Doer Of The Word

James 1:22 – But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. How does one be a doer of the word? As stated earlier, one must first be a hearer of the word. But that is not sufficient, for one can hear the word and not execute it. How, then, does one execute the word upon hearing it? Well, trying to go out and do what you hear is a step, but only a partial one. If that is the approach that you take, then your obedience to the word will be partial; you may start but then fail to follow through. Or you will fulfill some things that you hear from the word through the Holy Spirit Ruach Hakadosh but not others; your being a doer of the word will depend on your willingness to do so, your convenience, the level of opposition from Satan (who will oppose you in various ways!) and other obstacles, your comprehension of the word, or how desirable (or undesirable) doing the task sounds to you when you hear it or appears to you when you start it. And then, even if you do good in executing what you hear, you will negate it by doing evil by things that you have not heard, or have even specifically heard from God not to do. So, how does one be a true doer of the word? It is simple to say, but harder to understand and hardest to achieve: by doing nothing else! First, you must stop all activity. Everything that you are doing, no matter the motivation, must cease. Of course if you have basic obligations i.e. family and work, continue to do those, but outside of that quit it! Why? Well, why were you doing it in the first place? Were you doing it to honor God? If not, then why are you doing it? What good is it? And even if you were doing it to honor God, did God tell you to do it? Is He pleased by it? And are you doing in the manner that God wishes you to?

 As one must give up all preconceived and competing notions to hear the word, one must give up all prior, competing, and extraneous actions to DO the word. We must instead pray about and examine all of our actions. Why do we do the things that we do? What is our motivation? Is it out of expectation? Emulation? Intimidation? Is it in pursuit of some reward that we want for ourselves, or an attempt to please or win accolades from others? Even the things that we do for the church, is God in it? Is it for God? Is God for it? What percentage of our daily activities are in pursuit of God? What percentage of our daily thoughts are on things that we could or should be doing for God? The thing that you are doing right now: is it for God? If so, what of your activity prior, and afterwards?  You see, we have gotten so used to our worldly and world – seeking lives that we do not consider how much of our daily routine and how many of the things that we even aspire to do have nothing to do with God, and even offend and oppose God. How can we serve God and defy Him at the same time? How can we serve God exclusively if we have to interrupt what we do for Him and do something else? And the worst part is that it all comes automatically. We do things that have nothing to do with implementing Christ in our lives and on this earth without even thinking about it. A great deal of it is our flesh, but most of it is simply culture, lifestyle, and habit. 90% of the things that we do every day, we do it simply because we always have, and moreover we cannot conceive of a single day, let alone a life, without doing them. Yet these very things that seem harmless, routine, essential, etc. and an integral part of our lives to us block, interrupt, and oppose the plans of God within us. So, we must set our designs on not doing those things. And since we honestly cannot tell right away what things are for God, what are against Him, and what are simply extraneous, we need to just do as little as possible, and just wait for the Holy Spirit to tell us what to do. We have to take on the attitude that if God didn’t tell me to do it, then I am not going to do it!

 You might say “Well, I cannot hear God, or I am not certain.” Well, that is OK, just sit tight until you do. How else are you supposed to be at rest to hear the still, small voice in your head or in your spirit? And after you hear it, how else are you to try what you heard by the Bible? (Yes, when you hear the voice, you should immediately read the Bible to confirm in it what you heard!) Too much activity and commotion is precisely what keeps us from hearing the word, remember? And while you are waiting for the word to come? Just sit tight! Why not? Do you not realize that this is rest for the body, mind, emotions, and spirit? It is your SABBATH! So many spiritual problems in the Body of Christ are due to people being exhausted and stressed out, and that is particularly sad when the exhausting stressful activities are in 99% of the cases things that God has not asked for and does not want! Realize that the Word of the Lord came to Moses after he had spent 40 years as a shepherd and tending his family and was content. The same with the Promise being fulfilled to Abraham, when he was at rest. The Word came to Daniel after he had set his mind on the Lord through fasting. And when Elijah was running for his life from Jezebel, the Lord had him wait by a brook where he could eat and drink and rest before giving him further instructions, and later he had Elijah rest with the widow whose son that he raised from the dead. So just sit and wait on the Lord! Another reason for the waiting: purification. You almost certainly were defiling yourself with acts that are against God’s Will, and those acts were habitual for you. Sitting around and doing nothing cleanses you from what you have done, and it breaks those bad habits. You will suffer withdrawal for a while, but eventually you will no longer be used to and then no longer even desire to do those things. Then you will begin to wonder why you ever did them in the first place, and will cringe at some of the things that you used to do. That is called allowing the Holy Spirit to work on you, to grow fruits in you. That is called RENEWING YOUR MIND. What is renewing your mind? The word that you are hearing while you are at rest.  But when your rest is over and your mind is sufficiently renewed, you will be able to go and do the word without having to be double – minded fighting against the corruption of your deeds, your bad habits, or your desire to break off doing God’s Will and go do bad habits. Fulfilling God’s Word and contending against the enemy using your spiritual weapons is plenty enough of a task, you do not want to be fighting against part of yourself or your nature either.

 You might feel foolish or lazy, wondering about all the things that you could be doing while you are at rest waiting to get to the point where you are fit for God’s use. Do not be. Why not? Because you were not doing those things for God before and the world did not stop. Why should it matter now? If your not being a doer of the world was not an issue while you were doing evil, why should it be an issue while the Holy Spirit is conditioning you to do good? Just be patient, relax, read your Bible, sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God, and fulfill any prayer burden that the Lord puts on you during this time. See, while you are resting until you are made ready by God to do God’s Word, you can pray God’s Word as He leads you so that whatever tasks that He has can go to someone else, and you can also pray against the forces of evil that they would be bound from attempting to hinder who God is ready to use right now. And yes, when God sends you out, there will be others praying for you in that same manner!  Being a doer of the word by doing nothing may seem backwards, but please remember that the ways of God are not supposed to conform to human intelligence! Just accept the fact that before you can be a true doer of God’s Word, you must first cease doing that which is NOT God’s Word, and more importantly break your desire and nature to do those things! Have you ever heard of a trailblazer? The trailblazer’s job is to go through the trail first, removing the obstacles out of the way so that the people behind him, the people who actually do the work, can get through to do their work. Your ceasing activity is your trailblazing, removing all of your obstacles to service of God before your service can start.

It is also an act of humility. You will be admitting to God that your selfish works and the things that emanate from your flesh are unacceptable to Him, unsuitable to Him, and have no goodness to them in any context. You will be admitting to God that it is better for you to do nothing for Him than anything of yourself! Once you break the “I am a good person who does good things naturally” mindset, then you will be ready to take on “Only God is good and only the things done of and in God are good” as a state of mind. That way, when the word comes, you won’t go do good for God, then run out and do evil for and of your flesh, and go to bed thinking that you have done two good things that day, or even that the good that you have done outweighs or negates the evil. Instead, you will attain the mindset: “Whatever I do, may it not be evil!”  Now once the actual execution of the word starts, it will be a challenge! You will need to be faithful, obedient, persevering, humble, and not self – seeking and to put on the whole armor of God to complete it. But look at it this way: all the rest that God gave you before your activity began will result in your having plenty of energy and a stress – free, uncluttered, undivided mind to get it done with! And with that plus God on your side, your ability to walk in the faith that you will do the will of God will be immense, and nothing will be able to stop you from doing the word that God has put within you! In the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach, thank you God and Hallelujah! Prayer:Father God in the name of Christ Jesus, may your children realize that in order to truly do Your Word, they must stop doing that which is not Your Word. In the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach, let it be so. 

  Deliverance:The demons that work in this area are false religion, self – seeking, false burden, legalism, ritualism, worldliness, and anything else that causes people to do anything other than that which God has told them to do. Pride has to go also, so that people will not regard the works that they are doing outside of God’s Will as acceptable or positive in any way. Hyperactivity, restlessness, driving, and pressure also drive people to do unedifying activities that interrupt or prevent them from carrying out the will of God. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

BE A HEARER OF THE WORD

Psalm 119:9 – Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. How are we to walk without sin? How are we to have pure hearts so that our sins will not only be forgiven, but not vex us with guilt and grieve us? How are we to walk in courage so that fear of sin or death does not hinder us? How are we to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the grieving, and provide counsel to the confused and tormented? How are we to grow in wisdom, knowledge, patience, love, self – control, humility, and faith, and then be able to use the gifts and fruits that God has bestowed upon us unearned through grace not only in an everyday practical way, but in wondrous supernatural ways that cannot be measured, predicted, or known? Simple: we cannot do these things except we receive instruction. 

Christians must cease to be arrogant, self – righteous, self – satisfied, stubborn, or lazy; all of which are traits which religion builds in people. We must arrive to the point where we are willing to humble and submit ourselves to God so that we might receive instruction, where we can admit that our knowledge and man’s knowledge is not enough. That our traditions, doctrines, liturgies, rituals, philosophies, and theories that man has built up over the years in his vain attempt to explain or replace God through religion rather than submit to God through faith are not adequate. We must admit to ourselves that despite our years of study and practicing religion, we know nothing unless we know God, because God is all truth and therefore all that there is to know. Only when we reach that point of submission and humility, when we get to the point where we are willing to completely start over and begin anew, that we can really begin to seek to know the Word. Only when we reject what we have built up in the flesh through our own works through religion can we start to accept what is new and holy. We cannot add holiness to flesh, for there is no mixing between man and spirit, between holiness and sin, between purity and corruption. We cannot put new wine in old bottle. And we also cannot wash, scrub, or sterilize our old bottles in an attempt to reuse, recycle, or redeem that which we already have, because no matter what we do to the old bottle, it is still an old bottle. We need a new bottle to put our new wine in. Of course, that offends most people. They want to preserve the hard work and great knowledge that they already have. They think that if they “start over”, then their lives to that point has been a waste. They do not want to give up any position that they have earned in the flesh, or any notion of esteem that they have within themselves and in the eyes of others. Because of this pride and fear of the unknown that comes with a new start, their eyes are blinded to any positive way of viewing their new situation. They harden their heart to the notion that they have advanced beyond where they were before. They do not see themselves, for instance, as a caterpillar that becomes a butterfly and needs to learn to fly and drink nectar. Instead, they want to put a wing and an antenna on the caterpillar and keep feeding off the same leaves that they always have. The thought has not occurred to them that when winter comes, the plant will die and the air will become cold, leaving the caterpillar without food and shelter. The result? The caterpillar will surely die because it is still a caterpillar, even if it did adorn itself with a wing, an antenna, and even a leg or two. Only the caterpillars that were willing to completely renounce being caterpillars and become butterflies will be able to fly way up into the air, into the jet stream, and ride it to the place of refuge where the air will be warm, the food will be plenty, and they will be nourished and protected by the maker of all butterflies and all things.  

