The Bride Wears Army Boots!: Spiritual Weapons and Tools for Healing and Development

Copyright © 2010 Barbara Foley, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scriptures quoted from The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. And from The New King James Bible, Copyright 1980 By Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

Diagrams & pictures are original with the author. The artwork for these was done and donated by the late Richard Johnson of Warwick, Rhode Island, and updated by his son, Gregory Johnson

of Laquinta, California.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-0205-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0206-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-0204-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010927355

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/25/2016

Contents

Prologue

Psychiatrists’ Relationships With Non-Medical Mental Health Professionals

Preface

The Hour of Preparation for the Bride of Christ

1   The Bride Wears Army Boots!

2   It’s the Walls!

3   Matters of the Heart

4   Anatomy of a Wounded Soul

5   The Call to Holiness: Wash up on the Inside

6   The Biblical Prescription for Wholeness & Holiness

7   The Restorative Minister & the Formation of Healing Teams

8   Why the Need? & What’s the Process of Restoration?

9   Supernatural Weapons of Warfare

10 Keys That Unlock The Contents Of The Broken Heart

11 Dealing with Sifted People

12 The Unveiled Mystery of the Bride of Christ

13 The Ministry Chamber

14 Doing Kingdom Business

Epilogue The Preparing Bride of Christ

About the Author

Appendix

Dedicated to:

GOD’S ARMY OF HEALERS

THE BRIDE WEARS ARMY BOOTS! unveils the mystery of the Bride of Christ that has lain hidden in the Holy Scriptures until now. This timely revelation was prepared for the purpose of equipping God’s Army of Healers for the work of ministering restoration and the advancement of full spiritual development to those who seek intimacy with Christ Jesus and have set themselves to walk in Kingdom mandate and authority.

COMMEMORATION

I owe a great debt of gratitude to my beloved husband, Doug, who went home to Glory on July 11, 2009. He was my marriage partner for forty-four years, my trusted friend and confidant, who encouraged and supported my efforts, and provided a prayer covering for me.

When we were young, we didn’t know whether or not God was real so we never thought about wanting to please, serve, or pursue knowledge of Him. It just wasn’t a matter of our concern. However, when less than a year into our marriage my husband became afflicted with a serious illness that interrupted all our plans for the future, our predicament forced us to reconsider how we thought about everything—our responses to life’s challenges, our perceived roles, how to love through trials. In our youth and arrogance we thought ourselves sophisticated, not needing the church stuff or God. But like men who’ve been in fox holes during the heat of a battle report, when life is in danger of being snuffed out even atheists start to pray. Dealing with letting go of our expectations brought up questions surrounding God’s existence and whether He really cares about human suffering, which we were certainly beginning to taste. Due to suddenly having unanticipated needs, we became set on a path of discovery that was to teach us many things.

During my marriage to Doug I was able to take care of my family, go back to school, work in ministry, and grow. As the evangelistic ministry we came to found evolved into my working specifically with broken individuals and my husband’s work load decreasing because of physical complications, Doug did not always understand what I was doing. Sometimes he would question me, which caused me to double think. That proved important in keeping me straight and grounded as I would have to study and soundly back up my positions. As shifting occurred just in the course of living, the sandpapering that periodically went on between us became vital in teaching us lessons about love. We did learn to trust and love, and we developed the practice of praying together about everything. We had mutual respect and, therefore, developed willingness to hear the Lord through each other. We made no important decisions without prayer and agreement first. We would set our priorities with it in mind that everything shall one day be tested by (spiritual) fire, and at the end of our days it’s only that which was done for the Kingdom of God that shall last and bring eternal reward. Everything else won’t matter for it will be tested and that which is worthless will be consumed by fire, like wood, hay, and stubble!

