Pastor Emmanuel Danquah spoke last night. He is so spirit-filled, and Pastor Don has been a sort of mentor for him.

The first statement Pastor Danquah stated was, God desires for us blessings far greater than what we expect for ourselves.

The subject was Acts 3:1-8 which is when John and Peter were walking into the temple and the lame beggar was there. Instead of receiving gold and silver, the beggar received his healing and was able to walk into the temple leaping and praising God.

We need to triumph over our limitations. In verse two we see that this man was lame from his mother’s womb, but by verse 8 he leaped and praised God. Our God is a God of miracles.

We are crippled by many things in life, spiritual, material, physical, mental reasons, and God desires independence and freedom from bondage for us.

Our things that cripple us keep us from enjoying the abundant life that Jesus wanted for us. He came so that we could have life and more abundantly.

When God blesses us, it is not just for us alone that we receive these blessings, but so we can give the blessings to others as well. If others see how God is blessing us, if they see our joy, if they see our peace in the midst of the struggle, then they will want that kind of blessing to.

Limitation is a demon that robs us of the joy God has for us.

Philippians 3:13 “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.”

We must press on, persevere, go toward the good irrespective of the hindrances that seize at us.

Forget your past (Heather’s note, not always that easy), forgive your past, forgive yourself, forgive your weaknesses) and look to the future.

2 Cor. 4:18 “..while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

You don’t deny your past, your problems, your limitations, but you can chose to ignore them, to see things the way God sees them, to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Who will guide us to overcome our limitations.

When you hear “NO” in the natural, then the faith walk begins.

Fight the good fight of faith. You have a foundation of victory even before the battle begins, for Jesus has already been victorious for us.

If you only play the depression game you lose. Play an active game. Limitation is an intangible barrier, causing you to accept without question your present state. But that is not the reality.

With God ALL things are possible. 2 Cor. 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

The steps of a Godly man are ordered by God, don’t shut down. We have a 6th sense (the Holy Spirit which directs our path). We must have a mentality of triumph. 2 Cor 2: 14 ” Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge to every place.”

The battle begins in the mind. Romans 8:37 “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

When you take a leap,  you don’t leap and stay in the same place, you leap to a new place.

1 John 5:4 “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

We cannot divorce faith from overcoming tribulation. We fight the fight of faith every day. Everyone fights the fight of faith, even our pastors, and those who we look up to as pillars of faith fight that fight of faith.

We need to build up our personal faith for us to overcome adversity when adversity comes our way. We can’t wait for adversity to begin building our faith.

Give God’s word the opportunity to set you free from your limitations. Do not give excuses. Excuses are a self-sabotaging response to tribulation.

Many famous people in the Old Testament also gave excuses, Moses said he couldn’t speak, Jeremiah said he was too young.

Excuses are crutches to the uncommitted. They keep you from discovering the honest and perfect help from others.

In all victories there is one common denominator, GOD.

We have battles, all of us, on our trek to the promised land. We battle giants, and the promised land is here on earth. There are no giants to battle in heaven.

Working at faith is a process. Mark 4: 26-28 “And He said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.”

Pastor Danquah pointed out that you don’t plant a seed and expect immediate fruit, you don’t dig up the seed, you don’t know how the process of growth occurs, you first see a blade, then a head, then grain. It does not spring out of the earth fully grown. Neither does our faith spring up fully grown.

Walking in this life is not free from tribulation, we all have tribulation to overcome. But we can rest in John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” That Jesus will overcome the world.

He said that his father used to tell him not to walk with the chickens and the turkeys, but to soar with the eagles. That we must pick our mentors, that we have to pick to stay around people who build us up, especially in times of difficulty.

Back to the Man that Peter and John encountered outside the temple in Acts 3:1-8

He was 1) lame, 2) laid (outside the temple), 3) lacking the ability to walk, 4) left daily, he persevered.

In our lives we can identify with this man, for often we are lame in our lives (physically, mentally, spiritually), and often we are left in that condition by those around us, we are unable on our own to raise ourselves out of this predicament, but if we persevere and come by the temple (God) and keep asking without ceasing, we will be raised out of our situation and be leaping in our lives.

