2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us.

Isn’t that powerful? These verses sneak up on you. Today the church has faith for salvation. But that belief in salvation poses a problem. It takes great faith to believe that when you die, your spirit lives, you ascend into the clouds and live eternally with Him. If you can believe that, how can you believe that the sickness that prevails over you, financial problems that beset you are beyond God’s dominion? It is a spiritual warfare of the mind to hold to the promise of salvation and not believe that God has given us power and dominion on the earth.

Pastor Don once jumped out of a bulldozer and onto a huge nail. He pulled the nail out of his foot and went on working the construction job he was working. The puncture wound got so infected that doctors were telling him that he would lose the foot. Pastor Don stayed up all night praying, praying in the spirit, quoting scriptures. He put a point of contact on his healing, that when the nurse removed the covers from his foot it would be a healthy color and healing. He could not believe that God, who granted him salvation, would leave his wife and three sons without a father. So he prayed, did not let visitors come in to cast doubt, and prayed without ceasing so that there was no room for doubt to enter in. Satan tries to sneak in the cracks and crevices of our doubt and unbelief. If he can’t find a crack to sneak into, he sends people into our lives to speak words of doubt and unbelief. He trusted in God, and did not look at his foot, just believed. When the nurse came in, and removed the cover, the foot was healed.

We need to realize that the degree of difficulty in our circumstances is a thing of our minds. There is no degree of difficulty for God. Jesus cursed the fig tree, he healed a paraplegic – in fact Jesus was more concerned about the man’s sin than his ability to walk, he even healed a death/mute who could not hear the words to build up faith, but was healed by Jesus.

Jesus tells us that if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed nothing is impossible for you. He talked with his disciples regarding why they could not cast out the demon from the boy.

Matthew 17:20 So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief, for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain ‘Move from here to there, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for  you.’”

Jesus told us to have faith like a mustard seed so we have to examine the properties of mustard seeds. Mustard seeds were the smallest seeds known to the people in Jesus’ time, and they are an incredibly good choice of example. Mustard seeds cannot be hybrid with other seeds, so they are incorruptible. They can’t be mixed with other seeds. We cannot mix doubt with faith. They grow into a huge bush that allows birds to nest in them. Pastor Don spent some time talking about gardening, how the soil is prepared. How you can’t plant 40 seeds in one spot for they will choke each other out, and how you have to separate the seedlings to give room to grow. He our current mental assumptions about things does not fit this picture of faith as a mustard seed.

We think it takes more faith to heal cancer than to heal a headache.
We often talk about catching a cold and thus get a cold instead of having faith to believe for healing for the common cold.
We think that the bigger the problem, the more faith we have to have. The truth is, all we need is that mustard seed of faith, for God is bigger than any of our problems and our biggest problems are no problem for God.

For God (Jesus) walking on water is no different than walking in the woods.
Tuberculosis is no bigger problem than a bad haircut.
One blind eye is not harder than two blind eyes for God.

You need NO EXCUSE faith. We so often make an excuse for why we have gotten sick or why we can’t be made well.

Jesus got upset with His disciples for their lack of faith. In the boat he cautioned the disciples not to have the leaven of the Pharisees. The disciples took that to mean that they did not bring bread, and that Jesus was upset at the lack of provision. Jesus was not concerned about that, and the disciples should have known better, they had just seen Jesus feed 5,000 (which with women and children was probably more than 15,000).  By the way, this parable also points out that Jesus was not concerned with finances, they had enough money. The disciples were calculating how much money it would take to feed the crowds, so we know that they had finances with them.

Jesus was teaching His disciples to operate in faith, it isn’t faith if we can do it under our own power in the natural. Operating out of your substance is not faith, faith involves having a supernatural God intervene in our lives. Most faith situations allow us a greater relationship with God, and that is God’s desire for us – relationship. We have to realize that regarding our circumstances, God is God and we are not God.

We need a mustard seed’s worth of faith. We cannot be in doubt and unbelief and have faith. Faith has a specificity to it. Jesus has all faith in all areas. We don’t have all faith. We might have financial faith, or healing a cut faith, but not have growing a leg longer faith. Some have faith for prophesy and healings, others have faith that they can have a word of wisdom for people.

Spiritual warfare occurs in categories, you are an overcomer in some areas of life, and in other areas your faith is not as strong. You may not have get a job faith, marriage faith.

Some may have faith for salvation, but not for signs and wonders. Jesus got believers when he used signs and wonders. Today people want to preach a good sermon, devoid of signs and wonders, and hope to draw people in. Signs and wonders can give a person the faith to believe for salvation.

Many want to make excuses and cop out because they don’t have the faith for a situation. Regarding the walking on water, Peter did fine – he had faith for walking on water, but not faith for walking on water in a terrible, demonic storm. He took his focus off of Jesus and sunk. If Jesus wanted to have Peter walk on water again, he could have taken him some place where there would not be wind and waves and Peter would have succeeded, for he would not have taken his attention away from Jesus.

The devil can beat us by introducing fear into a situation that we are having faith for. It could be fear of failure, fear of not healing this time. You could have a problem that seems to never be solved. The way out is to grow our faith. How do we grow our faith?

Fear and faith cannot inhabit the same space. Fear shuts down faith. You can have faith for a specific thing such as, if I take two aspirins, my headache will go away, but not have faith for laying on hands to cure a headache.

You need to make an application of the Word of God to your situation so that you can specifically believe I WIN in that particular area.

Pastor Don mentioned the placebo effect during the war, where the doctors who were helping the injured ran out of morphine. The patients were in great pain, and in desperation the doctors started injecting the patients with water, and 80% of the patients had relief from pain. It wasn’t the medicine, it was the power of their faith in the injection relieving pain.

Prayer helps to build faith too.

Julie, one of our members mentioned something else about the mustard see, she said, Matthew 17:20 says it is “faith AS a mustard seed.” She say that a mustard seed doesn’t think it isn’t a mustard seed, it isn’t affected by the world’s view of whether or not it is a mustard seed, It doesn’t say that it doesn’t deserve dirt, that it doesn’t deserve life. It is just what it is – a mustard seed.

Pastor Don said that if we can get a hold on faith it can change our life. Faith is believing that it is, that it is faith, that I KNOW that I know, that I know. It is not hoping, wishing, or even believing. Believing is the process that leads to faith.

When you say, “I believe it,” you are giving mental assent or placing your faith in it. Pastor Don said, “I believe I am here teaching this Bible study.” He then pointed out that it doesn’t take faith to believe that. You can’t get faith by deductive reasoning.We reason about what we don’t know, but that doesn’t help to lead to faith in all circumstances. Our desire for information doesn’t necessarily build our faith. Our faith is specific to situations. Still you can’t make people have faith by what you do, by how many examples you share with them. Some people are addicted and believe for deliverance (that is not faith), when they start believing they ARE delivered (then faith kicks in), for they cannot get delivered on their own power, faith requires God’s help.

Katherine Kuhlman had heart disease. The Holy Spirit told her to slow down on meetings and she would live longer. She tried to do that, but found that she did not want to follow what the Holy Spirit told her, so she went back to her original schedule. Se ended up dying earlier. She could heal others, but did not heal herself. We cannot act in faith if we do not listen to the Holy Spirit or follow His directions for our life.

2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us.