This is what Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus Christ, meant when He spoke of “being born again.” “Becoming a new creature.” Or “becoming as a child” in verses like Matthew 18:3. Why? Because a little child has no prior conceits and vanities concerning his own greatness, accomplishments, or worth. A little child has not formed within himself any concept of truth according to his own understanding and perceptions. A little child is not seeing things through the prism of what has been built up in him by his worldly teachers. A little child has not grown cynical and mistrustful due to all the hurts, lies, and broken expectations placed in him with his experiences with fallible man. A little child will not hedge his bets or put a little action on both sides to prevent a total loss, but will risk everything. A little child accepts what he is told. In other words, a little child has true faith. So in order to truly become born again according to the Word, you have to reject everything that you thought that you were learning about the world back when your ears, mind, and heart were filled with sin, and start hearing the Word for the first time for real. But before you can start doing that, you need to get to where you admit that you need to do so! Once you do that, then man is no longer your teacher. God becomes your teacher. When you hear a sermon, you will immediately be able to tell if the deliverer is inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Ruach Hakadosh, or not. If he is, you will desire to hear him no matter what he (or she) looks like or sounds like. If not, the Holy Spirit that is indwelling you will grieve you and urge you not to suffer it, no matter the name, reputation, worldly success, or oratorical skill of the speaker. Why? Because where with the latter you are being taught imperfection by man – however sincere this man is – with the former you are being taught truth by God, no matter how disheveled his appearance, clumsy his diction, or inarticulate his oration.  

And while the sermons and instructions of whoever God appoints as your pastor are exceedingly important, what is more important is what the Ruach Hakadosh reveals to you concerning the Word of God, the Bible. Before your lack of faith and corrupt worldly notions might have given you strange notions about the Word, such as how you REALLY do not have to pay attention to the Old Testament with all of its regulations, rituals, genealogies, observances, and detailed descriptions of obscure people and events. It is not surprising, because though before you might have legitimately been saved through faith, you really did not know what your faith was in. Before you knew of God and believed in what you knew of, but you did not KNOW God for yourself. Say you are adopting a child from a foreign country. You may become very familiar with the child’s picture. You may even see videos of the child, exchange letters with the child, and interact with the child over a real time video link. But you are not really going to know that child until you see him standing before you; until you hold the child in your arms; until you take the child home, put the child in its bed, and give the child breakfast when he or she wakes up in the morning! That is a comparison between the image of God that you see when you read the Bible through your religious experience, and when you read the Bible in a humble, submissive, and open state and thereby receive Ruach Hakadosh revelation. That is when you begin to see and hear God’s Word for real. That is when you begin to know God for real. That is when you begin to receive reliable knowledge for real. And that is when you begin to experience and have LOVE for real.  Christians are called upon to be doers of the Word, to not only imitate Christ but IMPLEMENT Yeshua HaMashiach on the earth. Now I did not say that we are to implement Christ’s plan or Christ’s teachings on the earth. We are to implement CHRIST on the earth. And there is a real difference. People who follow religion and know only an image of God through it (though they think they really truly know Him) are only capable of following what they believe to be the teachings of Christ or implementing what they believe to be the plan of Christ. And they are capable of thereby doing some good and hindering the works of Satan somewhat, so long as they are sincere and their understanding of the plan and teachings of Christ coincide with truth. But sadly, many are not sincere because they have not truly experienced the love of Christ, and they often veer from the truth because they do not know the Truth, which is God. It is often not through any evil intention of their own, but rather unavoidable, because what they have received is imperfect, what they are is imperfect, and therefore they will follow after imperfection. Of those people, we should not pray that they do more good than harm, but rather they submit themselves and be born again in the Word so that they will do only good and no harm at all! But make no mistake, only those who truly hear the Word in spirit and truth as revealed to them by the Ruach Hakadosh are capable of implementing Christ on the earth, because only by hearing the Holy Spirit are you able to know how. So stop trying to do vain imperfect things that you have heard from man, and instead seek to be a hearer of God’s Word from God Himself.  

Prayer:Father God in the name of Christ Jesus, let it be preached to your children that they must submit themselves to You completely, humble themselves completely, cast off the old man and the old knowledge completely, and become as babes, to start completely over, so that they can begin hearing the Word from You. Help them to know the importance of hearing the Word from You; that only if they are hearers of the Word in spirit and truth can they truly know God, experience love, and do God’s Will on earth as it is in Heaven. In the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach, let it be so.   

Deliverance:The demons that work in this area are false religion and false teaching, as well as the pride, fear, deception, self – seeking, self – centeredness, and self – deception that causes people to hold onto the false religion and false teaching rather than admit that they need to start over and see that nothing is lost but all is gained by doing so. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

The Most Radical Statement In The Bible

Genesis 17:1 – And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. 

Do you know what the most radical statement in the Bible? The one that changes everything? That tells you what everything is all about? That should settle all of our theological debates and arguments, and moreover exhibits how foolish and small they are? The one that lets you know that it is ridiculous to say “This cannot happen” or “that is impossible” or “I do not believe in this or that”? Well let me tell you what this mighty, powerful, radical statement that should open the eyes and clear the minds of all who believe it. That statement is – drum roll please – “IN THE BEGINNING GOD!” That’s right, the first four words of the Bible. The second most powerful statement? “IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD”, which of course explicitly declares the deity of Jesus Christ. But it is subject to the first, just as Jesus Christ is subject to the Father, because first the existence of deity must be declared before any specifics of the deity are dealt with. Otherwise, it is like buying house paint without a house.
And that is why the Bible gets it out of the way right from the very start. It does not declare things about man or world, but rather the existence of God, and in that very declaration makes it clear that only the existence of that very God is what makes the existence of man, the world, and everything else possible. This is important because once you realize the existence of a self – existent being with the power to create everything out of nothing – a God – then you have to realizing that arguing about this same God is absurd. What is there to argue about, really? I mean, this is GOD we are talking about here. In general terms AND especially compared to US, any GOD that exists obviously has to be capable of doing anything. And since GOD is capable of doing anything, why not do it? What kind of a mind considers A DIETY and concludes that A DIETY will not or cannot do something?
 The answer is that NO MIND WILL, because it is absurd. When using THE MIND, such a person will realize that the only restriction on the power and prerogative of a diety is the diety itself. Furthermore, that person will realize that his mind’s capacity is so limited when compared against the vastness of the power and prerogative of a diety that he cannot even begin to comprehend the diety’s power, the diety’s prerogative, or how they interrelate. So what is the problem if it is not the mind? It is, quite simply, THE HEART. More to the point, rebellious wicked hearts. 

Now this is not aimed at those who do not believe in God; for those I refer to Is God Real? on the main site. This, instead, refers to people who claim to acknowledge the existence of God but in truth deny the existence of God because of the hardness, wickedness, and rebellion in their hearts. They tell themselves that there are things that God cannot see, things that God cannot do, or situations where God will not act. Why? Because of a desire to deny the fact that the universe does not revolve around them. Because of the fact that there is an entity that they have to regard whether they choose to or not. Oh, do not make no mistake, people are excellent at regarding, honoring, bowing to, and obeying. But the issue is that they only do it for things which they themselves choose to. For instance, I CHOOSE to love my country. I CHOOSE to obey my boss. I CHOOSE to adhere to a religion or philosophy. Why do they do this? Not because of any power, merit, or righteousness that your nation, employer, or religion/philosophy has, but rather because of how it makes you feel. Loving your country makes you feel good. Obeying your boss keeps income coming in that allows you to buy the things that you want. And your religion or philosophy gives you a sense of purpose – or superiority – that you choose for yourself. So while their mind says: “There is a God”, their heart says “Yeah big deal, what about me?”  

And so, the heart overpowers the mind. The mind starts to believe the lies that the heart tells it to diminish God in the eyes of the mind. And in order for the heart to remain dominant, it tells the heart not to think about God! Why? Because if the mind truly probes God, then it will cast off the ridiculous limitations. Oh, the heart will get you thinking about your job. Your home. Your circumstances. And for religious people, your religious doctrine and theology, your church, your pastor, and your works. Do not  make the mistake of putting all this on secular atheist humanists, religious people excel at keeping themselves so busy that they never think about God! They ESPECIALLY never think about whether God is pleased with them and their religion! Instead, they think to themselves: “OF COURSE God is!” I am doing the things that I am supposed to do! That is their heart causing their mind to forget that GOD, A DIETY, IS BIGGER THAN “THE THINGS THAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO DO!” 

So, these people who say “God will certainly reward me for this.” Or “God surely won’t cast you into hell for that.” Or “God doesn’t use people like that.” Or “that’s not how God works.” Or “things like that don’t happen anymore; we’re in ‘a different age.’” Or “that isn’t what God’s Word really means; you can’t interpret it like that.” People will rationalize God’s power, authority, and prerogative away to the point where in their eyes God diminishes to where He is actually LESS than a human! And of course He would have to be LESS than a human, because it is the DESIRE of that human to make God LESS than him!  

It would be oh so very easy and convenient for me to pretend that this is primarily a problem with liberal Christians who have come out and said that they do not believe that the Bible is literally true or authoritative in most contexts. But that is not the case. The truth is that those are the ones who are being the most honest! A lot of the “fundamentalists” and the “evangelicals” are extremely fundamentally evangelical about limiting God with their ritual, tradition, and doctrine, and about viewing God in terms of what they want and think is right and true based on their desires and expectations rather than what God is and wants. The best example of this? Rapture – believers who claim that the rapture will come before the great tribulation. Why? Because they don’t want to go through the great tribulation! It doesn’t matter to them that God may have something that He wants for them to do during the tribulation. All they know is that THEY don’t want to go through it, and they have convinced themselves that since they are such good Christians that they shouldn’t have to be exposed to it. That makes them no different from the liberal Christian who thinks that God CAN’T send “good people” to hell just because they have accepted Christ.  

We religious people want to make God the center of OUR RELIGION, as opposed to our faith. Rather than accepting that God can and do anything according to His prerogatives, we limit what God can and will do according to what our religion says He can or will do, and our religion winds up being based on what we want to regard God as being able and willing to do. You can change your religion as easily as you change your clothes – and some people even more easily – so the instant that you run up against something that your religion tells you about God that makes you uncomfortable, you either change your church or you simply ignore and reject it. Even a great many people who purport to have this great reverence for God and suffer many things for His Name will only do so in accordance to how they personally view God, and how and why they feel that God should regard their reverence and suffering.

At a more fundamental level, we have to realize that the most fantastic thing about the Bible is not anything that God did. It is not anything that God used man to do. Rather, it is the fact that God exists. Even before our secular humanistic society, that very concept is the most unthinkable, unprovable, foreign, contemptible notion to anything natural. The notion of the existence of God is inherently at conflict with man’s being. It is only because of a desire to believe in SOMETHING that people begin to decide out of necessity rather than desire that a God must exist in order to explain the unexplained, or to have some sort of hope for and meaning in their empty lives. But even then all these people do is fashion their own false God that fits their imagination. Their God is limited not only by their imagination, but by their desire to limit Him into something that pleases and does not threaten them; an idol.

The challenge for us Christians is to not turn God into an idol that we limit with our desire for Him to serve us rather than us serve Him. An idol that we create out of our desire to fit everything in a neat little box. An idol that we create out of our desire to force God to conform to our human morals and logic. An idol that we create in order to force God to conform to our religion or tradition. We have to realize that God does not belong to us, but rather we belong to God! This whole universe, the very notion of existence itself, it all belongs to God! We have to sit back every now and then and ponder what it means. We have to allow ourselves to be challenged by it; to be awed by it; to know that God is bigger than our experience, unlike anything that we have ever seen, experienced, or imagined. We have to stop thinking about all of these things that God allegedly hasn’t done, can’t do, or won’t do. Why? Because God is not a function of what He is doing, especially not at any one particular time, particularly when you consider that God exists outside of time, controls time, and is not a function of time. We should not even think of how we can please God. Why? Because we lack the capacity to please God. The only way that we can please by God is if God chooses in what manner He is going to consider Himself pleased by us. Instead of thinking about how we can please God, think of how the GOD THAT IS IN US ALREADY PLEASES GOD!