Doug was only sixty-seven years old when he passed, but the Spirit of the Lord had worked much into him by then. When he took his last breath, I was at his bedside. While there was no flurry of angels’ wings, in peace and quietness the atmosphere of that private hospital room was pregnant with eternal hope. I found myself blinking and staring and checking my imagination as to what I was witnessing as Doug’s face began to mask! Through his bearded countenance, there came a radiant glow! No longer breathing, yet there appeared such a look of kindness and tranquility that I was amazed. It seemed to have risen up from his innermost being, and his facial appearance was illumined with authority and eldership that I had never before observed—and I remembered that Abraham’s wife, Sarah, had called her husband lord. My heart broke in this holy moment as Christ’s reflection came through the sweetheart of my youth. In me was a strong sense of awe that I was being gifted with a great privilege in being allowed to witness this amazing transition. My warm tears spilled onto Doug’s hospital gown in perceiving that he was departing his physical body and this earth, but I was witnessing that, truly, death had no grip on his soul. Christ being in him, Doug had defeated that last enemy.

To this day I never have suffered the awful spirit of grief that ruins some people from being able to go on with life after a loved one has departed. I catch myself smiling sometimes, and I realize that I’d been thinking of Doug—something about old memories or about where he is and what he might be doing on the Other Side. Shortly following his death, several people told me of their dreams and how they saw Doug to be powerful with huge muscles—like the Hulk. Two people described a man who was full with joy as he vigorously carried a great support beam on his shoulder, planting it carefully in a place where something new was being erected! (On this side of eternity, certainly that would not have been possible due to the weakness of Doug’s physical body.) These stories reminded me of the time that Doug’s seventeen-year-old cousin unexpectedly died and, in his spirit my husband was impressed: I have need of him now. Almost immediately after Cousin Randy’s passing, his parents entered into ministry that brought salvation to many very ill people in hospital settings just before those people died! It comforts me to realize that somehow there are connections beyond the Veil that are hidden mysteries to us who must continue our pilgrimage here until we, too, are called Home.

Please don’t let me leave you with the idea that my husband was always saintly—nor was I. There were some very difficult and trying seasons when we both wondered if we would make it as a couple. Indeed, there were times when all hell broke loose and found its way into our house! I’ll tell you pieces of that throughout the book. But after enemy strongholds were destroyed Doug’s sweet spirit blessed many. I have a calm assurance that one day I shall see Douglas Foley again. I’ll nurture the hope that he will be among the first to greet me when I, too, cross over to that place where there is no sickness, no sin, no sorrow, no heartache, no fear, no darkness, and no death. Right now, I’m grateful for my life’s journey with Doug. While he was here he touched many lives in a positive way, and, surely, his works shall follow him.

As well as to God’s Army of Healers, I dedicate "The Bride Wears Army Boots!" to the memory of Evangelist Doug Foley, a beloved son of our heavenly Father, whose life greatly enriched mine and continues in its influence. Had I not had Doug’s encouragement, you would not be reading this book.

Barbara

Prologue

After a career of sixty years in the fields of internal medicine and psychiatry, Bill Zeller is admired by all who have worked with him, first, as a competent, affable, hard-working physician with a disarming sense of humor who deeply cares for all suffering patients and their families; second, as a pioneer in psychiatric medical educational activities at local, state, national and international levels; third, as one who has been an inspirational representative of his profession in helping to foster, elbow-to-elbow, the working relationships amongst members of all the helping professions of physicians, nurses, clergy, psychologists, social workers, family and group therapists. For the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Zeller chaired task forces and committees that fostered over the years inter-professional cooperation and mutual respect.

Dr. Zeller served on the governing boards of a variety of community organizations, such as Congregational Churches, the Hartford Theological Seminary, the University of Hartford, the University of Connecticut, the Hartford Conservatory of Music, and the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford. He also chaired task forces at the requests of the governor of Connecticut to study in depth the emerging social problems of its citizens, such as sex education, substance abuse, and problems of the aging population.

He has been keynote speaker for annual national meetings of several professional organizations other than psychiatry. He was co-founder of a national organization intended to promote the professional growth and development of young psychiatrists in training. Before his retirement from the Institute of Living in 1981, he was Executive Secretary of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training Programs (AADPRT) for eleven years.

