Each of us takes notes in different ways during Bible studies. My friend Julie writes the most incredible poems and does acronyms. The other day she told me the acronyms she found for the Bib and Apron Bible study taught by Pastor Don, and shared a poem she wrote on the subject.

B  – bondage
I   – is
B  – bondage

A  – anointed
P  – prepared
R  – ready
O  – obedient
N  - necessary

Isn’t that incredible!!!!! I want to wear an apron! The first poem, “What Are You Doing Here?” is based on Sunday’s sermon on the Bib and Apron, the other two she sent me and I wanted to share them with you.

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What Are You Doing Here?

That’s a really good question

to ask yourself

no matter

where you are

but now that you are

here

here in this church

here in one of God’s houses

what are you doing here?

Did you come here to learn

or did you come here to argue

are you looking for the truth

or are you trying to find good reason

to not believe?

Are you a seeker or a sorcerer

do you want answers or do you want validation

are you listening or are you just waiting to hear
something that agrees with you or repulses you?

In a place like this you will find every reason

to believe that God is real and you will also find

every reason not to believe, it just depends

on what you are doing here. 

People who come here really need to be here

they aren’t perfect in their faith but most of them

are very good people.

If you stay around you’ll figure out who is blessed up and who is

messed up and who serves and who whines

it really is pretty fascinating.

You’ll see who shakes and who prays the loudest

you’ll figure out very quickly who you want to

get to know better, you’ll find people who yell and

people who boss you around, you’ll find people

that think you know more than they do and always

you will find people that think they know it all.

But if you are here to find your own relationship

to God

and to figure out how to talk to Him and how to pray

and what to expect and how to heal, you will find that too.

Copyright 2008
Julie Evans, Woodstock

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I Suppose

I suppose it is never easy

to define one’s faith

without sounding a bit

like a maniac

or a fanatic

or a nut job

I suppose the world

will always judge believers

by non believers standards

we can never win

in that estimation

we can only be

strengthened by their need

to judge us as wrong

Again, I suppose

we are judging them

as wrong

seeing as how they

don’t know what we know

or believe what we believe

but how do we share with them

that we don’t believe in Jesus

because we are deluded

or stupid

or desperate

but that we believe because

we have to

I suppose that people

wouldn’t get it

because they don’t have it yet

something happens, right?

when you begin to talk

to God and ask for forgiveness

something happens on the inside

when mercy comes running

I suppose I can be patient

and gorgeous and kind

and stimulating and faith filled

even in the midst of all this sorrow

and searching.

I suppose I can hang in there

a little longer

and a little more cheerfully

I suppose I can get off my

high horse and take a lower seat

I suppose that if I listen a little

more carefully I will understand the

semantics of the language each of these

wonderful souls is speaking

I suppose I can emanate goodness and kindness

and healing and hope

I suppose I can look these people

in the eyes and touch their hearts

I suppose that

just like myself

they can get over their misconceptions

and allow themselves to feel one

with God

I suppose everything is possible.

Copyright 2008
Julie Evans, Woodstock

****

On Second Thought

Once it is all said and done and we go through

the final act of letting go of someone we love

it seems a good time, maybe even a God time

to re-evaluate our own walk, our own life and our

own impact upon the natural world and our

ability to operate in the supernatural world

I’d like more from my life than I am currently taking

I’d like to have a lot more confidence and a lot less fear

I’d like to emanate goodness and terrify badness

I want to open my own prison doors so that I can

open some prison doors for others or at least share

my testimony about getting my own open

I’d like to come against all these stupid limitations

I have put upon myself and others and truly be as magnificent

as I was made to be

As far as time goes I know it goes quickly

and too many good ideas go with it

they are like vapor in the wind and that

is my responsibility to recognize the need

to keep track of these things, to manifest good ideas

and to harvest the seeds from this Christian walk

Its not that I have gotten lazy

I think I have just worn myself down

with some doubts and fears and it isn’t worth

being right about the wrong things

On second thought I would like to find my

clicker, my remote and push play and begin at

a new beginning right now right away

and try not to waste anymore time.

Julie Evans

Lover of Life

Seeker of Truth

Woodstock, NY

Copyright 2008

Hope you enjoy these poems. I will pass along your responses to Julie.

Have a blessed day,

Heather

(Edited from the closed caption transcript)

We’re into a time where we have to begin to ask ourselves introspectively, “Where am I?  Locate me on the radar of life.”  Let me find myself.  And you need to ask yourself what are you wearing in your life to cover your body for protection? How are you protecting yourself?  Are you wearing a bib or are you wearing an apron?  Both of them carry out similar functions. When I looked up “bib” in my little Webster’s dictionary I found out that a bib is a vestment or a piece of material that is worn under the chin, that covers the upper part of the body, protecting the chest area. It is worn primarily at meal times for the purpose of protecting the garments, or protecting the person wearing the garment from circumstances that have fallen into their mouth and have fallen out of their mouths.  I’m not talking to anybody here today (either in the service or reading this Heather says smiling).  But, are you wearing a bib? 

There are some people that come to church wearing bibs.  What they’re doing is they plan to eat a meal. They smell the food.  They’re playing with the food.  They put it in their mouth but part of it just slobbers down.  I was going to do a, demonstration of this, wearing a bib and eating some food and do this in front of you.  And then I thought, you know, I should spare you that. But it would be more helpful if I did it, to demonstrate the point.   If you are wearing a bib, some of the food gets in your mouth, but some stuff does not.  It’s not because there’s something wrong with the food and it’s not because there’s something wrong with the server of the food.

You see, most of us think, well pastors, they preach all the time. Their skin is tough, they have alligator skin. Listen, pastors are puppies.  We are soft, delicate, easily hurt, sensitive people.  We have to be sensitive enough to give our lives to serving others.  So, how callus could we possibly be?  We’re very sensitive, so when we serve a meal, we want you to eat the meal.  We’re prepared, we stayed up for nights and hours and weeks and we try to get something from the Lord.  And we are trying to serve you something that is palatable.  Something that has some salt on it, that has some savor, has some food essence in it.  That contains all the nutrients you need, to live life.  Especially to live the Christian life.  We don’t just open the Bible and do a thumb sketch, running down and just pick any old subject.  We don’t, some do, but I don’t.  I don’t go to a file cabinet and say, well, this is the third Sunday of the month, let me pull out a third Sunday sermon.  And just take it out and dust it off, and say, “This’ll do.”  NO!  It won’t do!  I want fresh food when I go to the restaurant to eat.  I don’t want last week’s tomatoes.  I don’t want yesterday’s breakfast.  I don’t want some guy to take two eggs he served yesterday that didn’t get eaten , flip them over and throw them in the microwave, and bring them out and put them down in front of me.  I want some fresh stuff! I want something fresh.  I want something that is like hot baked bread.  The best invention ever was a bread maker.  That bread maker revolutionized my life.  It was great.  My wife wouldn’t even be home, and I’d come home and the whole aroma would hit me at the door.  See, that’s what church should be like.  You should barely get out of your car, and start saying, “I’m gonna get something today.”  “I’m gonna get something.”  But you won’t get much if you’re wearing a bib. Because even though I prepared the food for you, even though the bread baker has been baking all night and into the next day, when you get here and you are a bib wearer, then you plan to put some of it in your mouth, and spill the rest out.  And most likely the part that’s spilling down on your vestment called a bib, is probably the part you needed the most.  And it just droops around your lips and gets all greasy around there.  But none of it gets down into here. (Points to heart)  Because, why?  You’re protected by a bib. 

Some bib wearers are filled with pride.  Their bib is called, Pride.  So no matter what gets in their mouth, they’re not going to swallow it. They’re going to spit it up.  I raised three boys.  All the babies spit up.  Did you notice that?  Babies spit up.  Glory to God.  Glory to God.  The mechanics of being a prideful baby is that you don’t think  anyone can help you.  Your stuff is too tough, our you’re too smart.  And so, since you’re so smart, you chew it around in your mouth for awhile and spit it out.  And you go, “I knew that.”  “Well, I knew that.”  Or, “I heard that once.” 

 I remember a story, way back in the days of the great preachers in England. A great pastor had to go on a trip, so he invited a novice preacher, a rank beginner, to preach at his church while he was gone.  The pastor had a great cathedral that sat 5,000 people, but they had a small anteroom downstairs that could only fit 200 people.  The pastor just assumed that, did you hear what I said….he assumed the young man doesn’t have anything to say, so we’ll let him go into the little room downstairs.  And so the pastor sent back a wire after he was gone for awhile, this was back in the 1800′s and he asked, what did the young man preach and how was it attended?  A wire came back, that said that the young man was wonderful.  He preached John 3:16.  And he filled the anteroom.  The pastor waited until the next night, and sent another wire, and asked, how did the young man do?  And the man sent back a wire.  He said, he did fabulous.  He said, the anteroom was so filled, that we had to move the meeting upstairs.  He preached John 3:16.  God so loved… And then by the end of the week he said, how did the young man do?  And they had to send back a wire, and say, he’s filled the sanctuary with over 5,000 people, and he preached John 3:16.  “For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son; that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  There were some people that came to that outpouring, that came to that meeting led by this young man on the first night, but they were wearing bibs.  And they said, “Oh this is a young man, I can’t learn anything from him. He’s just a young boy, what could he teach me?”  And so they left.  They missed a miracle.  Because by the third night, he’s drawing over 5,000 people.  And some of those prideful people left because they were wearing a bib.  They couldn’t hear a Gospel message from the throne of God that was coming through someone who was younger than them.  It was just pride. 

There’s some people that aren’t as wise as you, there’s some people that can’t sit under an Afro American preacher.  There’s some  Afro Americans who won’t sit under a white preacher.  Or they won’t go to a church that has a Korean minister.  And there are some that are so arrogant and prideful, they wouldn’t listen to a lady preacher.  Come on somebody, I’m just telling the truth here.  And that is because, why?  They’re wearing a bib that they think is for their protection, but it’s not for their protection, it’s for their spillage.  Lord have mercy, I’m preaching here. 

There’s some stuff that is meant for us, that if we would put it in our mouths and chew it around for awhile, get comfortable with it and let it slide on down….Lord have mercy!  It would give us the strength we need.  We went to a funeral the other day, and sure enough the place was packed to overflowing.  People everywhere.  I asked one of the persons who was in the back room, did any people leave, and when did they leave?  And they said, after you sang a few songs, they stayed.  After you read a few scriptures, they stayed.  And then they said, but when that lady started talking about Jesus, they started slipping out the back door. Why?  Because they were wearing a bib.  They only wanted to hear what they wanted to hear.  Could only eat what they could keep in their mouths.  And their mouths could not keep much in.  When you’re wearing a bib your thought processes, your experiences, your morality begins to cut out from you what you can eat. 

 I can remember when I was in the world and not living right.  I couldn’t sit and eat holiness messages.  Lord have mercy, anybody here today?  Whenever the preacher, Pastor Al, would  start preaching on holiness, I’d get a little uncomfortable.  I’d just have to move around in my seat because my walking wasn’t right yet.  There was some things that as a bib eater, as a baby, I’d still spill.  And whenever holiness was talked about, I’d just spill that out because when I looked at my personal walk, I couldn’t handle that food.  I couldn’t eat that food so I would just kind of slide it out the corner of my mouth, and let it drip down on the bib. So sure enough, one winter, Pastor Al preached on holiness.  He preached on holiness for 12 weeks….12 weeks!!!!.  But praise God!  By the end of the 12th week, I  loved the topic.  I wish he’d gone on for four more sessions, because why?  Holiness was what I needed to eat, but I was still spilling out on my bib.  Come on, somebody praise the Lord in here.

I love to see men, especially men, because they struggle with this.  Men come to church and if you’re talking about tithing, or giving to the church, they’re spilling that out on their bib.  Meanwhile, they can’t hardly put gas in their car.  Can’t pay their credit card bills.  Got credit cards up to here and still think they’re right.  Lord have mercy.  Somebody squirming yet?  I hope your squirming.  But you can’t beat God giving.  And so as long as you feel uncomfortable about it, as long as the subject irritates you, it’s because your not really ready to give God your faith through your income.  Through your work.  You’re just not ready to give Him that.  So you’re just still a baby wearing a bib, spilling it out. 

Some people choke to death on the faith message.  Lord have mercy. I’m going to cover it all today.  Some people choke to death on on the faith message.  What do you mean Pastor Don?  I had a guy who’s family was a mess, coming apart.  The family was coming apart at the seams.  And I was in one of those 12 week series on faith.  I’m pounding it.  Man, I’m just trying to get people faith anyway I can.  I’m breaking it down week after week, week after week, trying to get across to them the understanding that faith isn’t this.  Here’s what one lady told me.   She said, “I have faith.”  I asked, “What do you have sister?”  She says, “I’ll believe it when I see it.” I said, “Baby doll, that is not faith.” Believing it when you see it is knowledge.  Faith is, I believe it when I don’t see it. So I came out of the pulpit and I’m laying hands on people, and people are getting more faith.  I remember this Sunday, just as clear.  It was one of those Sundays where the anointing was so strong on me, I’m laying hands on people as fast as I can, so they can get this faith.  I’m running around laying hands on people to increase their faith.  That guy said, “I have had it with this faith message.”  He says, “I won’t be back to this church. I’ve had enough of your faith teaching.” …You know, so I took my hand down.  He pulled his family out of the church.  Proceeded to go into financial, social, sexual disasters.  Proceeded to see his children get put on Ridlin, middling, diddling, biddling.  Got him to find out they become ADHQMHDHCHVHA.  And what he needed was some faith, but he didn’t want it.  Why?  He was wearing a bib. 