So Christians, dedicate more time, lots more time, to just thinking about who and what God IS, and thanking Him for it. So many Christians never consider God. They take Him for granted because they think they know Him already. They do not. What they know is their religion. Well, do you know the Lord? Are you saved? If so, then you really need to just start thinking, pondering, LOVING the Your God just because He exists, and to do so with no expectations, no wants, no desires, no conditions, no strings attached.

 

Prayer:

Father God in the name of Christ Jesus, I ask you that Your children would fall in love with the idea of Your Very Existence, and that knowing what the fact that You even exist means, how it changes everything. May this cause a change in Your children, may it change how they view You, themselves, and the work that You have created us to do.  In the Name of Jesus Christ, amen.  

Deliverance:

The demons that work in this area are selfishness, idolatry, faithlessness, false religion, and false teaching. It causes people to forsake seeking to spiritually discover the truth of the True God and instead replace the True God in their hearts and in their thinking with false gods that they create themselves. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

Do Not Covet

Isaiah 54:1 – Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD.

A lot of times, we fall into the trap of considering what we do not have. Many times it is a trick of Satan, other times it is the lack of something that is near and dear to our own hearts. It is very easy to fall into the sin of coveting as a result. It can also drive us to ask things of God that are not His Will, and go after false doctrines trying to get them. And it can even cause us to lose our faith, falsely accuse God, and turn away from Him. Such things certainly are not what God wants, and it should not be what we should want.   I Corinthians 10:13 says: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” So, God is not withholding something from you that you need; but rather giving you something else that He would rather have you do. Instead of being heartbroken over something that God has not seen fit to give you, dedicate yourself happily to whatever God has already placed to your charge. Remember the parable where the ruler gave one man five talents, another man two, and another one each according to his ability? Had the man who received two talents coveted what was given to the one who had five, then he would have never been able to multiply that which had been given to him, and he would have received the same fate as the one who hid his talents in the sand: being cast into the outer darkness (which means outside the kingdom of Heaven and eventually eternal destruction in the lake of fire). We do not want that to be us! So how appropriate it was that the prophet Isaiah chose to use the example of the barren woman. Please recall that in the time, place, and culture that Isaiah lived, women had very little self – determination and very few rights. Their value to society – and often even to their own family members, not only husbands but brothers and fathers – was in their ability to have children, especially sons. That was why when God saw that Jacob was mistreating Leah (in a fashion that God later forbad when He gave
Israel the law), he closed Rachel’s womb and blessed Leah to have children. A woman who had male children would be conferred status, privilege, and economic rights through her sons in society and in her own house, but the woman who had no children would be little more than a servant to her closest male relative (husband, father, brother, etc.). The plight of a barren woman was so bad in worldly terms that a woman would even have her beloved husband to have intercourse with another women (her servant) so that she could gain economic rights and social status through the child of a servant that she could claim as her own. When Rachel saw herself experiencing some of what Leah went through after Leah had children but she did not, she quickly gave Jacob HER servant to try to regain her place. And of course, we remember the disastrous decision of Sarai (Sarah) to give Abram (Abraham) Hagar to have a child by. But as Isaiah stated in the verse above, we are not to be governed by the wicked temporary standards of the world, but by the righteous standards of God! An example of this is that the world has gotten so wicked these days that in many communities, in some high, junior high, or even middle schools, every teen or preteen girl has a baby (out of wedlock of course, and some fathered by grown men who are nothing more than child molesters who belong in jail). And almost every corresponding boy in that school has fathered a child as well. So there is actually peer pressure on these kids to go out, become sexually active, and have children just as they do. Of course, God does not want us to be conformed to the worldly pressure to sin like that.

 So, instead of focusing on what we want from God, let us be concerned about what God wants from us. Yes, the Bible tells us that Abraham believed God concerning Isaac, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. But NOWHERE does it say that Abraham asked God for a child! Rather, God CAME TO ABRAHAM AND TOLD HIM THAT HE WOULD HAVE A CHILD! Big difference, right? So, we have to have the faith of Abraham, not desiring things of God from our own imaginations, but claiming the things which God puts into OUR imagination. How do we know what God has for us and what He does not have for us? Well, that is why everyone must pray, and do so earnestly, honestly, and without ceasing. Not only because just as we are to not go coveting things that God does not have for us, we are also not to sit back and accept Satan, the liar, deceiver, and accuser, blocking the things that God DOES have for us. And that is one of the main reasons not to covet: we want some carrot that Satan is dangling in front of our nose, and we miss our opportunity to pray, speak the word of faith, and go into spiritual warfare over the big juicy steak that God has put on our plate! Often times, we just have to go from the bedroom to the dining room to get our steak, but Satan has our minds so bound by the carrot that we are unable to even get out of bed!  So please, refer to our section on prayer help so that you can get to the point where you will know God’s plan for you by praying.  One thing that should help: forget about yesterday or tomorrow, and concentrate on what God has you doing today.  So please, do not covet. Instead, accept what God has in store for you today.

Father God YHVH, in the Name of Jesus Christ, may Your people not covet, but instead seek and receive that which You have given them. In the Name of Yeshua HaMashiach, Amen.   Deliverance:The demon that works in this area is coveting. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you! 

The Three Step Holiness Program

I Peter 1:16 – Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Certain religious folk tell you that you have to be holy in order to please God, receive anything from God, or go to Heaven. They are correct. But they never tell you how to go about being holy. Or even worse, the way that they give you to go about being holy is wrong. As a matter of fact, it makes you LESS HOLY than you were before! So what is the answer to this great mystery? How does one become holy? What does one do to become holy? The first step is realizing that you don’t have to DO anything. Actually, you should realize that you CANNOT do anything. It is not a matter of your inability to be holy on your own, it is your inability to accomplish any sort of holiness in any manner, and also your inability to facilitate any sort of holiness in any way. Once you do that, you are well on your way to holiness! Let me explain. Humans are naturally vain, proud. We want to believe that we are basically good and that we can do good. As a result, we want to believe that we can make ourselves holy or at minimum make ourselves holy. Why? Because we believe that we are already good, and all that needs to happen is for us to become BETTER, to be better at what we are already good at, or to add more good things to what we already have and do, or make a small good a great one within us, or to become more effective or consistent with our goodness. But this is the opposite of truth. The truth is that we have to cast aside our pride and vanity, and realize that we have nothing good, we do nothing good, and we are nothing good. That nothing good can come from inside of us, but rather that all good must come from OUTSIDE of us. In short, we have to believe in original sin, that we are mere fallen Adams, totally thoroughly corrupt, wicked, and depraved, rebels against God, and furthermore exceptionally harmful because we are in the image of God and have and use power in our wicked state to work great evil. Lots of people KNOW original sin, but few believe and accept it and apply it to themselves. Until they do, they can never be holy because they can never get past that first step, and the first step must be taken before the second one can be reached.

What is that second step? Knowing that one becomes holy by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. If you have not done so, become saved – and holy – right now by following this three step process (http://healthelandgeneraldocuments.wordpress.com/2007/04/13/the-three-step-salvation-plan/). Once you are saved through Yeshua HaMashiach, then you receive the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is what makes you holy. It is simple as that, done, over with, completed forever, or as Jesus Christ said on the cross, “it is finished.” How is this possible? Well, there is none holy but God (I Samuel 2:2). The Holy Spirit is God (I John 5:5 – 9). And once you receive God you receive in you God’s Spirit (John 14:26) indwelling within you. And since God is holy, God in you makes you holy (Romans 15:16). It is as simple as that. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ makes you holy. There is nothing else that needs to be done. More to the point, there is nothing else that CAN BE DONE. Accept it, believe it, receive it, preach it, and act in it.

What is step three? Do not negate steps one and two. Satan will tell you that you are not holy. Your flesh will tell you that you are not holy. Many Christians, including men of renown as well as some sincere but misguided folk, will tell you that you are not holy. So, you will be tempted to believe that whereas before you were in Adam and unable to do anything to accomplish or establish your holiness because you were bad, that now because you are good you can do something to get yourself holy. Fasting, prayer, Bible study, works, abstaining, etc. You do realize that thoroughly wretched people are capable of doing the same, and it does not make THEM any more holy! In order for something to be useful to God, it has to be something that the wicked cannot do! And what is the one thing that the wicked cannot do? Call Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, Lord. So if you forget one and two and do the least little thing to try to be holy, then you transgress Romans 2:25: “For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.”

See, this is the whole point of grace: God giving us something that we cannot earn and will never deserve. And we receive holiness by grace (Romans 5:17) just as we receive salvation the same (Galatians 2:21). And as Galatians 2:21 says, if you can gain anything given by grace through works, then Yeshua HaMashiach died in vain. So, if you try to accomplish anything given through grace by works, then you nullify what you received by grace. Why? Because you are telling God that you are worthy. That you are able to earn holiness. That you deserved holiness. Ultimately, that God did not give you holiness, but that you got it for yourself! That you do not need God, that you are not subject to God, that you stand in the place of God. In other words, you become Adam again! Did not Eve eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil to be “as the gods”? Eve rejected what she had already been given to her freely, unearned, and undeserving already: that she was already a god, a child of the Most High (Psalm 82:6)! She tried to accomplish through her own works what was given to her by grace, and thereby forfeited what was already hers through grace. The key for you, dear Christian, in matters concerning salvation, sanctification, holiness, and all other things received through grace, is to not do the same. Yeshua HaMashiach died for you, and He did not do so in vain. Do not reject what He did for you by claiming that He did not need to because you were good enough already.

You might say – and do so honestly! – how can I be holy if I do not feel or act holy? Is it a matter of faith? No, you were born with a measure of faith (Romans 12:3). Is it a matter of works? No, works will not make you feel what you already are, and works will not even open your eyes to the fact that being saved your works and the fruit thereof are already holy and acceptable so long as you perform them in humility and obedience. No, it is a matter of RENEWING YOUR MIND, and that is a topic that is, while exceedingly important and necessary for spiritual maturity, for another day. If you desire assistance in that matter or have any other questions, please contact us at healtheland@.lpemail.com. May the peace of Elohim our creator through His Son and Word Yeshua HaMashiach be upon you from everlasting through everlasting!

Prayer: Father God in the Name of Your Son Jesus Christ, may your people know that they do not have to seek or work on holiness because they are already made holy through Jesus Christ. Please, Lord, crush the liars and deceivers who mislead the sheep into thinking that they can or have to accomplish holiness themselves, or that anyone who is saved is not already holy. In the Name of Y’shua Hamashiach, amen!     Deliverance: The demons that work in this area are legalism, Judiazer, religion, false doctrine, false teaching, vanity, and pride. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

Christians Must Create For Our Creator

I Chronicles 29:5 - The gold for things of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and for all manner of work to be made by the hands of artificers. And who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the LORD?