God isn’t waiting to heal us when we call on Him, He is waiting for us to claim the healing that He already provided for us by Jesus’ stripes we are healed. We need to go get our healing. In verse 9, God raises the dead, do we believe or not believe. Do we show the fruit of believing in our lives. In verse 10 the verbs are the past tense – delivered us. And the present tense, does deliver, and future tense will still deliver.

Our battle is not to get more faith, but to kill doubt. When we worry, fret, or disbelieve it kills faith. Faith comes by hearing, and Hearing by the Word of God.

There is supernatural hearing and natural healing.

The whole key is to ABIDE. To abide in the Word of God, to a supernatural ability of the Word to plant that mustard seed of faith in you. Each of us is given a measure of faith from God, and we have to decide to use that faith.

The apostles saw Jesus multiply food, heal the sick, cast out demons, and they did some of this themselves. Yet, they still did not have faith for other areas, and Jesus was constantly marveling at their lack of faith.

The first time you see a person healed you have a choice, believe or disbelieve (rationalize the healing). If you have received a healing touch you have a choice, to go for it and believe, or to disbelieve and let doubt come in and take away your healing. That is why, after the major healing services, only a small percentage maintain their healing. They lose their confession of faith, and start letting the doubting thoughts come in. In each of our situations there is that moment, that opportunity to STOP UNBELIEVING. Why would we doubt what Jesus said? That is a willful denial of God’s Power on earth. We do have the free will to have doubt and unbelief.

When you act in faith and receive by faith, other people are blessed. It helps the gift of evangelism. When we act in faith, we have a peace about us. Of course then satan will want to destroy that peace, so we have to stand strong in our confession of faith. I choose to believe. We can choose to be near to the fire of God, or to stay on the fringes of unbelief. We can’t do effective spiritual warfare when doubt and unbelief are present.

We have to decided: Do I believe the Gospel? In an instant for a situation we have to make a decision. Do we want to decide to accept and practice what the Father teaches? Fear will sap our strength, We need to call up the power of the Holy Ghost to build our faith.

When we want to prove something is true it takes two witnesses according to the Bible. In John 8 we see that Jesus provides us with two witnesses for his statements of faith.

John 8:13-18 The Pharisees therefore said to Him, “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.” Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from and where I am going. You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. And yet, if I do judge, My judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me. It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.”

Jesus had two other witnesses, God and the Holy Spirit.

What happens if you call upon the Lord, but your faith is weak? We pray like that father of the demoniac son says, “Lord I believe, Help my unbelief.” When we pray, we link up with the Holy Spirit and God and Jesus, and their faith helps to build our faith.  I believe, help my unbelief isn’t pure mustard seed faith, but it is honest and God can work with this honesty. Remember, the Bible says that were two or more are gathered, Jesus is in their midst. So when we pray and the Holy Spirit intercedes with us, Jesus is in our midst. Jesus shows up.

We need a  WILLINGNESS TO COMMIT TO BELIEVE.

In Acts, Paul is preaching and a demon possessed girl is speaking actual truth. At first Paul does not react, maybe even welcomes her input which is stating truth, but the source of the truth is not from God. After a point, Paul gets annoyed with her and casts out the demon.

Acts 16:16 Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.”

She did this for many days, but no one did anything about the demons in this girl.

Verse 18: And this she did for many days. But Paul greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour.

Notice, Paul did not speak to the Girl, he spoke to the spirit in the girls.There is no clean deliverance without the power of the Holy Spirit on the vessel that satan is using. Demons cannot stand when we praise Jesus.

When the demons started talking about Jesus, Jesus told them to shut up. God is very particular about who gives Him praise and worship. We have to be linked to the timing, opportunity and instructions of the Holy Spirit to guide us when to act or not act.

When Paul was being brought to Jerusalem in a ship, the ship sunk and the people on the boat were saved, all swam toward an island (Malta).

Acts 28:1-3 Now when they had escaped, they then found out that the island was called Malta. And the natives showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and made us all welcome, because of the rain that was falling and because of the cold. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of stick and laid them on the fire a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

This is an important lesson for all believers. Paul, by virtue of who he was, could have sat back and waited for others to serve him, for others to build the fire, but that was not what Paul did, he acted as a servant, and helped out. During this he was bit by a poisonous snake, a viper. (Remember that satan, doubt and unbelief, are poisonous vipers that come into our life and mess with our faith.)

Acts 28:4 So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another. “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea,m yet justice does not allow to live.

We have to be careful about the assumptions we make about other people and their situations. Just because, in our own understanding, things look bad for them, we don’t know what it is that God is doing in their situation. God may be having it go on so that those around them can readjust their thinking, or God may be using the situation to build a person’s faith or get them to readjust something they are doing.

Acts 28:5 But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.

Pastor Don pointed out that we have to have SHAKE OFF FAITH. Demons can’t stand it when they cause us trouble and we just shake it off. When a situation begins to bother us, shake it off. When we have doubts and unbelief, shake it off. Any suggestions that are not of God we need to shake off. The only things we take seriously are what God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit tells us.

So shake off doubt and unbelief.

Have a blessed day.

Heather

I just wanted to share how God blessed me today. We finished up the Beth Moore Bible study, Living Beyond Yourself, and ended it with a pot luck soup and salad lunch. During this time we were allowed to share what God has done in our lives during the study. I was able to point out that this group of women has been an incredible source of spiritual blessings for me. When I walked through those doors three years ago I was still a mess, hating God and struggling so with a lot of questions. Between them and Pastor Don, I started to begin to learn what it meant to be loved by God, and to walk in faith. Beth Moore studies are a great catalyst to growth. One of the women got up and started crying, for she remembered when I first came to the group, and what a testimony it was that God had done so much in my life. God really gets the glory, for He truly did what His word says, to restore what the locusts ate. But I have also seen a tremendous work of God in all of the women that are in this group. We do not meet over the hard part of winter for snow days would make schedules impossible, so in March we will be doing the Daniel study. I cannot wait.

What is so neat about this group of women is that they are from several area churches and different denominations. This adds such a blessing to our groups, for the perspectives that are brought into the discussions add depth. How wonderful that there isn’t division, just a love of God in the group.

I finished reading the Jarrett Stevens book, “The Deity Formerly Known As God.”

The second half starts describing God as He is, not as we perceive Him with our baggage from the Past.

The first has to do with the Parable that Jesus spoke about the neighbor who needed bread for his guests and knocked on the neighbor’s door until the neighbor came and gave him bread. That God is this “Late-Night Neighbor”, every ready to help us when we call upon Him.

pp 102 “To know this God is to know that he is good. He is incomprehensibly good. Good beyond reason. Good beyond measure. Good beyond words. Good beyond what we deserve. And yet, maybe, for you, embracing the goodness of God proves to be more difficult than accepting the reality of the very existence of God”

P. 102 “A God who may not always give us what we want, but who will always give us what we need.”

I had problems years ago with statements like the last one, because I would ask, who needs abuse, who needs pain and suffering….It took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t God who did those things to me, but our enemy who was seeking to drive a wedge between me and God and used pain and suffering to do it. God does not want that for us, and He is there with us in the midst of it. And He will take it and turn it around into something that is good, but we have to give Him a chance to do that.

p. 103 “Because of who he is. Because of His great love. Because of what He has done. Because of what He promised He will do. Because of what the Bible tells us to be true. Because of all of this, you can come…even at midnight… and ask.”