This scholar and educator, teacher of medical and seminary students, author of scientific research articles, editor and consultant to institutional agencies, Dr. Zeller offers his rich background of understanding concerning the need for collaboration between helping ministries in the important paper which follows. In 1995 the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the Connecticut Alliance for the Mentally Ill (CAMI) presented Dr. Zeller with the Exemplary Psychiatrist of Connecticut Award.  In 2004 the American Psychiatric Association awarded him the Distinguished Life Fellow Award with fifty years of service.

Psychiatrists’ Relationships With

Non-Medical Mental Health Professionals

by

William Webb Zeller, M.D.

Within the past half century, or even more years, there has been an increase in public awareness and interest in the field of mental health, as well as a growth of knowledge and services. This has brought about extensions and modifications in the entire pattern of mental health care. A significant accompaniment of these changes and this progress has been the increased participation of non-medical professionals in the delivery of mental health services to the public.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, the development of psychoanalytic theory shifted the focus of psychiatric inquiry and practice from the organic concept of mental illness to an awareness of the important role played by dynamic psychological factors. This shift led away from largely biological organic and symptomatic therapies and custodial care toward an effort to understand and treat the intra-psychic factors contributing to mental illness.

Later insights sharpened awareness of the role of social and cultural factors in the development of mental illness and its prevention and treatment. Mental hygiene centers, developed in the 1920s and 1930s, employed various health professionals in a team approach, and talking therapy gained momentum. Both World Wars I and II brought great demands for treatment of psychiatric casualties. After the wars, hospitals began to augment their psychiatric staffs by employing other physicians and non-medical professionals in treatment programs.

Since the 1940s the shock therapies, psychotropic drugs, and the open-hospital concept have made possible the more rapid discharge of patients from mental hospitals. Many could be treated without hospitalizations or for briefer periods of hospitalization, or in institutions and facilities closer to their homes and families. There has been a significant increase in psychiatrists in private practice. Psychiatric services have been established in hundreds of general hospitals, and the total number of patients has increased greatly in a few decades. A significant reduction of resident patients in mental hospitals has occurred each year since 1956. Mental health centers have been expanded, and outpatient follow-up centers, and, most recently, a sizeable number of comprehensive community health centers have been developed.

The concept of mental illness has been broadened from one in which psychiatry was concerned almost exclusively with psychotic patients (who represented a small percent of the population) to one in which the emphasis has become the commitment of the community’s total health resources to serving and maintaining the mental health needs of the entire population.

Additional innovations have included day and night hospitals, group psychotherapy, case finding, mobile clinics, outreach approaches, behavioral and family therapy, and emphasis on preventive programs, all of which supplement and expand the skills and techniques, diagnoses, treatment, and rehabilitation.

Psychiatry today has changed to new, creative, and even radical theoretical and technical approaches, including innovations in means of delivery of services to supplement those practices that have already proven effective. Significant to this scenario has been the emerging role of the non-medical health professional.

Expanded training facilities for psychiatrists initiated by medical schools, public and private hospitals, and governmental and other agencies have not been able to fully meet the increased demand for skilled manpower. Furthermore, future needs are likely to continue to tax all existing facilities and may even require the creation of new types of institutions and facilities to bridge the gap between supply and demand.

Non-psychiatric physicians, psychologists, social workers, and nurses have become part of a mental health team; they have made increasingly important contributions. To these must be added the special contribution of others, such as occupational therapists, recreational therapists, special educators, ministers, chaplains, probation officers, counselors from various professions, such as vocational, educational, pastoral, and all others who are employed in the vast mental health care enterprise.

New roles are being added to existing professions, and new groups are emerging, such as counselors, assistants, technicians, associates, training program graduates, and indigenous helpers in mental health. Nor should we overlook the contribution of legal counselors, cost accountants, statisticians, dieticians, legislatures, politicians, sociologists, and others.

INTER-PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Recent developments in the field of mental health care have created problems for many people—professionals, consumers (patients, clients, parishioners, etc.), governmental regulative agencies, insurance companies, and others involved and responsible for third-party payments and delivery of mental health services.

