He loves us. For real.

Okay so the intercession blog is coming but I really wanted to share this. This past week I’ve just been receiving this revelation from the Lord that I thought I knew buuuut apparently did not. I guess I should get used to the fact that I’m never gonna fully understand one facet or revelation of God…He’s kinda eternal and all Brittany. Anyways, the other day as I was having my chill time, all the sudden it just really hit me; I don’t have to strive or do anything to earn God’s love. I can just receive it. Freely.

Now, I have heard that truth for about 3 years or so. Having tracked with IHOP for about the same time, that’s one of the foundational messages you’ll hear from there. I’ve heard teachings about it, I’ve sung about it, I’ve talked about it, I’ve read about it, and I definitely have shed quite a few tears already receiving bits and pieces of that truth. But I feel like recently I’ve received it like it was brand new or something, as if I were hearing it for the first time. It’s actually starting to make sense in my head. I slowly began to feel as if this weight was being lifted off of me. The Lord was just highlighting to me how in the past, and even still at moments currently, I’ve had this striving thing with people, either doing things or saying things just to get a response or to feel accepted and loved. I never realized how much energy I’ve put into all that. The Lord, rather simply actually, basically told me that He’s not like that and that I don’t have to do that with Him. I don’t have to say anything, I don’t have to do anything, I don’t have to accomplish X,Y,Z in order for me to receive of His love. I don’t have to do anything! Just because of who He is and who I am to Him, I get ALL His love for free because of the blood of His Son. I still feel like I’m in the middle of this transition of receiving this and the Lord releasing me from a burden I was never meant to carry but it’s bringing so much peace to my heart. Even when I was at IHOP last week I kept getting words from people about the Lord telling me that I don’t have to strive to get His affections and all that. When I would receive that I actually remember thinking something like, “I already know this.” Note to self: stop saying that lol. Noooooow I can see how He was tilling the ground for my heart to receive this truth in a fresh way. Thank You Lord for being so patient with me!

I’m constantly blown away at the way the Lord loves and what that means about the way He relates to me and how He desires me to relate to Him. He does the total opposite of everything that hurt me in the past. He always accepts me, always includes me, always desires me, is always excited when He thinks about me, and will never let me go. He’s not indifferent or passive and He never holds His love back from me. Even before I loved Him, He gave what was most precious to Him.

I remember talking to a friend of mine a while back about the way the Lord loves us. I think she was talking about how the Lord is love and all. I can’t remember the exact phrase that she said but it was something like, “Because of who He is, He couldn’t help but love you.” I just love that. He can’t help Himself and will do whatever it takes for us to truly believe and receive that. He can not deny Himself.

So no more striving . Just sit there and let Him enjoy you.

“…that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:7-9)

Recap: IHOP-KC April 6th-16th, back to my first Love

April has been one packed month. I just got back from a three week extravaganza of a trip across the country. 10 days in KC and then another week in Washington state. So much amazing Jesus-ness happened so I’m gonna try and do an overview as best as I can. Here’s the IHOP-KC visit recap:

Basically going into this trip I knew it was going to be one of those “never be the same” trips. The Lord told me before we left that this He was going to birth a lot of things in Dora, Jenna, and I and He sure did.

A huge theme for me during my time at IHOP-KC was just returning to my first love really. It juuuuust so happened to be the Passion for Jesus conference while we were there and the first session of the conference I felt like I came home to Love again. I think I was just caught up in the swirl of the cares of life a little bit, trying to figure out what’s going on and everything. The Lord just really brought me back to that place where just loving Him and being loved by Him was enough again. Even in all the swirl of contending for revival and all the exciting stuff that’s been going on with IHOP-EG I kinda forgot that. That love is the point. Misty’s lyrics ring in my mind, “Knowing You is the point of life…the point of life is You.” The Lord made it very clear from the get go of the trip that He just wanted me to receive that again and move forward in the strength of that. Moving forward in the place where the first commandment is truly restored to first place. Jenna even had a word for me during worship the first day of the conference about how Love was going to be the theme of this trip and it totally was. It’s like priorities got put back into place in my heart. Even thought I may not have all the answers to a bunch of things yet, my heart can rest knowing that loving Him and being loved by Him really is enough.