Then Stevens mentions “The Lord of the Boardroom”  He talks about the Trump reality show, and how the people worked themselves to gain acceptance and approval. And how we sometimes come to God figuring that we have to do enough, be enough, and then He will accept us, not fire us. And that in reality, He accepts us just as we are, as we were, and as we will be. He loves us, not for what we do, but because of who He is. p. 116 “This is the moral of our story, that in a world filled with pain and fear and confusion, there is a God who is more good, more generous, and more full of grace than we could possible imagine. And as wildly as he offers himself to us, so should we offer ourselves to him, no longer living in the risk-free distance of all our assumptions., but up close and personal, so we can see just how good and generous this King truly is.

Then the “Green-thumbed Gardener”, who started out His gardening planting Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This relates to the parable of Jesus, I am the vine, ye are the branches, and the Father is the gardener who prunes the dead branches off so that the vine bears much fruit. Stevens mentions that God cannot garden at a distance, it is totally hands-on.

P. 125 “Our job couldn’t be any simpler; All we have to do is stay. It’s amazing how I struggle and strive and stray when all I’ve ever been asked to do is stay. The promise is clear–stay with me, connect to me, drawing your life from me, and you will not only grow, but you will bear fruit. You are supposed to bear fruit. You were created to grow and bear fruit. You have something of worth and wonder to give to this world. You are not supposed to be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow—that’s God’s job. Your job is to grow and give yourself the life that has been given to you.”

P 125-126 “Connectedness starves our selfishness. Our self will and determination will always believe that we are better on our own, away from the confines of the garden, free from the hand of the gardener. Our self-centeredness will always convince us that it is all about us. Instead of offering the fruit of our lies to the world, we will take whatever we think we need from whomever we think we can get it. Left to ourselves, we will break off from the vine, inch away from the gardener, and go outside the garden…where we will die.”

This is very poignant, and so true. When I think of how I thought that it was all about me, that I was god, that I was in control of my universe, and in reality I was slowly dying and spiritually dry. How glad I am that God pursued me.

I am going to save the best chapter for tomorrow, the shepherd. Just thinking about Jesus, our Shepherd brings tears to my eyes.

Hoping you have a blessed day.

Heather

Got to go into the school today to help out in the 7th grade sewing class, something I do twice a year. I get to work with the kids who need a bit of extra help getting organized and getting the work done. It is a blessing for them, and I get to give them a few kind words and show them some of God’s love. Every semester there are usually one are two kids who touch my heartstrings. I only had one hour with each class so far, so I am praying that God brings to me the ones He wants to touch as time goes by.

I am surprised, although I wonder if it is a sign of the times, to see how many kids are struggling in school, how many are hurting, and how many have given up on themselves. I remember the teachers who spoke a kind word in my direction when I was hurting, and how I cherished those few kind words, and I pray that God gives me kind words for these kids. I don’t just focus on school work but try to find something positive about each one that I work with. So today I marveled at a young football player, someone’s drawing on a notebook, or a particularly artistic rendition of one of the assignments. These kids are so hungry for affirmation. So I would love prayers for the kids, in fact for any kids in schools today. School today is nothing like when I was in school, I cannot even imagine how many challenges kids face today that weren’t even thought of when I was a kid.

The other thing I could use prayer for is a spirit of depression that I have been reminding that it has no power over me. I suppose it is a lot of stressors that I have been worrying about (and I know that God is not pleased with worry), things I need to turn over to Him. So I could use prayer that this time when I turn it over to Him, I don’t grab them back.

That being said, I realize that it is time to remind myself of who I am in Christ. Pastor Don gave out this list awhile ago, and it is so good, that I am bringing it forward and sharing.

WHO AM I IN CHRIST?

Still reading The Deity Formerly Known as God by Jarrett Stevens.

This book is touching a lot of chords in me. I had discussed a few images of God from the book in a previous post. The next chapter is “Talent Show Judge.” Here is a quote that I can relate to: p. 54 “For as long as there have been people with even the slightest shred of dignity, there have been people who are there to tear them apart. It’s inevitable, almost Darwinian.”

What saddens me is that this kind of behavior isn’t only in the unsaved world, but it is so apparent even in Churches today. People seem to want to tear down another person. There is denominationalism, there is a suggestion that my spirituality is better than your spirituality. It isn’t true discipleship if a person walks away from an encounter feeling that they have failed in their relationship with God, that a relationship isn’t attainable for whatever reason. That there are so many rules that a person can’t keep them all. A true shepherd walks alongside or slightly in front of the sheep, and guides them with love one step at a time.

Jarrett Stevens continues to describe endless attempts of trying to impress and please a distant and difficult to please God. Feeling rejected, learning cues, doing things but they are never good enough. Living with the sense that God wants more, and more and more and more. Churches will also pull on people’s desire to work to please God, and volunteers are soon burnt out with too much on their plates.

Listen to this passage, p. 60 “And yet I sometimes wonder that if God were to tell them, “Well done,” whether they would even recognize his still, small voice. For while they did more for God than most, it seemed as though they knew him less and less. Religion for God had ellipsed relationship with God until their inner lives were lost to their outer lives.”….”The strong, sturdy shell of godliness without its gentle growing grace. Somewhere along the way they substituted activity for intimacy, and the rest is history.”

I sometimes catch myself doing this. Given my past, I learned that it was what you did that preserved your life. And I felt that if I tiptoed around God’s kingdom, didn’t draw too  much attention to myself, and did a lot of service, maybe, just maybe God wouldn’t kick me out of His kingdom. I felt sure that He would realize how horrible a mistake He had made in accepting me for salvation. I know that this is not true now, but there was a period of time when I feared attracting God’s notice.

Jarrett continues, p. 63″Without realizing it, we have carelessly created for ourselves a God whom we can never please….No one wants to admit we don’t know what to do when it comes to God, so we begin to do anything and everything we think he might want…..There is always more. And over time, the more you cease to sense God’s inexplicable delight in you, the more your life begins to resemble a sad series of talent show auditions, ever hoping to impress or earn what was already offered to you.”

I have to tell you that one sermon that really impacted me pointed out that nothing I could do now, nothing I did in the past, and nothing that I can do in the future will cause God to love me any less. This God is so incredible to me, that agape love thing blows my mind at times. I cannot conceive it, and at times even fear it. Yet I yearn for that kind of love, only to push it away in fear. Oh what a complex mess we can get ourselves into.

Jarrett then says p. 64 “He is in fact the one (sometimes the only one) cheering us on. For some this is far more shocking than the God of More….His cheers ring out not for our flawless performances, but for our sheer existence. He loves us and delights in us not because of what we do for him, but because of who we are to him. It is from this place of love and acceptance that I long to serve God, not the other way around.”

Heather says a hearty AMEN to that.

Then Jarrett talks about the All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. I have a few subscribers that fit that bill completely, and it saddens me. I lived at this buffet table for so many years when I was in the new age and occult, the idea that you can take the best of many religions and leave the rest behind.