There are many aprons in the Bible.  The first and most important apron in the Bible is the apron that the Priests and the Levites wear.  Now an apron is different from a bib.  An apron is a covering that is tied on to protect the body and the clothing for the purpose of accomplishing work.  Lord have mercy!  OHHH, I just get a chill thinking about that.  I have a tool apron and it has pockets on the top here, pockets in the middle, and then it’s got four or five pockets around the bottom.  And then you know, I tie it around my waist.  Notice, I said, I TIE it. Come on, somebody. I tie it around my waist.  There are different types of aprons.  Anybody ever been in a butcher store?  See the butcher put on an apron.  Ok, if you shorten that a little bit, you would have exactly what the priests wore during Moses’ time and during the time of the tabernacle and the Temple.  They would put on a white linen or cotton apron, and they would wear this thing in the Holy Place, not in the Holy of Holies, but in the outer court where people would bring their animals.  And they’re going to do the work of the Lord.  They’re going to bring these animals in so that the animals can be slaughtered and killed and their blood drained out in order that they can burn them on the altar of the Lord.  And the part that isn’t burned, the priests themselves can eat and you can also bless the people with it. The Bible tells us that during the time of the Tabernacle, there would be so much blood on the altar that the priests would be standing ankle deep in blood.  Because there would be so many animals to sacrifice.  In one church service they sacrificed 53,000 sheep and rams. So the priests would wear an apron in order to protect himself from diseases and also to protect his other clothes, under those clothes because the blood is going to be spilled because he’s bringing what?  An offering to God, by the blood, but he’s also bringing an offering by the flesh of the animals that are being brought. 

When a wife steps into a kitchen, she puts on her apron.  Right? What’s she putting it on for?  She’s going to go to work.  Why is she going to work?  She’s going to prepare some vitals.  You all know that word?  Some fixin’s.  She’s going to be busting out some fried chicken and grits, I hope.  With some collard greens and green beans on the side.  And so what is she doing.  What does a great chef do?  When the great chef goes into his place of work, he first puts on his apron, and washes his hands and prepares himself.  But that apron is going to protect him from what?  Protect him from disease, and its going to keep his clothes, under clothes from being soiled as he prepares to work. 

The difference is this.  The baby puts food in and regurgitates it out, but guess what, the apron is for accomplishing the task.  It serves to protect, but also there is work to be done. Are you wearing a bib or an apron? … What do you have on?  What are you wearing in your life?  Are you ready to come into the House of the Lord and, and eat what’s being put into you and then put on your apron to do what?  To protect you.  Come on, somebody.  To protect you.  What is the apron going to have on it?  It’s going to have on it a sign of blood.  What’s that a picture of?  It’s a picture of Jesus Christ’s blood being sacrificed.  It’s a picture of the animals being offered up as a blood sacrifice.  And it’s also a picture of, if you get it in your head, if you stay with me for a minute.  It’s a picture of your blood in your body being consecrated unto God.  How serious are you about this thing?  Because if you’re real serious, we can take off your bib and put you in an apron. 

Do you want to see what a Biblical apron looks like?  Alright, notice that it says that its a covering or a protection.  A Biblical apron has two facets, one, the Apostle Paul says, in the scriptures it says, that the people brought unto the Apostle Paul handkerchiefs and aprons.  Lord have mercy, what a beautiful picture.  And he blessed them, and they were given to people, and guess what.  When they wore those aprons, they received healing, and demons were cast out.  Because they wore the handkerchiefs or the apron, that was on them. 

I was at a meeting one time, and that scripture jumped out to me.  So I pulled out of my pocket my handkerchief, and I went to the man who was preaching, and I said, I have a woman that’s suffering, doesn’t know there’s a demon force that’s binding her to alcohol.  We took our hands and we laid them on that handkerchief.  That cloth got hot.  I folded it up neatly and put it in my coat pocket.  And I set a trap.  I went to the lady and I said, “Sister, this is anointed. This is dynamite…..Dynamite.  Put this in your pillow for three days, and you’ll be delivered.” She slept on that thing three days. You know what her testimony was? The end of the third day she says, I saw the demon come out. I said, “You saw it?” She said, I saw it.  A big ugly sucker.  Had a couple of little ugly ones, with him too. Demons don’t run by themselves, they need help because they need to tie up your apron, tie up your bib, but praise God, she became an apron wearer.  Not a bib toter. 

Are you ready to shout?  Ready to get excited about what God is doing?  Let’s say, “I’m going to put this on!!! I’M GOING TO PUT THIS ON!!!  Ephesians 10:6 ”Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Put on the WHOLE armor of God.”  Put on the what?  [the whole armor]  Hold it, the whole armor of God.  The bib was good for awhile, but let’s take the bib off and let’s put on a Holy Ghost apron here.  Let’s put on some Holy Ghost armor.  He says, “Put on the whole armor of God.”  But why should we do it? “That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” When are people going to realize when you are stuck in bondage, and can’t get out, you’re getting help.   Your bib is being tied on.  There is a demonic force that is binding you.  You must put on the whole armor of God.  How come a husband can’t speak to his wife, and a wife can’t speak to him?  You are getting help.  There’s a bib tier in your house that must be driven out in the Name of Jesus.  There is spiritual work that needs to be done, there are demonic presences that are following you home and therefore you’re ready for a fight, before you turn on the light.  So let’s go on. He says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against” what? “principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”  What are you thinking?  Heaven up there?  You need to be thinking, Heaven right here.  Did anybody get that?  The first Heaven is the air right over your head.  When you’re thinking wrong thinking, when you’ve got stinking thinking, you’re probably having some help.  If you’re going along fine thinking good thoughts and all of a sudden stupid thoughts are jumping in, you need to realize maybe that’s not my idea.  Maybe I’m getting help.  Maybe somebody’s trying to tie a bib on me so I can’t hear the Word of God.  Lord have mercy! 

See, you can fall in love with your bib.  You can have it on for so many years, you can be so prideful for so long that you really think that you’re right.  Go to somebody, don’t come to me, go to somebody else and ask them to tell you the truth, straight out.  And they’ll tell you, you’re a liar.  You know, you have no self control.  You’re a big baby, you whine and cry.  You know, there is nothing worse than a grown man whining and crying and blaming his wife.  I realize I wasn’t a man until I took responsibility for everything that happened in my house. 

Look at verse 13, “Therefore take up the” what?  “the whole armor of God.” put your apron on, your Holy Ghost apron.  “…that you may be  able to…” to do what? “…withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.  Well, why aren’t you?…  Wait a minute… Why aren’t you?  You’re still sitting down.  “Stand therefore..” having done all that you can do, stand.  Stand. 

My hope and my belief is that you are going to take your Bibles today, go home to your house, open up to this scripture, and stand in your house, and declare some stuff.  You need to let your kids know that you’ve tried it your way, but now you’re going to do it Jesus’ way and you’re going to stand on the Word of God.  You need to go home and put your checkbook in your Bible and say, from now on,  I’m standing.  I’m not writing any checks and telling anybody it’s in the mail and lying about it.  I’m going to stand.  I’m going to pay whatever debt is owed, and I’m going to pay my bills on time.  And if I can’t pay on time, I’m going to call them and let them know so, and when they ask me why, I’m going to tell them that I’m standing on the Word of God and it says, I’ll let no man be a debtor.  I’m going to pay everybody.  I’m going to pay them on time. 

You’re going to go home and you’re going to stand, and you’re going to take your adult children, and your younger children and you’re going to say, “You can’t play this in here no more. You’re going to listen to that garbage somewhere else, but there’s going to be no women abusing music in this house anymore.  I’m standing on the Word of God.”  There’s going to be no more of that profanity played in your little ears, going into your head, so that you can practice how to abuse me when you get to be 18 years old.  This is over.  It’s done.  Right here, that ain’t happening. 

In the Name of Jesus you need to tell that 19 year old boy, drunkenness is a sin, if you ever come back in here drunk you’re sleeping on the sidewalk, no way.  You’ll not pervert my house.  Lord have mercy.  Some of you ain’t smiling now.  But you need to stand.  Stand.  You’ve stood where you stood long enough and gotten bad results.  It’s time to stand on the Word. 

Look what he says, he says, “Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”  Do what?  STAND  After you’ve stood, stand.  Hold your ground.  Don’t give up.  Hold your ground.  Don’t give up. If I lay hands on you and you don’t get it the first time, come back.  I will lay hands on you for healing, till Jesus comes, or your miracle manifests.  I will not get tired, wear out, or give up on you.  It won’t happen.  I’m believing for you.  You will not stay bound to those drugs, you will will not.  I declare it in the Name of Jesus.  Stand therefore, put on the armor of God, and after you’ve stood, stand some more.  and then what do you do after that?  Stand some more.  And then when you’re defeated and you think its all over, what do you do?  Get up, and stand some more.  And they tell you it won’t work, what do you do?  Stand some more. 

(Heather’s note, The video ended. I pray this blessed you. I know that in some areas I’m still in a bib, but I am wearing more and more aprons as I spend more and more time with God. I pray that you replace any bibs with aprons and take some stands.)

Have a blessed day.

Heather

I often joke, I want patience and I want it NOW, but sometimes in this life it is so easy to justify lack of patience. Circumstances and things seem to throw themselves at your feet, and patience is challenged. I have found that patience and peace are very closely linked, and if we can manage to not let the behavior of others interfere with our peace we can maintain patience in difficult circumstances. Pastor Don, the other day told us that he prays to God to give him the ability to view others through God’s eyes and through the love of God, and I think that patience is involved in that. We cannot attain the Fruit of the Spirit any other way but with God’s help. We certainly can’t do it in our own strength. I recently took the Beth Moore study on The Fruit of the Spirit, and want to share what I learned about patience from her and from other sources with you. I do find it ironic that God gave me a practicum on patience during the time I wrote this.

Galatians 4:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

I have to be honest, when I see the NKJV version of the word “patience” I want to roll my eyes and emphasize the words LOOOONG and  SUFFERING in longsuffering. But I don’t think that is what God had in mind with patience.

In this passage, the Strong’s definition for longsuffering is 3115 MAKROTHUMIA forbearance, fortitude, longsuffering, patience. It refers to one who has the power to avenge but refrains from doing so. It is self restraint before proceeding to action and is strongly associated with mercy. There are two words for Patience in the New Testament. Makrothumia is patience in respect to persons; and HUPOMONE (5281) which is endurance, putting up with things or circumstances. I think it is no mistake that God used Makrothumia for patience in the fruit of the Spirit because God always puts people above things.

We need both kinds of patience. HUPOMONE is to persevere, remain under and bearing up under things or circumstances. It is associated with hope and involves character which does not allow one to surrender to circumstances or succumb under trial, suffering in faith and duty. Hupomone is a quality of mind, the bearing of evils and suffering with tranquil mind. I might add that not all circumstances are God ordained. We need to determine if what we are dealing with is what God wants in our lives, or is it the fruit of our wrong assumptions and actions.

We see the word Hupomone in 1 Thessalonians 1:2-5 We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake.

If you look at the meaning of the word Hupomone you see the word Hope, which is the desire of some good with expectation of obtaining it. It is far more than what we see as hope in our common vernacular, which is a wish that things will come out good. The hope of Hupomone implies  an expectation. And so when we have perseverance and patience we need to be able to expect that something good will come out of it. The Greek word for “Hope” is ELPIS 1680, and it is a favorable, confident expectation, a forward look with assurance and anticipation of good, a factor in endurance, a purifying power.

Another place Hupomone is used in the New Testament is in James 5:11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful

What did Job endure?

Job lost his children, his property, his servants, had painful sores on his body and his wife even told him to curse God. Job faced situations far beyond what most of us face in our lives, but he still maintained His faith in God and refused to blame God. He endured this without any knowledge of what was going on in the heavenlies between God and satan. It is also important when we see someone going through a trial that we do not judge what they are facing for we don’t know the whole picture. Rather than his wife telling Job to curse God and die, she should have come alongside him and given him support in the midst. His friends came to offer support and ended up trying to find the reason why Job faced these trials. They shared Biblical truths with him with such insensitivity. Eugene Peterson in a commentary in the Message Bible said it this way, “Sufferers attract fixers the way roadkills attract vultures….More often than not, these people use the Word of God frequently and loosely. They are full of spiritual diagnosis and prescription. It all sounds so hopeful. But then we begin to wonder, “Why is it that for all their apparent compassion we feel sores instead of better after they’ve said their piece?” (p.714)  He then spoke about Elihu’s speech in Chapter 36 “The conclusion of Elihu’s speech is doxology by a master. He praised God extravagantly and accurately. In any other context this would have been admired and extolled. But as a speech to one who is suffering, it was ruinously insensitive. We can speak too much about God, as odd as that may sound. Especially when we speak to those who are suffering. Silence is often more eloquent than speech, and tears more effective than theology. (p.763)

I know that at one point before I knew God, that I had a miscarriage and some of the statements made to me after that were so insensitive that, instead of bringing me comfort and leading me closer to God, they drove a wedge between me and God. When I was grieving the loss of the child I didn’t need to hear that God needed that child more than I did, or that God had a purpose for this, or God would use this for his glory. I thought that was rather poor recruiting on God’s part. It wasn’t until I knew God’s love for me that I could reconcile some of this pain. People need love and comfort when they are in major pain.

What sustained Job during these trials? He had two hopes. It seemed that he was alone in the trials, something we sometimes feel when everything seems against us, but there were two hopes we have and Job had.

Job 23:8-10 “Look, I go forward, but He is not there, and backward, but I cannot perceive Him;  when He works on the left hand, I cannot behold Him; when He turns to the right hand, I cannot see Him. But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.

We know that good will come out of our trials, that God is there with us and hasn’t lost us, and that God will use the trials to refine us.

Refiners use heat to process gold and silver. They raise the heat on the metal and all the impurities rise to the surface to be skimmed off. The Refiner knows the gold is pure when the impurities are burned off and the refiner can see His reflection on the metal’s molten surface. With our lives, God is using all our circumstances to burn off the dross, and one day we will clearly reflect Him. God will not waste any experience we have. God will turn it all to good. We have to cling to this hope as we walk through our trials, for we want God’s glory to shine through us. And God loves us so much that if we fail at a trial, He will keep bringing similar trials up for He wants us to pass the test. As we lose the dross of our lives, it also gives satan fewer and fewer toe holds on our life. People will see God through us, and that is a profound testimony.

The word for Glory is Doxa 1391

1 Corinthians 10:31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Doxa means honor resulting from good opinion, nature and acts of God in self-manifestation, the acts and character of Christ, grace and power. THE CHARACTER AND WAYS OF GOD AS EXHIBITED THROUGH CHRIST TO AND THROUGH BELIEVERS.

Romans 8:28-29 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

God will use these tough circumstances in our lives, the trials and tribulations to work out patience in us, and it will also be used for His glory. We do want to conform to what God wants us to be. Why? Because we know God loves us and what He wants for us is best. But as we go through these circumstances we will probably realize that BEING CONFORMABLE IS NOT COMFORTABLE.

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

We all want to find God’s glory, and we all have the same motivation and hope as Job.

Job 19:25-26 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God.

