Belly Love
The answer to so many questions in these difficult times is to press into the Lord.
Seek His face. Draw near to Him.
We know we should press in, but we don’t always know how.
Shanna Barberio’s new book, Heaven’s Frequency, provides practical steps to add the “how-to” to our “want-to.”
“If God is a DJ broadcasting from heaven, then our hearts are the radio receivers,” she said. “We tune in to heaven’s frequency when our hearts are dialed in to love. God’s signals come as visions, dreams, discernment, divine glory, holy fire and any other way He can connect with us. “
The important thing to know as we act on our desire to be close to Him is that love precedes every step forward.
“Instead of analyzing the presence of God, I just focused on what Holy Spirit was doing in me. His love was speaking to me,” Barberio explained. She spoke about the heart in a recent Greenelines podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network. I learned that what the Bible calls “the heart” may not be the blood-pumping organ located in our upper chest.
“The Greek word for “heart” is splagchnon,” she said. “This term was often used for “spleen” and can also mean ‘strength,’ ‘intestines,’ ‘pity,’ ‘sympathy,’ ‘bowels,’ ‘inward affection’ or ‘tender mercies.’ There are many verses and definitions that portray the heart as our gut. Throughout the day, our gut responds to the array of our emotions. What happens to us physically when we find something hilarious? Our stomachs convulse and cause us to giggle, scream or snort. In extreme cases of laughter, we find ourselves unable to breathe, with tears in our eyes,” Barberio said.
“Have you ever heard truth and something inside of you burned in agreement? That’s the fire of the Holy Spirit burning in your inner man,” she said. “You can call it your heart, innermost being, depths or gut. The Bible specifies the Holy Spirit is in our hearts. … He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.”
The King James version of John 7:38 shows the connection between that inner Holy Spirit fire and our most inward parts: “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” And the Modern English version of that verse uses “heart”: “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.”
Our connecting frequency to God flows from the love that comes from our innermost being.
Listen to the entire episode of Greenelines with Shanna Barberio at this link.