I’m not gonna go into details about it, if you see me in person totally ask me about it cause it’s awesome, but on April 9th at the Awakening, I basically had a 4 hour power encounter with the Lord. I have never experienced His touch like that before. The Lord brought such deliverance to my heart from self-hatred, rejection, abandonment, fear, and lots of lies. So much stuff went on that night. I experienced a bunch of inner healing months before but I feel like He just really sealed the deal on it all that night. And praise the Lord for my awesome friends who just stayed with me and fought for me through it all, it was so great. Something that one of them kept saying was “He gave you a new heart! He gave you a new heart and a new mind!” That’s exactly what went on. My body has never manifested the way it did then and while it was going on I was asking the Lord, “What are you doing?” cause I didn’t just want to get caught up in what I was feeling, I wanted to know what was going on ya know? And the next day the Lord gave me a verse that He showed me was the over-arching banner for what He did that night.

Ezekiel 26:25-27 – “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take a heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues, and you will keep My judgements and do them.”

That night I was totally aware that He was just doing a deep cleansing work. Cleansing me from wrong mindsets and lies that I’ve believed about myself. I feel so much more confident in my identity and see myself as beautiful in a way I haven’t before. I can feel in my mind and heart that I’m different and what’s even more awesome is that others can too . I feel like there’s so much that happened that night that I’m probably not even aware of. One thing that it definitely left me with as well though was just knowing that I was made to experience God. After that, I’m ruined. Nothing compares to God touching the human frame.

The rest of our time there was incredibly lovely. My heart was so refreshed beyond words being with everyone who was there too. Time in the prayer room was awesome. I’m so happy the Lord basically made me just receive from Him this trip. It does say that He makes us lie down lol. Totally felt that and loved it. He made me lie down and I sat there with great delight. He filled us, refreshed us, empowered us…and then it was off to the lovely state of Washington …

Oh! I almost forgot! Jenna got healed of 21 years of being lactose and tolerant ! The first night we were there we went to the Awakening meeting for the first time Jenna got prayer for healing, knew she was healed and was eating ice cream for days afterwards! Jesus is alive in well kids 8) Praise the Lamb! We were contending for my eyesight to get healed as well and though there’s not total healing yet, I do think that my right eye got one notch better cause it was always worse than my left and I know the Lord was moving so we’ll just keep asking

A Rejoicing Artist!

Guess what I fouuunddd ?!

I had a feeling this was going to happen. After figuring out that the drawings definitely had to be somewhere in my room I just kept asking Holy Spirit where they were. I found myself walking over to a shelf with a journal I had on it and thought, “Hmm, maybe I threw them in something.” And lo and behold there they were! All four of my drawings and then some. I was so happy that I did a little “thank Yaa” dance.

I have no idea why I decided to put those in the back pocket of this journal but I’m just happy that I have them now . With that I know what it means a little more personally now when Jesus talks about the other end of the parable of the lost coin.

Luke 15:8 – “And when she has found it [the lost coin] she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