We also see the word Hupomone in these following verses. What is the hope?

Hebrews 10:35-39 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

Here the word “HUPOMONE” is rendered endurance – so that we will receive the promise that He (Jesus) is coming.

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith and for joy.

James 1:2-8 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The testing of our faith produces patience and it has its perfect work. If we need wisdom on our tests we only have to ask God in faith.

2 Timothy 2:10-13 Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. This is a faithful saying:  For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.

Colossians 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

It is not us who has patience, but Christ in us, the hope of Glory.

The hopes mentioned in the above verses talk about circumstances that we endure. But the hope that is mentioned in the fruit of the Spirit is a different word. It is MAKROTHUMIA. 3115

This word means longsuffering, forbearance, self restraint before proceeding to action. A quality of a person who is able to avenge themselves but refrains from doing so.

MAKROTHUMIA is tied up with mercy and relates to patience with people. We know that God always puts people above circumstances.

 Matthew 12:9-13 Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—that they might accuse Him. Then He said to them, “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?  Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.

MAKROTHUMIA IS RELATED TO MERCY. MERCY IS ELEOS 1656

It means compassion, free gift for forgiveness of sins, God’s tender mercy toward our misery, forgiveness is strongly linked with mercy.

There are a few places both HUPOMONE and MAKROTHUMIA are used together.

2 Timothy 3:10-11 But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance,  persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra—what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me.

Colossians 1:9-12 For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.

WE ARE TO BE PATIENT REGARDING PERSONS AND ENDURE CIRCUMSTANCES.

To be honest, haven’t you found that being patient in circumstances is far easier than being patient with each other? Because MAKROTHUMIA is a fruit of the Spirit, we can ask God and the Holy Spirit to help us to attain patience for each other. We can pray for help in this. It is impossible to have the fruit of the Spirit unless it is expressed by God through us. We can’t produce MAKROHUMIA on our own, in our own strength.

We learn patience through the example of God and Jesus.

The Patience of God.

1 Peter 3:18-20 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

What did God see?

Genesis 6:5-12 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God. 10 And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.

The earth was corrupt and every intent of the thoughts of his heart were evil continually. The Bible says that it grieved God’s heart. The word for grieved is NACHAM, and it means a drawing breath and groaning.

Why would man’s sin cause God so much grief?

Genesis 1:27-31 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

God made man perfect, but man chose to disobey God. When we disobey God it grieves God, the same way our disobedience grieves the Holy Spirit. God had a perfect plan for man, and man chose to walk away from that perfect plan. Just like we are grieved by our children’s (both spiritual and physical) misbehavior, for we know that what we are desiring for them is for their best interest. When man sins, God grieves for he has perfect plans for us that are thwarted by our disobedience and He knows that we will face the fruit of our disobedience.

Noah is described as a just man, perfect in his generations – that does not mean that he did not sin, or was perfect, but he had not fallen into the moral depravity of his era.  He kept his body clean and pure.

We too are temples of God, and called to be just in our unrighteous society. To hold to the truths about God in the face of a society that is trying to deny God and do their own thing.

How long will God strive with evil?

Genesis 6:3-4 And the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

God is patient, he shows MAKROTHUMIA to us, but His patience is not forever. There will be a Day of Judgment.

What was Noah’s other job besides ark builder?

2 Peter 2:5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly;

He was a preacher of righteousness – his building of the ark which took 120 years, people would ask questions, wonder, and Noah would share what God told him – did he convert anyone? No. Can you imagine preaching that long and no conversions? But he was obedient.

Later God gave Noah the promise that he would not destroy the earth in the same manner and left the rainbow as a sign of this Covenant.

Why did God wait 120 years while Noah preached righteousness?

1 Peter 3:20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.

Divine longsuffering.  The patience of God. We so often take that patience for granted.

2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:14-15 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless;  and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you

We are saved because of God’s patience. I know for a fact I am thankful that He was patient with me during the 40 years I wanted nothing to do with God. When we have to practice patience on others, I think it is important to remember the patience that God shows us, for then we will extend that patience to others.

Sometimes in the Bible God shows us the meaning of a word by illustrating it’s opposite.

The opposite of MAKROTHUMIA  INSPIRED BY MERCY IS KRINO 2919,         to distinguish, choose give an opinion, judge, condemn, and take vengeance on.

PATIENCE IS THE DELAYING OF JUDGMENT. When God’s patience is fulfilled, He will judge. But God is waiting for He wants as many as want to be saved to be saved.

One thing I have noticed is that I have a choice in dealing with people, to judge them or to be patient toward them. It is not possible to judge someone and be patient toward them at the same time.

Eleven reasons we must not judge another

Romans 2:1 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

1. We cause God to be harder on us and 2. We do the same things we are condemning others for doing.

 Romans 2:2 But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things.

3. We do not know the whole truth, we can’t read minds or judge hearts.

 Romans 2:3 And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?

4. We are mere humans, Isaiah 29:16 tells us “Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay;  for shall the thing made say of him who made it, “ He did not make me”? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it,
 “ He has no understanding”?

Only God has full understanding of His creation. We have limited perspective.

Romans 2:4 Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?

5. When we judge others we are judging God, and having contempt for God’s patience. Eternity is a long time.

Romans 2:5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

6. God’s judgments are always righteous, ours are tainted. And God will have wrath for our judgments.

Matthew 7:1-2 “Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

7. We risk the application of the same judgment on ourselves.

Matthew 7:3-5 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

8. Our sight is hindered by our own sin.

James 4:11-12 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

9. Only one lawgiver and judge
10. Only God has a noble purpose in judgment.

John 8:14-18 Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came 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.”

11. Like Christ, our judgment would have to be consistent with God’s to be valid.

That being said, we do judge, but not to condemnation. We do have to judge if something is beneficial for us or not, if a person’s actions will lead them to harm or sin, or not. But our purpose for judging is not to condemn. God is patient with us and we have to be patient with each other. Judgment grieves the Holy Spirit. It is very easy for me to judge others, and far easier to point out the defects in another than it is to point out the defects in myself. I think often that we look at other people’s actions through the highest degree of magnification of an electron microscope, but we want others to give us the benefit of the doubt for we have reasons for what we are doing. I think God would rather that we reverse this, and search our own lives in great detail and give others the benefit of the doubt.

Jesus gave a parable about two debtors, one owed millions, and the other owed just a few denarri, a few dollars – Matthew 18: 15-35. The master forgave the man who owed millions, and then that man went and put into prison the man who owed him a few denarri. The judgment of the master was very harsh on the one who was forgiven much because he did not extend mercy to the debtor.

MERCY IS FUELED BY FORGIVENESS AND FORGIVENESS IMPACTS THE FILLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

I know that this does not seem like it is part of patience, but truthfully forgiveness is part of patience, and also the key to real liberty in Christ.

What is Biblical forgiveness? Forgive is the word APHIEMI 863 means leave, forgive, send away, depart, let go, give up a debt, forgive, not hinder.

We have those we don’t forgive strapped to our backs. Pastor Copes gave us a wonderful example of that (describe the offense held against him and how everywhere Pastor Copes went, Pastor Don had to go because Pastor Don was so busy holding the offense against Pastor Copes. When the offense was dropped, Pastor Don was free to go wherever he wanted to go). You are ruled by who you don’t forgive. We bind ourselves to what we hate the most.

Who or what are we to forgive?

Luke 11:4 And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

Mark 11:25-26 And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

Bible is pretty clear EVERYONE AND ANYONE.

I really, really had a hard time with this because of the abuse I had in my past. I used to think that forgiveness was like saying it’s ok for what a person did to me, but it isn’t ok. God will deal with the person. But I want to be free from the bondage of the past, and the only way to do that is to cut the ropes and forgive. Pastor Don tells us that until we let go, God can’t deal with the person.

If you have a RIGHT to be mad or hold a grudge, what better person could God use to show his glory by a God given MAKROTHUMIA?

Unforgiveness is like carrying dead weight and it becomes habit forming. Unchecked it spreads from one person to another and it ends up encumbering us.

But the most important reason for forgiving others is that God tells us to forgive.

Luke 6:37-38 “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

This also includes the same measure of forgiveness or unforgiveness.

Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

I know it seems impossible to believe, but it is true that the one who will not forgive always suffers more than the one who is not forgiven. Forgiving doesn’t make the offense right, but it heals us. If we walk around in unforgiveness it gives satan a place that he can attack us, and we don’t want satan having any hold on our lives.

2 Corinthians 2:10-11 Now whom you forgive anything, I also forgive. For if indeed I have forgiven anything, I have forgiven that one for your sakes in the presence of Christ,  lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.

We have to remember Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

There is one more important reason to forgive.

Ephesians 4:30-32 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

It grieves the Holy Spirit.

1 Timothy 1:15-17 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

That in and of itself should have us patient with each other when we need to forgive. Remember the woman that washed Jesus feet? The people questioned her morality, and Jesus answered them Luke 7:47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”

How do we forgive?

Colossians 3:12-13 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

As Christ forgave us.

Psalm 85:2-3 You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people; You have covered all their sin.  Selah. You have taken away all Your wrath; You have turned from the fierceness of Your anger.

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

What does God do with our sins?

Psalm 103:12-14 As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.

When must we forgive? NOW! If we are not willing to forgive, pray and tell God that, let Him know the situation and ask Him to make you willing to forgive. The liberty you will experience with forgiveness is well worth it.

Matthew 5:23-24 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Now back to patience.

James 5:7-9 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door!

James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

One time I walked into Pastor Don’s office and told him I was tired of being a living stone. My family and I were rubbing against each other and the results were not pretty. But the truth is, that that is the way God forms the stones of his temple, the friction of the uneven stones rubbing against each other smoothes us out.

The word “forbear” is ANECHO – It means to put up with, hold up and hold back.

Remember the joke about the person who thanked God that today they weren’t rude to someone, hadn’t lost their temper, etc. and the end of the joke is, now I have to get out of bed to start my day. We are all part of the Body of Christ and God put us here so that we are in fellowship. Part of that fellowship, unfortunately, is rubbing each other the wrong way. Someone says something, looks at us funny, doesn’t say something, ignores us and our hackles rise. We are in the Body of Christ to learn patience with one another.

It isn’t going to help our growth in Christ if we stay in isolation either. Sometimes I think a desert island is a boon, but we won’t learn to fit together as the temple of God in isolation. And sometimes the people who are the closest to us are the ones that are the ones that try our patience the most.

Sometimes the person who is the most difficult for us to deal with is the very one God ordained for us, but we have to have discernment in this. We do have to make sure the relationship is Godly. God would not want us to remain, for example, in and adulterous relationship. We have to ask ourselves does this relationship challenge us or is it oppression? If it is oppression, it may be a relationship of satan to keep us from doing God’s work, but if it is just dealing with a challenging person, then maybe God has us in the relationship for a reason.

Remember James 1:2-4

James 1:2-4 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

God’s purpose is to complete us in our walk in the Body of Christ. Sometimes the very person we are PRACTICING PATIENCE toward, is the same person who God put to teach us something important too. God is very economical. He will make the most of every situation. God may have put that person that we are dealing with into our lives to deal with something in us that needs changing.

Is there anyone in your life that you would say, “Without that person, my Christian walk would be perfect?” or maybe “They bring out the worst in me!” It is quite possible that God put them in our lives for that express purpose to bring out the worst in us, so that God can remove that worst in us,  in a similar manner as the refiner’s fire, putting the heat on in us to burn off the dross.  That way, when the worst is removed we mirror God closer than we used to. God is all about refining us, and often that refining process doesn’t look pretty and feels rather cruddy.

The reasons God may use trying people in our lives:

1. God wants us to realize where our weaknesses are and ask Him for help. Until we recognize we need help, we usually don’t ask for help.

2. They keep us from thinking too highly of ourselves. Nothing like seeing ungodly behavior in our lives to smack down pride.

3. They keep our pretenses from working. Without that person in our lives we can pretend that everything is ok, and we are doing well. But, when our patience is tried, we realize that that is not the case.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.

God will put us in circumstance after circumstance until we pass the test. He is all for us passing the test. If the work God wants to do through us is finished and perfect, we would have no reason to remain here. But God is at work in our lives killing off those pretenses, we are dying for Jesus’ sake, to become more and more perfected so that God’s glory can shine through us.

In today’s society with so many divorces raging – it seems that we have a throw away relationship mentality. If a relationship becomes too hard, we walk a way. That was not what God intended. He knew that we would rub each other the wrong way. He knew that dealing with other flawed humans, especially when we also are flawed humans, is destined to produce conflict. If we get into conflict and walk away, nothing changes. True change comes with CONFLICT AND COMMITMENT.

God will kill pride in us, not to make us squirm or to make us feel poorly about ourselves. He is killing pride in us so that He can use us.

Pray that God fills us with the Holy Spirit and patience.

Ephesians 4:1-6 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

May we all walk worthy of the calling with which we are called, and may we learn to exhibit the Fruit of the Spirit, as a byproduct of our walk with the Lord.  I pray that He helps us with patience in our circumstances and with others, that His glory may shine all the brighter through us.

See Part 1 here.

1 Corinthians 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Paul had a feeling of unworthiness. Sometimes our feelings of unworthiness haunt us, and eliminate the goodness of God in our lives. If we don’t feel we qualify for good, or don’t deserve good, it creates an atmosphere around you that will annihilate the good. An ugly babe could be dated by a handsome man and if she keeps talking about how ugly she is, she won’t be a pleasant person to be around and the handsome man may choose not to date such a negative person. In his eyes, she may be beautiful, but she does not believe that, and her negative talk would lead to a self fulfilling prophesy.

Pastor Don told us that in job interviews we can destroy the interview with our negative opinions of ourselves. The person may have been attracted to something on our resume, but we persist in pointing out our flaws and negate the positive impression. What if we don’t believe we deserve the job, and the Holy Spirit tells us to put on that black dress, and we negate that impression from the Holy Spirit and think we’ll be more comfortable in jeans because we are not going to get the job anyway. We don’t get the job because we did not listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. By wearing the jeans, we help our feelings to become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The apostle Paul had different feelings of unworthiness. We might ask ourselves why didn’t I come to Jesus at 10. You are not 10 anymore, so what. You have come to Jesus now. Make the most of now.