God created the universe; all things. Realize that God COULD HAVE made His creation to be merely functional, utilitarian. But instead God did the opposite; He made it BRILLIANT! Vast, colorful, intricate, interwoven, simultaneously orderly AND nonlinear! God didn’t make all ducks the same color. Ducks would have served the same purpose in His creation if He had, but He gave them all those diverse, brilliant colors merely because He wanted to. And while you are thinking about that, realize that God didn’t have to put DIFFERENT COLORS ON THE SAME INDIVIDUAL FEATHER of a duck. In order to accomplish diverse brilliant colorings, He could have just put a red feather here and a brown feather there. Instead, look at an individual feather, and it is a color scale. Why did God do this? Sure, providing evidence that there was a Creator for the purposes of drawing His people to Himself was a motivation, but His fundamental reason for doing so was that He liked doing it and He liked doing it well. And as people who are God’s children and aspire to serve and please God and function in the image of God that He made us in, we should do the same. Whatever we do, we should do it as it is unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23 – 24). This does not mean that we should take mundane everyday tasks and PRETEND that we are doing it for the Lord in order to motivate us to do it better and to increase the satisfaction that we get from it in order to prevent the routine of life from burdening our spirits. Rather, we should consider that God is EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME. God created ALL THINGS, and is on the throne AT ALL TIMES, and is master of ALL SITUATIONS. This is not to say that God micromanages every little thing, but God does OVERSEE every little thing. For that reason, EVERY LITTLE THING THAT WE DO IS GOD’S WORK; GOD’S BUSINESS! As a result, there is no such thing as a “little thing”, is it? That is precisely why we must praise without ceasing, why we should never lie, cheat, steal, complain, or be evil, destructive, unproductive, or a stumblingblock in any matter or situation no matter what it is. It is true that “God is always watching you”, but that is not sufficient in terms of describing the reality and the stakes of the situation. This is especially true for Christians, because “God watching you” implies “God judging you”, but a Christian’s true judgment and punishment was the cross which Jesus Christ took and bore in place of us. So while the fact that “God is watching you” may make a SINNER shudder (and actually in a sinner’s case, what can he do about it anyway? Without Jesus Christ he is doomed regardless, nor can he even so much as control his sins), for Christians the fact that God is always INVOLVED with you and IN CONTROL of your situation is what should concern you. And that personalizes things! If you are not always acting as if you ought, then while you may not be a rebel against or enemy of God, you are certainly in the way! You are the “fly in the ointment” or the “monkeywrench in the works” or the “screw loose” that is unnecessarily hindering and complicating God’s plans when you SHOULD be working to establish them on earth as it is in Heaven.

But even that is a limited notion of what Christians should be doing. Again, people are made in God’s image, and Christians are filled with God’s power and purpose PLUS have the curse and hindering effects of sin and Satan that would act against our using God’s power to fulfill His Purpose removed from us. By virtue of this we are indeed gods, children of the most high (Psalm 82:6), and a lot of the things that people had to pray to God for under the old covenant have already been accomplished for and within us, a lot of the things that people under the old covenant needed God to do for them WE can do in the Name of God, Yeshua Hamashiach (or Jesus Christ). What this means is that just as God created – and created in a most splendid and excellent way – in order to show evidence of His existence and draw people to Himself thereby, to glorify Himself, and merely because He wanted to, then being gods, children of the Most High, we should go and do likewise (Luke 10:37). We should create to show evidence of God’s existence in and of itself AND God’s existence within us, and use that to get people not only to believe in our God, but also to accept Yeshua Hamashiach (the Son) God as their personal Saviour so that they too can have Shekinah (the Holy Spirit) God within them and threw them know YHWH (the Father) God, and know all three as and in one. We should create in order to not only merely serve (which one can do grudgingly and shoddily) but to happily excellently glorify and elevate our God. And we should create because we want to; because it is in our nature that has been made perfect, pure, and divine by the Blood of Yeshua Hamashiach to do as God does, to do as God wants, and to do as loves, pleases, serves, and glorifies God.

Yet most of Christendom is hard at work making all of their ducks the same monochrome color with each and every feather that same color. Christianity is now in most areas concerned with being merely functional and utilitarian rather than being CREATIVE. Why? Because Christianity is a religion, and religion is only concerned with getting the job done for religion’s sake, to serve the purposes of and to elevate the religion. Even people who forsake religious Christianity for a personal relationship retain the same basic structure of what they left. In that manner, they are pouring new wine into old bottles (Matthew 9:17). Most of our energies are dedicated toward some grand specific scheme or goal. It has to be directly related to winning souls or supporting the churches in some direct, tangible, repeatable way. As a result, very few Christians spend any amount of time doing things for God that make them personally happy and feel good. Why? Because of legalism and tradition in religious Christianity. You aren’t supposed to do things for God that make you feel good and because it makes you feel good, you do it because it has to be done. So in order to be a willing joyful servant whose sacrifice will be acceptable, we use religious tricks to make us THINK that the things that really do not excite us are pleasurable. Usually it is the equivalent of putting an exquisite sauce and beautiful garnishes on a very plain meal.

This is not to say that you should not do the things that have to be done and that you should not do them as doing them unto the Lord. God forbid! Rather, that is not ALL that you should do! You should ALSO do the things that you LIKE TO DO for the Lord! This is called having faith. If you have faith in the fact that you are saved through Yeshua Hamashiach and thereby reconciled with YHWH and filled with Shekinah, then you are a new creature. As a result, your likes are now acceptable to God; what you LIKE TO DO is something that you CAN DO for God! Now I did not say what your FLESH likes to do, but rather what the new you that has been granted the victory over the flesh by the Blood of Yeshua Hamashiach likes to do. Whoever you are, have some talent, some skill, some activity, some hobby, some interest, or whatever that gives you great pleasure, and you should pursue it with all of the time, resources, and vigor that you are able to! I do not care if it is stamp collecting! Stamp collecting isn’t a sin (so long as there is nothing wrong with the stamps that you are collecting of course, but that is with any activity), and a lot of people really like doing it. So if you can find a way to honor God by and with stamp collecting, then be the best stamp collector there is! At the simplest, most fundamental level, you can socialize with other stamp collectors, encourage them and let them know that their hobby IS worthwhile and that there is nothing wrong with them for engaging in and loving it, and use the transforming power of the love of God that you show them to bring them to Jesus Christ. Think that I am insane? Quick: what percentage of stamp collectors are saved? What positions do they have in the church? And how many churches would be better off if their leadership positions were being held by stamp collectors who are joyful in the Lord who made them and gave them the ability to be so enriched and fulfilled by stamp collecting rather than the people who hold those positions now?

The truly tragic thing – and it is clearly something which Satan is indeed pleased – is that for the vast majority of Christians, they seek their entertainment, their passion, their joy OUTSIDE of God. They read their Bibles, pray, worship, go to church, perform works, etc. “to serve the Lord”, and then they go do something else totally unrelated to Yeshua Hamashiach, and in many cases are unedifying to their relationship with Yeshua Hamashiach or are in total rebellion to Yeshua Hamashiach, to have fun. Why? Because religion teaches them that serving God isn’t about having fun. It isn’t about doing what you like to do. It is about doing the activities that the religious system has passed down for centuries as “religious.” Now there is a percentage of the population that actually enjoys doing those activities do not get me wrong, and yes some of those activities are biblically based. But otherwise, a lot of those activities have no spiritual value and are only valued in the eyes of worldly religious people because worldly religious people say they are virtuous. Even the activities that DO have spiritual value, other activities that you LIKE doing and can find a way to honor and serve God doing it ARE JUST AS SPIRITUALLY VALUABLE AS THE ACTIVITIES VALUED BY THE RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT THAT JUST HAPPEN TO BE SPIRITUALLY VALUABLE! Look, if something is spiritually value, it is because it is, not because the religious establishment says so. For instance, you have to eat to live, and that fact isn’t true because the religious establishment says so, but it is something whose truth is completely apart from the religious establishment that the religious establishment regards as true. So since the religious people are not the ones that determine spiritual value and usefulness, then there is a great chance that what you like to do can be done in a manner that produces spiritual fruit where what religious people tell you to do will NEVER produce spiritual fruit! The worst part of it all is that many of these Christians who seek personal enjoyment through sin because they have been taught any better do not need a drastic change! They merely need to redirect their passion from something that offends God to something that pleases him! Take the person who is obsessed with football and as a result is always following it, gambling on it, ranting about it, and has strong negative emotions and actions towards other people, even hate and aggression, because of it. Clearly sinful, right? But that person need not give up football! Instead, he could become a coach/mentor for at risk kids in a football league run by a Christian program. Or even better, he could be a Christian point of light in one of the MANY secular football leagues that are otherwise dominated by football – obsessed men (and increasingly women).

Now of course, this also goes for the more “traditional” forms of creative expression: art, literature, song, dance, etc. As said in Christian Creativity Failure, Christians need to start back heavily investing in those areas too. But let us face it; not all of us enjoy those things! Suggesting that a Christian can only serve God in a “respectable” or “acceptable” or “established” arena such as those is religion! Rather, it is incumbent upon each and every individual Christian to find a way to serve God by doing whatever things are pure, righteous, and are of good report (Philippians 4:8) according to GOD, and not man or religion, and then do go and do so to the maximum of his ability. Yes, the “maximum of his ability” part is important! You are doing this for the Lord, so do not dabble in it. Instead, make it the core concentration of your life. Let it consume you! Let it be how you praise and relate to God and cause others to! Give up all of your unedifying and extraneous activities and concentrate on what God predestined in you to do for Him! If you do this, such a thing will please and glorify God immensely, and moreover shall bear fruit. Remember the parable of the talents? The wicked servant who buried his talent in the sand and was cast out as unprofitable should have found something that he liked to do to make money with, even if it was buying and selling stamps. Or getting some ducks and making pillows out of their feathers to sell.

Do not be deceived, brethren, for it is God’s Will for you to serve Him in this fashion! God commanded you to serve Him from the FULLNESS OF YOUR HEART. Well how can your heart be filled if it has no joy because your only service to the Lord is doing things that give you no personal pleasure? Do not be deceived by Satan or by the religious system: there are so many great things that can be done for God if only the church would reject the lie that we can only serve and please God through our affliction, tribulation, persecution, and obligation.  

Prayer:

Father God in the Name of Your Son Jesus Christ, please cause Your people to begin to serve You from the fullness of their hearts by doing the things that You created for and in them to give them joy by doing them for You and in Your Name. In the Name of Y’shua Hamashiach, amen!  

 

Deliverance:

The demon that works in this area is religion. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

Christian Creativity Failure

Exodus 31:2 – 4 See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, To devise cunning works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, And in cutting of stones, to set them, and in carving of timber, to work in all manner of workmanship.

Use the term “Christian creativity” around most people, and many will regard it to be an oxymoron, a contradiction. Now while in some ways this is manifestly unfair – as history records that the greatest artists, musicians, and thinkers were Christian. Indeed, the primary motivation for “multiculturalism” was not to cease the elevation of “dead white males”, but instead to prevent people from being taught that CHRISTIANS were capable of such artistic and scientific brilliance, and yes they did it to honor Jesus Christ! The only way that this “Christians are stupid and hate art and education” myth could be implanted into the mainstream was by our schools and media preventing the works of such people as Dante Alighieri, Leonardo Da Vinci, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Sir Isaac Newton, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Thackeray, Michelangelo, etc. from being taught, and where teaching them is absolutely necessary speaking of their Christian beliefs and motivations is never done. But the sad true fact is that we simply cannot blame “the world” for all of our problems in this area. Instead, we must face facts: western Bible – believing Holy Spirit – filled Christians are no longer involved in supporting or producing the arts or any other creative endeavors in any serious way.