This is our Papa. Jesus said “likewise.” That means that like the woman, The FATHER called together all the heavenly hosts that stand before His presence and said REJOICE WITH ME. He celebrated us! And continues to each day. Over one. Over an individual. This isn’t just some general “party for the people who just came into the kingdom today! Wooh!” The Father desires to have a celebration for that specific individual because they  are so significant to His heart. That’s so amazing. So He had a “Brittany Zampella” celebration. I mean, even if you kinda think about it, no kid likes to share their birthday party with someone really. I know I never was really a fan of that growing up. I wanted my own special day. And yeah, maybe there was some selfishness in that lol but I still think there’s a truth there. It’s the truth that we all desire to be solely celebrated, to be the center of attention. That desire in and of itself is not wrong. What’s wrong is when we cling to the eyes of man to meet that and bank on the opinion of man for validation. That desire is supposed to drive us headlong into our heavenly Father. Because the truth is, we are the center of Someone’s attention. We are celebrated. And not by some nobody, this is the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE we’re talking about here. That fact that we still value the opinion of man more than that reality shows us how far we are from really understanding who He is. And I’m speaking to myself here too. The Lord has brought a mighty transformation in my heart concerning this issue, but there are still little remnants of the belief that the opinions and words of man matter more. But I know from experience that as we take the word, the scriptures that talk about who we are to Him and how He has set His love on us and meditate on them, sing them, read them, whatever, they WILL get formed into a reality in our hearts. We come to a place where one day we’re like, “Wait a minute…I actually believe this.” It’s my testimony. Don’t get me wrong, it is a process. Whether it’s a couple hour process or couple month process, a process is still a process so patience with ourselves is key. But we can find comfort in what David said here:

Psalm 51:6 – Behold, YOU desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part You WILL make me no wisdom.

He wants it more than we do and it’s a promise from His word that He WILL make us know it deep on the inside

Weeelll, sorry if this post seems kinda all over the place, didn’t expect to get off here. This is definitely stuff I wanna be thinking on more. And as for my drawings? They are hanging up in my room so they will now be ever before me

Psalm 41:12 – As for me, You uphold me in my integrity, and set me before Your face forever.

Family

Acts 2:44-47 – Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

When I read this verse, I think of family. True family. I’ve been thinking a lot about family lately. I guess it’s all the warm holiday season buzz that’s getting to me. But on Thanksgiving this year, my heart just could not help but overflow with thankfulness to the Lord for the people He’s put into my life these last 5 months. I could actually feel my heart overflowing with this pure and brotherly love for my friends from Fire in the Night that was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t even know that I could experience this, that this was what the Church is called to walk in with one another.

I remember first really feeling this when I got back from FITN. I was a mess. But a good mess lol. I remember just weeping and crying with tears of love for these people, for the brothers and sisters that I got to know those 3 months.  Even as I just think about these people my heart just overflows with this like, “family” love…brotherly love. No wonder the apostles are always mentioning brotherly love! It’s such a beautiful thing that’s fascinated me since I’ve been home and feeling all of it for what seems like the first time really.

What’s awesome about brotherly love is the fact that it has the connotation of a family, if that phrase even makes sense. There’s probably a lot of things that are significant to brotherly love, but a couple things come to mind for me when I think about it. Number one…transparency. You’re never more yourself than when you’re with your family. There’s no need to hide or try to be anyone else, you’re just you. When I was at IHOP, I’ve never felt so much freedom to just be myself. It’s like the real Brittany came out, a Brittany that I didn’t even know was inside. The Lord did sooooo much to cause that to happen and one of the main things was the people I was with. Just the love that was exchanged between all of us created this atmosphere to just be. That sense of Love allowed you to let your guard down cause you knew these people would love you no matter what. They saw you when you were feeling awesome and they saw you when you were whining in the bathroom of the Prayer Room at 2 in the morning (not that I ever did that of course ). For reals though, you just felt…safe. I guess it makes sense when you  put all the pieces together really. You have a group of young adults seeking the Lord and getting transformed by His love, then as they receive His affections over them it inevitably overflows into the people they’re around, that’s just the way of the Kingdom. And what happens when Perfect Love is released? Fear is gone 8) . Hence the feeling of safety, safe in the love of the Savior. Now that doesnt mean that it’s any easier to be vulnerable, there’s always that risky feeling and all, especially with people you haven’t known for very long. But I just remember that feeling of security when I was with these people and that still exists as I talk to them now. So beautiful.