Pastor Don pointed out that those who hate God, and don’t want to be around God, God will grant their wish. They will be away from God, and when you are away from God, that is hell. Pastor Don was asked about those who were never taught he Gospel. He told us that God will give everyone a chance to hear the Gospel. God will give all a chance to have a choice. Even creation speaks of the existence of God – Romans 1.

Peter went to Cornelius’s household and taught the Gospel. Peter opened his heart to these people saying in truth I perceive…He had a Rhema word about these people, and under the power of the Holy Spirit people were saved and filled by the Holy Spirit simultaneously.

Acts 10:34 Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality.

These people Peter was talking with were in chaos and confusion. He brought to them the truth that Jesus is the Way. These people were looking for God in the wrong place, they were going to hear the truth. Jesus showed no partiality, he came to the Gentiles and the Jews.

Acts 10:35 But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.

Jesus is to be preached to the whole world, and then we know that the end is near. We are so close to that time. God doesn’t function on tick tock time, he is operating on revelatory time – and when certain events occur, then God acts. All the prophesies Jesus spoke about are fulfilled except for the rapture of the church and the manifestation of the antichrist. Israel is in the land. That happened in 1948.

Pastor Don asked us if it was possible for us to take another 50 years of life like it is now? He doesn’t see how it is possible. We need to look up for our redemption draws nigh. Theology is narrow, many only see Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth – a narrow aspect of Jesus, but Jesus is far more than that. He is the WORD become flesh. The Word of God incarnate. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and returned to Glory. Aborigines and Mongolians who have never seen the Bible, never had a radio or TV, never heard an evangelist have still had encounters with Jesus.  People have had divine visitations and when evangelists come to their area, they have already met Jesus. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

When Dr. Livingston came to a town, a witch doctor wanted him dead, but another person said to leave him be because the Creator sent him to the tribe. American Indians have seen the Great Spirit. Peter saw that other tribes feared God, and knew there was a creator. All it takes is the birth of a baby to have a person experience the miracle of creation.

1 Corinthians 15:9-11 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Paul felt unworthy, but he – like us, had to get past this unworthiness. The grace of God helped him to get past this, and now he served. The true Heavenly recognition of God is not for us to put our self down, but so that we can serve Him. Jesus did not let anyone put Him down. He served God, and showed God to people, but when they tried to put Him down he described those people as dead man’s bones and white washed tombs.

FALSE HUMILITY IS INVERTED PRIDE. We have to let go of our particular misery and go on with God, and what is good for us. It is perverted pleasure to say that it is right to stay in misery, or to (as Pastor Don put it) piss in our own shoes. That is the work of satan. Satan tries to convince us that we are too smart to believe in the simplicity of the gospel, we say we are unfit for ministry because of our past and that is just inverted pride. Satan wants us to spotlight the worst in us and point out how twisted we were, what goodness is there in that? If good is doing what God says, we have to replace that inverted pride and sense of unworthiness with who we are in Christ, and realize that God can use even what was worst in us for His Glory. We are God’s fertilizer.

1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

Pastor Don said that this is a scathing rebuke of anyone who says they are a disciple of Christ and do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. It is impossible, to be a disciple of Christ and not believe in resurrection. Pastor Don spent some time talking about the book 90 Minutes in Heaven by John Piper. It is a book I plan to get and read. Don Piper was pronounced dead at the scene of a car accident. He was so badly damaged that the EMTs decided to take his body out of the car in pieces, not even bothering to get the jaws of life – and he was pronounced dead. A passing pastor was told by God to pray over Don Piper’s body, and the only way he could get near the body was to climb in the back seat of the severely crushed car and reach his hand around the seat to touch the only intact part of Don Piper’s body, a shoulder. The pastor touched the shoulder, prayed and ultimately sang a hymn – “What a friend we have in Jesus.” As he was singing, the “dead” John Piper started singing with him. Now he spends his time going around talking about his experience in Heaven, and the Baptist pastor who prayed over Don Piper’s body now believes in signs and wonders. The pastor obeyed God in obedience, and God brought about a miracle. Don Piper also tells people that if they ever come across his dead body again, please do not pray that he returns to life. Heaven is awesome.

1 Corinthians 15:13-18  But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen, and those who died in Christ are dead, and there is no more. It would be empty faith.

1 Corinthians 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.

It would be pathetic to believe in something that is not so. The Gospel assures us that Christ conquered death, and so will we. Our faith is not empty. When we really begin to believe this with our heart what happens here on earth won’t bother us, for the real world is not down here. If we truly believe this, we will realize that life is not all there is down here, but there is life beyond our world.

Someone asked about their relations who are blinded to the truth about God and Pastor Don suggested praying the following prayer from Ephesians over them, praying and inserting their name in the appropriate places.

Ephesians 1:15-23 Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers:  that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Pastor Don told us that when we meet someone who really does not like God it is important to ascertain what it is that the person has against God or the Church. Sometimes they have something against God, sometimes it is just against the Church. You need to help them realize that God and the Church are not the same. That institutions can hurt people, and beat you up terribly, but it is wrong to assume that God had anything to do with an institution hurting you.

Pastor Don talked about a person, long since dead, who told Pastor Don that he could never go to church, that he was too sinful and God would reject him. He spent 20 years staying out of churches. Pastor Don told him that one day, he hoped that the man had the courage to share with Pastor Don why. One Sunday the man came and told him that he couldn’t come to church because he was going to hell. Why? As a farm teenager he once succumbed to bestiality with a cow, and one Sunday it was preached that that was an abomination to God. He figured he was going to hell, so avoided church from that time on. Pastor Don was able to speak with this man about the forgiveness of God, and salvation from our sins. The man responded and asked for forgiveness from God, was brought back to the church and spent his remaining years as a blessed man of God.

There are so many out there who are believing that their sins keep them from fellowship in Christ, believing that God can’t forgive a particular sin. We need to listen and speak with people and find out the reason why they are rejecting God or fellowship with Christians. Only when we can find out what the cause is, can we speak the words of truth to them and help them realize the incredible love of God.

I pray that we all begin to listen to others who reject God and reach out to them with the Love of God.

Hoping this blessed you.

Heather

Before I share last Friday’s Bible study I wanted to share something funny with you. As you know, Pastor Don is teaching the elementary principles of faith in Hebrews 6:1-3. Before I sat down to read the three chapters Pastor Don had assigned to us I was walking around shaking my head, imagining that the author of Hebrews thought that laying hands on a dead person and raising them from the dead was an elementary principle of faith. Then I read the chapters and realized that they were also talking about Christ’s resurrection and the resurrection of the Saints in the end days, AND raising the dead. So I started thinking, realizing that, any of the gifts that God has given us, we do not do in our own power, but He does through us, so for all practical purposes, He (God) who has raised the dead, can do it through us – it isn’t us, it is Him through us. God has been dealing with me about increasing my faith and believing bigger. I think that if we could just wrap our minds around faith, and let Him increase our faith, a lot more is possible than we can think or imagine with our ordinary minds. Praying your day is blessed!

*****

1 Corinthians 15:1-2 Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

Hold fast to the truth of the Word of God.

1 Corinthians 15:3  For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,

Paul tells us, I received it and now I am delivering it over to you. What are the Scriptures Paul is referring to? It is those in the Old Testament, for the New Testament was not yet written. There are over 300 prophesies that the Messiah was expected to fulfill in the Old Testament. Jesus fulfilled them all.

1 Corinthians 15:4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,

This is what we are banking on.

1 Corinthians 15:5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve.

He was SEEN. That is powerful. It wasn’t a fiction of him seen by one guy (Cephas), but by the 12, and Paul even gives Peter’s birth name, Cephas, which means pebble. He was seen, it was not a dream, a vision or an illusion.

1 Corinthians 15:6-7  After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles.

If Jesus was only seen by the disciples then it could have been hysteria by enthusiastic, psychotic disciples, but it is not that, he was seen at once, simultaneously, by over five hundred brethren.This could not be a plot to fool people. You cannot have a plot that holds for 500 people. And at the writing of Corinthians, there were many who were still alive – and those people who saw Jesus could have been found and asked what they saw. When it mentions “sleep” here it is death of the physical body – not the Spirit. For to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. It is not soul sleep like some want to infer.

Notice also that James (not an apostle) but Jesus’ brother also saw the resurrected Jesus. He used to doubt Jesus – remember that at one point he did not believe Jesus was the Messiah. Now James is the head of a church at Jerusalem and was well known. So Jesus did not appear to unknowns, but to people known by many.

1 Corinthians 15:8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

Me (Paul), born out of due time. He was an apostle (made an Apostle by Jesus after Jesus’ death), saw him. He did not see him at the time of the visitation of the 500 or at the time when Jesus appeared to the 12, but he saw Jesus later.

1 Corinthians 15:9 For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

This is Paul’s opinion based on how he felt about himself, but it is not Christ’s opinion or the Holy Spirit’s decree about Paul. His worthiness is based on Christ, and Paul had been forgiven for his persecution of Christ. We all have issues that we transfer onto God about our feelings about ourselves and what we think God has done or not done. This is our own self image, not how God perceives us, and we are in error. We sometimes think that God thinks that because of our past He cannot use us, or that He remembers our past and holds back things from us. That is not true. We try to justify what is happening or not happening in our lives and put it on God, but God is not like that. God is not seeing Paul as unworthy to be called an apostle because he persecuted the church of God. God has taken that sin and unworthiness away because of the blood of Christ. Paul has a problem getting over himself. Paul probably kept seeing himself standing and watching the stoning of Stephen.

We can keep looking back, and think that we wasted 20 (30, 40 in my case, etc) years of not serving Christ and regret the wasted years. But that is not productive. We have to stop looking at the loss and look forward at the gains made through Christ. Yes, we will make mistakes, and sometimes do the same thing over and over again until we finally get it right. God will forgive us. This is our testimony, and God will use our testimony if we look forward in obedience to him.

Pastor Don told us the joke about two kids, one was an optimist and one was a pessimist. Their parent filled their kids’ rooms with manure. The pessimist said, “See I told you, life is a drag, the carpets are ruined, the clothes are ruined, all my toys are ruined, my computer is ruined…” The Optimist started digging in his room saying, “With all this manure in the room there’s got to be a pony in there somewhere.

Pastor Don told us that if the parent put the manure in the room, the parent would also be prepared to get the room cleaned and restore the damaged stuff. We have to trust God in our circumstances.

As believers, we have to drop our stuff and let God transform the difficult stuff.

Pastor Don spoke at a meeting at John Hobbs’ church. And the topic was “Take this, give me that.” We have to take those things that we are holding on so tightly to and give them to God. Then God can give us what He wants for us to have. Pastor Don told us that we can’t change without the law of substitution. We need to substitute a positive concept for the negative concepts that we are feeling.

Some people with a pessimistic attitude think that God can’t change us. We may have had a bad past, a childhood that we wish hadn’t happened. The reality is that we need to ask ourselves where we are in life. How old are we now? Is that past the reality of our circumstances now? What is our current situation? Why do we let our past color our outlook and attitude? If, as a young girl, someone only heard put downs. She may believe that she is not capable of accomplishments, and act accordingly. But when the negative attitudes are substituted by the truth of God, she can do far more than she believed.

(Heather’s comment. I used to bristle at a statement like what is said in the above paragraph. I grew up in a home filled with abuse and nursed the memories of the abuse for so long that it colored all that I saw in my present. It took a lot of work with God and with Pastor Don, sorting out attitudes and belief systems that were not of God, and replacing them. I truly have been changed by God. It was not an overnight, instantaneous process, but it is one that is necessary for real change to occur. God is patient with us though, and will keep presenting the truth to us until we realize that we don’t have to be controlled by our past memories. I was being controlled by people who had died 20 years ago, kind of silly when you realize it. Yet, sadly my sister and brother still have not let go of the past and they are 15 and 16 years older than me.)

Pastor Don had us laughing when he used this expression which I am going to share with you – in fact, we kept using it when we asked him questions for the rest of the Bible study because it was soooo funny. He told us it is like, “Pissing in our own shoes.” Then putting our shoes on and walking around in them. He said that it was a gross image, but that is what we do when we keep nursing our old attitudes. And he told us that we all do this.

We have so much to be thankful for, we are not in a starving country looking for a bowl of rice. We have so much that God has given us. When God tells us to take this, we have to give Him that (memory, thought, habit), give it up, and get the better thing from God.

If we have fallen, get up and move forward again, tell ourselves I got it once, I can get it again.

Twelve years ago someone left our church. His wife still attended, but he told Pastor Don that he can’t stand one more sermon on faith. His life changed for him over time to become a living hell. Instead of choosing what could change his life, he chose something else.

Pastor Don told us to get a tape recorder and listen to what we are saying. What are we confessing with our mouths? We may find that 80% of what comes out of our mouths is negative and only 20% is positive. When we see what we are saying, then we have a choice to change what we are saying. Analyze what you are doing? Then he used the expression, make sure we are not, “Shooting ourselves in the foot.” (Heather’s note, He thought he could substitute that phrase for the first one for it was a tamer expression, but not in this Bible study she says smiling).

We have to face reality and know that there is work to be done. We have to change our lives with the oil of work – (not works, but we do have to apply the Word in our lives and that takes work on our part to choose to do this.) We have to speak life and our brain will change what we are thinking.

Pastor Don told us that he spent years listening to teachers and the Bible (reading and on tape). When he worked he would put on tapes as he drove to his jobs, listened late at night, early in the morning. Read the Bible and filled his mind with things of God. He was cured of an incurable disease, and wanted to learn all that he could about God. He listened to Kenneth Hagin, Marilyn Hickey, Pat Robinson, Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, Steve Parsons. And listens in the morning to the Word of Faith. Remember, “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”

Pastor Don then told us the verse that God gave him when God showed him he was going to be a pastor.

Isaiah 52:11  Depart! Depart! Go out from there, touch no unclean thing, go out from the midst of her, be clean, you who bear the vessels of the LORD.

What touched Pastor Don’s heart was the idea of bearing a vessel for the LORD.

We can still struggle in the spiritual and not in the natural. Pastor Don knew that God called him, but he let personal stuff get in the way and tried to convince himself that he was unworthy. He was carrying around unnecessary baggage. God would not have called Him if God did not want him doing the job. So often God calls us and we disqualify ourselves. We tell ourselves we are too old, too young, too fat, not gifted enough. These are excuses that are not valid, but the devil will keep giving us excuses so we stay on the bench or avoid the stadium. There is a time for anointing, a time to speak and equip ourselves.