That this would be is totally idiotic. The verse above CLEARLY SHOWS that creativity is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Further, not only did biblical
Israel specifically give societal institutional support to artists, musicians, SCIENTISTS (what else would “after the art of the apothecary” in Exodus 30:25 refer to?), and similar, so did the Catholic Church for centuries. Further, a great many CHRISTIAN kings and queens (and other royalty), businessmen, and other prominent people and institutions supported professional artists for centuries. But now, all of that has passed away. If you are a painter, sculptor, architect, writer, or even a scientist who loves Elohim, then you will almost certainly have to not only ply your trade but even GET EDUCATED in a world that not only hates Yeshua Hamashiach, but has made as its primary mission to make war against Him and those who believe in and love Him and are called by His Name. The most that you can do is try to promote Christianity in some “subversive” way while in the worldly “mainstream”, try to make a living in the bland risk (and reward) averse and very limited Christian niche market, or do some “Christian work on the side” as your time and economics permit. And that is even if you manage to hold onto your beliefs while pursuing your education. Let me tell you: if you are a Bible – believing Christian BEFORE you attended most art, drama, filmmaking, writing, music, etc. schools, then there is a great chance that you will not be one when you leave. But that does not change the even sadder fact that even if there were a person who could emerge from Stanford, Cal – Berkeley, or Harvard as evangelical fundamentalist Christian with master’s degree in fine arts, there would be no one to hire them and no system in place by which their Holy Spirit – inspired talents and works could be developed, showcased, and appreciated.

One has to admit the obvious: there is absolutely no reason for this state of affairs to exist. Of course, we know that there is no lack of Holy Spirit – inspired creative people in the Body of Christ. We also know that there is no lack of financial and institutional support for these people. All that is lacking is the will and desire of people who are in positions of influence and authority in the Christian world to support them. And this proves that a huge number of people were never called by God, or they have turned aside from following Him wholly. Imagine if a FRACTION of the money spent trying to influence politicians or trying to get on every single CHRISTIAN TV network time slot were spent on training, sponsoring, and showcasing Christians who have creative gifts. What a great witness to the power, might, beauty, and LOVE of God that would be, and how many people whose hearts are currently hardened to televangelists and are offended by the mixing of religion and politics would be softened and opened by works of great beauty and creativity! Do not think that there is not a precedent! One of the main reasons why God had Solomon invest such brilliance in the temple was so that people would be astounded, glorify God, and forsake their own false gods for Elohim because of it! One of the best arguments for the existence of Elohim is the majesty of His Creation, and likewise one of the best arguments that we are the people of Elohim is OUR ABILITY TO CREATE! And please recall that the queen of Sheba was converted to worshipping God after seeing the sight of the temple, and went back to her homeland and had that entire nation convert, and later that homeland converted to Christianity (the Holy Roman Empire was the SECOND Christian nation, Sheba, or Ethiopia, was the first) thanks to the meeting between Philip and the eunuch in Acts. So certainly if an entire nation can turn to God by virtue of seeing how the Holy Spirit can use man to produce a temple, an individual can turn to God by seeing how the Holy Spirit can use man to produce a painting or statue.

But alas, pouring money into the political system brings power. Being on national Christian TV 50 times a week (when you add up all of the time slots on all the networks) brings in a lot of money. So clearly these people are after money and power rather than being after God’s own heart! Take a look at the fundamentalist/evangelical universities out there, for instance.
Oral
Roberts
University has a full – fledged undergraduate program in art, but

Liberty
University only offers theatre. ORU also has a full – fledged music department,

Liberty
University does not. Truth be told, both universities invest far more in ATHLETICS than they do the arts. But the bottom line is that even the mere presence of programs is not evidence that their energies are in the right place. Why? Because if they were actually following the example of the Bible and even of the church in centuries not long past, THE ART AND MUSIC PROGRAMS WOULD BE SECONDARY ONLY TO THE THEOLOGY/SEMINARY PROGRAMS AT LIBERTY, ORAL ROBERTS, AND OTHER CHRISTIAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES!

And because of our sinful – yes, it is sinful! – neglect in this area, choosing money and power over facilitating the release of the Holy Spirit and using that release to do the Will of God, how many Christians with Holy Spirit gifts in the arts and other creative areas shun devoting their lives to those pursuits? A Christian child growing up today only hears two things about a career in the arts: 1) it is dominated by exceptionally amoral people and 2) it is extremely difficult to support yourself in it, especially if you are not exceptionally amoral. Those things are true, BUT AGAIN ONLY BECAUSE OF THE STIFF NECKS AND HARDENED HEARTS OF CHRISTIANS! One of the hilarious things is how Christian political activists are trying to end the National Endowment for the Arts and other forms of public support for artists because – gasp! – artists who hate God tend to express that hatred, and people who hate God tend to support artists who hate God. That is what getting involved in worldly pursuits like politics does. These people actually think that they can stop people who are unsaved from, well, ACTING LIKE THEY ARE UNSAVED! Even if it were possible to prevent them from acting like it – and it isn’t – what good would it do? Wouldn’t they still be unsaved? Of course. But their goal wasn’t saving the souls of these artists or anyone else, but rather a desire to have and exert power over other people, to make people do what THEY wanted them to do. In other words, control demons. What really sets off these Christian political activists isn’t people out there expressing hatred against God, it is that they are unable to exert the same control over the world that they have over their congregations. Since they can’t make these people join their congregations so they can control them, they are trying to take over the government so that they can control them THAT WAY. If these people had any true love for God, then they would use THEIR VAST FINANCIAL AND INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES to create the National CHRISTIAN Endowment for the Arts, and use the great beautiful works of Holy Spirit – filled Christians that it would produce to totally put to shame both the people who put crucifixes in urine and those who pay them to do it.

Read your Bible, people. It is filled with detailed descriptions of the splendor of creation, especially Heaven, and how God wants us, who are in His Image, to create after the same manner to give glory to Him. And we Christians aren’t doing it. Outside of whatever Christians that are out there finding some outlet for their creative energies by working on their projects in their spare time, or little kids who write their little songs and make wonderful creations with their crayons and finger paints of the angels and visions that they see, no one is doing it because no one is supporting it. No one is even preaching about it. Sure, the great megapreachers will get up and go on for hours about the splendor of the temple, the tabernacle, the ark, etc. BACK THEN, but you won’t hear them talk about why we aren’t doing thinks like that RIGHT NOW, and the reason is that the only way that would happen RIGHT NOW would be if THEY were to PAY for it! But no, instead they would rather spend tens – or hundreds – of millions on these tacky mega – cathedrals that aren’t even examples of Holy Spirit – inspired architecture or construction and contain no original artworks in them of any real value that are truthfully not monuments to God but are rather to the preacher, who is often so puffed up with pride that he will not acknowledge that his “beautiful buildings” sit unused most of the time and are less than half – filled even on Sundays. This is how bad it is: an unknown church in a nondescript town in rural southern Georgia was able to produce and distribute two feature – length films for the amount of money that they raise in a couple of offerings. And why not? The church and the land are long paid off, SO WHAT DO THEY NEED THAT MONEY FOR ANYWAY? For a fraction of what it would have taken for that church to get one undesirable time slot on a minor Christian TV network, they were able to pay people who have the God – given ability to write, produce, direct, edit, design sets, operate cameras, act, and yes even do the business of promoting and distributing a film. And you know what? Both films won awards! The latter so impressed a major SECULAR corporation that the corporation released the film to theaters, where it earned 100 times the production costs! That is what only a few people (though the church is one of the most prominent in its small community it is not very large) can do when they decide to honor God, and why a great many are not doing the same is because the desire to honor God is not in them because the love of God is not in them. Or at minimum they love and are serving God, but not from a perfect heart (II Chronicles 25:1 – 2).

This really is serious business. The Holy Spirit – given gifts of so many people are not being used as they ought, and souls are not being saved from their sins and from the world as a result. God will judge the people who are allowing this sad state of affairs to exist, especially those in authority. In order to prevent this judgment from coming down on you, it is incumbent upon you to support the creative talents and endeavors of Christians in however manner God has given you the instructions and the means to do so. And remember: to more that was given, more shall be required of them, but even for those who were given little, if they are not faithful with it and increase it, then even what little was given to them shall be taken away from them. That was the parable of the TALENTS, people (talk about double reference, money and ability, at least in terms of the English translation anyway); a parable that is so often ignored in contemporary Christianity to our hurt indeed. So many people are indeed being destroyed because they lack knowledge, and they lack knowledge because they have not sought knowledge, and they are not seeking knowledge because they are not seeking God, and they are not seeking God because they have not set their hearts upon doing so. We must serve the Lord in spirit and in truth people with all of our hearts, or else we are lost! And that is truly the sad thing. Israel supported all of these artists, musicians, craftsmen, etc. under the OLD COVENANT where God only demanded 10%, when the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit was rare, and Satan still had pretty much unchallenged dominion over the earth. But now under the NEW COVENANT where God demands 100%, where the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit is with all TRUE believers, and Satan is defeated, we are actually doing LESS in an area that is so vital to both our mission and the heart of God as creativity! Oh yes, the judgment upon this generation will be severe indeed, and you had better make sure that it does not fall upon you, especially if you are one who is in spiritual authority! And yes, that includes you parents in spiritual authority over your children, and husbands who are in spiritual authority over households. Parents, quit throwing away your “discretionary income” on junk and buy your kids paints, crayons, modeling clay, craft kits, music lessons, etc. and tell them to “make things about and for Jesus Christ.” Fathers, if your wife or child has a gift, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that the gift is BOTH developed AND displayed! Too much is at stake for ALL MEMBERS of the Body of Christ to continue this massive failure of the modern church.

Prayer:

Father God in the Name of Your Son Jesus Christ, please put it in the hearts of the members of the Body of Christ to once again see that it is Your Will for us to use the creative gifts that You have given us to glorify You, and that we should get about the business of following and obeying Your Will in this manner. In the Name of Y’shua Hamashiach, amen!  

 

Deliverance:

The demons that work in this area are control, greed, selfishness, self – seeking, power, pride, false doctrine, and sloth. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

Christians Should Never Complain

Job 7:11 – Therefore I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

I already dealt with complaining Christians in a previous devotional, but decided to readdress the issue. I am going to state this as a simple matter of fact: Christians should never complain. I came to this conclusion by way of reading a book that was a compilation of writings from Watchman Nee, a Chinese Christian who died for the faith after decades in a communist prison, and that was after a life of enduring many other hardships and heartbreaks. Yet it was not so much by virtue of comparing my life to his that made me realize what a whining complainer that I was, but rather his unassailable biblical doctrine that did so. 

Now Watchman Nee wrote from the perspective of a form of traditional  Christianity that has now fallen out of favor among modern Christians, especially those in the charismatic movement and particularly those in the Word of Faith movement. So, I will not use his truths in this devotional. Rather, I will explain this point using the charismatic/word of faith theology and language, and produce something that is just as unassailable as the writings of Nee. The reason why Christians should not complain is simple: because life and death are in the power of the tongue. 

