God's Love Language

A Valentine's Gift From Heaven

By Richard W. Fischer, Jr.

Founder/Mourning Glory Ministries
(All Scripture references are quoted from the New King James Version )

Permission Granted to Reproduce for non-commercial use

All other uses by written permission only please.

    In February of 2005, I received an incredible gift from the Lord for Valentine's day. Before I share the specifics of that gift with you however, I need to set the stage with another very remarkable story.

    About 6 years prior to that Februrary in 2005, I was earnestly praying to the Lord and asking Him to help me overcome some deeply ingrained thought patterns in my life which I knew were not in any way pleasing to Him. These thought patterns had developed , at least in part, due to a very early exposure and addiction to pornography. I'd been seeking victory in this area since shortly after asking the Lord to be the center of my life in the early 1980's, but victory seemed very distant to me, and I'd begun to wonder if I'd always just have to struggle, repenting multliple times each day for the same old thought patterns that plagued me. As I was praying that day however, God broke into the midst of my thoughts, into the visions of my mind if you will, in a very powerful way.

    For a few brief moments, I saw myself walking with Yeshua (Jesus' name in Hebrew). He was dressed in what appeared to be the robe of a peasant. As we walked, I was on His right side, and we began to approach what I recongnized to be, "The gates of hell." Guarding these tall black wrought iron gates, stood two ugly looking demons, one on either side of the double doored entrance. Attached to these gates was a wrought iron fence encircling mulitiple piles of dismembered body parts, mostly arms and legs. When we got to within 15 or 20 feet of the gates, the Lord stopped and turned towards me. He then reached into His pocket with his right hand, and pulled out a key and handed it to me. The key was in the shape of a cross, and it was covered in His blood. Though Yeshua didn't utter a word, I knew He wanted me to take the key, insert it into the lock, open the gates, retrieve the body parts, and return them to the people satan had stolen them from. At the time, I wasn't sure what this vision meant, but over the years, the meaning has become more and more clear to me.

    Fast forward now to February 2005. I was working in a closet installing some shelves (I've been a carpenter since 1977), when a coworker approached me. Much like Yeshua had done in my vision six years earlier, he reached into his right hand pocket, pulled out a cross, and handed it to me.

Upon examining the cross more closely, I realized it was manufactured not only as a necklace, but also, the foot of the cross was designed as a key used to tune drums! This seemed a bit unusual since I didn't play the drums, but I graciously accepted the gift anyway. I didn't immediately put the gift and the vision together, but as the following day began, it became obvious that the Lord was in the process of speaking something very profound to me.

On my way to work the next morning, as I passed by another company's construction site, I was thinking of the vision and the gift, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a workman driving a steel stake into the ground, and as I passed by him, I realized that each beat of his sledge hammer upon the stake was in exact time to the beat of the song I was listening to on my favorite Christian radio station! The Lord spoke to me at that moment, and reminded me of the importance of keeping our hearts and minds tuned to the drum beat of God's heart, and He encouraged me that one of the many ways we as believers can do this is to listen to Christian music. No matter where we go these days, it seems we are surrounded by all sorts of distractions the enemy would use to draw our attentions away from God and the work we've been called to do in Him, which is to preach the Gospel to every creature. Christ centered music not only has the personal benefit of helping us keep our hearts and minds on the things of God, but additionally, it can give us an opportunity to witness to others who might be curious what we are listening to. In addition, even if they don't ask, the lyrics of the songs are speaking the word of God to them, and God has promised us in Isaiah 55:11, "So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it."

Just short of two months prior to receiving this gift, the Lord showed me just how powerful praising Him can be. On the 29th of January , I'd been honored to be one of two dance instructors teaching a praise and worship dance workshop for an inter-denominational group of believers in Virginia. The month prior to the workshop, through yet another very powerful vision I won't go into detail about in this article, the Lord spoke to me that the theme for my portion of this worshop was to be, "Dance and the other worship arts as a form of intercessory prayer." During one of the rest periods after teaching several Messianic Jewish (Jews who believe in Jesus) dances to the group that afternoon, I sat down with the dancers, and shared the theme I'd received from the Lord . After doing this, several people came forward and gave testimony that while they were learning the dances, the Lord had healed them of various physical conditions! One woman in particular had come in with some sort of back and leg problems, but as she danced, the Lord supernaturally took these conditions from her!!