We hear the Voice of the Lord inside. Pastor Don spoke about vessels. Priests would go into the temple and prepare the temple. They had to be clean vessels. When we keep holding onto the past as an excuse to not do God’s will, there may be deliverance issues. We want to do what God wants us to do, and fight against the devil. We have enough Word in ourselves to know that God is good/the devil is bad. We have to take our thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. We have to think about what we are thinking about, and if it is thoughts from the devil we have to pick which side we want to choose. Do we want to banish satan’s thoughts and embrace God’s or do we want to give into satan’s thoughts? The choice is ours. We want to live in the Word. Somebody gets the last Word, so think what would Jesus do and do as He would do. We have to stop looking for subtext. What did Jesus say? We want His opinion to permeate our present moment. We have to retrain our mind. We can have our suitcase packed for hell and at the last minute change our mind.

We need to go to the well that gave us water. Things may be harder, but we need to put our armor on before we get out of bed, and get ready for any moment of battle. If we do not go to God early in the day, the devil can get in between our ears before we have finished 1/2 cup of coffee.

Pastor Don continued on with 1 Corinthians 15. I will continue this tomorrow.

Praying your day is blessed.

Heather

Pastor Don then began to look at Acts 26.

Acts 26:27-28 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe.” Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian.”

Pastor Don told us that this is a casual passage about a conversation with King Agrippa, and yet King Agrippa makes a powerful statement with the word “almost”. King Agrippa was saying you ALMOST talked me into it. It implies that he has an inner witness that he should be a Christian, but he rejects that inner witness. He is ready to do it, but rejects it. He claims that he is not buying Paul’s argument, but Paul was speaking on the basis of belief, not debating the issue. The Spirit man grasps King Agrippa and King Agrippa knows that Paul does believe, but King Agrippa makes the choice to not believe.

We all know people like this. We can sense that they are not committed. Where is their inner witness telling them? What is preventing them? Do they just not believe anything? Some say, he’s a good person, moral and ethical, just not a believer. You can’t say you don’t believe anything – everyone believes something, even an atheist. You can ask a person, what’s the motivation to be good if you don’t believe the Ten Commandments? It is the law of God that defines what goodness is, so what is the motivation factor? You aren’t doing it for money, or for common good. Who then decides what is the right thing to do?

God gave all men a measure of faith, and man is without excuse. Why does an atheist have a moral code? They will say it is for social order, but they don’t believe in God, so they can sin not believing in God, and no punishment or reward motivates their behavior. God’s law has no basis for the atheist, so why would they desire to do good? There is no basis for what they do and what they don’t do.

The atheist may say that what he does is because he wants to do what is best for mankind. But who decides what is best for mankind? For example, if an atheist has a new car, and I decide that it is best for mankind if I take the atheist’s car and drive it around, the atheist will call me a thief. I would then say on what basis do you say this? I feel it is best for me if I drive your car and have your car. The atheist would disagree claiming that the car is his, calling me a thief, but on what is he basing that accusation? It feels good for me to have the car, so I should have the car. Obviously the atheist would have an opposite point of view.

Ethical behavior needs an absolute to lock in behavior. New agers try to claim gaia, an elephant, etc, and try to remove God. But even with these attempts they can’t ignore the fact that to get to absolute truth, there has to be an absolute truth maker.

Genesis 6:5  Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

If we carry the philosophy of everyone doing what they think is right in their own eyes, we would have anarchy, and that is a disaster.

We were created in the image of God. Little kids do not have a problem with God, only when men are older do they want to disobey and thus question God. The inner witness of the person either creates obedience to God or disobedience. Many deny the existence of God on the basis of what we assume He did or didn’t do. (But that is based on our perception of what we think, not on who He is.) Heaven or hell is a choice. God will give you the desires of your heart. If you do not want to spend eternity with God, He will give you that desire.

People claim that Christians do not have free will, and they claim that we are trying to take away their free will. The truth is, if a person is debating about free will or lack of free will, they have free will – for if they didn’t have free will they would be unable to debate about it.

If we have no free will, how can you debate?

God gives us absolute free will. God can control your choices on the planet if He wanted to, but He chose to give us free will. Yet at the same time there are things that God did not put on the planet for us to choose. In this day and age God chose not to have man-eating dinosaurs roaming the planet.

To reject something is to choose something else. It is an act of will. We are thinking individuals with amazing capacity. At any given moment we are deciding to choose something or not to choose it. We are locked in tick tock time, but God is not locked in the same time frame as we are, so He knows our choice before we make it, but that does not mean that we do not have the choice to make. We need to make a choice and determine to what consequence does our choice leads us.

King Agrippa made a decision to not believe, although his inner man lead him to ALMOST make a choice to believe God.

Acts 27:9-10  Now when much time had been spent, and sailing was now dangerous because the Fast was already over, Paul advised them, saying, “Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives.”

What was Paul’s career? He was NOT a sailor, but a tentmaker. This event occurred at he fall feast, probably Yom Kippur. Paul did not have a field of expertise in sailing, but he said, “I PERCEIVE.” He perceived in his inner man.

Acts 21:8-9 On the next day we who were Paul’s companions departed and came to Caesarea, and entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. Now this man had four virgin daughters who prophesied.

Pastor Don pointed out that here are four DAUGHTERS who prophesied. Women can also prophesy and preach. Women have an inner voice or inner witness and know how to discern.

Acts 21:10 And as we stayed many days, a certain prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.

These people, the four women and Agabus have an inner witness of the Holy Spirit. It could be an inner voice or an audible voice, but there are five people with a prophesy.

Acts 21:11 When he had come to us, he took Paul’s belt, bound his own hands and feet, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man who owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’”

Did Agabus hear from the Holy Spirit? Yes, he interpreted from the inner voice or the inner witness. He had a pop-up (see previous post) and got a message in the Spirit. He gave what the Holy Spirit showed him. The prophetic voice is not to interpret, give ideas, what they like or dislike, but to deliver the message as presented by the Holy Spirit. (Heather’s note, it is often a short one line sentence, not a long dissertation.)

Acts 21:12  Now when we heard these things, both we and those from that place pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem.

The people looked at the prophetic word and came up with their own interpretation. They told Paul not to go to Jerusalem, that he would be bound and brought there.

Acts 21:13-14 Then Paul answered, “What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”  So when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, “The will of the Lord be done.”

The people tried to convince Paul to go with their interpretations, but Paul asked them to stop. While he would be willing to die in Jerusalem, he also knew that that was not to be his fate. When Paul was converted, Jesus showed him the SUFFERINGS He was going to face for Christ, and God told him that his end would be in Rome. The people were in error and gave the wrong interpretation, trying to talk Paul out of his inner witness.

We have to be very careful who we ask to interpret our dreams or prophesies, and make sure that the interpretation agrees with our inner witness and the Word. God does not speak prophetically to tell you to go do something that He hasn’t already talked to you about in your inner witness. he is not going to give us an instruction from a prophet that comes from left field. God put the Holy Spirit in us to guide us, and God will not ignore the Holy Spirit in favor of a prophet which does not agree with what God has told us.

Pastor Don talked about a woman from a major ministry that came to our area, and saw Pastor Don on TV. She called him and told him that God had shown her that he was to leave Living Word Chapel and start his own church. That agreed with Pastor Don’s flesh, but not with his inner witness. He could have said, ok, I’ve got 30-35 people coming to my house for a Bible study, let’s go, but instead he waited, checked his inner witness and conferred with his wife. Neither of them felt that that was where God was leading him, so he did not leave and start his own church. (Heather’s note, and I am glad he didn’t because by staying and listening to God, he is now pastor here, and that would not have happened if he had left the church because of what that prophet said.)

Paul was given a right message, that he was going to go bound to Jerusalem, but the wrong interpretation. Pastor Don got a right message in that he was going to pastor a church, but the wrong interpretation was that he was to leave Living Word Chapel. We need to listen to what God is saying, but don’t interpret it through the flesh. The flesh could color the message and you might end up missing God.

God told Abraham to go to the place God would show Abraham. Abraham loaded his camels and waited for the next part of the prophesy. He didn’t pick the place he thought God was planning on sending him. We have to do the same with our shopping, with our friends, with what we say in church, where we serve, etc. We have to wait for God’s green light. If we miss God by one degree we can end up in another country.

Acts 21:14 So when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, “The will of the Lord be done.”

In wisdom, once Paul spoke, the people ceased and began to support Him, praying that the will of God. If Paul was missing it or if he was wrong, it was right for them to pray the Will of God in the situation. We need to release the Will of the Lord into our situation.

The next step is the most difficult one to do, and that is to have patience. Know that the Lord also has the best timing for what He has shown us. God will finish His perfect work in us.

Acts 22:17-20 “Now it happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance and saw Him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning Me.’ So I said, ‘Lord, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on You. And when the blood of Your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death, and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.”

Paul was in a trance, and his Spirit Man was elevated to the point that it seemed as if he was in a dream, walking, talking and doing stuff. There are two types of visions, one when you are awake – an open trance. Your eyes are opened and you are seeing things as if watching a movie. The other is a closed trance, where your eyes are closed and you are seeing the vision on your mind’s eye. Pastor Don had us close our eyes and put the image of a red rose in our mind’s eye. It can be very vivid, even with your eyes closed, and it can feel very real.

The natural man is suspended when you are in a trance. You are not aware of where the natural man is, but you see yourself or feel yourself physically in that vision. The difference is that it is supernatural, and you are opening up a communication with the spirit man. The inner man is sensing the REAL you in operation in the supernatural. We are out of it, but know that it is so real when God speaks to us in dreams. Inwardly we participate in the supernatural. We can’t make it happen or pray to make it happen. The devil would be happy to imitate that inward state.

In these end days, Joel prophesied that the Spirit world would grant dreams and visions and pour out His spirit on all. We are not to chase after angels or ask God to send us an angel.

A real angel visitation is either to 1. Correct you and save you or 2. to congratulate you for informational purposes. If you are having regular visits from angels you are deceived, for these are appealing to the flesh and satan can easily imitate. Mary never saw another angel after Gabriel. She was a 14 year old girl being told that she was going to be impregnated with the Messiah by the Holy Spirit. When she accepted and agreed to this she knew that she may well be stoned to death. The angel was sent to encourage her.

We need to ask what is the fruit of our visitations and visions? God does not show off to show off.  Sometimes we can sense angels by our inner witness, or feel that we are not alone. God does miracles through the inner witness.

Pastor Don shared about a woman who was experiencing her dead grandmother giving information that was accurate. But her grandmother stayed at a distance. The information was true, and the woman was gaining notoriety in the content of her information. Pastor Don told her to tell this grandmother figure, “In the Name of Jesus reveal who you are.” The “grandmother” turned out to be an ugly demonic thing that progressively became revealed as the being drew closer to her.

Only God can open the doors of the supernatural. We do not want to open them ourselves for it may be very difficult to close the doors. God will reveal in His own time, at the right time what we need to know. Our job is to fine tune the inner witness and recognize if what we are hearing is from God or not.

Paul was told by God that he would have to go through stuff, and he knew that the interpretation of the prophesy was not to avoid conflict, but to confirm what Jesus showed him.

In Acts 27, Paul was not a fisherman, had never earned his living on a boat, yet he was able to say to seasoned sailors.

Acts 27:10 saying, “Men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and ship, but also our lives.”

We know from the scriptures that Paul had to go to Jerusalem and Rome. He was not afraid for his life. The inner witness in his heart knew that he would survive this journey. He didn’t have an angel, a vision, or a trance here, just his inner witness. “I perceive”

We can perceive the outcome of our actions and activities of others. God wants us high tuned to the inner witness, He is not wanting us to always have to turn to prophets for direction.

God wants us to perceive His will and way for us in our daily life, when our spirit touches the Spirit of God. God wants to send us pop-ups. It isn’t necessary to fast 14 days to hear from God. You fast for power or for a different anointing. He can give us information in our inner witness regardless of what we do or whether we fast or not.

Acts 27:23 For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve.

Paul had a peace on that ship. This was not a trance, not a dream, it was a visitation. The Lord showed up. Paul had 2 or 3 visitations. Kenneth Hagin had 4. It is not common to have many.

Acts 27:22-25   And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve,  saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me.

Believe God, just as God told Paul. Believe God through the difficult turns. Paul relied on the inner witness, holding onto the fact that God told him he was going to go to Rome. Jesus sent an angel and told him it was going to be OK.

We don’t get to where God wants us to go if we let someone steal what He has told us in our inner witness. We do not look to circumstances, to failure, disappointment, people’s objections to discourage us from what we knew God has told us. Don’t get sidetracked by circumstances. If the Holy Spirit tells us something from God, it has to be God. Take God at His Word. Stand on the promises of Christ.

Oh this lesson spoke volumes to me. Sometimes it is easy to see circumstances and let doubt come in. I am glad to learn to trust the inner witness more, as long as it agrees with what God has shown me and with what the Word says.

Have a blessed day!

Heather

Pastor Don told us that in the times that we are in, we need and operate in the greatest amount of the supernatural, and within the supernatural there is an area that is least talked about: How do we know and follow God.

There are elements of truth that are the essence of Him, and He places them in the heart of Man.

Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart.

Our joy, happiness, peace, depression, crying, hurt emanates from the same place. We can grab a hold of some things and cling to them when they are to our detriment.

Pastor Don shared about someone in his office who came in talking about some negative things, tears came, her complexion changed, her blood pressure was rising, and she was ready to step off into the soup, which was not a nice place. He said she was mature enough to receive correction, so he told her to settle back and get back in touch with her spirit, get to the source of that negative feeling and cancel it.  She focused, found the feeling, closed her eyes, and it lifted. She was back in her comfort zone and then could talk about the situation in a way that was productive.

He told us that when he counsels people that usually doesn’t happen. The person gets negative thoughts in their head, and run with it. The tension gets worse, and elevates. They give in to the confused spirit of anger, sadness, tension, and if it goes on, and you get caught up in the mix, it can take hours or days to pull out of it, and we end up in anger, strife, depression, etc.

We do have the ability to pull back and get back in touch with the inner witness. The inner witness is one of the ways that we hear from God.

There are many ways that people can hear from God, but the most common way is through the inner witness.