Most persons in the professions of psychiatry, psychology, social work, nursing, occupational therapy, vocational rehabilitation, and, lately, other professions, such as religion and the law, have cooperated and collaborated in positive ways for many years. By and large, mental health professionals have worked well together in mental health hospitals, psychiatric departments of general hospitals, university clinics, mental retardation centers, correctional facilities, rehabilitation and after-care organizations, schools, social agencies, religious institutions and seminaries, courts, industry, and, in many instances, private practice. Psychiatry today regards favorably the growing trend to work collaboratively with other physicians and non-medical professionals in the delivery of many mental health services.

Historically, as psychiatry shifted from care to treatment, the needs for services outran the availability of psychiatric manpower, and psychiatrists began to look to other professionals for assistance. The help of other professionals was enlisted to provide specialized skills and services in such areas as clinical testing, case work, administration, and basic research; many were also trained to do psychotherapy under psychiatric supervision. The team approach provided by physicians and associated professionals became standard.

Some non-medical professionals then elected to leave institutional settings and move out into private practice to do clinical testing, case work, and various forms of psychotherapy. In time, the non-medical professionals set up training institutions under their own auspices to teach psychotherapy. As the number of these grew, they sought to advance their professional interests and their practices. Clinical psychologists, in particular, have been especially active in promoting legislation for licensure and certification; which legislation has been passed in almost all of the States. In a number of States, similar legislation has been passed for other professionals.

As the number of independent professional practitioners increased, concern about the maintenance of quality of services to the public was shared by psychiatrists, other physicians, and many leaders of the non-medical professions. The public has few ways of ascertaining the competence of those who offer them services except through the safeguards of licensing or certifying laws. It is important that all such safeguards be valid if the interests of the public are to be protected.

SOME PROBLEMS

In the mind of persons seeking help there is confusion over who is best qualified to do psychotherapy. The skills in talking therapy have a relationship to those utilized by practitioners in other helping professions. Consider the clergyman who counsels a disturbed or distraught parishioner for whatever reason, the lawyer who seeks to reconcile a couple on the verge of divorce, the social worker who strives to knit a family that is shattering, the teacher who assists the potential of a handicapped pupil to blossom, even the trusted family doctor who receives confidences from a troubled patient. There is some similarity between psychotherapy and counseling, consoling, advising, and even just listening sympathetically. But there can be enormous differences; they are by no means interchangeable. The kind of help that each professional offers is dependent on the background, training, professional attitudes, knowledge, and special skills of the particular professional involved.

Another major problem that the health professions face today is meeting the challenge of a secular society that has come to the belief that access to health care is a human right in a just society. In these times when health, education, and welfare are considered to be rights for every person, all members of the helping professions already described can shoulder only a limited portion of this responsibility. The help and cooperation, therefore, of all professions is essential.

Furthermore, there, undoubtedly, will be more discussions as to who should participate in health care programs and which groups of professionals will be paid under them.

Certainly, active issues, such as which professions should have primacy in delivering mental health care, who should be head of the mental health team, who is best qualified to do psychotherapy, or who should be paid by governmental or insurance agencies deserve further attention. However, there should no longer be divisive wedges among professions striving toward the common goal of providing a high quality, comprehensive, and coordinated system of health care, equally accessible to all.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF PROFESSIONS TO EACH OTHER

Definition and Delineation of Inter-professional Relationships:

Each profession should recognize that every professional group has a right to establish and maintain its identity and independence by defining its own functions and areas of competence, setting up its own educational and training programs, and establishing its own standards of service. As a responsibility to the public, society may recognize the profession and set up such controls as it may deem necessary. No profession should attempt to define the functions and responsibilities of any other profession.

Education and Training:

The responsibilities of each profession include the following:

*To inform members of other professions regarding training, experience, areas of special competence, and appropriate spheres of activity of their own profession.

*To assist when invited in the education and training of other professionals in areas in which their profession has a contribution to make, and on subjects within the scope of those other professions as they may be legally defined.

*To encourage and foster ongoing, mutual education programs through joint meetings, seminars, and workshops with other professional organizations.