Jarrett begins by talking about how 90 percent of Americans believe in God, but what God do they believe in. He then points out that some believe in a God that takes on a vague form of nothingness, resembling an idea more than a person. Others see God as an “everythingness” a catchall for divine assumptions.  He points out that our culture is inundated with options, and we try to customize our God.

pp.70-71 “…that it’s possible to spend your whole life filling your plate with your favorite parts about God, while your soul slowly starves from divine malnourishment. This smorgasbord of spirituality is how so many people like their God–a buffet, a hodgepodge, a veritable cornucopia of all the things we like in a deity, and none of the things we don’t. A plate overflowing with all the best parts. A God who encompasses the grace of Christianity, with the meditation practices of Eastern religions, with a dash of Catholic ritual, and a smidge of “health and wealth” to top it all off. Incongruity is no issue so long as you don’t think about it for too long.”

The problem is that you end up with nothing. There is no way that you can successfully combine two opposite religions – God who tells us there is only one God and He is it with say, Hinduism who has so many gods to worship and appease.

Jarrett continues, p. 74 “Could it be that in your desire to pick the best parts of everything, you have been left with the very worst part of nothingness?….Real faith comes from releasing control and choosing the whole of God instead of fabricating a God of your favorite parts. God is inseparably whole.”

The last type is “Your Parents, Supersized.” Jarrett seems to have had an ok childhood, but what is interesting to me is that even with a childhood I might have envied, he still had problems dealing with God due to impressions made by his parents. I remember Bruno Bettelheim wrote a book once called A good enough parent and his conclusion was that no one is a perfect parent. When I read that, I vowed to be that perfect parent. I failed that vow, and as I read this chapter about your parents, supersized, I said a prayer to God that if there was anything that I said or did to hurt my kids’ perception of God, I wanted God to intervene and heal that breach.

I grew up in a home filled with abuse and for many years having someone say, “Father God” would send chills up my spine. I did not want a father God, for I could only view him as brutal as my earthly father. Even to today, strong forceful people who talk loud can still send me cowering. I have a hard time with intensity. But God is healing that slowly. I now can handle “father God” but tend to still be a bit tentative about calling Him that myself. There are still areas that need healing in that regard.

Jarrett says on p. 77 “Good or bad, like it or not, the bottom line is that there is no more powerful force in the universe that shapes your perception of and experience with God outside of your parents.”

Then the book changes and the next few chapters will be accurate pictures of God, but the chapter that transitions is called “Show and Tell.”

P.87 “‘Jesus wrecks everything!’ Contrary to the beliefs of many late-night blinged-out televangelists. Jesus really does wreck a lot of what we call life. He wrecks the comfy, cozy lives we build for ourselves. He messes up the neat little boxes we try to fit him into. He wrecks the subtle yet destructive images of God we’ve spent our whole lives building. Ultimately (and I hope), if we get close enough, Jesus wrecks us too.”

I am so grateful that he wrecked my life. 

Hoping you have a blessed week!

Heather
 

Please take a second and welcome a friend from Living Word Chapel who has just started a blog, her name is Melissa, and I know she would be blessed to have a welcome from you.

One of our Friday Bible study regulars, Gabe, mentioned that he heard a teaching about how our head has seven openings, three are in pairs and one singular. So we have our eyes, our ears, and our nostrils, and one mouth. So we need to be using our mouth far less than our eyes, ears and nostrils.  Pastor Don mentioned that this dovetailed in with the topic he wanted to teach about – our words, language and power.

We need to understand the spiritual power of our words. Pastor Don told us that we need to understand the context and syntax and impact of our words. He mentioned that there are three good books that cover this topic.

Does Your Tongue Need Healing?
Hung by the Tongue.
Power of Words by Lou Gossit

Pastor Don asked us, How does God create things? God spoke creation into existence. And we are created in God’s image. There is great power released when our words are connected to our faith. When words are released, whether they are connected to faith or not, power is released, faith makes the power great. All of us need to be aware of the words we are using.

Jesus said, Matthew 12:36-37 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.

Jesus also said, Matthew 12:34 Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Romans 4:17-18 (As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations) in the presence of Him whom he believed–God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken. “So shall your descendants be.”

The good news is that when we realize that we are speaking what is not godly into our lives, our words can be corrected, rebuked, reversed, restated, and renounced. Those judgments for idle words, once we confess our sin of idle words, will be covered by the Blood of Christ, and when the books are opened, our words will be covered by Jesus’s sacrifice.

Pastor Don then started talking about judgment, that there is judgment going on now and when we die, there is a judgment at the point of death. So many consider life ending at death, but really death is like a door that opens to eternal life.

Today there are many who want to think that there will be no day of judgment, but that is not so. Then Pastor Don realized that there were some in our Bible study who had not sat through his Revelation studies, and someone asked about the judgments, so Pastor Don took us on a tour of some of the last chapters of Revelation when all the books will be opened and people will be judged.

By the time that happens we will not be there on earth. We will have already been raptured and sitting at the wedding feast of the Lamb with Jesus. While we are there (and a Jewish wedding takes seven days – so we will be during the 7 years of tribulation with Christ at the wedding feast as the Bride of Christ).

Paul talks about the different judgments, how the dead in Christ will rise first, then the believers will be raptured, and then later, after the tribulation, there will be the Great White Throne Judgment and all the dead will be resurrected, who have not already died in Christ. All the books will be opened, and the Father will see either the blood of Christ or if unsaved, we will be judged by our works. At that time, those who do not pass the judgment will end up in the Lake of Fire along with satan, the antichrist, the beast, etc.

Then Pastor Don gave us a quick summation starting at Revelation 19.

Revelation talks about the Bride of Christ, the Marriage of the Lamb. Revelation 19:1-11, we will be arrayed in fine linen which is the righteous acts of the saints.

Pastor Don mentioned that we are not to be deceived, Babylon cannot be saved. The city of Babylon was built in the area where the Tower of Babel was built, and it is the root of sin and idol worship. Right now the city is in ruins even though Saddam tried to rebuild it. But the culture from Babel has influenced the world, and right now the area that is a hot spot is the Middle East. But God will (as we see in chapter 18) cause it to fall and be completely destroyed.

Then we get to Revelation 19:11-16 which deals with Christ, who is robed in a robe dipped with blood, and his name is called the Word of God. There will be armies in heaven clothed in white following him on white horses (that would be us), and he will have put on his thigh, “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

Jesus will come down to the earth and defeat the beast and his armies. Revelation 19:17-21 Pastor Don pointed out verse 20-21 Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh.

Pastor Don mentioned that this battle was over in an instant. Jesus spoke and that was the end of the battle. It was not a long, drawn out thing. (Heather’s note, I think that is what many who are in new age thinking are forgetting – our creator spoke the world into existence, and it is because of Him that it keeps functioning, that our hearts beat, air, the planets circle the sun, etc. It would only take a few words from Him to take us out of existence. We are here by the mercy of God.)

Then we come to Chapter 20 – which points out that satan is to be bound for 1000 years (Heather’s note, satan was taken down by one angel, and not one of the ones mentioned as a mighty angel, he grabs satan with one hand and unlocks the bottomless pit with the other).

This 1000 years is the period known as the millennial reign. It will be a period of multitasking for the LORD. The church will be off the earth (done in the rapture) and those left on the earth will have gone through the Great Tribulation (also knows as the time of Jacob’s trouble), and they will be the ones who blasphemed God during this time. They will be angry, but they will not be the ones who fought against Jesus when he came and spoke the word. And they will be people who were deceived by the antichrist. They will have lived under demonic influence. They will also have had children who have not yet had the chance to make a decision for Christ or not. So the Millennial reign will allow them to make that choice.