We can hear the audible voice of God. This is extremely rare, God does not speak audibly most of the time. If you are hearing an audible voice of God a lot you are probably hearing from the devil. Satan imitates what God does. When we hear the audible voice of God, God speaks to our ear and we hear it with our ears (and often others also hear something – thunderings, etc), we hear it audibly because we are not making contact with our Spirit, and God needs to convey something important. Why would God send the Holy Spirit if He planned to shout people down? The voice is so awesome that it brings sheer fright, vibrates the airwaves and everything. God spoke once to the people of Israel, and they told Moses that from now on he was to go and hear from God and relay what God says to the people.

We can also hear an inward voice. God speaks on the inside of us, we hear it as if it was spoken on the outside, but others do not hear the voice. This inward voice is also rare. God usually only speaks a word inwardly to get the Spirit man to listen. This inward voice can override all our senses. It is if someone said in our ear, and it registers inside us. We know it is not my voice or thought, and is fairly rare. Pastor Don told us that the high end of the office of prophet will hear the inward voice more often. It is not the usual way that God speaks. But he will speak in desperate situations. The inward voice is sometimes used by God for correction, to get a person’ attention. It is a quick correction, but would not be needed if we were listening to our inner witness.

When we hear the inward voice, except when a person is acting in the high office of prophet, we think we are being super spiritual, but often it is because we are in disobedience. Satan manifests as an angel of light and satan needs to misdirect, so he masquerades as the inner voice and power to get people from hearing from God. Satan will do it so strongly that the people do not question that it is from God. Satan is a very good liar, and when he masquerades as the inward voice of God, it is hard to know the difference. He won’t tell a bold face lie, just a little misdirection.

Pastor Don told us to: 1. begin to pay attention to what the outcome is of an action taken because of the inward voice. If you notice that every time you listen to that inward voice it ends in disaster, you need to realize that it is not the inward voice of God. 2. As you listen, you have to compare it to the Word of God. The Word gives us the balance to keep us out of error.

Pastor Don gave an example. He said what if an inner voice told him that he was to have a new ministry, but in order to function in that ministry he had to leave his wife, and find a new wife that was suited for this new ministry. Pastor Don said that he could rationalize that he loves the Lord, wants to serve the Lord, and do right for the Lord, so this can’t be from the devil. So he would then feel he was free to divorce his wife. Pastor Don said then he would spend time looking for examples of others who had more than one wife to justify this action, like Derek Prince who had two wives, and therefore there is a precedent. If Pastor Don listened to this lying voice he would find himself far from where God wanted him.

Pastor Don said that we have to make sure that what we hear in the inner voice lines up with the Word of God. Divorce is not part of what God wants for us. He loves his wife and she is who God wants him to be with. In response to the above, he knows that if God wanted his wife to be in this new ministry, he would raise her up to be able to function in that ministry, he doesn’t need a new wife. God does not want us to violate His commandments or change His commandments or put our revelation above His Word.

We cannot depend on what sounds good to our flesh or what seems right, we have to make sure that what we hear lines up with the Word of God. There is the Rhema Word of God and the literal word of God. If an inner word lines up with the Word of God it is probably from God. One thing we can usually assume is that if we are hearing an inner word that agrees with our flesh it is probably in error. If our flesh likes it, it may not be true. Our flesh wants to believe that the grass is always greener in another pasture. The flesh wants to believe that there may be another ministry for us that is bigger, more powerful, more profitable, more flashly for us. The Inner Word has to measure these words against God’s truth.

In the Old Testament, the prophets did not shout, “Hooray! I am becoming a prophet.” They knew that that gift came with a cost. Paul was showed all that he would SUFFER for the cause of Christ. He was not shown all the limousines and babes that he would meet in the service of Christ. Moses did not want to leave the sheep he was shepherding and deal with the Jews. A ministry calling is usually not so pleasing to the flesh, and God will send tests to strengthen you. Those tests will often feel like they were sent to destroy you.

The Inner Voice speaks with authority and lines up with the Word of God. If we do not know much Word of God, you can more easily be tricked, or you can get lost in the traditions of man. God hates idolatry, and wants us to focus on Him. We don’t pray to statues or do works to gain God’s favor.

The Number One way we hear from God is the Inner Witness. It is an inward knowing. Jesus went to the cross, descended to hell, ascended to heaven, gave gifts to men, and promises of the Father, and he gave us the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit. If you don’t know much about the Holy Spirit, read John 14, 15, 16, and 17 to learn about Him. The Holy Spirit will teach us the truth, comfort us. He is the paraclete that comes alongside us, sort of like a lawyer in the court. He will speak our case. The lawyer and the accused confer back and forth, but it is the lawyer who speaks for the accused. If the witness takes the stand, the lawyer asks pointed questions to make the witness look good, and avoids areas that don’t make you look good.

In the Spiritual realm the safeguard that God set for us is the inner witness. If God uses an audible inner voice the devil can imitate that and mimic. But with the inner witness, the devil can’t unless you give power over to him. The inner witness speaks with the sound of your voice inside your heart. It is not an audible voice in the sense that you can hear it with your ears. You hear it in your spirit man.

In the natural, people call the voice of the Spirit man inside, vibes, feelings, intuitions, or other words to describe nonverbal communication on the inside of the person.

You will hear some things inside that the Spirit Man knows, but you may not be aware of them. Your brain may be thinking on one topic and a thought drops in on a totally different subject. Pastor Don likened it to the pop-ups on a computer. Your computer is plugged into the internet and making contact on the web. You start focusing on one page and a pop-up ad appears.

Pastor Don then told us that in the natural, we may be focused on one thing but in the peripheral vision we see something that isn’t in the forefront of our thoughts. The Spirit man is trying to get our attention. A non-spirit filled believer may have no perception of the Spirit man pop-ups. Even an unsaved heathen can get a spirit filled pop-up. In a way, that is how we got saved. The Spirit Man pop-ups came and began to convict us of our sins, until we got enough conviction to know that we needed a Savior.

As we began to listen to the inner witness, we have to begin to learn to discern what is being communicated. The Spirit of God is not verbose. He is good for one liners. This is it, listen when God is speaking, when He is sharing a pop-up. It may be a simple sentence like, “Don’t go shopping today.” If you listen and don’t go – that is good. If you don’t listen and go, you may find yourself in the middle of a crash and then remember that God had put it on your spirit to not go shopping today. Had you listened you would have avoided the traffic jam or accident.

We have the choice to listen to the inner witness or ignore the inner witness. To flow in the gifts of the Spirit we have to listen to the pop-ups, and recognize that they are not your thoughts. We have to learn to listen. When there is an interruption about something, hear it and discern where it is coming from – is it God or the flesh. Examine it.

Pastor Don then went through some verses in Acts to share about the Inner Witness. I will share that with you tomorrow.

Praying your day is blessed, mine sure was today!!!

Heather

Last Saturday was a delightful Woman’s Luncheon at Glory Oasis Fellowship. Our Women’s Luncheon is this Saturday, and you are invited if you are anywhere near West Hurley, New York, just click on the Living Word Chapel link to find directions. Our luncheon is from 1-4 and you would be welcome.

The Pastor At Glory Oasis Fellowship is Pastor Angella Michels, and it is located at 1903 Route 44, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569 – which is near Poughkeepsie. I was introduced to this fellowship a few months ago when a friend of mine spoke. It is nice to meet other believers and worship with them. Each luncheon they invite a different speaker to speak, sometimes from surrounding ministries. This past Saturday the speaker was Pastor Alice Vedder. She and her husband Pastor Hank have a ministry called Brooks of Living Waters Ministries, located at 384 Middle Road, Unit 4, Hudson, NY 12534.

She shared some of her testimony and it touched my heart as I know it will yours.

Pastor Alice told us that, like an old fashioned radio, we are God’s transmitter and receiver.

She had a song played before she spoke. One line of the song is I lift my eyes when I am in trouble. And it concluded that You (God) alone could help.

She asked us if life was bad or do you only focus on the negative. There is righteousness as well as suffering.

Pastor Alice was born on Long Island in 1930 of European parents. She told us that her mom did not want children, so from the womb she had faced rejection. Her mom claimed that she had heart palpitations, which was one reason a doctor could give to let her mom have a legal abortion. The enemy tried to take her out by having her mom get this abortion, but at the last minute, her mom changed her mind. Her mom grew up with a Catholic background and because of what she learned as a child, she was unable to go through the abortion.

Pastor Alice had two half brothers, and after her parents separated, she was lonely and depressed. Her dad drank. As a child, to find comfort, Pastor Alice would climb into the maple trees in her yard and sing and talk to God. She had the impression that God would raise her for Himself. She always loved righteousness and wanted to do right and be obedient.

Romans 3:10-12  As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands;  there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”

She learned later that we aren’t righteous in our own flesh, but we are made righteous through the Blood of Christ. The Righteousness that Pastor Alice wanted God was really after.

When she was 7 or 8 years old, satan tried to take her out again. She was hit by a car coming out of Sunday School.

She kept herself righteous. She married her first husband at the age of 16. It wasn’t because she was pregnant. This was during the war years, and her husband was going to be shipped off to the war, so they got married. Before their marriage they did not act lustfully. They married for love, not because of lust. Her first child was born when her husband was out of the army three and one half years later. She did not realize that her husband had a drinking problem until he came home from the army. She always had a love for the Lord, and baptized that baby and all of her children were baptized or dedicated to God. She had many children. But her husband’s drinking progressed. Her children were brought up in a Godly way. Her ministry at that time was music and solos, and she kept her love of righteousness.

After 27 years of the alcoholic marriage, her children grew up. Some went on to use alcohol and drugs themselves. It was hard, for they had no real help or role model, but all had accepted the Lord and then strayed.

She used certain scriptures to keep going.

Isaiah 60:4b AMP  They all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be nursed at your side.

Isaiah 61:3-5 To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” And they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.

She then told us that she thinks that the reason she was asked to speak was because of events during the past five years. In three years she lost three sons, in 2003, 2004, and 2005. She said that as hard as her previous life had been, these years contained her biggest struggles. If not for God, she would not have gotten through this and have found the Joy of the Lord in the midst of the pain.

Her first son died on her husbands’s birthday. There was a growth on his tongue that was cancerous. She then fell in November and broke her knee.

The following year, just 11 months after her first boy passed, her youngest overdosed and took his life. He was in a coma for a week and she had to make the hard decision to take him off of life support and let him go. God did a sweet thing to let her know that her boys were safe. God delivered according to His Word and Promise. She praised God in the midst of her sadness. In the third year her middle son passed away with a brain aneurism. He didn’t drink or use drugs, he had a wife and children, was very talented in music and poetry.

Pastor Alice told us that she felt that she had more than she could bear and she was angry with the Lord. She told the Lord, “You say you love me, yet you take all my sons. Give me a break.”

Over time He has shown her the reasons why they are gone, and helped her to get over the painful memories. We can rejoice. She told us she would rather have suffered than to see her children suffer, but she still kept worshipping God. She found that God would help to remove the non-productive things in her life

Philippians 3:7-15 NKJV  But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.

God is maturing us, burning out all the dross, making us according to His will and purpose. Pastor Alice told us that He had a plan all along for her life, and now, instead of focusing on all the other things, she focuses on Him, and Him alone.

Philippians 3:16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

God wants us to be of the same mind. Her current husband, Hank has helped her to refine what God is doing, and God has been guiding both of them. She did not tell us how she met Hank, but they have been married 25 years. She knows that she and Hank are both in God’s hands.

In 2003, after her first son’s death she was at the Syracuse Airport Christian Ministry and received a prophesy from a man and a woman. They saw a vision of total depletion for her, and they focused on the fact that there was no crown on her head. God told them, “I am Her Crown of Glory.”

Pastor Alice had to keep carrying on through her grief. People would criticize her because they could not understand how she could get over the pain, or why she was not broken down in grief. They did not realize that God carried her through.

She realized that the righteousness that she wanted she couldn’t do on her own. That she needed to be a fool for Christ, to be foolish in the Lord. All was for God’s glory, and He helped her to be strong in her weakness.

Job 22:21-30 AMP Acquaint now yourself with Him [agree with God and show yourself to be conformed to His will] and be at peace; by that [you shall prosper and great] good shall come to you. Receive, I pray you, the law and instruction from His mouth and lay up His words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty [and submit and humble yourself before Him], you will be built up; if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents, if you lay gold in the dust, and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brook [considering them of little worth], and make the Almighty your gold and [the Lord] your precious silver treasure, then you will have delight in the Almighty, and you will lift up your face to God. You will make your prayer to Him, and He will hear you, and you will pay your vows. You shall also decide and decree a thing, and it shall be established for you; and the light [of God's favor] shall shine upon your ways. When they make [you] low, you will say, [There is] a lifting up; and the humble person He lifts up and saves. He will even deliver the one [for whom you intercede] who is not innocent; yes, he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.

God has a plan and a purpose for us all, and this plan was in place before we came into the World.

Katherine Kuhlman, at the end of everyone of her shows said, “As long as God is on His throne, everything will turn out right. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be His work. Blessed be all of you.”

God is with us even in the painful places.

(Heather’s comment, people were very touched by what she shared. It for me was wonderful to see someone holding onto God even in the midst of such tough things, it is an encouragement to see how God pulls a person through what would in the flesh be an unbearable situation. It amazes me how awesome God is, and how He can help us in all the tough issues. It took me a long time to learn that He never leaves or forsakes us, and is with us through thick and thin.)

Hoping this talk from Pastor Alice blessed you.

Have a wonderful night.

Heather

Pastor Don did one last Bible study on the Holy Spirit before we move on to the next of the elementary, basic principles mentioned in,

Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.

We dealt with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit questions, and we finished looking at scriptures about the laying on of hands. Pastor Don gave us a homework assignment at the end of this Friday’s Bible study. I am going to share it with you so that you can be prepared for the notes I will share after next Friday’s Bible study. We are to read about the Resurrection of the Dead. 1 Corinthians 15, John 11 (Lazarus) and Matthew 28.

Pastor Don mentioned that with the Holy Spirit Baptism there are many gifts of God, and we want to receive and operate in them all. God could, if He chose, break you and force you to do His will, but He does not operate like that. God is God of Love and Justice. He is the Creator and the Father. Yet, if you are disobedient to Him he will slap you down and cause you to pay for what you have done. Many think of God as only loving, forgetting that He is also judge. And He will also forgive you for what you repent for. Unforgiveness and resentment prevents you from flowing in the spiritual gifts. If you hold anything against anyone it will block the flow of the Spirit. We are not qualified on what we deserve, but on what we believe.

