Michael J. Brennan consistently writes by revelation
Spirit of Fear
April 12, 2023 • Michael Brennan
“Do you not know?” There is difference between worry, anxiety or fear and the spirit of worry, anxiety, and fear. The former is just part of everyday life. But the spirit of worry, anxiety and fear is whole another, because they are illegal intruders.
Their sound these days, this day right now, has become like the perpetual scraping of fingernails on a chalk board. Someone experienced this kind of intimidating, irritating sound 2000 years ago while He was very weak from 40 days of fasting. I can still hear His anything-but-weak answer way back then, “GET BEHIND ME SATAN!”
And, if I can hear so can you. Maybe we should grab ahold of that sound and let the One inside of us speak it out of our mouths once again. Not some tired, old, religious quote, but His present, living command coming out of our inner most being. This day. All the time. Beginning right now.
GET BEHIND ME spirit of worry, anxiety, and fear… It’s where you belong! “And he went forward full of the power of the (Holy) Spirit” And He left you know who muttering to himself back in the desert.
It’s time for those illegal spirits to get behind us. It is time to go forward in the full power of the Spirit.
Substance of Faith
April 5, 2023 • Michael Brennan • Romans 10:17, 1 John 4:15, John 7:37
Do you not know that faith, the Heaven to earth kind, is far more connected to a sound we make than a belief we carry around in our mind? Far too many people spend too much effort trying to conjure up an unshakable belief that will convince heaven to come to earth.
But Romans 10:17 tells us, “Faith comes by hearing…” Let’s dissect this statement. First of all, faith ‘comes’ as something to be received, not something conjured up from within yourself. Second, it comes by ‘hearing.’ The beginnings of faith are in a particular sound, not just any sound. It is a NOW sound filled with His ETM (His Eternal, Supernatural, Miraculous Substance)
When that ETM sound goes from our outer to our inner hearing, it explodes as an assured ‘knowing’. “The assurance of things not seen.” And, since we know He listens, we know with assurance He will grant our request. (1 Jn.4:15)
My point is that ETM faith is only a sound away. It begins not with our great belief, but with just our sound, our voice, our declaration. It then becomes the highway for His ETM substance.
Now pause and hear this. Our sound is not from earth TO heaven. Our sound BEGINS in heaven and flows out from heaven to earth. “Out of your inner most being (Heaven in you) will flow (out) rivers of living water” (John 7:37) It’s the sound that changed water to wine, opened blind eyes, calmed storms, and raised the dead. It’s right there, in our inner most being just waiting to come out!!
Patience
March 29, 2023 • Michael Brennan • Psalm 23
Things He will never say to you:
· “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
· “Yada, yada, yada, how many times do I have to listen to the same ol’, same ol’?”
· “Don’t you know I have bigger fish to fry than your small problems?”
· “Sometimes I just want to be left alone with my coffee?”
· “I’m tired of your ungratefulness. When am I gonna hear a ’thank you’?”
· “You think you’ve got problems ..how’d you like My job?”
· “Ya think I’ve got nothin’ to do but to be at your beckon call twenty four seven?”
· “How about you get a life and stop expecting Me to be your Answer?”
· “I’m on vacation next week so don’t try to contact Me?”
· “Everybody has past hurts, get over it”
· “Stop quoting scripture to Me. I’m the One who wrote, ya know”
· “I’m not lifting a finger for you till I see some effort on your part”
· “If you do not open the door soon, I’m gonna stop knocking”.
· “My patience has limits and your awfully close”
· “You want another miracle? Haven’t I done enough already?”
· “Hey get over yourself. You’re not that important”
· “Heal your dog? Really? Do you have any idea who you are talking to?”
· “Just think positive. You don’t need Me”
THINGS HE IS ALWAYS SAYING
· “I will NEVER leave you or forsake you.”
· “You are my beloved son/daughter in whom I am well pleased” (as He is ,so are we)
· “Yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil because I am with you.”
· “I’ve prepared a table for you in the presence of your enemies.”
· “Surely, Goodness and Mercy will follow you all the days of your life and you will live in My house forever.”
And so, so much more!!!
If
March 22, 2023 • Michael Brennan • Deuteronomy 28:1, Psalm 1, Psalm 119, Genesis 1
“If” is not really our friend. It did not exist in the beginning, in the garden. Genesis does not say “And He blessed them and said, ‘if you do good and avoid evil you will be fruitful and increase etc.’”
His first word to mankind was “Be”. The fall brought ‘if’ into existence. Deuteronomy 28 begins, “IF you diligently obey, … then all these blessing will follow...”