Some wonder when the last days will be, and that is something that God is not sharing with us, just that we are to be ready and read the signs of the ages. And if you study Daniel and the prophets, as well as Matthew 24 and 25 it is pretty evident that this day and age the things mentioned that needed to occur before the day of the LORD, have all happened, including the returning of Jews to Israel. The stage is set, but we don’t know when exactly this will occur.

When Jesus establishes his Millennial realm he will be showing the earth the kind of rulership that God had in mind when he created Adam and Eve, and before the fall. Those who come down with Jesus to rule and reign will be those saints who have suffered and died for Christ. They will be in spiritual bodies, and will not have a problem with the flesh, they will be spirit-filled. There will be no serpent, the lamb will lie down with the lion. There will be no confusion, for the rulers will be ruling directly according to God’s desire.The people left on the earth from the tribulation, will also be having children, and Jesus will be showing the children the correct way of life.

Chapter 20:4-6 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshipped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not lie again until the thousand years were finished. this is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

Romans 6 & 7 helps us to understand how we are changed from fleshly beings to spiritual beings.

It is important to realize that our flesh and feelings are not valid in the realm of faith. Faith and feelings do not inhabit the same space. Often when God tells us to do something, our feelings tell us that we can’t do it. Faith tells us to go for it. Faith says, “Do you want to do it?” Feelings say, “You better not do it.” When we are trying to obey God, our spirit searches for a Word from God that we can stand on  to defend what we are questioning. So when we are faced with a tough situation we need to look for a Word of God about it and a word from the Spirit about it.

Pastor Don told us that we need to be eating the Word (spending a lot of time studying, memorizing, and reading the Bible) so that when a situation comes up, we will know where to go for a Word from God about the situation. He mentioned that a member of our church called him for some healing scriptures that he could give to a friend in the hospital. Pastor Don gave him scriptures and the person said, “Oh, I know that one, and that one….” but then Pastor Don also mentioned to the person that they need to be ready with such scriptures for situations that may arise in the future.

Those ruling and reigning in the 1000 year period will know the Word of God.

We deal with fact, and they will deal with truth.

Those who are raptured, the bride of Christ, and these martyred saints will not face a second death. They have already been judged by God, and are with the others who are in heaven.

Then after the 100 year reign there will be a rebelion, another one that is over almost before it began, over with the speaking of a few words from Jesus.

Revelation 19:7-10 Now when the thousand years have expired, satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth. Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose number is as the sand of the sea. They went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Then comes Judgment for all the rest – The Great White Throne Judgment

No matter what the new age people say, no matter what other religions say, no matter what others believe, there will be a judgment and each and every person who ever lived and walked on the earth, and did not accept Jesus as their savior will stand in judgment, a just judgment. No one will walk away and say, not fair. The problem is, unless we know Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the outcome of the judgment is not good. Revelation 20:11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them.

Pastor Don mentioned that there has to be a new heaven and a new earth because the old one is polluted by the blood of all those who died there, and all the sinners. The new earth will be pure and holy.

Revelation 20:12-15 And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

While we are in the flesh, we will have battles of will, doing what we don’t want to do, just like Paul did, but once we are in Heaven, whether by the first death or the final judgment, those left will be very humbled, there will be no more sin, for it has been wiped away by Jesus’s sacrifice for us. Our earthly bodies will be gone and we will be dressed in white robes of righteousness, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth, the old will have passed away.

Revelation 21:4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. there shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away.

Pastor Don closed by telling us to stay humble, make sure we are not saying idle words or doing those mean little things that we do. We need to pray to ask God to soften our hearts and put us on a level playing ground. We need to realize that we are not righteous in ourselves, that we need Jesus.

Pastor Don is putting the finishing touches on a book that he will call Take the Lower Seat. He mentioned that there is a dangerous tendency in the church today to establish ways of lording over other people. The church looks down their noses at sinners. Pastors in some churches sit on altars in throne like chairs. Pastor Don mentions that we do not do that in our church, the pastor sits with the people. And when we have guest speakers they can sit anywhere in the congregation that they want to sit, some are not used to that, but they also realize that it is a good thing. Pastor Don joked and said that he would like to have a group of people who are professional botherers, who would do things like park other cars in people’s usual parking places, move a person’s Bible, or sit in the chair that they usually like to sit in, to cut in front of people at the buffet table. Just so that people can see their reactions to those situations, and realize that they have not taken the lower seat.

We need to remember that Jesus is Messiah and He is savior of the World.

Well, we did not finish the lesson on Words, but got a good overview of Revelation. I love studying the Bible.

Have a blessed Sunday.
Heather

I didn’t get my hands on a computer until too late to put up a Bible study from Friday, it was on Revelation – we again asked a question, and Pastor Don answered our question, and tabled his planned Bible study. Tonight I have started visiting sites of those I subscribe to. That is a giant undertaking, so I do a few a day, trying hard to get to everyone at least once or twice a week. I value what you write, and learn so much from your sites.

I am reading an interesting book, one that I can relate too. The Diety Formerly Known as God by Jarrett Stevens. It is based on a book written by J.B.Phillips titled Your God is too Small

I haven’t read the Phillips book but want to now that I am reading this book by Stevens. In the book he first talks about different images we have in our minds when we think of God – The Cop around the corner, sweet old man, cosmic slot machine, talent show judge, all-you-can-eat buffet, and your parents….supersized. He gives great descriptions of that, and honestly I can tell you that at various times in my life I have had those images of God during situations. Later, he tells us, he will get into what God is really like. The writing style is easy, and it is making me think.

Jarrett Stevens realizes that we all have destructive images of God, and we need to unpack them.

Here are a few good quotes. p. 22 “…we share the same basic problem; our insistence on crafting images of God that limit our understanding of ourselves and limit our experience with God. We’d rather have a small, custom-built God who meets with our emotional needs or suits our intellectual ideals, than a big God who can’t be controlled or contained.”

In the God viewed as cop around the corner, he talks about police radar detectors, and said that there are a few assumptions that we have about God. That God is lurking around the corner of our life with a radar gun, so he can add another negative entry to our permanent record.

I used to think of God like that, sort of like Santa Claus, making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice. I failed the nice contest too much.

The sweet old man image has God as someone from an earlier time who can’t understand the complexity of the age we are curently living in. He dodders around his house in heaven, and smiles benignly on his grandchildren – us. This comes from keeping God tied to the concept of our time, so he gets older. We need to realize that God is outside of our time frame.There is nothing on this earth the He doesn’t understand, from computers to advanced science. He is still moving in and around us. And He may not make sense to us, but that is a good thing, because if we have a god who makes sense to our tiny minds, He wouldn’t be much of a god.

The cosmic slot machine talks about praying and maybe God will give an answer, maybe not. We see one person healed, another person not healed. Do we gamble and trust Jesus, or depend on ourselves, and what if we are wrong? He concludes, p. 47 “The questioning can easily lead to one of several conclusions:
* God is involved in every detail and has a reason for everything, even though it might be beyond our understanding.
* God is biased, and the “blessed” and “cursed” are the proof.
* God is random and what you get is what you get. What you do with it is up to you.”