Matthew 11:25  At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.

The number one reason healing is not manifested, prosperity is not manifested, and joy is not manifested is unforgiveness. The Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy. If we are operating in unforgiveness, righteousness leaves, when righteousness leaves, peace is disturbed. When our peace is disturbed, joy disappears and we end up complaining and judging. Our unforgiveness binds us. We need to remember that when we are wronged, God will avenge us. If we are holding a grudge, if we are seeking revenge in our own strength it binds God’s hands from dealing with the situation.

Spiritual gifts will not flow through an unclean vessel determined to play God.

Someone asked how can you love someone who is so evil and still in your life – and Pastor Don said that you can love them but not want to hang around with them. And often he prays, “Help me to love the unlovable.” We are to do nice to the people, but we don’t have to go to the movies with them.

Pastor Don told us that often what we need to do is change our glasses, change the way we look at people. We need to remember that hurt people hurt people. But you don’t have to choose to be a victim, you don’t have to hook up to the hurt people hurt people syndrome. After time we will see God move and see a change in the situation. Pastor Don shared about someone in his family who, after an operation, became very mean to him and to his family. Pastor Don and Cynthia stayed nice, often to the wonderment of those who saw the mean behavior. But Cynthia (Pastor Don’s wife) told us that the person did not change their mean behavior UNTIL they prayed for the person to change. God can change a person.

Pastor Don tells himself that he’ll treat people nice because he does not want to mess with his anointing. God doesn’t play, “Well she deserved it.”

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit comes with power and power is short circuited by unforgiveness. Jesus took things harder than all of us. He was crucified, His body was ripped into shreds, and people spat in His face, gave Him a crown of thorns. None of us can say that we received any tougher treatment than that and Jesus loved those who hurt Him so.

Why do we believe in a Supernatural God and leave off the Super part. Prayer, laying on of hands , and praying in tongues are part of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

They were in one accord, in agreement, unified. Miracles in the church will increase when we are in one accord. We give ourselves excuses. We say, I can get to God if they would sing the song I want them to sing, if that person would stop wiggling, etc. We want to appear super spiritual, look at another person’s agenda, or say that she’s got some nerve by doing that, and getting caught up in distractions. This is dividing the ACCORD. God can understand an unsaved person who does not understand – that is no problem for God, but division in the church from believers is not a way to God. We need proper respect and order in the Church.

Psalm 122:1-2  I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the LORD.” Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!

The Joy of the Lord is in the atmosphere when there is an attitude of gratitude. We accept everybody’s offering. Those who are busy noticing what others are doing or not doing – who made them the super spiritual police? There is a point where it is wrong to do something, and that point is where it would call attention to one’s self and where you are doing something to be seen – when you are operating from self and not worshipping God. But it is God who reads the hearts of the worshippers, not the super spiritual police.

Some people adopt a worship posture that lets people think that they are super spiritual, but they are not in the Spirit. We are to worship the Lord in Spirit and in Truth. Your Spirit man must yield to the Spirit of God, and we worship with truth. We have to ask ourselves are we worshipping in truth or in the flesh? Does our worship style distract or add to the service? If the style is in the flesh, it is a distraction. Pastor Don said that the way he worships in the privacy of his home is not always the way he worships in the congregation.

The purpose of corporate worship is the desire to get into one accord. To focus totally and solely on God. The miracle in the upper room was based on a particular event in the Jewish Calendar, the day of Pentecost. 

God prophesied it was to happen. This was not a regular falling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told them to go and stay and He’d send them the promise. Not a manifestation of the Spirit, but an inhabitation of the Holy Spirit – something that had never happened before. The Holy Spirit was coming as a comforter, the Truth, and giving the disciples the power to endure. God would fill them with power from on high. But there was a price. They were going to go throughout all of Judea and the surrounding area and the outermost parts of the World to spread the Word of God. Most of those in the Upper Room also died horrific deaths due to persecution for spreading the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit gave them strength through the persecution.

Pastor Don asked us if there was a set day for this, and the answer was, The Day of Pentecost had fully come. God set the time for this to happen. Pentecost was the 50th day after Passover and had significance. God was going to do something. Passover was the festival of first fruits, for Jesus was the first fruit offering. Pentecost would be the second fruit – the disciples. Jesus, the Lamb of God was sacrificed at Passover. He came, went to the cross, ascended, descended, gave gifts to men. Then Jesus gave us as a gift to the Father, he gave what He went to the cross for at the Passover meal-his Disciples came into covenant with Jesus. And then Jesus told them that just like He and His Father were one, the disciples and His Father were one. Jesus gave the disciples as an offering – it was the time of the wheat offering. The second harvest, barley is a little lower than wheat. Passover was wheat, Pentecost was barley. At Pentecost the first fruit offering was to bring an offering to God of souls.

Peter preaches a one page sermon and 3,000 get saved. 3,000 disciples was the offering to God from Pentecost. God did what one person couldn’t do under their own power, he confirmed the Holy Spirit Baptism by doing something that Peter couldn’t do on his own. What you can do under God in your own strength is good, but under the power of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit was way better. There was no clergy at this time. The Spirit Filled believer has the power to make a difference, we do not need to wait for the clergy to do something. We have been robbed of acting in the power of the Holy Spirit if we look solely to the clergy to do what God has ordained that we all can do.

The Shekinah Glory baptized those Spirit Filled Believers in the Upper Room. They waited there until what was promised came. Pastor Don asked us, what comes with the promise?

Acts 2:16-17 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:  ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.

God poured out His Spirit on ALL flesh, not on certain religious groups, not according to race, economy, discernment. But on ALL flesh. Sons and daughters – it was not gender particular. Prophesy is to tell forth the Word of God. It can be either 1) telling forth the future, 2) speaking forth the Word of God, 3) or tongues with interpretation. You can’t take any of these out of the mix. To try to limit this is to violate Joel’s Word that Peter confirmed as real.

When a female steps to the pulpit to speak forth a Word from God, they are no longer what the flesh says they are.

God prefers marriage, and most creatures born with two heads rarely survive. We are to do what we are supposed to do. To do as we were born to do, to love it and glory in it. In these last days, we need to run the race. Gender and sex have nothing to do with being servants of the Lord.

Acts 2:18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days and they shall prophesy.

Young men and young women will have the Spirit poured out on them and THEY (men and women) will prophesy. The Prophet Joel said the same thing twice, which is an indication that God does not want us to miss this point.

Pastor Don then told us that at the time of the prophesy the Jew was considered a servant of God. But we, as Born Again believers are children of God. Up to this point, God only used Jews as menservants and maidservants, but a completed Jew became a Child of God. God broke down the wall when He split the veil at the time of the crucifixion.

By 300 AD some men got together and decided to put the wall up again, and put on fancy robes and took the priesthood back. After King James and the Bible was printed, 1300-1500 the wall started to come down. By the 1800′s the Protestants put the wall back up again. They wanted to ignore the spiritual gifts that tore the wall down. They began to preach that these gifts were not for this time period, or for anyone for the purpose of ministry in the Church. They taught the theology that these gifts were not for us, that prophesy ended with the Apostles, and they started to develop a culture of priesthood, and had the audacity to call themselves “reverend” or “father.” They killed the gifts so that the regular parishioners would not have the power of the pastor. But a pastor is really just a servant of the flock, just one sheep with the bell around it’s neck that helps to lead the other sheep to the shepherd.

The truth rattles our cages. Sometimes a pastor’s wife can out preach the pastor. The position of pastor does not always have to include preaching. It is to be a position of loving the sheep and guiding them through life. So many churches pick pastors for the wrong reason – it isn’t preaching, but administration. The role of the pastor is not delineated in the Bible - pastor is only mentioned two times. God organized the church by spiritual gifts, not by titles.  The Bible mentions the head elder, not the pastor.  But not every head elder has a pastor’s heart. Someone can be a great administrator, have a wonderfully huge congregation, but not have a pastor’s heart.

Acts 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

God did a specific thing on this day of Pentecost. Is what happened in Verse 2 normal at any church service? No. If we are waiting for a mighty wind to rush through the church, it may not happen that way. Pastor Don said that he has experienced a wind of God on a few occasions, but it is not an every time the Holy Spirit comes occurrence. This happened to the first 120 people, men and women, to answer the perpetual promise that God made for 4,000 years, so that these people could change the world. God was to do something special on that day, but it was not something that would happen all the time.

Acts 2:3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.

Pastor Don told us that not all the time will we see divided tongues as of fire. He said that someone once saw that and said that it looked sort of like the heat radiation that comes off of a highway in the summertime. God gave those in the upper room an additional, special anointing – almost all were martyred. We are not to pray for tongues of fire, it it happens be happy about it, if it doesn’t be happy about it. What is most important is the infilling of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Pastor Don asked, who is doing the speaking – many said that the Holy Spirit was doing the speaking. Pastor Don then asked for people with other translations to read theirs and seek that answer again.

Acts 2:4 AMP And they were all filled (diffused throughout their souls) with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other (different, foreign) languages (tongues), as the Spirit kept giving them clear and loud expression [in each tongue in appropriate words].

Athena, who comes to our Friday Bible study read from her Greek Bible and gave the following further information – the word for “speaking” in Greek means to bypass the intelligence, and then that they spoke other languages.

Pastor Don asked us to read what was written, to bypass our predisposed theology and read the words on the page. It is the people who spoke, they spoke what the Holy Spirit told them to say, but they were the ones doing the speaking. If the Holy Spirit took over and spoke though the people’s bodies, that would be possession. And that is not what the Holy Spirit does.

Pastor Don had someone stand up and had her speak about something, then Pastor Don whispered in her ear, and she stopped talking about what she was speaking about and said, “Buenos Noches.” Then went back to speaking what she was talking about. Pastor Don in the role of the Holy Spirit put those foreign words into her mind and she spoke them forth. The Holy Spirit could put a thought in our mind that we speak forth, something we ordinarily would not say or think.

The problem we have is our minds, which sometimes get in the way of God. We cannot get in a relationship with God as Spirit if we are coming at God limiting Him with the limitations of our mind. Speaking in tongues shuts down our minds so that we can bypass our intellect and get to the Spirit, to get to what God wants to tell us. (That is not the only way to do this, but it is effective.)

God gave these people in the Upper Room a gift and an ability, and they spoke to people in an unknown language. Whether they spoke in the actual foreign language, or if they spoke in an unknown tongue and each person heard the message in their own language, it is still a miracle. They spoke to the people with the tongues of angels and the tongues of men, they were of one accord and ready to receive. They had an attitude of gratitude and expectancy that was necessary for them to receive. If they were not ready to receive, and had not opened themselves up to receive, they would have gotten nothing.

God stirs us up, and ALL were filled with the Holy Spirit.  In order for the person to become Spirit Filled there has to be an understanding of the Holy Spirit being present and a sense of God. The Holy Spirit must be present for the filling to occur. Philip went up to Samaria where there were believers who were doing signs and wonders, but they were only operating in the Baptism of John for repentance, they had not received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Peter and John saw that there were signs and wonders occurring, but that the people had no filling of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 19:1-6 WHILE APOLLOS was in Corinth, Paul went through the upper inland districts and came down to Ephesus. There he found some disciples. And he asked them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed [on Jesus as the Christ]? And they said, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he asked, Into what [baptism] then were you baptized? They said, Into John’s baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, continually telling the people that they should believe in the One Who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus [having a conviction full of joyful trust that He is Christ, the Messiah, and being obedient to Him]. On hearing this they were baptized [again, this time] in the name of the Lord Jesus. And as Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke in [foreign, unknown] tongues (languages) and prophesied.

Pastor Don told us these believers were Born Again, followers of Christ, and believed in Jesus, so why does he even ask? Pastor Don told us that the Spirit in us identifies anyone else that is a Spirit Filled believer. We can tell if someone is Born Again, if the Spirit of God is operating in them, if they are not Born Again, or if they have the Spirit of God upon them but are not Born Again. We can locate, through our Spirit where another person is in their faith.

The Holy Spirit knows and you can sense and find out if someone is saved or not saved. It is important to be honest about where you are. You can say, I have the Holy Spirit and don’t want that other stuff, or I want the other stuff, or I want some of the stuff. God can work with our honesty.

Verse four above tells us that there are many different baptisms. This is the verse to show those who try and tell you that one Baptism takes care of all. If one baptism takes care of all, why would Paul make the distinction? Are we  not in the same category as these people in Acts?

Mark 1:9-11 It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. Then a voice came from heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus was Baptized, but He did not have any sins to repent for, so immediately the Holy Spirit came on Him.

Acts 1:5 (see above) the Baptism of Fire was received from Jesus. They were baptized in the Name of the Father, baptized in the name of the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit was NOW upon them.

Luke 11:9-13  “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

The Heavenly Father will give us the Holy Spirit if we ask Him. Pastor Don told us that to impart the Baptism of the Holy Spirit on a person, you show them the Word of God, and both of you ask in agreement that God will give them the Holy Spirit, lay hands on them and tell them to begin to speak. Sometimes it will  happen instantaneously, other times it may occur at a later period, but the Holy Spirit will be on a person, and it is up to them to yield to the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

It is the person doing the talking. If the Holy Spirit took over the person’s body and talked through them that would be demonic possession. If it is the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to stop and start at will. Notice that it says And THEY, not the Holy Spirit began to speak and give utterances. The Holy Spirit is alongside helping.

Praise God and the Holy Spirit helps. God wants to do something for you and also for others, for the benefit of all the Spirit led believers. The Gifts of God are not for our own selfish purposes solely, but so that we can help the Body of Christ.

Acts 2:5-6 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

Why were they confused? These were not mysteries to God, but were used to exhort, edify and comfort the people. But the people in Jerusalem knew that the people in the Upper Room were uneducated, and should not have been able to speak all those languages.

Pastor Don told us of a time when he was in Russia speaking through a translator. He had asked the translator to read a particular passage of the Bible. The translator began to read and the Holy Spirit told Pastor Don that the translator was reading the wrong passage. Pastor Don stopped the translator and told him this. The translator and the people in the congregation knew that Pastor Don did not speak Russian, so would have no way of knowing the wrong passage was read. When the translator looked, he realized that he was reading the wrong passage. That word of knowledge from the Holy Spirit increased the faith of the people to believe for the working of the Holy Spirit.