Number two…faithfulness. You even see this portrayed in movies today. Family always sticks together and doesn’t leave you behind. My goodness, am I thaaannkkfuuulll for the numerous times my friends have fought for me, encouraged me, and talked sense into me while I was whining in the bathroom at 2 in the morning . We need each other. The Lord made it that way. The body reaaaallly does need each other and I encountered that so clearly during FITN, just how the body works together. I’m forever grateful for having people who’ve spoken life into me day after day, calling forth my beauty and identity in the Lord, and speaking words of edification, exhortation, and com-fert . I am also just at grateful for times they’ve put me in my place lol. Those moments where they’ve brought me back to the truth, sharpened me, convicted me, and told me to stop whining because my Father’s a King, and princesses don’t whine. Thank You Lord! It’s so freeing to be able to have people who you can count on to just be real with you in complete sincerity and love for you. Awesome.

I could probably go on forev. Main thing is, family is family forever when it’s the Lord who’s made us family in the first place. My beloved friend Tiffany from FITN, who basically inspired me to write this blog entry, said something absolutely beautiful about this today in a note she wrote on Facebook. She said,

I know that three months is a short amount of time but there’s just something – a truth and a depth – of the way of the heart that is forged when the Creator of heaven and earth is involved. A kind of relationship that transcends even the deepest of what is understood about “friendships” when the King of Glory ties and unifies hearts and minds toward one purpose and one reality.

When I read that sentence, something in my heart just melted. She could not have said it more beautifully. She’s absolutely right. I remember one of the last nights in the Prayer Room before we all left that the Lord comforted me as I was feeling all that Tiffany described here and grieving yet being so thankful for what the Lord had allowed me to take part in those three months. I could feel His tenderness towards me as He said, “Brittany, they’ll always be your family.” Every time I recall that it brings me comfort and peace. Like Tiff said, this kind of stuff really does transcend even the deepest friendships experienced in the world because it’s the Lord who’s knit us together and drawn us as one after Himself. I remember even just thinking about how, friends who don’t know Jesus and all, when they leave one another…that’s it really. Unless they’ve entered into the family of the King of Kings through Jesus, when they say goodbye, that really is goodbye…forever. But as a child of God, as brothers and sisters, because of Jesus, we are always going to be family. We will always be brothers and sisters. And even if I don’t get to see some of these people again on this side, I can rest assured in my heart that for all of eternity I will interact with them at some point! That is so amazing! I’m just so grateful to be apart of the best Family ever. My Dad is King and Creator of the Universe. My Husband is the King of Kings, the Lord of Hosts, the One to whom every knee will bow. My Friend who’s always with me is the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God who lives in me. And my brother’s and sisters are beautiful weak and broken people, covered with the blood of the Lamb, and forever victorious because of the triumph of the Cross.

Thank You Papa for adopting me, for adorning me and crowing me as Your royal daughter, as Your kid. Thank You Jees for making a way, for being the Way and my everything to give me new life and make me new. Thank You for those You’ve given me, for my brothers and sisters and that we’ll always be family, You know that I can’t thank You enough. Thank You for teaching me what family is really about, what Love is really about, what You are really about. Let this love abound still more and more in the heart of Your Church across the world. And bring the prodigals home. Bring home my brothers and sisters that are still orphans, abandoned, and need a home. Bring ‘em home Papa.

I don’t even know if half this blog had any type of flow to it, it’s kinda all over the place but whatev. There’s still so much in my heart that I’m feeling and want to express but I just don’t know how. Family, this true family, is just so beautiful. For all my beloved FITN-ers who may be reading this, I love y’all so much and can’t wait till whenever we get to meet again Thank you for being the awesome examples of children of God that you are!

So let this all-over-the-place of a post end and “let brotherly love continue.” Amen and amen.