Standards of Service:

To work in close cooperation with other professions when requested to do so in order to utilize the expertise of all available professions in the provision of high standards of service to the public.

Ethics:

To recognize that the establishment and maintenance of codes of ethics are an internal responsibility of each profession, and to acknowledge that complaints against other professionals should be directed to responsible authorities of the profession concerned.

Manpower, Research, and Prevention:

To maintain willingness to collaborate with other professions in these important areas.

Liaison Responsibilities:

To recognize and foster such responsibilities and to carry out guidelines in reference to settings and situations in which problems in inter-professional relationships often arise.

TO SUMMARIZE

The quality of the relationships among the helping professions will have a great bearing upon the success or failure of the mental health programs now functioning or projected in the future. Hopefully, what has been said will help all professionals to meet the obligations and fulfill the potentials of their interpersonal relations and to enhance the public’s understanding of the need for cooperative efforts in supplying caring services.

MY KNOWLEDGE OF BARBARA FOLEY AND HER LEGACY

Following this lengthy discussion of the modern professional history of inter-professional relationships, I can only say that Barbara Foley was a shining star on the horizon when in 1965 she came to work at the Institute of Living, an historic, top-ranked psychiatric hospital founded in 1822 in Hartford, Connecticut. The Institute has been in continuous operation ever since. It never ceased to give the best treatments available to any patient or family member who suffered from mental illnesses.

Barbara first worked in the division for Medical Records and was an expert typist with secretarial skills. Here, she fast learned about psychiatric care and how patients were managed and treated. She was an affable colleague to many members of the hospital staff, easily making new friends and gaining in popularity, and was highly regarded as a competent, compatible, skilled, and conscientious worker.

In the summer of 1966 the position of Executive Secretary to the head of the Psychiatric Department of Medical Education became available—I was that person. After careful consideration of her credentials and work performance by the Psychiatrist-in-Chief, the Medical Director, and the Staff Executive Committee, Barbara was appointed to this position with honor, appreciation, trust, and respect for her inherent talents and capabilities. And the rest is history.

In these early days of my work relationship with her, I observed Barbara to be most happy in her recent marriage. Then, a horrendous medical disaster struck. Her new husband, Douglas, fell victim to a severe case of multiple sclerosis, which nearly killed him; his fate was almost sealed. (He remained neurologically handicapped and sight impaired for the remainder of his life—almost 44 years.) A saga for survival began at this point in their lives, to which I was witness. Barbara, in this book that you, the reader, are about to explore, is explicitly frank and open in giving details and dynamics of how, why, and in what manner they surmounted numerous crises and turned their stumbling blocks into glorious stepping stones of personal, professional, and life-fulfilling achievements through Christ.

Doug’s life ended recently—July 11, 2009. He passed away peacefully and painlessly in his sleep—merciful blessing to be sure. Now, Barbara is left to complete their mission of selfless service to others—alone? Not really, because she has a whole host of angels (her family, her friends, her professional colleagues) to encourage her to complete her journey. You may ask: Will she be able to do this? Of course she will!—because she has all the strength of character and traits of determination to succeed. Now, as she moves forward to a new life of service to others who are in dire need of help, she will be leaving behind legacies never to be forgotten of how to survive all manner of sufferings. "The Bride Wears Army Boots!" reveals some of her legacy. It is an inspirational training manual to young men or women who aspire to make a career of spiritual healing and development.

Legacies are not easy to come by, and they are not necessarily planned for or given in advance of their existence, but Barbara and Doug have a life-story yet to be told of:

a man and a woman who possess great courage, willpower, and determination;

a wife and a husband of great integrity, who live by eternal moral and ethical values;

a man and a woman of sound judgments;

a wife and husband of immeasureable talents and skills.

Barbara and Douglas, by your deeds and actions, you have role modeled legacies of: how to Love (one another); how to Learn (from one another); how to Labor (for each other); how to Laugh with each other; how to Link (by the giving and sharing of yourselves to others); how to Live (peacefully and helpfully with each other); how to Lead each other and others into paths of righteousness; and, finally, how to Leave each other (whenever called).