Pastor asked us if we had dreams and ambitions. We need the desire to walk, the desire to succeed and overcome. Desire will attract the anointing of the Lord.

He was diligent, daily he sought, and we daily must seek for our answers. If this man had decided that today he wasn’t going to go to the temple, if he moaned and groaned, and decided what was the use, he would have missed his blessing, he would have missed the passing of Peter and John, and he would have still been crippled.

He made a decision. He decided to go with the eagles, and God would help him.

He determined he would walk. We are not to be complacent in our lives, but not be selfish either.If we feel the prompting of God, we need to act on that prompting, not delay, not rationalize, but be determined to do what God tells us to do.

He made a petition for alms. And God blessed him far and beyond anything he could conceive. When this man begged, he wanted a few coins, and God gave him liberty to walk and leap.

He Looked. Peter and John told the man to look at them. He turned his eyes from the people, and looked to the place where he would find his answer. When we are troubled and hurting often we look to the people around us, instead of looking to the source of our freedom, Christ Jesus and God, to free us.

He Listened – and looked to Peter and John and we must listen to the Word of God, to the mysteries of the Word of the Lord and to our heart and the Holy Spirit.

Acts 3:4 He was lifted, no one rises without help. When you get help and rise up. strength flows into you. We must locate our strength which is the renewal of the Spirit.

This man did not limp, he leaped. Don’t be a limper, be a leaper. Say the will of God in your life and leap. Don’t rationalize and try to fix the problem on your own, leap into God’s will.

Peter leap when he walked on the water. Don’t miss the opportunity to stretch your faith to meet God.

If God is for you, who can be against you.

There are times when we get stuck in a place, in worship, in a prayer that is the prayer of defeat. Stop lingering in prayers of defeat, leap , take that step in faith, go.

People will help others who have a vision. Don’t stop your breakthrough. It is time for the world of the wicked to come through for those of us who are spiritual leapers.

But we are not to be a spiritual shoplifter, taking the blessings and keeping them for ourselves. If God is blessing us, we are being blessed to share that blessing with others.

His love has lifted us up. The Love of God lifts us up.

 

Hope you enjoyed this Bible study, it is much food for thought for me, as well as places where I see I need to do some action. Sometimes it is good to be reminded of these truths, for we become so complacent in our place, and do not move forward. I tend to dig my heels in and sometimes am dragged to the next step kicking and screaming. I have so much to learn.

Heather

I want to share with you a great Bible teaching from tonight, but right now cannot type much. We had a visiting pastor, Pastor Donquah up from Florida. He spoke so strongly about Acts when Paul and Peter helped the lame man walk, and related that to our lives. But he walked around and the Holy Spirit was so strong in the room, that it is hard to focus right now. I just wanted to let you know that there are so many issues that God is working on me right now, and that I will try to respond more tomorrow. Giddy is kind of the adjective of what I am feeling right now. He will be speaking tomorrow and Wednesday at our church, but I will have to come late due to academic awards ceremonies for my kids and a Boy Scout leader’s meeting (yech) but I have to go because the committee chairperson has a vendetta against our scoutmaster, and I want to back my son’s scoutmaster up, as this woman almost foams at the mouth about Mark.

 

Heather

Wanted to share a funny story with you. In our Bible study there is a man who has received a touch from God and been healed. He used to be in a wheel chair and now is able to get around on a walker, and is believing for even more miraculous healings.

On Friday he told us he was visiting his doctor and the doctor said that he is puzzled by Mike. His condition is one that should be getting worse, and instead he is improving. He asked Mike what he did.

Mike told him, “I have a great physician.”

The doctor asked him who the physician was.

Mike replied, “Jehovah Raphah.”

The doctor wanted to know if he was middle eastern, and where he worked.

Mike told him that he worked all over the world.

When Mike left, the doctor was having his receptionist look up on the internet to find a listing for Dr. Jehovah Raphah.

Mike is hoping this will spark some more discussions, or lead the doctor to finding out more about God.

We were rolling on the floor laughing.

Heather

Friday’s Bible study

Pastor Don opened it up for questions, and someone asked what was Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh, as there are books out now that seem to be giving wrong information.

We were directed to 2 Corinthians 12

Pastor Don said that churches tend to build a theology on the failure of man, not on the foundational truths about God. So if man can’t do something that God says we can, we build a tradition that says it is not possible, even though God says that it is.