He continues on p. 48 “The seeming randomness of God led me to believe at a young age that you should always hedge your bets and play it safe, our you could lose it all.”

I can so relate to that, I finally, when I started praying could only pray for others, for I felt that if God knew that I wanted something badly, He wouldn’t give it to me, so I only prayed for others and kept the desires of my heart “hidden” from God. I now know that that is false thinking, but I figured God was random, if He was even involved in our lives at all. I figured He walked away from earth a long time ago.

P. 52 “It’s no different for you and me. There is an invitation, a risky opportunity that God has given you. Will you take that handful of quarters you call faith and place your bet on God? The choice is yours. He gives you no guarantee that you won’t be hurt or suffer or even take some losses, but he does promise you this: he loves you, he knows you, he is with you, and you will win. Everyone who has ever bet their one and only life on God always wins. Cha-ching indeed.”

I am currently reading about the talent show judge, and it seems to be talking about works, and are your works more mighty and better than someone elses’. Are you doing enough, etc. I haven’t read enough to share yet.

I am so glad that God is giving me an opportunity to know the real Him, that He pursued me when I had closed myself off from him in such a deep way for so long. It is an adventure learning about God, and He is clearing my mind of mistaken ideas about Him. The relationship is sweet, but I know that I am barely sticking my toe into the water, and I am so carefully reaching out to Him. But honestly, life with God is far, far better than all the years I spent without God.

Have a blessed Saturday – this computer is prime territory to stake out these days, so not sure how much I will be able to get on the computer over the weekend. I will try to get Pastor Don’s Bible study up by tomorrow night.

Heather

Pastor Don continued on the topic of spiritual warfare in a very intense Bible study. We, as usual, ended up asking a question that pulled him off track for a bit, so there is some discussion about carbon dating – trust me, carbon dating and spiritual warfare are not related topics, but as always, because it is interesting and informative, I want to share that as well.

The question that came up was, are demons pre Adamic? (meaning before the time of Adam’s creation).

Pastor Don pointed out that the way people come to this conclusion is inferring their conclusion from Genesis 1:1-2  (1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And the people who espouse this theory say that something happened between verse 1 and verse 2. They state that God did not create the world without form and void, that the earth became without form and void when satan was cast down with the rebellious angels and they messed up the earth. So then God sent His Spirit to begin the restoration of the earth.

Pastor Don stated that whether or not this happened is not the important issue, that what is important is that God sent His Son, our savior to the world to reconcile us with Him. And that God clearly includes in the Bible what is important for us to know.

Then Pastor Don went on his own rabbit trail about how there is a problem that scientists and paleontologists are facing in trying to prove that the earth is millions of years old. A problem that they do not come out and admit – Carbon dating is inaccurate after 5,000 years, and also inaccurate after an object is exposed to water (The flood).

Pastor Don used his fingers to represent the strata on the earth, and stated that what scientists decided was that the lower down the layer that the fossil is found at, the older the fossil. (So using hands as strata if your little finger is the bottom layer, and your pointer finger the top. The layer between your pointer and middle finger is a more recent fossil, and the layer between your little and ring finger is an older fossil).

So, since carbon dating is used, and isn’t valid when materials have been exposed to water (and most fossils are created in mud, or on layering of mud in streams, etc), the paleontologist states that he found the fossil in the layer that is the Jurassic layer. When asked how does he know if the fossil comes from that time period, the scientist says I found it in the Jurassic layer. And that is all he repeats, until later he says, and it was carbon dated.

Well, how is carbon dating done? The paleontologist brings the object to the carbon dater, and the carbon dater asks him, where did you find it, the paleontologist says, “I found it in the Jurassic layer.” and so guess what, since carbon dating is not accurate after 5,000 years, the carbon dater adjusts his readings to match where the paleontologist found the bone – and comes up with Jurassic years.

Now carbon dating is dead on right when it comes to things that are not exposed to water, and are within our 5,000 year period, but after that there is inaccuracy.

Now, one other interesting point, the idea of the strata’s age being correct is also called to question. A French scientist asked the question about whether or not the strata were laid down in sequential order. He pointed out that the problem is that when something new is laid down, it pushes up to the top with water, the things first laid down. So that really it may be that the things on the upper layers are actually older than the things that are on the lower layers, so their theories are wrong. Add to that that trilobites are on all strata, but they are supposedly lower in the evolutionary scale, so they should have disappeared in the later years. And add to that, the fact that in some areas, there are on the same strata dinosaur footprints side by side with human footprints.

There is a new book coming out that sounds interesting if you care about the subject, The Vanishing Evidence of Evolution

Another person discovered that what are assumed to be Neanderthal skulls may actually be more recent. Remember that in the Bible, before Noah people lived to be 500-900 years old. Some scientist used a computer program to age faces and found out that after 400 years old, the computer generated aging program produced skull shapes similar to what is currently being labeled Neanderthal.

Pastor Don pointed out that there would have to be 75 million years for a reptile to evolve into a human being under the best of circumstances. (Heather’s note: if you believe in evolution, try this experiment. Take your watch and break it into component parts, put parts in a paper bag and shake up. How many shakes would it take to create a running watch from the component parts? And that gives you the pre-made component parts. You would say, can’t do – watch needs a watch maker. Our earth needs an earth maker too, and our earth maker is God. And humans are more complex than a watch, with far more components. Add to that a vast variety of animals and creatures. It really takes far more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in a Creator.)

Then it was pointed out that there are two beasts mentioned in the book of Job, leviathan and behemoth.

Every country has stories about dragons and heros who fight them. And on their pottery is images that look remarkably like dinosaurs.

Scientists are fighting to keep evolution, but it is not standing up to science.

Then Pastor Don laughed and said that we are so good at pulling him off target with our questions. 

Spiritual Warfare:

The common theme in the Bible is the battle between good and evil. And it is important to remember that a spiritual battle may manifest in the physical, but that even though there is a manifestation in the physical, there is a spiritual battle being waged.

Every culture has a concept of God, they have structured concepts of good and evil.

Good fights against evil to prevail.
Evil fights against good to prevail.

Some people want to stay stuck in the natural, not wanting to accept the spiritual battle that is going on, but whether or not you accept it or not, the spiritual battle is still being waged.

Periodically in history great leaders arise that actively pursue evil roles, one example is Adolf Hitler. They exert great evil, genocide (such as in the Sudan and Middle East), a sort of blood lust. When reasonable people get into a fight, they do not look to be hurt. But in demonic situations, there is a desire to kill, kill, kill and shed much blood. Atrocities occur, and the people who perform these atrocities look at a segment of the population as not human. So they end up committing what we call “crimes against humanity.”

Pastor Don used to be involved in jail ministry, and talked about a person who is serving a life sentence for killing his wife, stabbing her 14 times with a knife. He told Pastor Don that a voice told him to do this, he did it, and then the voice said, “I’ve got you now!” and the spirit lifted. The man called the police and confessed, and is serving time. Pastor Don said that the man knew that he couldn’t tell the police about the voice for it would not be believed.  Son of Sam had a similar testimony.

Then we got to Saul, we are still looking at Saul’s life and how he opened the door to the demonic. (See previous Bible studies, this one has the picture of our Friday Bible study group
and then it continues,  and this one, and lastly).