Psalm 1 says you get to be a blessed man IF you do not walk in the counsel of ungodly, etc. Psalm 119 begins with the big “IF,” if you are undefiled, if you walk in the law of the Lord, etc. ...then you would not be ashamed.
After the fall, IF was God’s only way of connecting with us. When the Messiah comes and destroys all those “IF’s” and replaces them with “BE,” we will be just like our first parents in the garden.
His three worst days were our best days. All the “IFs” were completely destroyed, and we were given back our original garden identity. Yeshua began His first great sermon with “Blessed are…” meaning He is introducing a Kingdom that begins with you and I being blessed.
Putting an “IF” in His words is to completely misunderstand what He was saying. In John 14, He announces that He going to a place (outrageous death) and then return and give us His ‘Where I am’ place of habitation. He is referring to a ‘state of being,’ not a state of ‘IF.’ The Lord IS Spirit and where the Spirit IS, there IS liberty. Once again, no ‘ifs’ are in there. Just IS three times.
“As He is, so are we in this world.” There are no ‘ifs’ there, either. Adding them is pure ‘religion’. The only if that still applies is TO YEILD. ‘If’ one still wants to live in the world of ‘ifs’ then the free gift of BEING will always remain in one’s bank but never received.
What about “if you abide in Me and my Words abide in you…” Once again abide is NOT a do, it’s a yield to. He’s already there, so the only do is to keep saying ‘Yes.’
It might be good if we stopped putting ifs in our talking about/to Him. He doesn't talk that way to us!
As He Is...
March 15, 2023 • Michael Brennan • 1 John 4:17
“As He is, so are we in this world.” (I Jn 4:17)
· It’s not your faith, it’s His faith.
· It’s not your ‘rightness,’ it’s His rightness.
· It’s not your overcoming, it’s His overcoming.
· It’s not your feelings of peace, it’s His peace.
· It’s not your obedience, it’s His obedience.
· It’s not your seeing, it’s His seeing.
· It’s not your hope, it’s His hope.
· It’s not your goodness, it’s His goodness
· It’s not your feelings of joy, it’s His joy.
· It’s not your ability, it’s His ability.
· It’s not your strength, it’s His strength
· It’s not your sacrifice, it’s His sacrifice.
· It’s not your knowing of Him, it’s His knowing of you.
· It’s not your faithfulness, it’s His faithfulness.
· It’s not what you can do, it’s what He’s already done.
· It’s not your hunger for Him, it’s His hunger for you.
· It’s not you holding on to Him, it’s His holding on to you.
· It’s not what you know, it’s what He knows
· It’s not your love for Him, it’s His Love for you
It’s not… Hey, if you jump in, we could keep this up forever. So, cutting to the chase, what part of “As He is, so are we in this world” are we still not getting?
Ears to Hear
March 8, 2023 • Michael Brennan
What is real ‘God talk’? Not our talk about Him, but real conversation between God and us? Saying ‘God talks to me’ around the world will only get you eye rolls and gestures suggesting you’re crazy. And to be honest, needing to have everyone know that God talks to me most likely deserves eye rolls and gestures.
However, God does talk to us. Our Jewish brothers define Adam’s first moment of life as “and he became a communicating being.” This clearly implies that ‘God talking to us and we talking to Him’ was a super high priority in making us.
However, Adam and Eve’s walks 'in the cool of the evening’ with God were more likely time spent basking in a wonder filled experience of sensing and knowing His glory than actually talking out loud.
After sin entered the world, our talking out loud skills exploded and our sensing and knowing skills faded. So, what is real God talk now? Most folks I know and trust as ‘God talkers’ have spent serious time allowing Holy Spirit to activate that sensing and knowing skill with the result they can regularly hear God. Sometimes they hear with words but more often with an inner knowing that requires the use of spoken words to share that knowing.
In Jesus' 33½ years of life, the audible voice of God is only recorded three times. All the rest of His oneness with the Father was sensing and knowing. Our Father talks all the time. Our hearing requires ears that know how to hear His knowing.
Language is Everything!
March 1, 2023 • Michael Brennan • 1 John 5:15, Isaiah 55:11
Language is everything!! When God told Adam and Eve to “Be fruitful, increase, multiply, have dominion,” they knew exact how to ‘do’ that. By speaking. If He created everything by declaring, “Light Be” then they could do the same.
Before the Fall, they only spoke glorious things because the negative did not exist. Thus, their bodies were glorious. After the Fall, negative language became normal, and guess what happened to our bodies. They experienced more and more negative stuff.