If you go through the Bible and can’t find Biblical examples of your traditions, then it is not Biblical.

The tradition that is built on 1 Corinthians 12 is that sometimes disease and sickness is a thorn in the flesh that God allows. That somehow God will get glory by how well we deal with our suffering and pain. But a careful reading of 1 Corinthians 12 will show that this is not what the passage is really saying.

2 Corinthians 12: 1-6 deals with what happened to Paul. He was stoned and left for dead. His people came and prayed over him and he recovered. But for a time he was transported to heaven, either in the flesh or in the spirit, but God showed him visions and truths that Paul was not to speak about. The physical body can take only so much pain, then your body separates, and that is when Paul was in the spirit.

But to be shown such visions would tend to give one a sense of pride, and as it says in verse 7, “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.

The above verse is the source of the false thinking about sickness and infirmity.

2 Corinthians 12:5 “Of such a one I will boast; yet of myself I will not boast except in my infirmities.”

The problem comes with the translation into the King James version, where the word infirmities was given for this passage. But the word infirmities could also have been translated weaknesses. If you substitute weaknesses the passage makes more sense.

Pastor Don said that he visits many people who are very sick in the hospital and never once did he have someone shout praises for the cancer coursing through their bodies, or the sickness they have. There is no glory to God for sickness that we get from satan. Yet, if we are weak in an area of our lives, and God helps us to overcome that weakness and serve Him well, there is lots of Glory. And if we are aware of our weakness, boast in the weakness, then there is no way we can claim credit for the victory, and we have to give it to God.

The problem comes often with translations, such as the word Power: which is either (1411 in Strongs) dunamis which is ability abundance, might, power, strength, violence, mighty, wonderful work or (1849 in Strongs) exousia, which means authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right or strength. when it is said that we are born again by the power of God. It really should be translated the authority of God.

When we are filled with the Holy Spirit we have this power of God within us.

The translation problem is very apparent when you read

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

If you read this verse with infirmities, then it seems that the power of Christ can only reside in you if you are sick. That doesn’t make sense. If you use the other definition of weakness, then the power of Christ resting on the person will give them the power to be able to deal with the problems in life.

If you don’t believe in the healing power of God, then the power of Christ resting on you would be only power to endure sickness. God is greater than any problem, any sickness that we have, God would be able to heal our sickness if we linked our belief with His truths.

Now some people do very well in spite of their infirmities, for example Tada, and she does serve God in this way.

Pastor Don said to believe the word of God, even in areas where we do not believe it is possible to work. That God will meet us at the point of faith. And the more we can stretch our faith the more we can believe God for. Now this is not to condemn a person who cannot stretch their faith to a particular point, but the more the foundation of faith and trust is built up, the more God can work in our lives to meet our faith.

In verse 10, to take pleasure in our infirmities, seems to say, if you translate infirmities into sickness, that Christ is the author of our sickness, and that is not the truth.

We were then directed back to carefully read verse 7, and it was pointed out that the experience of the visions Paul saw opened up the door for pride, which is a sin. If we sin, then we leave a door open for the demonic to enter in. So if we are not in balance, it is important to examine our lives and see where we have left the door open, and keep seeking until we can ask forgiveness from God, and shut that door to satan.

If the Spirit man in us convicts us of a point and we deliberately disobey or ignore its promptings, then we are sinning, and that leaves us open to satan. If something does not give us peace, it is a good indication that it is not of God.

We were asked what the thorn in the flesh is.  it says: a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.

If you just look at those few words you see that the thorn in the flesh is a messenger of satan to buffet Paul.

In Verse 8, Paul said that he plead with God three times to remove the thorn.  The erroneous assumption is that Paul had a physical illness that God refused to heal.

and it makes God seem so cruel when he says in verse 9, “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Often the word grace is translated as mercy, it is 5485 in Strongs, which is charis, the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in life; includes gratitude, acceptable benefit, favor, gift, grace, joy, liberty, pleasure, thanks.

It is not just mercy, but also the gifts and benefits that come from God. God is not just giving his merciful presence, but also His power to deal with the situation.