Now the whole basis of the Word of Faith movement is the Christian using the word spoken in faith to produce in the natural realm what has already been accomplished in the spiritual realm. Of course, teachers in this movement also proclaim that if you speak AGAINST what God has accomplished in the spiritual realm, then you can hinder what God wants to bring about in the natural realm with the same power in your words that come from you being made in the image of God. Well, this is also true of complaining. Whenever you complain, you are speaking that which at least a part of you considers to be true. Maybe that part is your ignorance. Maybe it is your fear. Maybe it is your pride. Maybe it is your vanity. Maybe it is some part controlled or influenced by some demon clinging onto and has a foothold inside of you because you have not renounced that demon and have not turned aside from that area of your life. Whatever it is, that part of you is still real because you make it real. Therefore, any words that you speak from that portion of your reality can be brought by the power of that portion of  your reality by virtue of you being made in God’s image and having the power that goes with it from the spiritual into the natural. 

And there is also a bigger picture here. When you complain, you rebel against God. You accuse God. You judge God. You claim that God is not being good or good enough, that He is not being faithful or faithful enough, that He is not acting in a manner according to righteousness. When you speak in such a manner, you are speaking destructive words and using your God image to give that destruction life. In other words, in the spiritual realm, you are acting as a DESTROYER. So rather than complaining and thereby bringing forth destruction with your lips, you should close your mouth so that you can do no harm.

Once you have stopped being a destroyer with your lips, then you should do the opposite. You should praise God with your lips. You should thank God for the good. You should thank God for what seems to be bad but really isn’t, because God cannot do bad. You should thank God for not allowing anything to happen to you that you cannot handle, whether it is something that is “too good” that would cause you to become proud or “too bad” that would crush you. You should thank God for giving you free will, and then thank Him for drawing you to Himself so that you could use that free will to praise Him. You should thank God that Satan is defeated. You should thank God that Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross, rose again, and is returning. You should thank God for EVERYTHING.

Now a lot of well – meaning Christians tell you that you should not acknowledge your problems in doing this. Well, I disagree with them because I am not an advocate of self – hypnosis, repressing the truth, or any other type of game. God is not a God of games, God is a God of reality. God knows that you have problems, and God cares both about your problems and the effects that they are having on your physical, mental, and emotional health, and how it affects those around you, both your natural family and your spiritual one. So what remains is your having FAITH that God is bigger than your problems, so you can find a way to express your problems to God without complaining and without fear of offending the God who made you, who loves you, and who knows about those problems and wants to raise you above them. So, I say find a way to praise and honor God in the context of your problems. I am not saying that you should thank God for your poverty, divorce, gambling addiction, pornography habit, violent tendencies, racism, or cancer. Very likely, God did not cause those and wants to heal them from them, and God does not want those things to be established within you, nor does He want to be established as the author of those things by your words. So, tread carefully. But nonetheless, the Psalms and Proverbs are filled with examples of people who were able to praise God in the midsts of their troubles. They did not have to hide their troubles or be ashamed of them, but they were able to mention their troubles to God while they were praising Him. The Psalms of David in particular accomplish this best. When David was being hunted like an animal, when he saw the wretched condition of some of God’s righteous people, when he saw the pride and cruelty of the wicked, when people were falsely accusing, cursing, and conspiring against him, and when he was dealing with the consequences of his own sin of rape, adultery, and murder, David never ceased to bring those issues before God, and he never ceased to find ways to praise God in doing so. You go and do the same!

So I am not like those Christians who say that you should never complain because you do not have a reason to. That simply is not true, at least not according to your flesh. See, this is the patience of the saints; the difference between works of the flesh through religion and worshipping God in spirit and truth, walking by God’s Grace according to the Holy Spirit. Religion teaches you how to manage your flesh: how to suppress the very real thoughts, pains, hurts, and fears that you have concerning what you went through in the past, what you are going through now, and the tough road ahead. They tell you to concentrate on heaven and to know that you are only suffering for a time. That can get you through the night, but what about the morning? You will never get anywhere by shoving stuff down into your subconscious. And so long as you are playing games by managing your flesh, trying to control its eruptions, and shifting your flesh here and there in order to keep it bottled up, and trying to give acceptable religious outlets to your flesh (i.e. by “praising”), you just have to find a way to pouring all that stuff out to God. Why? Because once you do that, then God will send angels to minister to you and strengthen you, and then reveal to you that His Word Jesus Christ already dealt with all that mess on the cross! That stuff is DEAD ALREADY! And once that revelation comes to you, THAT is when the praise begins.

But in order to reach that point, you have to approach God in the right way, and that right way is by lifting God up, not by complaining. Make no mistake, whatever complaint you make is a complaint against God. Even if you do not THINK that it is a complaint against God, even if you are not even thinking about God when you speak it, it is still against God. It is still a negative destructive word that has destructive power in the spirit realm. That is why God says “pray without ceasing.” If you are praying as you ought, 99% of the destructive foolish vain things that come from your mouth won’t get said, because as you are praying the Holy Spirit will bring the wisdom and the restraint required to hold your tongue. And that is why Christians just need to discipline themselves to speak as little as possible and to listen as much as possible. If you are by yourself, why even open your mouth? Who is listening to you? Demons, perhaps? Well, stop keeping company with demons. Keep your mouth shut and PRAY! A lot of times the demons are keeping you busy in conversation because they are working to prevent you from hearing the Holy Spirit talk to you. And if you are with others, listen. Open your ears to the sins, hurts, pains, desperations, and hopeleness of those around you. That stuff will give you opportunities to pray, to minister, even if not that particular person who is talking but perhaps someone that you will encounter later who has the same problem and is going through the same stuff. How can you hear the problems of others so that you can go to God and intercede for them if you are too busy talking about your own problems for them to get their cries for help in? And yes, where their complaints are cries for help, yours are just whining and complaints.

After all, why do we complain anyway? Because we think that we know better and we deserve better. Complaining is the bitter fruit that comes from the corrupt seeds of rebellion, pride, vanity, selfishness, self – centernedness, boredom, fear, and impatience within our hearts, and along with each of those comes a demon or three. But do not be mistaken: those demons do not plant those seeds, they just grab onto and exploit what is already there. So whenever you feel the urge to complain, realize that the urge is coming from a heart that needs to change, from flesh that needs to be overcome. And how does change come? How does the overcoming happen? By the Word of God and the power of His Testimony: Jesus Christ risen from the cross and returning again imminently! So turn your complaints into praise by virtue of that testimony. 

So even if all you can muster is a simple “Lord, my husband left me, my kids never call, I am swamped with bills, I am in pain and dying of breast and ovarian cancer, but I praise You because of Your Love, Your Mercy, Your Awesome Power, and because I am saved by Your Son Jesus Christ who died on the cross, rose again, and is coming again”, then that is good enough. You did not COMPLAIN because of your divorce, your kids not honoring you, your finances, or your ruined health. You did not accuse God of being unfair to you because of those things. And you did not PRESUME or PROJECT your will upon God in these areas. And that is important, especially for you Word of Faith people. For how do you konw that it is God’s Will for your husband to come back? For your kids to come back? They have free will! For your bills to be paid? It would be one thing if you had the money to pay the bills and refused, but if you don’t have the money to pay them, don’t you think that God knows that already? Even if you weren’t following God when you made those bills, do you honestly think that He is going to keep you out of Heaven over it, especially if you have already repented for not letting God run your finances in the past? 

And how do you know that it is God’s Will for you to be healed, for you to live and not die? You are not going to know these things save God tells you, and if God were to tell you, He would put within you the faith for these things to be accomplished and create a means for them to be accomplished, and it would all be done in a way that accomplishes His Will and brings honor to Him. But what if it is not God’s Will that these things be accomplished right at this second? What if it is not His Will that these things be accomplished AT ALL? Well, if either be the case – and you will never know because you are not God; the only way you will know is if God Himself tells you – then you still have to make sure that YOU are bringing honor to God with your words by A) not complaining and by B) giving God the praise. THAT is the true Word of Faith, my friend. The Word of Faith is not speaking a specific outcome UNLESS God has given you that outcome and told you to speak it. In absence of a specific outcome that GOD has told YOU to PROPHESY, well then the Word of Faith simply becomes YOU speaking the WORD that GOD is GOOD and FAITHFUL! That the GOOD and FAITHFUL GOD is  YOUR GOD NO MATTER WHAT! 

Is that too hard for you? Is it something that you cannot attain? Well, it is the Bible. And if it wasn’t something that you were not capable of attaining, then God would not have put it in the Bible and told you to follow it. God is not trying to force you to sin. He is not trying to break your spirit. He is not trying to cause you to give up on Heaven. Rather, God only wants you to reject your flesh and the corrupt world that it lives in. It is your flesh and the love of the things of this world that cause you to complain, and above all else what God wants of you is to reject the things that He has rejected, to hate the things that He has hated, which are all things Adam! God killed those things that you are complaining about and that are causing you to complain on the cross, so why are you still holding onto them? They are DEAD! They are just waiting to be cast into the lake of fire. If you are truly saved through Jesus Christ , then you are not going to the lake of fire with that mess, so why are you holding onto it? 

So quit judging God. Quit rebelling against God. Be loosed from that vanity, pride, selfishness, and boredom. Instead, love God for who He is and worship Him no matter what! And I did not say mess around trying to train your flesh. Renounce your flesh! You are not defeating Satan by trying to tell yourself that Satan is not attacking you, or that Satan’s attacks are having no effect on you. No, you defeat Satan by telling God about his attacks, and then praising God because both you AND Satan know that he is already defeated, that Jesus Christ has already gotten you the victory over Satan’s works, and that you do not even have to wait until you get to heaven to experience that victory, that you do not even have to wait for the attacks to stop for you to experience that victory, but your victory will be experienced and expressed to God in the spirit realm through your words by your refusal to complain and your act of worshipping God and submitting to Him instead! 

Under the new covenant we have so much more power than under the old. The problem is that religion tells us to walk as if we are under the old covenant rather than teaching us how to exercise the power under the new. The new covenant is GOD IN US. It is the GOD IN US that gives us power over the world by rejecting it. It is the GOD IN US that gives us power over our enemies by loving them. And it is the GOD IN US that gives us power over our own flesh when we make the conscious choice to reject that flesh by praising God no matter how dire and wretched the condition and situation of that flesh rather than complaining because of the condition. Why are we able to do that? Because we come into the revelation through the Holy Spirit that we are not flesh at all but rather spirit, and our spirits achieved total victory when Jesus Christ cried out “It is finished” on the cross! So I am not saying that you should DENY your problems by not complaining. I am saying that by not complaining, you THROW THOSE PROBLEMS BACK INTO THE FACE OF SATAN AND HIS DEMONS! When you do that, then you persecute that which is attempting to persecute you. The forces of Satan will by that receive torture on earth from God’s people before they receive greater torment in the lake of fire. Meanwhile, you will experience victory and liberation on earth in this life by your refusing to complain before you experience greater victory and liberation in the next life in Heaven. And if that isn’t enough reason to stop you from complaining, then you are just one who has no interest in walking in the victory of the new covenant. I, for one, am enjoying my victory under the new covenant, and I thereby refuse to complain. Whenever I feel the urge to complain, I always force myself to acknowledge that my complaining will not solve anything, and that I know it will not. Instead, my desire to complain is based on my wounded pride and my desire to be the center of attention. Which is, of course, the very same reason why a 2 – year old complains. Well, I am not 2 years old either in chronological terms OR in the faith, so I am putting away that childish thing. If you want to become spiritually mature, then you do the same. Read the Psalms, read Paul’s letters, learn to defend God rather than yourself, and start growing up!