Douglas and Barbara, thank you for being you. Kudos are biblical and may be discovered in Matthew, Chapter 5, which repeats repeatedly…

Well done, My good and faithful servants.

Preface

The Hour of Preparation for the Bride of Christ

by

Barbara Foley, Ph.D.

Many signs of the times that point to Christ’s soon return to catch up His Bride have already been fulfilled. This fact gives the Bible-believing person pause to consider that that Great Event could be upon us very soon indeed! (See Matthew 24 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17.) There is a hindering factor, however: the Bride of Christ Herself!

In the Apostle Paul’s letter to believers at Ephesus, he stated that at His Second Coming, Jesus intends to present to Himself "a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that She should be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27, KJV). Through the Apostle John, we are told that the Kingdom of God shall be set up here on planet earth (Revelation 21:2) and that Christ shall reign with His Bride at His side. (The Bride is also known as the living Church, or the Body of Christ, which is a corporate group of men and women who are born-again believers in Jesus Christ—and throughout this text I shall distinguish this living organism through use of capitalization. Otherwise, I shall write with lower-case letters.)

Certainly, it would be frightful to miss the day of our visitation—but we are forewarned that some shall miss it because of not having adequately prepared themselves! (See Matthew 15:1-13.) Recently, I’ve had occasion to visit local groups of believers in different parts of the country, and my observations give me reason for concern that the Bride is not yet a "fit" partner for our soon-coming King. Many who are part with the Bride Company are not cleansed, and should the Glory be poured into them, they might well be consumed!

There are many and varied cleansing and healing disciplines in the world. While each has its own focus and skilled way of being applied, the Word of God lays the solid foundation for all effective and fruitful ministries, and it is highly honored as the authority that backs this resource material. The ultimate purpose for ministry to Christ’s Bride at this time of the closing out of the Church Age is that She shall be made the fit carrier of God’s Glory during the Kingdom Age.

This world is not about to end as many fear. What is happening is that the Church Age is coming to a close because the Kingdom Age is nearly upon us. There will be a thousand years yet to come wherein King David’s heir, Christ Jesus, with His Bride, will take hold of world governance and rule with righteousness and justice. This is the hour of the Bride’s preparation!

"The Bride Wears Army Boots!" delves into the critical part of getting ourselves ready. It will especially hold the interest of those with Kingdom vision, those who desire to walk in the mandate of the Kingdom and wield the authority of their King. This resource manual is an equipping instrument for God’s Army of Healers. It will appeal to believers at every stage of development—even to those who are spiritually hungry but who do not consider themselves Christian. Written in an easy-to-read style, it is inspirational and educational. I’ve been painfully transparent in opening the pages of my own personal Book of Life, and, from the Word, I’ve unveiled the mystery of the Bride of Christ, explaining who She is, how She is to be released from bondage and sin/sickness, and the process involved in Her development into the full stature of Christ, made able to be a fit carrier of God’s Glory.

The insights presented are meant to clarify why followers of Christ need cleansing and healing, and instructions are offered as to how to go about those tasks. The text exposes what offends God and separates us from Him. It describes from a biblical vantage point how people become sin/sick and then how we can attain to the wholeness and holiness that would allow us entry into the Throne Room of our Creator, enabling us to then perform Kingdom Business here on earth. The portion on the unveiled mystery of the Bride of Christ that is hidden in scripture concisely illuminates the issues and tasks that need to be negotiated at each of the Bride’s developmental stages. Included is information about spiritual weapons and tools that are foundational and available to every born-again believer, as well as explanations as to how to use certain keys to unlock the human heart so that healing and restoration can take place. Guidelines for developing ministry teams and setting up appropriate rooms that will accommodate prayer interventions are presented. Brief examples for effective prayer and a check-list for use during healing sessions are also outlined.