Paul wrote about his travels, and what he experienced in his missionary journeys in 2 Tim 3:10-11, But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perservence, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra–what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me.”

He did not deliver Paul out of SOME of them but out of ALL of them. And in this list of what he faced, he does not mention sickness. Being the thorough sort that Paul was, if there was sickness, he would have mentioned it. The only weakness that Paul ever mentions is a need for help with seeing as he got older in years. And people even mis-interpret that to mean that Paul had an eye infection and that was the thorn in the flesh. But if that was what the thorn was, Paul would have said that, but all Paul said was that it was a messenger from satan to buffet him.

Most of the body of Christ has bought the false teaching that my grace is sufficient for you is only how much God will get glory by your suffering.

Pastor Don also told us that his father (also a pastor) said that it was not God’s job to get the devil out of your life. He gave us the power to get satan out of our lives, and we must get satan out of our lives. God gave us the tools and the power, we must put them to use.

Regarding the reading and translation of the word grace, Pastor Don referred us to John 1: 16-17 And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ.

If we put in the words that most people assume grace means, unmerited favor into the above passage it doesn’t make sense. And of His fullness we have all received unmerited favor for unmerited favor.  Grace has an implication of power and strength with it that comes from God.

Nothing is too hard for God, but our faith is limited.

Pastor Don pointed out that in India, the Spirit of God worked through him to allow many healings of the natives. But one child was brought to him that seemed so deformed that Pastor Don did not have the faith to believe that the laying on of hands on that child would be able to do much good. Later in prayer, God pointed out to Pastor Don that nothing was impossible for God, and Pastor Don was convicted to pray that never again would he limit himself by the logic of what he saw in his senses regarding what God could do or not do.

We limit God by the limits of our faith.

Then Pastor Don went on to answer another question, which I will share tomorrow.

I took lots of notes to try and explain this clearly. If I messed up on a point, it is my poor note taking, not Pastor Don.

Hope your weekend is awesome.

Heather

 

   

Due to a boy scout meeting I could not make Tuesday Bible study, so have to wait until my husband downloads the tape onto the computer before I can share the lesson, so in the mean time I will share a bit of a book I have been reading called The Hidden Price of Greatness: Encouragement from the lives of well-known Christians whose suffering produced spiritual growth by Ray Beeson an Ranelda Mack Hunsicker

It has been interesting viewing the lives of such notables as St. Augustine, Samuel Wesley, Francis Schaeffer, Alexander Cruden, Blaise Pascal, Helen Roseveare, etc.

What makes the book good is that they also give the spiritual principles that the people used to begin to remake their lives after difficult situations.

No surprise to those who know me, the life that impacted me the most was Helen Roseveare, who was raped by Congolese soldiers. She was a medical missionary, and ultimately was put into a local prison where she gave comfort to a nun who also was raped.

A few quotes that spoke to me,  “Unless we find our sense of security and well-being in the presence of a loving heavenly Father, we will succumb to either panic, rage, or denial.” p. 64

Also on p. 64 “Suffering is not from God, but he doesn’t avoid it either. One of the most healing truths a victim can learn is that God in Christ fully identified with human pain…..take Jesus out of teh stained glass window and put him back where he rightfully belongs in the midst of our agony.”

p. 65 “For all victims, God is either closer or farther away.”

p. 66 “The ‘Why me, God’ can turn into a bitter attack on his faithfulness or more frequently, a merciless campaign of self-accusation. In helping her understand the why of her attack, God brought her thoughts back to Jesus…Every act of evil we endure is really an act of rebellion against the light and love of Christ.”

 

Oh my rationalizing mind. sigh. The horror this woman faced in the face of doing only good for the people is hard to perceive. Yet she held onto her faith in the midst of that, and her faith helped to pull her through.

Contrast that to myself, who did not know God at the time of my attack, who had no faith, no church, no nothing to lean on, facing the abuse alone, and calling out to a God who I heard about through a few comments on the radio and TV. Harder to build faith in that situation.

Does it sometimes seem to you that God builds obstacles that are incredibly difficult, hoops to jump through that are far beyond what one can attain? His lack of intervening still puzzles me, and it is hard to put down those questions and cling by blind faith to God who seems to have let one down so terribly.

Sorry for these late night ramblings.