Prayer:

Father God in the Name of Your Son Jesus Christ, your children learn how to transform their complaints into praise of You. In the Name of Y’shua Hamashiach, amen!  

 

Deliverance:

The demons that work in this area are pride, immaturity, selfishness, self – centerdness, and rebellion. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

TO MORE IS GIVEN, MORE IS REQUIRED FROM

Luke 12:48 – But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

When Elohim gave me Faith Does Not Come By Hearing it caused me to see Matthew 25:14 – 30 in a whole different way. In Faith Does Not Come By Hearing, I wrote that when God created your spirit man, He tested (tried) it, to see its character, and then used it to create the living human individual you in the time and place in history to do His Will. For this purpose, God used the Word portion of the Triune Godhead to create Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus Christ, to redeem the world from sin. And for the purpose of betraying this same Yeshua Hamashiach so that He would go to the cross for you, me, and even in theory this very same betrayer, God used the spirit man of an unbelieving thieving betrayer to create the person of Judas Iscariot!

And this is why we should not strive against God. This is not why we should curse God for the things in our lives. This is why we should not seek things that are not ours and are not meant for us, even under the heretical auspices of a lot of the “Word of Faith” teaching, which is really nothing but ravening witchcraft wolves in Christian sheep’s clothing. We are to realize that God put us on earth for one reason and for one reason only: to serve Him. To carry out His plan for the ultimate fate of this world and mankind and its place in HIS eternity. We have to not “accept our lot in life and make the best of it”, but rather to LOVE where God placed us, rejoice in it, and work as unto God in it! If your job is to clean sewers, then do it with the attitude that the better you clean that sewer the closer Jesus Christ’s return is!

This is not to say that we are puppets; robots on a string. We do have free will. But God knows how we are going to EXERCISE our free will by virtue of His having “foreknown” us as spirit men before He created us as people. He knows how we are going to respond to the environments that He puts us in. He knows that when the heat is on which among us are going to rise to the challenge and which are going to melt. That is why the verse “God will never expose us to temptation beyond which we can bear” is so absolutely incontrovertibly true: He knew based on what He saw in our spirit man before He used it to make our person what the person that the spirit man would make could bear. But as I said earlier, we are not robots. We have our own wills, and that is always a wildcard, a variable. But for our own protection, those of us who are saved through Jesus Christ need to use that will to always seek God’s Will! If we stray too far from the path that God has set out for us, then we may go past the point of no return.

And then, there is the case of the person who only received one talent. Now in this parable, God called three men His servants. Note that He did not choose everyone, just three. The minimun qualification: having to profess Christ. Those who do not profess Christ can never be considered God’s Servants! Now the spirit man of exemplary character that chose Elohim as his God through Jesus Christ, God gave five talents. The spirit man of middling character who professed Christ, God gave two talents. But then there was the last case: the spirit man who professed Christ that was borderline good and borderline evil. God gave him ONE TALENT. Now though that person professed to love God, his heart was far from Him (Matthew 15:8), so that which he had (his ministry) was taken from him and given to the exemplary fruitful one, and he was cast out. So it was one who, while not predestined (in a foreknown sense) to be one of Christ’s sheep was nonetheless given a chance, and he blew it. So, we are not going to consider the two GOOD servants, nor the incontrovertibly evil ones that were never hired as servants, but rather the marginal one who was hired as a servant, chose wickedness, and was cast out. Why? It is because of those that the profitable servant MUST evangelize and show works, chief of all charity (the true love of Christ). 

I am not going to guess which percentage of the population is marginal, borderline. But if you truly love God and your neighbor, you must know that every one counts! Therefore, we must boldly preach the gospel at every occasion and place that the Holy Spirit motivates to so that every marginal spirit man has a chance to hear and receive Christ. (Incidentally, it also hastens the entry of the “above marginal” souls into the kingdom so THEY THEMSELVES can preach to more marginal souls.) Some people, by virtue of their nature, are going to seek God. Some because of that same virtue will reject Elohim. But those who neither fully seek God or reject Him, those are the ones who need to hear the gospel, and hear it with conviction! I said in Faith Does Not Come By Hearing that God’s trial of them when they were created as spirit men was their first chance, well hearing the gospel on the earth may well be their last (some disagree, alleging that everyone who does not hear the gospel will be given one final chance after the final resurrection) . Now some of these people are out in the world, just living their lives not thinking of God. Others have strongly considered giving their lives to God, but they have doubts (which this ministry and many other excellent ones that specialize in apologetics give you much ammunition to help them resolve). Others still have been ensnared in the trap of dead Christian religion, which is so vile because A) their having been in a place where they have continuous exposure and chances to learn about Christ and the Bible and accept them personally means that they will be judged by a higher standard; that they did in fact have their chance(s) on earth and B) the legalism, works, univeralism, rejection of final Biblical authority, and whatever other devil’s doctrines that they are receiving will ensure that they will NEVER meet that standard, which is a personal relationship and faith in the Risen Jesus Christ as God and Lord of their lives, and acceptance and faith in that alone being what saves them. Whether the mountain for these marginal souls is doubts, false religion, the false pleasure of sin, the false security of self – righteousness (of “values” and “being a good person”), or never having been preached to, we true Christians have to zealously seek these people according to the Will of the Lord so that through faith the mountain will be removed and cast into the sea, and these people can join the Body of Christ! And that is the first battle. And when we are not evangelizing them, we are to pray for them. Without ceasing. No matter how coldly they reject us, no matter how evil they act or badly they treat us (and Satan will engineer things in order to get you to give up on them), we have to keep praying for them, especially when they demand of us to stop proselytizing them.

The second battle, and the far bigger one no matter how hard – or easy! – it was to get them to accept Christ, is to show them love, pure religion undefiled (James 1:26 – 27). We do this in order to keep them from burying their talents in the sand. We do this to keep them from being the ones who, after hearng the gospel and receiving it with gladness, having it choked out of them because of persecution and tribulation or it drying up and dying in the sun because of the cares of the world (the parable of the sower given in Matthew 13). And we especially do it to keep fake Christians from driviing them off with their hate, meanness, unacceptable sacrificies, vain works, fear, idolatry, lusts, and destructive words. Satan counts these marginal souls as his own, and we have to do God’s Will and represent true Christianity, not a religion but as a relationship, a total commitment to dying to self daily for Jesus Christ, to claim them for YHWH. Jesus Christ died for these marginal souls too! (He even died for the utterly corrupt Judas Iscariots!)  So it is for their sakes that we must continue the fight the good fight of faith, that we not be lukewarm or double – minded.

Paul himself did the same. How many of his letters did he send to the Corinthians, Romans, and many others who were marginal and wavering, and allowing themselves to be seduced into unsound practices and false doctrines. And what did Paul say was the greatest weapon to be used against Satan in contending for the marginal saints? LOVE! Paul even said that out of love the Christians must deliver the flesh of a Christian living in sin to the devil for the destruction of that Christian’s flesh so that his soul MAY be saved on the day of judgment (I Corinthians 5:1 – 5)! Now of course the legalistic apostate Christian, the “holiness or hell” heretics, will tell you that the way to deal with such marginal souls is to subject them to “church discipline”, which is rules and regulations which even if they are keeping are not going to save them anyway, and let us not forget the many satanic accusations! Such a thing is guaranteed to either drive such a person away from Christianity altogether or to forsake true Christianity for one where he gets the false impression that he needs to “assure his salvation” through works and signs.

If you are unsaved, take heart! Say this prayer and go through the rest of your life knowing that you are already saved and whatever situation that you are in or what you might be doing at any given time is God’s Will or what God already knew would happen to you and loves and accepts you anyway, even to the point of the temptations and sins that you will inevitably commit. For the rest of you, it is time to get to work. There are many marginal souls out there that need to be won, encouraged, led, taught, and DEFENDED. (That is right, spiritual warfare and intercession baby!) If you love God, then you love God’s people, and you will realize that every thing that you say, do, think, etc. EVEN WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING is something that in the spirit realm can and will be used for or against a person whose eternal fate is literally at stake and on the edge. In the Name of Jesus Christ, I am claiming right now that you are going to be a true person of God who rises up and meets the challenge. Amen.

Prayer:

Father God in the Name of Your Son Jesus Christ, may the marginal souls be brought into and kept into Your Kingdom of Heaven by Your Grace, Love, Mercy, and Power, and may ALL of Your children, Your called servants, know that we are to be Your laborers and agents in this regard, and may we know our mission and heed Your call in the manner which pleases You. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

 

Deliverance:

The demons that work in this area are legalism, and false doctrines. Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!

Cut Out The Cancer

Leviticus 15:31 – Thus shall ye separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness; that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is among them.

As difficult as it may be, we Christians MUST start getting back to the Bible. The Bible tells us over and over again not to socialize with the hard – hearted, profane, and unsaved (Psalm 1) unless we are trying to evangelize them(I Corinthians 10). But not only are we associating with the boldly rebellious against God’s Word, partaking in their profane blasphemies for amusement’s sake, but we are allowing them to stay in the church. Witches, child and spouse abusers, thieves, homosexuals, the effeminate, adulterers, fornicators, liars, gossipers, racists, all are allowed to defile the sanctuaries of the Most High God in our churches. I am not just talking about the “liberal” churches, but also the “fundamentalist” and “evangelical” churches. You have these “megachurches” where everyone knows that people are going there to see some famous preacher as if it is some sort of social and cultural event like a football game, concert, or art show, and their membership rolls are into the tens of thousands, with no one making any attempt to monitor the spiritual conditions or commitment to living holy for Jesus Christ among the members. Now I know that you can’t stop people from coming to your church, and you also cannot have a church filled with busybodies, snoops, and accusers. But these people CAN challenge both their members and the celebrity – seekers attracted by their TV shows and huge buildings from the pulpit. I am not talking about gay – bashing ruminating against “the abortion industry”: though those things are incontrovertibly sins, they are easy targets, and by only marginalizing the people who sin in the areas of “hot button issues”, the “conservative religious right” has allowed other sins and spirits to take root, and the result is that fundamentalist evangelical conservative Christians have children out of wedlock, get divorced, have abortions, and commit fornication/adultery/homosexuality in rates as high as or higher than those in the general population! But no, were these megapreachers to start challenging their congregations on a regular basis concerning their failure to daily keep that which is explicitly given to them in the Bible, then we would start seeing the separation from the sheep and the goats. And once that starts happening, the pastor should start demanding that anyone who can confirm the case of someone living in sin and refusing to change in the mouth of two or more witnesses of church members, then they should be brought before the church and disciplined. And when that is done, the people who brought their brother up on charges should be asked if THEY have any beams in their own eyes, any sin that they are living in that they will not or cannot get out of. And if a pastor starts doing that, then his church won’t be a megachurch anymore.

