November 10, 2006

• Don’t fall asleep at the wheel Part 2 by Pastor Don

  I enjoyed last night at our Girl Scout lock in at the skating rink but did not get a lot of sleep. The girls had fun, some skating until 3:30 in the morning. Besides roller skating, the other activity they thoroughly enjoyed was sitting on sleeping bags and sliding down the ramps in the skateboard park attached to the skating rink.

  On Wednesday, Pastor Don was talking about discernment, and how we need to know what voice we are hearing in or minds, is it the flesh, the Spirit, or the Lord? When we know the source, then we know what to believe and to reject. In order to do this we have to have honesty and awareness as who is in operation. In the Body of Christ we accept the whole person, but some people want you to validate their emotional constitution as real, or want us to accept, “That’s just the way I am.” or to accept that what they think in their carnal nature is true. That is not what we are to do in the Body of Christ. We have to discern when people are thinking in the carnal nature, and separate that from the truth. Sometimes prayers prayed in church are prayers of the flesh, prayers of performance, prayers of attention getting, prayers of emotional nature, prayers of gossip. Paul says that we have to discern what is in operation.

  Sometimes we can see a pastor on tv or in church start preaching – they start out with a physical agenda, but we can tell when the Holy Spirit takes over, and sometimes (not always) the agenda gets set aside so that the person speaks what the Holy Spirit is telling them to say. We can tell when a service ceases from being flesh centered and turns toward the Spirit.

  We have to know what lines up with the Word of God, and what doesn’t. In the last days, we are going to see the church get more out of balance. Pastor Don pointed out that when he has guest speakers at our church he makes sure he draws from the pool of the five fold ministry, Ephesians 4:11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. If a church only focuses on prophesy, or on evangelism, the church gets out of balance. God wants all of the five fold ministry to be in the church. (In fact, in discipleship class, Pastor Don points out that if you are the pastor of a church and you do not function in a particular area of the fivefold ministry, then you need to find someone who is so that the body of Christ is fed a balanced diet.)

  2 Corinthians 10:2-6 But I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

  Notice that it mentions walking – we are to be a walker, not accepting people according to the flesh, but walking in the way God wants us to walk. We need to repent from our carnal nature, making a 180 degree turn around. Sometimes we forgive in the flesh (in our head) but do not feel it in our hearts. In a pragmatic example, if you treat me bad in the flesh, I do not ignore that I was treated badly, but I choose not to react in kind. We need to know that the battle is not in the physical, but in the spiritual realm.

  With the person hurts us we need to see who is speaking or acting in the person who hurts us. For example, with a person who is nice in the morning, but after lunch comes back nasty, and with a strong scent of marijuana on their person. You know that it is the spirit of addiction that is controlling that person, and speaking to them in the flesh won’t do as much good as binding the spirit of addiction in that person, but without a covenant relationship, you cannot bind totally, but you can prevent it from interfering in your work place.We have the authority to bind and loose on the earth, but it has to be in accordance with a covenant relationship.

   Jesus was aware of the the spirit within him and who was in operation. During a walk through a city the woman with an issue of blood came and touched His hem. He was thinking about the crowd, the people around Him, etc, but when she touched Him, His Spirit knew that virtue had passed from Him, so He asked, ”Who touched me.” Jesus was saying, who linked their spirit with my spirit for I felt virtue going out of me. The woman then confessed, and Jesus healed her. It was her faith in the spirit reaching to Jesus’s Spirit.

  Not everyone believes Malachi 4:2…The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings.”

  We are not to just look for signs and wonders, God wants us to participate, to see what needs to be done and walk it out.

  Pastor Don pointed out that everyone who is born again isn’t born again in every area of their lives, there are strongholds that still need to die to the flesh. We need to learn to trust God so that we know that we can give it to God help us handle it. If we do not keep discerning what areas are weak in our lives, we will end up leaving ourselves open in those areas that satan can come in and influence. Satan wants to bring people down, like Haggert, for then satan casts doubt on the whole body of Christ. When God trusts us, we need to make sure that we stay in line with His word, and that our actions are according to His word.

  Pastor Don pointed out that one verse makes him sad, when Jesus asks, “In the last days, will I find faith in the earth?”

  We have to watch our words and our thoughts because the more we focus on things that are not of God, the more real they come, until the day that we believe the lie. Prophesy is only a prophetic possibility, some unattainable goal, but we won’t reach the prophesy unless we believe it.

  The conversation turned to intercessors and how if someone is an intercessor it is usually and undercover sort of thing, if someone comes up to you and gives you a song and dance about how they are interceding for you, they are probably not intercessors – a simple, “I’m praying for you” is enough. An intercessor is not always an outwardly rewarding task, for often God will have you pray for people you won’t meet in the flesh. You lift up people that God tells you to pray for. You are kind of a secret agent against the kingdom of darkness.

  Sometimes when someone speaks a word of prophesy over you, you get caught up in the lust of the flesh, especially if the message is one that is particularly ego gratifying. A true prophesy is a Word spoken about something you are waiting in hope and faith for. The word of prophesy needs to line up with God’s word, with what God has already spoken about your situation. Usually a true word of prophesy is something you already know in your Spirit, and God sends a confirmation. But you have to be careful not to lay out fleeces which can be imitated by satan. And we also need to realize that it is a word in season, that sometimes there is a significant period of time between the spoken word of prophesy and its fulfillment. For God will fulfill it at the right time.

