, & that people bodies are reacting to these certain proteins that are getting into their bloodstream (where they shouldn't be) b/c of the problems they're creating in the digestive system, & so the immune system begins to fight against it. What was created to protect the body from sickness, then causes the body to become more 'sick' when the protein is consumed! What's crazy is that DNA contain the instructions for building all the proteins that make up an organism. Genetically modified food-you think there could be a link with the confusion in our bodies? The perfect DNA of Christ in our spirit needs to unlock the mystery of who we really are. Think about fear, how this is one of key seeds the enemy wants to sow in the hearts of men. Scripture says in the last days the hearts of many will fail them because of fear. Research is now saying Celiacs need to watch out because they are more prone to heart disease. I wonder why! The disease wants to control you and trap you in fear that anything you consume might be contaminated with gluten and is going to harm you! It seems the enemy is trying to even sow fear in us by deceiving us into eating all these addictive foods that are all designed to make us weaker, and more susceptible to him taking us out!He uses it to try to isolate us-he goes after the stragglers, the weak and vulnerable ones who aren't receiving all the nutrients they need from the body of Christ. (I haven't even scratched the surface on this subject, there is a host of information about this topic I haven't tapped into because I'm not ready to. I know it's out there, & that the Lord will expose me to what He wants with time, but right now my pride wants me to remain in ignorance. Because with more knowledge comes greater responsibility, & conviction. I'd rather refuse to see the evil and not have to personally come face to face with it, because I know to see the evil for what it is, will mean repentance--a radical change. However, that is what will bring greater freedom, and the fullness we are meant to walk in--and that's why the enemy wants to keep his schemes hidden from us. But he has failed (he's the failure, not us!) he's being uncovered, and one day it will all be uncovered. God's secret agents have been exposing him, and I believe this band of kingdom revolutionaries will keep growing. We must unite together and fight for what is right-the Truth! We have loved our delicacies for too long, so long that they have infiltrated and satiated us to the very core so that we even deny their evil seduction and addictive deception! Daniel and his companions, believed to be a prototype of the end-time believers, though surrounded by and even forceably immersed in the culture around them, separated themselves in two main distinct ways: diet, and spiritual discipline--a life devoted to prayer. We are to be set apart, undefiled vessels that He can fill His glory with. How crafty Satan is that he could even find a way to produce passivity in us by messing with the chemicals in our brain through our toothpaste! And who would of ever thought it'd be with an industrial waste by product discovered in Germany WW2!(i.e. flouride). What was the enemy ultimately attacking with Nazi Germany? Identity! The very identity of the children of the God of Israel. And his end goal was to completely wipe them off the face of the earth. He comes only to steal, kill and destroy! But he does it through subtle changes that at first don't seem that threatening, ordered just right through his chosen instruments that bow to him in their greed for power and wealth. Passivity, fear, and unbelief cripple us and that is why these are his tactics. I just recently watched the movie "The Hiding Place", a true story based on the life of Corey ten Boom, a holocaust survivor, and her family. What stuck out to me the most as the greatest battle she fought was not so much the physical suffering she went through, but the strong temptation she faced in letting her heart begin to hate. The only weapon we can truly fight and win with, is Love. We have all been hurt, often wounded the deepest by the ones closest to us--the ones God intended to have provided for us the security & affirmation we needed for identity formation. But it is not too late. He's calling us into our identity as His bride. In the last year, the Lord has revealed to me some of the hate, the bitter judgments, and the unforgiveness in my heart towards my mom. I didn't understand why I was continuing to feel anger (which is the spirit of murder) and frustration towards her for years after being saved. But tonight He let me see that it's got to do with my identity--all of it. My defensiveness toward crude/negative or demeaning remarks or statements that were attacking these areas of weakness in my identity made me feel angry or hurt. I had allowed the offenses to embitter my heart towards her, causing me to detach from her to protect myself, which disabled my heart from loving her freely. So much more to write...more to come...