And this is not to pick on megachurches. If anything, it should be easier to demand holiness from the medium – sized and small churches, but they aren’t doing that either. Most churches do not even emphasize the basic things such as showing kindness, mercy, and love to one another and simple evangelization techniques such as going to streetcorners and handing out tracts (yes, “the great commission” is a fundamental part of being a Christian; Christianity 101).  But no one is doing it. It seems that we do not want to offend anybody. Even though that is naive and short – sighted, for if we truly loved someone we would want them to stop sinning and giving demons of all sort legal right to torment them and all that they have, it is not the REAL REASON. The real reason is nowhere near as honorable; indeed it is totally selfish and reveals how so many Christians fail to either love God with all their mind, soul, and strength or to love their neighbor as themselves. That real reason is that Christians to not want to be offended! They do not want to be known as “intolerant.” “Extremists.” “Holy – rollers.” “Holier than thou.” “Hypocrites.” And the dreaded “outside the mainstream.” Any megachurch that demands of its congregants to actually fulfill God’s Word would be held up for international condemnation and ridicule. A smaller church that does the same would see its members shunned by the community, including its family and friends, lose their jobs and businesses, and be kicked out of any denomination. And that is just the worldly persecution. The spiritual persecution, the very gates of hell being set against the church and its members, would be immense(Revelation 2:12 – 13). People in the modern church are not even willing to suffer public rejection, let alone spiritual persecution. What is more, the denominations and the pastors are not even educating or cultivating them with the notion that they SHOULD suffer such things (Hebrews 2:10).

Now do not get me wrong, I am not talking about these legalistic false churches that preach a form of Godliness while denying the power thereof. Those churches and the people in them have no problem surviving and thriving in the world, and the only persecution that they face is punishment which they inflict on themselves and the demons that they themselves invite into their churches and lives and live with. There are some examples in certain nations where these “churches” get labeled “cults” (which let us face it, they are), and the government rightfully cracks down on them to stop them from spreading, but that is nothing compared to real persecution that any group of people come together on one accord to worship God in spirit and in truth will face.

But it is something in these last and evil days that true churches and real Christians must start demanding and doing: demanding righteousness of themselves and others and separating themselves from those who steadfastly refuse. Why? Because people who refuse to live holy yet call themselves Christians and church members are, for lack of a better term, a cancer on the Body of Christ. If you know anything about cancer, it is not something that is natural to a body, but rather is an invader, a disease. It starts out as a small group of sick cells, and it spreads, damaging and killing off healthy cells. In order to treat cancer, you must experience pain. There must be drug and radiation treatments to kill the weak cancer cells, and surgery to physically cut the strong cancer cells that survive the radiation and drugs out of the body. But it is necessary to save the rest of the body from being consumed and killed by the cancer.

Now of course, the true body of Christ is not in any danger. But our refusal to rid our churches and our personal friendships of people that we know are committed to living in sin can and does cause a great deal of harm to both churches and individual believers. First off, it removes the power that comes whenever two or three are gathered together in God’s Name; the people are no longer gathered together on one accord with common purpose, but rather different agendas that are introduced. Therefore, it is very hard for the Holy Spirit to truly manifest and be felt in power by all who are present. Second, people who call themselves Christians but are not even TRYING to keep that which Christ commanded them offend God greatly. Third, it is a contaminant. People get used to being around sin and sinners and it desensitizes them to it. They stop hating sin, and pretty soon though they might not commit it, they begin to enjoy looking at it and gossiping about it. And once those gossip, busybody, voyeurism, and curiosity spirits concerning sin start working in the church, it leads to other sins. It is just like how everyone who tries to educate people against drug use reminds you that no one starts out with cocaine, PCP, or LSD. It starts with alcohol, then it progresses to smoking, then it progresses to marijuana, then it goes to ecstasy, and THEN you get to the “hard stuff.” Well, in a church, it starts with tolerating adulterers in the church and among your social circle, then it moves to gossiping about the adultery, then it moves to lying about the adultery to prevent the spouses – your friends! – from finding out (making you a liar PLUS an accomplice), then it moves to contemplating the adultery and whom you might commit it with and whether you could use the same techniques to hide it from your spouse as your “friends” and “parishioners” are, and shortly you will find yourself in bed with a person of the opposite (or same) sex that is not your spouse. It sounds ridiculous when you consider natural human behavior, but you must realize that Christians, whether they acknowledge it or not, do not exist in the natural. Instead, everything is spiritual, and evil spirits attack Christians harder than they attack anyone else. And why not? Why waste energy on people who aren’t trying to do things for God, and do not have the power to bind, rebuke, cast out, discern, and war against them? It would be one thing if you were in the presence of adulterers trying to get them to change their evil ways, but if you are just hanging around watching them destroy themselves and their families with their sin for your own amusement, or if you are allowing them to defile the church because you want to be “nonconfrontational” and “a church open to everyone so that we can help each other and deal with each other’s problems”, then you are giving the very demons that they are dealing with legal right to hang around you, and if they hang around you long enough, then they will find an opening to enter. Look, Jesus Christ Himself said that if you look at a woman lustfully, it is as if you have committed the sin of adultery. Well, in this wicked culture that we live in where men and women expose and flaunt their bodies and sexuality as if they were some sort of flag or badge. Now you are already going to have an unredeemed mind and unconsecrated lifestyle by virtue of choosing to associate with sinners against God’s Word and Will, so you are not going to have the spiritual power or discipline to live in this culture without seeing something or someone that is going to make you desire it. When that happens, that adultery demon that you have allowed to hang around has an opening and a legal right to exercise it.

And it really isn’t just sexual sin, violence, greed and theft, or idolatry, though those are huge problems. A much bigger problem is just a plain old lack of love and compassion. A lot of the churches have gotten so cold and impersonal, you walk in and all you see is a bunch of icy stares. This actually used to make a bit of CARNAL sense back in the day when people came to church in their “Sunday best”, and there was this “don’t step on my shined shoes, wrinkle my silk shirt, or smudge my makeup trying to hug me” nonsense going on – as well as looking down on people who do not meet the standard of dress – but now that people feel free to walk into God’s House dressed as if they are ready for a day of field labor, I have no idea what the problem is. Actually, I do: hate! Where there is no light, darkness reigns, and where pastors do not demand that their congregation plant seeds of love, tares of hate and selfishness will grow. Now if love covers a multitude of faults (I Peter 4:8) then the lack of it is a beacon call for a whole bunch of sins and all of the demons that come with it. 

THAT is why you can have a “fundamentalist evangelical” church that preaches against divorce, abortion, and homosexuality every Sunday where half the church is divorced and the number of people who have had abortion or are homosexuals are the same as everywhere else, and of course if the congregation is this messed up and the pastors allow it, then the church is not going to be effective at evangelizing anyone except those who want to come to the church just so they can find someone to commit adultery with, and that is because the adultery demons are attracting them to where all the other adultery demons are. Now the very sad thing is that a lot of people who KNOW that they have problems with adultery, homosexuality, gossiping, lying, addiction, gambling, compulsive behavior, pornography, and hatred come to church looking for help. They come to church looking to make a change, and the first thing they see when they walk into the house of God looking to be made righteous is a bunch of hateful people staring daggers through them, with a few of them managing fake smiles. If that doesn’t send them running out the door, they join the church and immerse themselves into the same pit of sin and demons as they were in when they were out in the world, and become twice the sons of hell that they were before they joined the church (Matthew 23:15). All because the pastor won’t develop love in his church.

It all starts with love. Love is light, and light drives out darkness. If the pastor demands of his church that they love God, love each other, and show it, then people who do not have love in their hearts and are just along for the ride will be forced to leave, because light and darkness cannot coexist. And if people love God, they will not provoke Him by hanging out in agreement with sinners when they can be GOOD by themselves and find fellowship with their righteous brethren plus quiet time with God and be more content and filled with peace than they ever were hanging out in snakepits, pigpens, and vicious circles. And if they love each other, they will not allow each other to dwell and perish in sin, but will try to counsel them and failing that will bring them before the church leaders for reprove and rebuke. And they will so love the spirit and presence of the Lord when they come to church to fellowship that it will grieve them when unpenitent sinners block the moving of the Holy Spirit with their presence and hardened hearts.

Christ is Love, and by Christ’s stripes we were healed. So if you preach Christ in your church, if you preach love, then that is like the drug (chemotherapy) and radiation treatment for cancer that I spoke of earlier: the less determined sinners in the congregation will either change or leave. And for the hardened sinners, the people who are so filled with demons that they won’t leave despite their torment, or perhaps they are being used by Satan unknowingly (or knowingly, do not doubt that it happens) to destroy and discredit churches so that the sheep will be scattered and demoralized, then that is when you need to become a surgeon and CUT the cancer out. That is when it is time for CHURCH DISCIPLINE of the sort that Jesus Christ Himself practiced when He drove the moneychangers out of the temple. When people ask you what right does a pastor have to kick people out of a church, or what right a member has to take a person before the pastor since “we are not to judge since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, then we can answer them with I Corinthians 5:4 – 6. What is I Corinthians 5:4 – 6? Find out for yourself. I bet that you have never heard anyone preach it. Love is our shield, it is our buckler, it is our sword, it is our tank, it is our rifle, it is our atomic bomb. If we live in and show true love, Godly love, towards God and our fellowservants, then that sin and the demons that feed off and cause them will have no choice but to FLEE FROM THE POWER OF GOD! And is that not what we want? If you want anything less, then you have no love for God our your fellow man, let alone yourself.

If we just start back demanding LOVE in the church and not suffering anyone who refuses to show LOVE in our midst, then all of the other problems will go away. We will start to talk to and counsel one another. We will ask for one another’s help and support. We will stop gossiping against one another and destroying one another with evil words. We will stop mingling in people’s sins, becoming fascinated by them, and ultimately committing them. And we will stop defending those sins because “they are good church folks like us.” Now again, cancer is a disease, caused by exposure to viruses or dangerous chemicals. Well, if the cancer is sinful people in the church,  the virus or dangerous chemical is the lack of love. That makes love the antidote. When Christ said that “we are the salt of the earth”, you have to realize that salt was used for more than seasoning food back then: it was used for MEDICINE. People would pour salt on wounds to cleanse them and to kill infections. But if we lack love, then our salt loses its savor; or its medicinal value; it can no longer cleanse or disinfect wounds, and therefore we are no longer able to please God or help or show anyone else how to. So like the salt that can only be cast out and stepped on, God has no choice but to cast loveless Christians from the Body of Christ! The cancer must go so that the Body of Christ can live, and if we do not accomplish this task for God in this life, then God will CERTAINLY do it on judgment day. And you had better believe that there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a good part of it will be from the pastors who refused to teach love for the purposes of removing the cancer from their churches, and members who allowed themselves to become cancerous cells by helping sin spread with their hate, lies, gossip, destructive words, and being consenting to the sinful actions of sinners.
 
Do not let it happen to you. Start living for and demanding love in your church, and if they will not heed you, then find a church that will.

Prayer:

Father God in the name of Christ Jesus, please lead Your Believers to remove evildoers from the Body of Christ with the Power of Your Love. In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

Deliverance:

The demons that work in this area are worldliness and lack of love.  Please read the Basic Spiritual Warfare guide to learn more about how to go against these demons to help set captives free and win battles in the name of your God through the power, authority, and victory given to you by his Son Jesus Christ and by his blood shed for you!