Ephesians 3:14-15 – For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name…

#2. My weak yet, sincere love, you will never despise

A couple weeks ago, the lovely Pam Spuler asked me a particular question about my time at IHOP and being in the prayer room every night. She asked, “Did you ever not want to pray?” And I said, “Of course, you have you’re nights for sure.” And then when she asked me what I did in those times I gave a reaaaally dumb answer now that I look back on it. All I said was, “I paced.” Afterwards when I was thinking about that I just realized how lame of an answer that was, I have no idea why I only said that. #1 – that wasn’t the only reason I paced for sure, and #2 – that wasn’t what I mainly did when I didn’t want to pray. It’s those moments that I discovered the value and power of our weak “yes” to the Lord and it has changed the way I interact with Him in a major way. So Pammy, this is my real answer to your question my dear

I’m not gonna lie, I struggled a lot with feeling just straight up apathetic during the first month and a half or so that I was there. It was like senioritis bled into my time with the Lord or something. I would have nights where I just didn’t feel like being in the prayer room, had no desire to read the Bible, and looked forward to talking to people in the bathroom rather than sitting before Jesus. Throw in some comparing myself to others and it’s not exactly good times. Yeah. Now this wasn’t every night, I had awesome times with Jesus throughout the whole apathy stuff but that’s just what I was mainly feeling for a lot of the time that I was in the prayer room. I may have looked like I was doing alright, and it’s not that I wasn’t, but deep down I just encountered my barrenness hardcore. So needless to say it was kinda rough at times and it was weird because that room was exactly where I wanted to be but the desire to pray and read the Word and all was just not happening for me.

There were two major moments that happened to me in relation to all this. The first was courtesy of the lovely Wendy Miller during a group burn team one night. See, the whole time I was feeling all apathetic and all, I was feeling the whole, “I want to want to read the Bible, and I want to want to pray more, etc” but it just wasn’t really happening yet. And I did the worst thing you could do when all that’s going on, compared myself to others around me. So then I just felt bad and frustrated with myself and the lies of the enemy were all over the place it was ridiculous. But one night before we were about to head into the prayer room, Wendy spoke and just broke something off of me. I don’t even specifically remember what it was exactly she was talking about but one phrase that sticks out is, “You’re not doing the prayer room wrong!”She was just talking about how it doesn’t matter what we feel like at the end of the night, if we’ve loved Jesus with our weak yes, then successful night! It counted before the Lord. And it just really hit me to forget about yesterday and even whatever I was feeling the weeks before and go into that room and sit before Him, believing that it’s not in vain. I remember going into the prayer room that night and it was just different for me. Her words did something in my spirit and it just felt like the apathy stuff was broken off.

But. Even though there was a little bit of breakthrough I was still having a bit of a hard time. Then there was this one night…

I remember I have never experienced the lies of the enemy just swarming around me like I did that night. Condemnation was all over me as I was frustrated with myself not reading the Bible, thinking I’m missing out on stuff and everyone else is going deep with the Lord but me and yada, yada, yada. And the funny thing is, I knew it was the enemy. I knew they were lies, but I just kept listening. I was straight up miserable that night. I had awesome friends fighting for me and ministering to me throughout different times in the night but when it came down to just me, it was not good my friends. I just sat there and let the enemy slime me with lies. I would cry to the Lord, telling Him that I want to have a greater love for His word and the place of prayer but instead of waiting to hear His response to my cry, I just listened to the lies of the enemy. I was longing for the Lord but just had junk hovering all around me. By the last set, the lovely Hellen Lee was singing a song that I think is by Jason Upton, it’s called Freedom Reigns. I was sitting in my chair, annoyed at myself as ever, and she starts to sing the chorus “Freedom reigns in this place, showers of mercy and grace, falling on every face, there is freedom…” And it was like something in me or around me or whatever just went, “Freedom…that’s stupid, I don’t feel freedom, I don’t have freedom, I’m not singing this.” It was just gross and not of the Lord. And by the mercy of the Lord I just like, came to my senses and said to myself, “Ya know what? This is ridiculous, that’s not God and I’m gonna sit hear and sing this song and mean it because this is the truth right now.” So I sat in that grey chair, raised my hands and started singing. And then the tears came. As I just sang the song the Lord started to wash me in His love and affirmation over me. I looooove Luke Wood’s song where he says, “Just one word from you, could shatter a thousand lies.” I literally experienced that! As soon as He started to speak to me, all that junk was gone in an instant. It was amazing. And this is where it goes back to the whole seeing the value of our weak yes.