In the almost 3 years that have passed since I received the drum key cross, the Lord has used several other circumstances to unlock more and more layers of the meaning of the vision. Relating to my personal prayer the day I received the vision, I've come to understand that the dismembered body parts represent the various sins that I and others have engaged in with our bodies over the years, and just as I know the Lord has covered my personal sins with the blood that He shed on the cross more then 2000 years ago, the Lord desires me to share that same forgiveness with others who may not have fully received it. Additioinally, the Holy Spirit (or for you Hebrew speakers, the , "Ruach ha Kodesh," has revealed to me that the body parts also represent those who have either been disfellowshipped from the body of Christ because of certain unrepentent sinful activities that warrent such disciplinary action, or who have, for whatever reason, chosen to remove themselves from the fellowship of other believers. In both cases, I believe God's will for me is to let these people know His Heartbeat for them is to take the steps necessary to be restored and reconciled into full fellowship, not only with God, but also with the greater body of Messiah (the Church). The first and most important of which includes confession (agreeing with God concerning a wrong committed by the person confessing), and repentance (turning away from that wrong behavior). God has promissed us in 1John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteosness!" Though His forgiveness is intantaneous and complete the moment we ask for it, I've learned that God's cleansing can sometimes be a process. Thankfully, in the midst of this, God reminds us through the parable of the King and the unmerciful servant found in Matthew 18, that God not only forgives us, "...seventy times seven," but He admonishes us to extend to others the same level of mercy we've received from Him. In other words, part of our cleansing has to do with the way in which we treat others who are bound by similar sinful patterns. If we are forgiven, and don't forgive others, it's likely that we will find ourselves back behind the same bars again!

In recent weeks, several other miraculous things have happened to bring all the above to the forefront of my mind . To be more specific, the Friday evening just prior to Christmas, while attending a Sabbath worship service in Seymour, Tennessee, I learned that a 14 year old young man by the name of Daniel Frith, who is the drummer for a new Christian band called, "In death there is no remeberance," (name taken from Pslam 6), was asked to help lead worship that night, but was needing a drum key and didn't have one with him. This was the first time since I received the key that it had actually been used for the purpose it was created! What makes this so much more incredible, is during our fellowship time, while speaking with Daniel's mother Lisa, I learned that earlier that same week, her son had been led by the Lord to pray and believe that his mother's legs would be healed (she'd been dealing with a very painful condition related to lupus for some time). The Lord spoke to Daniel while he was praying that when his mother placed her feet on the floor the next morning, the pain in her legs would be gone, and it all happened according to his faith! In addition, the following morning, Saturday, Decemeber 22, an old friend from Virginia called me and shared several things she'd recieved for me during prayer. Miraculously enough, though she knew nothing at that point about what had happened the night before, she told me she had seen a vision of a set of black wrought iron gates opening! God is so awesome!!

Though there is so much more I could share with you, since this is an article and not a book, I'll conclude with just one more brief testimony which occured the second summer after we moved from Virginia to Tennessee.

While on a walk one day a couple of years ago, I passed by a set of black gates, similar to those I had seen in my vision.

I sensed the Lord prompting me to ask Him to confirm the vision by somehow granting me access to the property behind the gates. There is much detail I'm not at liberty to share at this time, but shortly after taking the photo to the left, the Lord opened the opportunity for me to do some business with the owners of the property, and I soon found myself driving through these gates up the driveway to their home!

   All of these things cause me to frequently remember Yeshua's words to Simon Bar-Jonah in Matthew 16:17-19. In previous verses, Simon has finished declaring to Yeshua, "You are the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the living God." Yeshua then responds, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Have you felt hopelessly bound to a pattern of sin in you life, either in thought, in word, or in deed? Have you felt imprisoned by a sickness, disability, or other circumstance? God says to you today my friends, "Be loosed from your captivity, and fully enter into the Kingdom of Heaven by the blood of the spotless lamb of God who died on the cross to purchase your forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, and healing!!" "The key has been given, the gates are open, and the demons have no power to keep you from the freedom you are being offered today, and that He desires you to offer to others!"


   For additional reading on this subject, check out Isaiah 45:1-3, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 61, and Luke 4:18-19.

Please be in prayer for Mourning Glory Ministries, and if you sense the Lord calling you to be involved in any way, please consider supporting Richard's business ventures linked below. Also, although Mourning Glory Ministries is not at this time a 501c3 organization, we do accept love offerings.

For offering information, to schedule a dance workshop or testimony sharing appearance, please call Richard at 865-719-9096. Also, please feel free to e-mail your prayer requests to: MourningGlory3@aol.com

Blessings in our Messiah!

Richard W. Fischer, Jr.

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