  Sometimes satan will bring someone into your life to speak a word of prophesy that puffs up your ego to pull you off track from the perfect will of God in your life. Anything that keeps you from fulfilling your plan from God is not a true word of prophesy.

  Satan had a plan to kill Living Word Chapel. Pastor Don had a word from God that he would be a pastor of a church, but at the time, Pastor Don was youth minister and did a Bible study under a pastor of the Living Word Chapel. At some conference, a woman came up to him with a “word from God.” She told him that he was to pastor a church and should leave Living Word Chapel and start his own church immediately. Pastor Don thanked her and filed it away in his mind, later discussing it with his wife. She told him that she did not feel comfortable with this woman’s prophesy, so Pastor Don tabled it and kept seeking God. He too came away with a feeling that that was not the time to do this, so he stayed at Living Word Chapel. As time went by, the pastor moved away and Pastor Don was appointed pastor, and I and many others are certainly glad for that!

  But Pastor Don pointed out to us that just because a word of prophesy is spoken over us, it does not mean that we accept it as true, or that we act immediately on the word of prophesy. We need to seek God before any move in our lives, to make sure it is His Perfect Will for our lives. If we don’t we may end up on a sidetrack and not be working as effectively for God’s Kingdom, even if what we are doing is “good” works. If God isn’t in it, it is not as effective.

  Don’t forget that satan is wandering to and fro listening to us, and his time is short on this earth. He hears our words, and sees our actions and can discern what is most appealing to us, and can use that through a false word of knowledge to pull us off track.

  Matthew 12:22 Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw.

  Pastor Don asked us why this man wasn’t healed on his faith. I mentioned that it was because he could not hear and faith comes by hearing. I was wrong, I assumed incorrectly that if a person was mute that meant they couldn’t hear, but that is not necessarily so. One of our members works with children with speech problems and she pointed out that with mute people, some can’t speak, others have an inability to form words, others are tongue tied, others speak at home, but not in school, some have selective mutism.

  He had to be brought to Christ for healing, someone had to bring him to Christ.

  Matthew 12:23-24 And all the multitudes were amazed and said, “Could this be the Son of David? Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, “This fellow does not cast out demons except by beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.”

  They assumed that satan could cast out satan, but this doesn’t happen. Satan’s kingdom is not that powerful that he would do that.

  Matthew 12:25-26 But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them; “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If satan casts out satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

  Jesus knows their wrong thinking about the spiritual realm, realizing it was argumentative but nonsense –the devil reproduces what God did on a kingdom basis, and sets himself up as ruler, and he rules and reigns. His kingdom is in a state of constant rebelion, so when we feel beset by the devil one of the most effective prayers is to pray confusion in the enemy’s camp. There are Biblical precedents for that, Giddeon where the enemy fought itself is an example.

  Satan’s plan is to thwart God in the brief time remaining, seeking whom he can devour and destroy, to bring death.

  So often when we are in a spiritual battle, we end up dropping the sword of the Word of God. Our strongest weapon is to stand on the truth of God. Because of his limited time on earth, satan is looking for the weakest person to pull astray. He is not seeking to divide his kingdom, but to pull more people down to his kingdom. If satan can get us to react in a situation with fear, then he can cause a circumstance to enlarge in our lives.

  Pastor Don pointed out that if a ghost were in the room (not that there are ghosts), but if there were it could pass through all the people in the room. If a person said to themselves, “I feel a ghost,” than that evil spirit could clamp onto that thought, and increase the feelings, until there is a tangible presence. We need to watch what we focus on in our thought life, for our thoughts often become words. The sooner we can stop a wrong thought, the better, for then we will not act it into manifestation.

  Matthew 12: 26-27 If satan casts out satan, he is divided against himself, How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?Therefore they shall be your judges.

  The Bible speaks strongly about not seeking out soothsayers, witches, etc. Remember Saul went to the witch of Endor, who brought up either Samuel or a familiar spirit, so Saul violated God’s law. The devil does not intersect with what God has in our lives, if it is not God, then don’t let the devil draw you away from God’s will.

  Matthew 12:28-30 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.

  Jesus points out that since He is of God’s kingdom, if He casts out a satan, it is to show that God’s kingdom is here on earth. If one wants to plunder a strong man, the man has to be bound. When we refuse to believe God’s word, we allow satan to bind us, and then satan can affect our lives. Only if we are with Jesus, only if His words are in our mouths, are we able to defeat the enemy, if not, we become divided and scattered and chaotic.

  We, when we are saved, have a clean house – temple (body). Remember that when Jesus cast out the demons, he told the man to be careful because if there is an opening, satan will come back and bring many others demons. When we are washed by the Word of God, we have to keep our minds clear of thoughts and feelings and actions that are not of God. We need to discern if something is from us or from the pit of hell. We cannot afford to fall asleep at the wheel.

  Hope you have a wonderful Sunday!

  Heather

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