Science knows very well that our body’s cells can ‘hear’ everything we say and respond accordingly. What science does not know is that when our language comes from His life in us, those words of His carry eternal, supernatural, miraculous power. These are the Words that the ‘God particles’ in our cells hear and respond to.
“My Words go out of My mouth and NEVER RETURN TO ME EMPTY HANDED.” (Is.55:11) “Lazarus, come out!” Clear proof from Jesus that the Father’s words never return empty handed.
Speaking positive is cool but positive speaking is profoundly less than speaking from God. That kind of speaking can’t be faked or made religious. It’s not a ‘do to be,’ us trying, in self effort, to get heaven to manifest on earth. It comes from ‘knowing’ Him. It’s His language coming out of us. and it comes with an assurance. “And if we KNOW (trust) that He hears, then we KNOW that we have what we ask. (1 Jn 5:15) Language is everything!!
Cast Your Cares
February 22, 2023 • Michael Brennan • Psalm 91, John 7:37–38, 1 Peter 5:7
“Casting your cares on Him for He cares for you.” (1 Pet.5:7) It is easy to twice misread what Peter is saying here.
First, it does not say casting our ‘problems’ but rather our ‘cares,’ the real problems in our lives. A financial crisis, for example, is not the real problem. The problem is what it’s saying about us, about who we are, failures, victims, etc.
Casting, actually, means to slap out of one’s hand or to let fall. So, Holy Spirit is commanding us to let go or slap away all the care from attaching itself to us.
The second misread is wrongly assuming that until you get rid of all your cares, He will never be able to give His Care to you. Actually, just the opposite is true.
The power to slap off all your cares is because His Care was there all along, just waiting for you and I to let go of all our hidden self-effort to handle, deal with, fix, or manage our cares. So, that His ever-present help in time of need, His Care, can “set us on high, be with us, deliver us, honor us, satisfy us and show us His salvation.” (Ps. 91) Wow, all that just hiding behind my cares.
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me”, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38) “Out of your inner most being will flow rivers,” lots and lots and lots, in fact, floods of living Water, His Care.
We have not received a spirit of bondage to fear. So, if it’s not from Him, then, where did we get it? Life blesses and life bites. And, every time life bites us, we file that pain in our memory banks and then, it comes out as fear. The deeper and more intense those bites are, the more we unconsciously invite the spirit of bondage to become our motivator, the pain manager inside of us.
Bondage means it owns you. Self-effort will not remove it. We can work hard to handle it, but it only goes into hiding, waiting for the next bite to show you who is in charge.
But you have received (not in your brain) The Spirit of Abba, The Spirit of Love. This is not feelings of love but Love Himself! … This Love is not out there somewhere but in your innermost being. This Spirit of Love is way down deeper than any spirit of fear.
Perfect Love, His Love, not our love, expels and drives out all, yes, all fear. That Spirit of Love is already here, and He’s longing for His NOW Love to be activated. He is longing for us to hold fast to our confession now. With our ‘yes and amen,’ He, not fear, can be our Motivator, our Manager, our ABBA!!!
Be the Palace!
February 8, 2023 • Michael Brennan • Hebrews 4:15, 1 John 4:17
“Incarnation” is NOT God hiding Himself in someone who looks like a man. Incarnation is NOT God playing superman, with someone dressed like an ordinary man but secretly able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Incarnation is NOT God doing any pretending of any kind.
“Like us in all things except sin” (Heb 4:15) means He was as fully human as we are. And ‘as a man’ never let His humanness be the ‘director’ of His life. Yeshua NEVER pulled His “God card” out to save Himself or accomplish any of His many supernatural doings…NEVER. If He did, then “like us in all things” would be a lie.
Philippians says that He ’set aside’ His Godness. This means His God nature was never to be activated for a single second in His 33 1/2 years of earthly life. Imagine the Son of the King being given permission to leave the palace and becoming just an original citizen for 30 plus years on the sole condition that no matter what happens he can never pull out his “get out of jail free” card.
He could ’talk to his Father, the King’ any time he wanted but He could never have his Father come and pull him back into the palace. That’s why “As He is, so are we in this world” means exactly what it says.
Something a huge portion of Christianity still explains away this verse with dead theology. As always, Heaven's goal was never to use The Incarnate One to get everybody back into the palace, but, rather, to get the Palace into everybody. He succeeded “exceedingly, abundantly beyond all we could ask or think!”
AND our simple response to all this is to say, and never stop saying, to the Incarnate One now forever abiding in us, “Oh Rivers of Living Water, Incarnate One, flow from every cell in our bodies (our corporate body) through us (we) to every area of influence in our lives!” Because ‘being the Palace’ is for everyone!