Remember that God did not want the Israelites to have a king, but they wanted a king like the other kingdoms. They cried out to God and he let them have their way in this. Saul had all the qualifications that the people thought that a king should have. But we have seen that he did not have one important qualification, obedience to God, and he opened the door to the demonic when he let his emotions take over.

Saul gets into a mental state, and each time he does, there is no mention of satan causing it, but once he lets himself get into that mental state, then the demonic influences begin to control his behavior.

God gave satan the permission to impact Saul because Saul came out from under the protection of God due to the sin of disobedience. Some may then say, what about Job – that famous conversation in Heaven with God and satan where God says, “Have you considered my servant Job?” Job is described as an upright man. But Job is not without sin. Remember, satan wanders to and fro on the earth seeking whom he can devour. Sin lurks at the door, Cain opened the door to sin when he slew Abel and did not honor God with the right sacrifice or repentance. Job also sinned, but God had put a hedge of protection around Job. Satan could not touch Job when that hedge of protection was up. But Jesus had not yet come to die for our sins, so Job had sins, as we all do. One of his sins was worry. Remember he sacrificed daily for his children for he worried that they may have spoken wrongly about God. Worry is a sin, and God commands us not to worry. Job was not acting in faith, for fear is the opposite of faith. That which is not of faith is sin. Also, at first Job had pride, for he debated with God about whether he deserved what happened, concluding that he was righteous, until the last chapters of Job when Job realized that God is God and sovereign.

God’s law requires that if there is sin there is death, but He could not permit Job to experience the trials he experienced if Job was without sin. If God permitted trials on people without sin, he would be no better than dagon or baal, for there would be a fickleness about God. The only sin free person who suffered was God Himself, when He came down to die for our sins. (Jesus Christ).

The Body of Christ wants to be able to be wrong and slide by even when we are wrong. We won’t take the right choices to get us out of fear and into faith. We want to justify our lack of faith so that we can make it all right with ourselves. We choose the wrong attitude and solutions to our problems.

So often we say that God is not in a situation because we can’t feel Him. Or that God is far away when we are in the midst of our problems. It isn’t God who has moved, it is us who have moved out of faith and into fear and unbelief. And then we want to play the blame game, blame someone else for our problems, blame God, blame our pastors, blame our situation. Anything but realize that it is us that is at fault.

Jonathan is David’s friend, but Saul’s son. Jonathan has a right attitude toward David, and has taken steps to protect his friend. Saul suspects this. Remember, when it says that a distressing spirit from the LORD came upon Saul, that God did not put the spirit on Saul, there are no permissive clauses in Hebrew. God just removed his hand of protection from Saul and the spirit was able to come upon him.

1 Samuel 19:9 Now the distressing spirit from the LORD came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. And David was playing music with his hand. Then Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away from Saul’s presence; and he drove the spear into the wall. So David fled and escaped that night.

Saul permitted himself to get into this state. He did what we often do, prepare to get into a battle before the situation occurs. Who spends time holding onto a spear in one’s own house? Saul opened the door in his heart, intending to do wrong, for he had purposed to kill David. He was jealous and felt I am king and I want to stay king, so he wants to stop David from becoming king, no matter the cost, including killing David. Pastor Don asked us if we have had a boss in our lives who was determined to stay boss by hook or crook. Saul had other choices he could have made, he could have helped David prepare for his future role and taken the time to relax and enjoy the perks of kingship. Instead, he chose to open the door to sin.

We are the ones who are responsible for our happiness. So often we want to put someone else into a position of making us happy. If my husband would only do this…If I could only get this promotion….. but once these things are acquired, we look elsewhere for happiness. Real happiness comes from a right relationship with God.

Saul was not a happy guy before he was king, and being king did not change his level of happiness. Saul had two choices 1) be happy, embrace David, and help David or 2) the one he chose to be sad and angry and try to kill David. The real truth is that David was God’s anointed, and he will be king no matter how hard Saul tries to stop this situation.

1 Samuel 19:10 – see above – How many times do we have our spear ready before the devil comes in. How many times have we argued with a person in our head, “If he says this, I will say that. How dare he do this. I would like to….”

What happens if we give into these mental dances, mental spears, is that just like Saul, we miss an opportunity to discern who is really prompting these feelings and thoughts. Who is saying these things and how do I want to react? So often, once we open the door to sin, we leave ourselves open to suggestions from lying spirits, tormenting spirits, who are there to take away our peace and cause trouble. We need to keep our thoughts captive.

1 Samuel 20:29 This is Jonathan informing Saul where David is “And he said, “Please let me go, for our family has a sacrifice in the city, and my brother has commanded me to be there. And now, if I have found favor in your eyes, please let me get away and see my brothers: Therefore he has not come to the king’s table. Then Saul’s anger was aroused against Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?”

Saul is playing the blame game. Notice that he is blaming Jonathan and Jonathan’s mother. But conveniently forgetting that he also had a hand in raising Jonathan. When you start blaming someone else for your strife you may be under the influence of a whispering spirit. It is Saul’s sin, but he would rather blame the woman. Adam blamed God and the woman for his sin, “It was the woman You gave me…”

To escape from the influence of a whispering, lying spirit, you must face the truth of the situation, to be honest about who is really being unreasonable, or you open the door to sin.

Everything in God’s kingdom is under covenant rights, so if you are not happy with the situation you are in, it is time to change how you are praying for it. You have to realize that the battle is not in the flesh, in our earthly situation, but the battle is a spiritual battle.

We also have to be careful not to justify dangerous behavior. An example is a person who has stopped smoking cigarettes keeping one unsmoked one in the car to prove to themselves that they have conquered the habit. In a moment of weakness satan would step in to cause that person to smoke. Better to rid oneself of cigarettes completely if you have made the choice to stop smoking.

But it is also important to realize that we cannot be assuming that there is a demon in every tough situation we face. The demon does not usually come in when we are in the middle of our fleshly ideas and thoughts. Demons and spirits are limited in power and cannot be everywhere at once. So if we are caught up in our flesh, they do not need to waste time on us. It is when we take a positive step, make a right choice, change our way of behaving and praying that we create a ripple in the pond that attracts a demons’ attention. Haven’t you noticed that sometimes situations get worse before they get better? That is because the demons are trying a last ditch attempt to throw us off of God’s best course for ourselves. When the situation gets tough we need to hold tightly onto our confession of faith.

When the demonic wants to affect a person, they look for the weakest link, the weakest point in our defense, the weakest person in our church group. They hit the weakest spot, hoping that we will open up the door to sin. Sometimes the manner of attack is not always logical. If a person is getting their finances in order, maybe the attack will be on the person’s health so that they cannot hold a job.

Bad news is that there are situations when we are under attack and we have done nothing wrong. When we feel under attack we must assess our situation – unconfessed sins, lifestyle changes, wrong thinking, but if we cannot find a cause, it may just be the ripple in the pond effect.

God will permit these attacks so that we will know where we stand in faith. Will we pass the faith test? God doesn’t need to test us for He knows where we stand in faith, but we need to know so that we can grow more in faith in our weak areas. These attacks on our faith build patience and build our character.

When we sign on with Jesus, there will be testing. And so often we do not listen to God’s best for us, for every angel or the prompting of the Holy Spirit that tells us to look out and not do something, we still have demons dispatched to tell us to go for it. (Heather’s note, reminds me of the cartoon with a demon on one shoulder whispering in one ear and an angel on the other shoulder whispering in the other ear. We have a choice as to which one we listen to.)