In our present culture the people of this world’s system are pressing toward the formation of a one-world government that the Bible prophecies will climax under an anti-Christ headship for a very short period of time. There has never been such a push for this as there is now. Jesus spoke in opposition to that take-over of His inheritance, for the nations and the whole earth belong to Him! He said, "Change your hearts and minds for the Kingdom of Heaven is near (Matthew 4:17). He further told His followers to pray the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth (Matthew 6:10.) —and multitudes have been doing that for two thousand years. We’re on the brink of those prayers being answered— regardless of the plans of the rulers of this world! Only the Kingdom of Heaven made manifest here on earth, with Christ and His Bride ruling and reigning, is capable of bringing about peace and safety, the righting of that which is wrong in all the nations, as well as in nature itself.

Today’s news reports about the existence of terror cells that harbor hidden enemies who plot and perform all manner of evil against innocent citizens are frightening to many. Few people are aware, however, that, not only does God know, but He has not been slack in developing His own secret cells! These, too, are behind closed doors for now—thousands of cells all over this earth! In protected secretiveness, the Holy Spirit has commissioned a veritable ARMY that shall soon be revealed. These Soldiers of the Cross are bathed in the love of God, filled with the Power and Might of the Holy Spirit, knowledgeable of and walking according to the Word, a people devoted to the Will and Purpose of God here on earth and resolute to obey Him in carrying out His desires. These commissioned sons and daughters of Father God have cleansed themselves and developed an intimate relationship with the Lover of their soul, Christ Jesus. They are equipped to do spiritual battle. This current-day generation of believers is choosing to lay down worldly life in order to live holy unto God. Growing in trustworthiness, functioning in the faith of Christ and as led by the Holy Spirit, these dedicated servants please Him. This Company is part of both the Army and the Bride, and as the Glory increasingly returns to the earth in response to Spirit-led, united worship and prayer, in a short while, it is not going to be church as usual!

Already, there have been untold numbers of glorious victories because of the strong intercessory prayer work of faith-filled believers—wicked plots foiled through Spirit-directed intervention. By the Word and Power of the Holy Spirit through them, prayer warriors have torn down diabolical strongholds from out of the second, or middle, heaven where demonic powers and principalities govern,. You would be absolutely tickled with delight if you were privy to the many victories of these Soldiers—who are sometimes physically frail, some of them even a bit grey-headed, and others quite young. When these Warriors are on assignment, devils tremble and flee! This portion of the Bride Company indeed knows how to put on army boots, pick up and use spiritual weapons, and fearlessly march to the Gates of Hell, going after what devils have stolen. It will be quite the day when God increases His faith and Glory through these and releases them to fully function in unified purpose! These followers of Christ know that their enemy is not flesh and blood, but powers and principalities of the air who work through people—and that’s their primary target.

No denying it, there have been some terrible battles over the centuries, and there are more that must come. Believers in Christ have been severely wounded sometimes, even martyred. God’s people often do not learn about the enemy of the Cross at the time of their second birth. While they, no doubt, begin experiencing devilish attacks against them, without explanation from leadership, those who are young in the Lord become confused and undone before barely getting started in their own spiritual journey! One cannot win a spiritual battle by using earthly tools and weapons, but many believers have no clue as to what is available to them for their use! Consequently, the enemy of our soul has ripped off many a marriage, many a mantle of anointing, and many a life because of our ignorance as to how to effectively disarm and conquer him—and take back the plunder. (Principles for a strong foundation are expounded herein.)

The Word of God gives promise that the Kingdom of Heaven, which holds for its citizens love, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, shall one day actually come down to earth and become visible! (See Revelation 21:1-8.) This is going to be the result of the victories of an obedient, aggressive, Army of Soldiers of the Cross that has taken its orders from God Almighty, having been trained to know how to follow through on a multitude of important assignments. Even now spiritual warriors are becoming increasingly skilled in both worship and spiritual battle strategies, and the hour is at hand when they shall be released in great companies to go after all that rightfully belongs to Christ and the heirs of salvation. There are many that even presently are in a kind of Holy Spirit-directed boot-camp.

The biblical insights and testimonies compiled here from my life and work are designed to be used as a ready reference for ministry that will mentor the Bride’s helpers in cleansing Her of spots and wrinkles. My goal in presenting this material is that members of the Bride Company will become inspired to focus on making themselves