During this whole time, the Lord kept asking me, “Brittany, do you love Me?” He just kept saying it over and over. I’d suddenly found myself in the position of good ‘ol Peter. I just kept crying and finally said something like, “Lord, you know that I love you. I do love You. You know that. I love You so much.” Just like with Peter, the Lord wasn’t looking to get an answer for Himself when He asked me that question. He was completely confident in my love for Him. He didn’t need to know that I loved Him, He wanted me to know that I loved Him. He wanted me to see that my love was still genuine and true. He was reassuring me that the reach in my heart to love Him more in the midst of barrenness was enough for Him, that it counted before Him. He just kept asking me that and each time I said, “You know that I love You” something in my was changing and it was restoring my heart.

It was that moment that really started to change the way I viewed things whenever I didn’t feel like doing something or didn’t feel His presence one bit. He’s just been showing me the glory of those moments when we don’t feel like doing something and yet our heart still reaches. Something so beautiful goes on in our spirit when we don’t feel like doing something and yet we just say, “I love you Jesus.” I have this little theory that it’s actually those moments, those dry times, when we barely have the strength or desire to do anything and yet we still set Him before us, that the most goes on in our hearts. Because think about it, you’re not feeling Him, you can’t see Him, and we can’t hear Him audible all the time, in fact that’s really rare in our walk with God. And yet you still say, “I love You.” Do you have any idea what a statement that is to Heaven? How much that moves the heart of God? I can just see the angels peering down and going, “I don’t get it!! She doesn’t see Him, feel Him, and is crying out to love Him more! What is this mystery?!” I think the Lord takes those weak steps towards Him and runs like crazy 10 x’s closer. That just who He is.

I remember by the end of the track, whenever I didn’t feel like reading the Word or something or praying or whatever, I just did it anyway because I knew it was still doing something in me. I kept saying to myself, “This is not in vain. It truly is unto something. As I draw near to You, whether I feel you’re nearness or not, you are drawing near to me and I really am being transformed from glory to glory.” So now if I find myself feeling something like that, I have this like, gladness in my heart to be able to say, “Jesus I still love You.” I know that something is going on in my heart that is glorious. I almost wish I could see some behind the scenes footage of my spirit in those times. I think we’re gonna be so surprised when the Lord revisits those moments with us and we see what was really going on and all that He was doing with our weak little “yes” to Him.

[Just a sidenote: When I'm saying that I just did stuff anyway even if I didn't want to or didn't feel anything, what I'm noooot saying is that I did it because I felt like I had to gain the Lord's favor. I didn't just do it anyway because I felt like He wouldn't be pleased if I don't do what I set apart in my schedule to do for this next hour. If you feel like you're just doing stuff because you feel like if you don't read your bible right now the Lord won't be pleased with you then you need to close your bible, open your hands and receive His love freely . What hit me is that I already had His love and all that we do must be inspired from that truth. We don't do things with or for the Lord to try and gain His affections, we do it because we already have them . Just wanted to make that clear. ]

Learning this has brought so much freedom to my heart when I sit before the Lord now. It’s like I’m learning to realize that, as MikeyB says, I love God and He loves me, therefore I’m successful. That’s it. No matter what I’m feeling, what my circumstances are or whatever, my identity and success at the end of the day comes from loving God and believing that I’m loved by Him, that my weak little heart is more than enough.

In the words of Ashley Prior: “My weak yet, sincere love, You will never despise…”