Sometimes, even when we are in sin God will put a hedge of protection around us. He limits what satan can do (remember he told satan that he could destroy Job’s possessions but not his person, then later he could inflict things on Job but not kill him). God’s covenant concerning health does not mean that we will never get sick. If we are healed by His stripes, that must mean that there must be sickness that we get healed from. But there is one condition for healing. Healing is based on faith. PERIOD.  Where is your faith at?  When an attack comes you need to be acting in faith. We need to have the weapons of our warfare ready and use them, until Jesus comes. But even in the tribulation there will also be attacks.

Remember demons will not show up until you are making changes in your life that will prevent them from oppressing you. Remember, when you are saved you can get oppressed, but not possessed. For example, there are not enough demons to hold us in lust. We make the choice to lust or to flee and resist the lust. Once we cross that ethical line, then the demons come to try and tempt us back across that line.

1 Samuel 22:8 All of you have conspired against me, and there is no one who reveals to me that my son has made a covenant with the son of Jesse: and there is not one of you who is sorry for me or reveals to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me to lie in wait, as it is this day.

Here is a good example of a whispering spirit whispering lies into Saul’s mind. He is having one huge pity party. And he certainly is not listening to the right counselor, God. He is blaming everyone else for what is happening and seeing a conspiracy around every corner.

1 Samuel 22:17 Then the king said to the guards who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled and did not tell it to me.” But the servants of the king would not lift their hands to strike the priests of the LORD.

He has really lost it, wanting to attack God’s priests. He has blamed them for sheltering David, and has gone beyond all the boundaries of propriety, seeking to kill the priests. The servants would refuse to do that, so Saul persisted until he found someone to agree.

1 Samuel 22:18 And the king said to Doeg, “You turn and kill the priests!” So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck the priests, and killed on that day eighty-five men who wore a linen ephod.

Saul is in a downward spiral and has ceased hearing from God, so he made another major mistake. When he couldn’t get an answer from God, he sought an answer from the medium of En Dor, and that sealed his fate for by doing that he was willfully seeking the demonic realm.

Pastor Don talked about hearing from God as being something like an AM and an FM radio receiver. God is the transmitter, but we have a choice of how we receive God’s signal. The AM band travels farther, but has more static the further you get from the source, and there will often be cross talk, and a need for discernment about who is speaking. With the FM band, you have to stay close to the source, but the sound quality is much better, with little or no interference.  So we need to stay close to the transmitter, and receive on the FM band, and listen to it carefully but there is a better solution.

Then Pastor Don pointed out that both the AM and the FM is insufficient. That what God really wants is for us to have the transmitting system reside in us, through the Holy Spirit. When God is in the midst, we do not need to struggle in lack of confidence or fear. What is important is to focus on God, God knows the problem. We need to shut up and listen about what is inside us that God is telling us.

When troubles are upon us we need to get quiet, and listen to God. Satan wanders to and fro seeking whom he may devour. Remember temptation starts out sweet until we are lured in, then it destroys us. In the last days we are noticing that things are getting busier, information is increasing, and there is much activity in our lives. Satan likes to keep us so busy that we do not stop to listen to God. There is a war going on and we need to stop and listen to God.

Have you ever noticed that when you are shaky, everyone else is shaky too. If you are right with God, it does not matter what other people are saying. When we are not plugged in with God, people can easily steal our joy by their comments. If we are focused on God, we can begin to see them with God’s view of them.

There is a point where we realize that in a situation we have turned a corner, where the battle becomes not a battle in the flesh, but one that is spiritual, and we have to battle by faith with the full armor of God. We have to realize that the battle is not physical, but spiritual.

1 Chronicles 10:1-2 Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. Then the Philistines followed hard after Saul and his sons. And the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, Saul’s sons.

Because Saul opened that door to sin, the spirit followed hard after Saul and his sons.

1 Chronicles 10:3-4 The battle became fierce against Saul. The archers hit him, and he was wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armorbearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised men come and abuse me.” But his armorbearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword and fell on it.

After the devil fully took over Saul’s actions, he let Saul be destroyed. Saul killed himself, and that demon that had attached itself to Saul now lost it’s human host. Remember, demons crave bodies, so it jumped to the next nearest body.

1 Chronicles 10:5 And when his armorbearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died.

The demon who caused Saul to kill himself, then affected Saul’s armorbearer.

Pastor Don told us to never stay in an unguarded condition if you are around someone who is offbase, for you may be caught in the spiritual battle. If you get free of drugs, you should not stay around people who are still taking drugs, for in an unguarded state you may allow that spirit of addiction to come back on you.  And when you get delivered from a condition, keep your focus on God, and fill yourself with what is true and good and of God.

Pastor Don said that if you are in an environment where people are not growing, if they are fixated at a certain point of spiritual growth, you may want to look for someone who is chasing after God and moving on. Pastor Don said that if he stopped and stagnated, and did not keep growing in the Lord and challenging us to grow spiritually, it is time to seek another pastor. If there is no fruit and you are being fed dead religion and traditions that are not Biblical, it is time to make a change. We need to be fruit testers, to make sure that what is being served from the pulpit is from God.

There was no reason for the armorbearer to have died. He could have become part of David’s kingdom, and been an armor bearer for him. The armorbearer did not sin, did not kill Saul.

1 Chronicles 10:6 So Saul and his three sons died, and all his house died together.

The wages of sin is death.

1 Chronicles 10:8-10 So it happened the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. And they stripped him and took his head and his armor, and sent word throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among the people. Then they put his armor in the temple of their gods, and fastened his head in the temple of dagon.

Dagon was half man, half fish, and the people who worshipped him ate fish on Friday. Saul has found himself fully in the camp of the enemy.

1 Chronicles 10:13 So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he had committed against the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD, and also because he consulted a medium for guidance.

Saul died because of UNFAITHFULNESS and consulting the MEDIUM.

1 Chronicles 10:14 But he did not inquire of the LORD; therefore He killed him, and turned the kingdom to David the son of Jesse.

This is another situation of God not preventing something from happening, the killing of Saul. Saul wasted 17 years chasing after David, trying to destroy David and keep his crown. It was a waste of time and stole Saul’s joy. And in the end, what God said would happen, happened.God has the full endgame plan. At any time Saul could have turned the situation around and had his relationship with God restored, there could have been reconciliation, and forgiveness. Without that climate of reconciliation, forgiveness, and relationship with God, there is guilt and hate. We need to repair the breach in our wall of defense, we need to close the door to sin. We cannot fix things in our own power, we need God.

With God all things are possible. Remember that God can deal with our honesty. If we do not have faith for a situation, God can deal with that if we are honest with Him. Remember the father of the demonically possessed son who said, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.” Because he was totally honest with Jesus, his son could be healed. We cannot be dishonest about our faith position.

In church at times we feel we cannot fully share where we are, we cannot tell others of our lack of faith for a particular situation. That just keeps us from receiving our healing. We need to let others know what we can believe in so that we can agree together in faith. But God can deal with our honesty, and he can help our unbelief if we confess it to Him.

We then spent some time quietly listening to God and asking God what it is we need to work on in our lives, and then we prayed for God to help us with that area.

Hoping you have a blessed Friday. Today is Bible study, Yeah!!!!!

Heather