The Temple
February 1, 2023 • Michael Brennan • 1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 3:17, Ephesians 1:20
“Do you not know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” (I Cor 6:19) Paul may be the one writing the letter to the Corinthians, but he is not the one asking the question. He's just the scribe. The Spirit of the One who created the universe is asking.
Why do suppose He is asking us that question? I would suggest you pause before you immediately answer. I did. And I keep on pausing every time I hear that question.
I hear it every day because I started three months ago asking that question every morning. Those many pauses have forced me to let go of all my ‘learned’ answers to that question and wait for Him to tell me what He wants me to know about that question. I’m going to continue until He tells me to stop.
But I will share just a few revelations that have come from those pauses. One morning as I paused, the scripture “The Lord is Spirit and where the Spirit is there is Liberty” (II Cor 3:17) just, suddenly, popped into my head. And, before my brain could get in the way, I suddenly ‘knew’ that LIBERTY was one of the reasons He wants me to know that I am His temple.
Another time in my pause, some physical challenges I was facing popped into my consciousness. Immediately, I ‘knew’ that those issues were not mine but His. Yet another reason why He wants to know that I am His temple. I’ll share one more, then I’ll leave any more pauses to you.
This particular morning, I was feeling very overwhelmed by a flood of depressing ‘knowing’ coming in on me. They were negatives about my life, my family, my friends, about my country. And, then right in the middle of that flood, once again, a scripture just popped in my mind, “As He is, so am I!” (Eph 1:20) I ‘knew’ yet another reason why He wants me to know that I am His temple is to replace that flood of depressing ‘knowing’ with His ocean of Shalom.
And the beat goes on. Give it a try! But I warn you, that if you do, you may find it really hard to stop.
Fullness
January 25, 2023 • Michael Brennan • Ephesians 5:14
What is this ‘fullness’ John says we have all received? What is the ‘victory’ that he talks about? That’s when the battle is over, and you’ve won, right?
Well, that’s not the whole picture of victory. The other day, Tom Brady (quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL) got one of his famous last-minute come-from-behind victories.
But, if you look closely, the victory did not come at the end. The victory came when he tricked his opponents into defending their lead instead of continuing to aggressively advance to victory. In other words, they lost in the minute that they started believing that he could actually pull off another come-from-behind victory.
The message is my focus. I couldn’t care less about football victories. What if our accuser’s intent is to get us so focused on getting God to manifest His victory in our present circumstance that we completely lose sight of victory as one of the names of the One who lives in us right now?
What if some of the reasons we are not seeing as much victory in our personal circumstances are that Heaven is using them to wake us up. “Awake, you who sleep...Arise from the dead...And Christ will give you light” (Ephesians 5:14).
Please note, it does NOT say “And Christ will answer your prayer.” It does say He will give you LIGHT, meaning open your eyes and your heart to see things from His point of view. Therein is the real victory.
When you and I know that “As He is Victory” is a state of being, then “so are we Victory” is His state of being becoming our own state of being). Victory is ours way before we see it with our natural eyes.
Yes, absolutely! Heaven’s desire is His will manifest on earth as it is in Heaven. Heaven’s way for that to happen is for us to know that He is Our Father, and His Holy Name is ours. Simply put, we begin as Victory in Heaven, and then we manifest “His will on earth.” Huge mind shift here! I don’t know about you, but I’m asking the Counselor to “sink this in my heart” ….’often!’
Effective Prayer
January 18, 2023 • Michael Brennan • James 5:16, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Isaiah 55
“The fervent, effective prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16) The most important word in this verse is ‘righteous’. Righteous describes one's identity, not ones ‘doing’. His perfect rightness in us is the fuel of fervent praying and as His perfect rightness actually becomes us (“As He is, so are we” - 2 Cor 5:21) our praying becomes more and more effective.
Praying is not the same as saying prayers. Praying from HIs ‘rightness’ in us moves us from the ‘doing’ of prayers to ‘being’ the prayer. When Jesus commanded Lazarus to come out of the grave He was not ‘doing’ prayer. He was not making a prayer request ’to’ the Father.
Being “one with the Father, His words were the Fathers words and since God’s words “never come back void” (Isaiah 55) Jesus’ fervent, effective words availed the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Here’s the simplicity of it all.
If the Righteousness One abides in us, then our prayer already avails much. Just how much depends on how much we abide in Him. The more His ‘rightness’ is our identity, the more we pray. Sometimes, we even use words. Our prayer is then saturated with His ETM consequences - His Eternal, Supernatural, Miraculous consequences. By the way, that was the whole plan from the beginning.