Pastor Don told us: PARTICIPATE IN THE SIMPLE GIFTS AND MIRACLES THAT BEAR FRUIT AND GOD WILL MOVE YOU INTO GREATER GIFTS AND MIRACLES.

God will speak into our spirit, and we need to obey God. As we operate in obedience we will see greater gifts and miracles. We need to take our thoughts captive, and begin to follow through with what God tells us. The devil will try to interfere, and stop you from focusing on God.

Pastor Don told us that sometimes distractions can be more of a problem for women because we tend to worry and seek approval. We do many things at once and call it multitasking, but it is often worry and frantic activity. Pastor Don told us that women who can control that tendency become powerful intercessors.

We need to listen to the dialogues in our head and take captive those that are not from God, to not get lost in the quest of our minds. We need to pray like Daniel, who held onto his prayer for 21 days until the answer came.

BUILD SOME QUIET TIME IN YOUR LIFE SO THAT YOU CAN HEAR FROM GOD AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Praying this blessed you and answered some of the questions from the last Friday Bible study on the Holy Spirit.

Have a blessed day!

Heather

One day in the shower, I was thinking about how our bodies are the Temple of God and somehow ended up thinking about altars. God then put in my mind lots of altar/alter words. Altered states of consciousness, alter ego, altercation, alter (change), so I went to the dictionary to see about other altar words, and there were many. One interesting thing is that the altar words ending in “ar” all relate to God and sacrifice. The “er” words imply change of some sort. So I figured that we come to the ALTAR to ALTER – and this led me to a Bible study on altars.

The Hebrew word for Altar is 4196 in Strong’s MIZBEACH, which is a raised place where a sacrifice is made. From the dawn of history man has sacrificed at an altar. Abel brought his sacrifice to God in Genesis 4:4. It comes from a Hebrew word, Strong’s 2076, ZABACH which means to slaughter, sacrifice. ZABACH is one of the most important terms in the Old Testament, occurring at least 630 times. The blood from the sacrifice was poured around the altar. Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’  The sacrifice was important to God because it foretold about Jesus, giving the ancients a picture of the Wonderful Promise God was going to give us, true atonement for our sins. The ancients would learn that blood could only cover sins not remove them, but Jesus completely paid for our sins. As we study altars, we will see that satan imitates God in forming altars too and he tempts us to worship idols and other gods. We need to watch what altar we worship at and that takes true discernment for sometimes our fleshly altars are not so apparent.

I have been struck by the fact that the first altars were made from natural materials – rocks and dirt. It made me realize that in a way we have come full circle. God formed us from the dust of the ground, breathed life into us and we started worshipping and fellowshipping with God. Man walked and talked with God and was covered in the Glory of God, no need for clothes or any covering but God’s glory. After the fall, man began building altars outside ourselves to cover our sins and bring us back into fellowship with God, but the blood of animals could not fully cover man’s sins. These altars, which started out as dirt and rocks have become more and more elaborate. To the point where the ceremony and pomp connected with the altars detracted from the original purpose of them. At the right time, Jesus came down and sacrificed Himself for our salvation and we have been brought to worship God in Spirit and in Truth, we have become the Temple of God, and our altar is now the altar of our heart. God worked out creation to restore us to Himself, and yet we are still worshipping at other altars. Fortunately God’s Spirit dwells in us and He remembers that we are dust Psalm 103:14 For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.

Adam and Eve were given clear instructions by God for the care of His Garden. Perry Stone, in a recent publication compared the Garden of Eden to the Holy of Holies in the Temple. He pointed out that God gave Adam and Eve dominion in the Garden. They gave it away to the enemy, making a choice to worship at the altar of pride and becoming more like God, and it took God 4,000 years to set in motion restoration through Jesus Christ.

For Eve, to want to be more like God seems like such a spiritual motive, wanting to be like the One whom we worship, but when she went about to achieve this end through disobedience, the lie behind the motive was exposed. She was not worshipping God, but rather seeking to elevate herself to the level of God. Sometimes the things we do at the altar and bring to the altar have hidden motives. We have to be careful when we worship that we are truly worshipping God in Spirit and in truth, with less of our egos, and more of Him.

The first mention of the word altar was in Genesis 8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.  The first thing Noah did when he left the ark was to build an altar to worship God. And from that time on Israelites built many altars to God. We read about the altars that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Samuel built. We hear about the Temple of Jerusalem, and Ezekiel. Many others made altars to sacrifice to God. Unfortunately there are also altars mentioned in the Bible that are not dedicated to God, but rather to idols and pagan gods. And the Israelites were often lax at pulling down those altars when they came back to God after a period of rebellion. They often left those altars in the high places – where over time idol worship again flourished. Whenever we do not pull down the strongholds (altars of self) in our life, they have a way of coming back to power.

Initially altars were made of pounded earth: Exodus 20:22-26 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘You have seen that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make anything to be with Me – gods of silver or gods of gold you shall not make for yourselves. An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you.  And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it.’  Strong’s mentions that the word for tool is 2179 (EREB) – which is a cutting instrument, knife, or sword, it is an implement that can be used in war. And it is also the same word for the tool used in circumcision and for a barber’s razor. Remember when King David wanted to build a Temple, God did not permit it because David had too much blood on his hands. God did not want an implement that could be used for death to be used for the altar which represented life. He wanted death to be solely associated with the sacrifice for sins, for it is our sins that bring death. And it is the sacrifice of Jesus which gives us the promise of life.

Why do you think God wanted the altar to be made of natural materials?

1. God wants to draw attention to the sacrifice for sin, not to the construction of the altar.
2. The farther people get away from a real relationship with God, the grander the altar is and the more grandiose the ceremonies. Priests and Levites used the altars and the ceremonies to create a sense of awe, taking away from the focus onto God. Even today the ceremonies in many churches are more about the Pastor and the people than the focus on God.
3. The heart of faith is that the focus is on the sacrifice, which is strictly the work of God’s hands (from the pounded earth to the animals or plants that were presented, man cannot bring anything of himself to the altar). We can’t create our own salvation by works. It is a gift of God, and all points to God and Jesus.

On Mt. Sinai, God gave Moses specific instructions about the construction of the altar. After God freed the Israelites from slavery to Egypt, God begins to show Moses about the law and the Ark of the Testimony and what is to be offered for the Sanctuary. This begins in Exodus 25 and continues on into Leviticus. When I first read through the Bible I felt it was rather repetitious, for God would tell Moses the instruction. Moses would order the building of whatever God told him and then say I built the ark and the dimensions were…. It seemed to me that all Moses would have had to say was, “I built this according to God’s instructions.” But now I know that it was so important that God’s instructions were carried out to the letter, because each and every element in the tabernacle was a perfect picture of Jesus, from the colors used (red-blood, purple-royalty, blue-the tabernacle was of heavenly descent), to the metals used (gold-royalty, silver-redemption and atonement, and bronze strength and judgment) and the precious stones which would be put on the Ephod to represent God’s precious children, the tribes of the Israelites. God detailed how many posts would be needed, the materials to be used, where each piece of temple furniture was to be placed, the construction of the oils and incense. No detail was too small for God to cover – why, because He was showing the Israelites a picture of His Son.

True worship requires mans’ best, and needs to conform to God’s plan. God initiates and controls worship. The Altar of Sacrifice stood before the Holy Place, Exodus 27:1-8, You shall make an altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits wide—the altar shall be square—and its height shall be three cubits. 2 You shall make its horns on its four corners; its horns shall be of one piece with it. And you shall overlay it with bronze. 3 Also you shall make its pans to receive its ashes, and its shovels and its basins and its forks and its firepans; you shall make all its utensils of bronze. 4 You shall make a grate for it, a network of bronze; and on the network you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners. 5 You shall put it under the rim of the altar beneath, that the network may be midway up the altar. 6 And you shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. 7 The poles shall be put in the rings, and the poles shall be on the two sides of the altar to bear it. 8 You shall make it hollow with boards; as it was shown you on the mountain, so shall they make it.

Notice the details, the horns for holding the sacrifice, the fact that it is made of bronze – which is a metal of atonement for sins. God took care of what to be done with the ashes from the sacrifice – and later will give detailed instructions for these sacrifices. One interesting thing is that God had poles made so that the altar could travel with the people. It wouldn’t be until the perfect sacrifice (Jesus) that we no longer needed to carry that altar of sacrifice in the physical.

There was an altar of incense within the Holy Place, Exodus 30:1-10, “You shall make an altar to burn incense on; you shall make it of acacia wood. 2 A cubit shall be its length and a cubit its width—it shall be square—and two cubits shall be its height. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. 3 And you shall overlay its top, its sides all around, and its horns with pure gold; and you shall make for it a molding of gold all around. 4 Two gold rings you shall make for it, under the molding on both its sides. You shall place them on its two sides, and they will be holders for the poles with which to bear it. 5 You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 6 And you shall put it before the veil that is before the ark of the Testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the Testimony, where I will meet with you.
7 “Aaron shall burn on it sweet incense every morning; when he tends the lamps, he shall burn incense on it. 8 And when Aaron lights the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense on it, a perpetual incense before the LORD throughout your generations. 9 You shall not offer strange incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering; nor shall you pour a drink offering on it. 10 And Aaron shall make atonement upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement; once a year he shall make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD.” and it had horns Leviticus 4:30, And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before the LORD, which is in the tabernacle of meeting; and he shall pour the remaining blood of the bull at the base of the altar of the burnt offering, which is at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

Notice that incense was to be burned – a perpetual incense (we are to offer prayers without ceasing to God). Incense is the prayers of the saints according to Revelation. And God did not want strange incense or strange fire to be used for this. For we worship a Holy God with Holy, sanctified things – be it the tools He ordains or our sanctified selves. And our sanctification comes from God and God alone.

How the Israelites approached the Altar also details our relationship to God.

The first thing that the Israelites would see when they entered the Tabernacle Gate, through the blue, purple, and scarlet tapestry of the Eastern Gate, is a huge altar, five cubits square made of acacia wood– the Altar of Sacrifice.  It was a place for the burnt offerings for our sins and God spends much time speaking of acceptable offerings which are without spot or blemish. (Just as Jesus is an acceptable offering to God for our sins, and He was without spot and blemish) This is the place where the priests begin their consecration to prepare them to minister in the tabernacle. The priests’ lives depended on their detailed obedience to God’s instructions.

The first time a sacrifice was offered at this brazen altar, God christened the altar with fire from above. Leviticus 9:22-24. Then Aaron lifted his hand toward the people, blessed them, and came down from offering the sin offering, the burnt offering, and peace offerings. 23 And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting, and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people, 24 and fire came out from before the LORD and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. So God lit that first fire, and consumed the sacrifice – and that is the fire that was to be maintained. We too have the fire of the Holy Spirit within us, and our first Love for God which is not to go out. We need to keep feeding this and maintain that. This fire was to not go out 6:12-13. And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be put out. And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order on it; and he shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings. 13 A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out. This is a reminder that we always need covering for our sins (until Jesus) and it was also the fire used at the altar of incense. The priest would light the incense (prayers of the saints) with the fire of sacrifice. The next place we would encounter when we entered the tabernacle was the brazen laver – where the priests would wash their hands and feet. It was covered with the bronze of the mirrors of women. The first act of cleaning (the blood sacrifice was initiated by God), the second act was initiated by them – they had to choose to wash their hands and feet. In order to serve in the Temple, they had to be thoroughly cleansed, and every time they went to the brazen altar they had to pass by the altar of sacrifice. Because the brazen altar was made of mirrors, it is a pretty expression of dying to self, for he would see his reflection as he cleansed himself. We have to look at ourselves clearly to see how we have sinned, to examine ourselves and wash ourselves with the water of the Word.

In the Holy Place, which is separated from the outer court by a curtain, we come upon three tools, the golden lampstand, the table of showbread, and the altar of incense. Again each of these represents something about Jesus. But I am only going to focus on the altar of incense.

No strange fire was to be used to offer incense (which represents the prayers of the saints) which was positioned before the veil to the Holy of Holies. It was made of Gold. Even in the New Testament we see a priest ministering at the Altar of incense Luke 1:5-10 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both well advanced in years.
8 So it was, that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, 9 according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord. 10 And the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense.. The elements that composed the incense were costly Exodus 30-34-38 And the LORD said to Moses: “Take sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, and pure frankincense with these sweet spices; there shall be equal amounts of each. 35 You shall make of these an incense, a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy. 36 And you shall beat some of it very fine, and put some of it before the Testimony in the tabernacle of meeting where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy to you. 37 But as for the incense which you shall make, you shall not make any for yourselves, according to its composition. It shall be to you holy for the LORD. 38 Whoever makes any like it, to smell it, he shall be cut off from his people.”, and it shows us that fragrant worship is costly, not hindered by others, puts us in a right relationship with God. Notice that the incense was beaten – as was our Lord. It was not to be just used indiscriminately, but for the purpose it was made for. We got to smell the incense on our trip to Israel and Noa who spoke with us told us that when the incense was burned the fragrance went throughout all of Jerusalem and the brides would walk in the city and pick up the fragrance, which was so sweet that they did not need perfume when they got married.

I want to show you a hard lesson in holiness, how we have to truly examine ourselves and keep ourselves pure and unprofaned as we approach God. It also shows how easily we can move from pure worship to idol worship and end up worshipping at the wrong altar. Aaron had two sons, Nadab and Abihu, Leviticus 10:1-11 Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them. 2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. 3 And Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me  I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people   I must be glorified.’”  So Aaron held his peace.4 Then Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, “Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.” 5 So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had said. 6 And Moses said to Aaron, and to Elemazar and Ithamar, his sons, “Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people. But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD has kindled. 7 You shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die, for the anointing oil of the LORD is upon you.” And they did according to the word of Moses.

Then we come to the most important altar, within the Holy of Holies, beyond the veil. Exodus 25:10-22

“And they shall make an ark of acacia wood; two and a half cubits shall be its length, a cubit and a half its width, and a cubit and a half its height. 11 And you shall overlay it with pure gold, inside and out you shall overlay it, and shall make on it a molding of gold all around. 12 You shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in its four corners; two rings shall be on one side, and two rings on the other side. 13 And you shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. 14 You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, that the ark may be carried by them. 15 The poles shall be in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it. 16 And you shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you.
17 “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width. 18 And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. 19 Make one cherub at one end, and the other cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it of one piece with the mercy seat. 20 And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another; the faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat. 21 You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you. 22 And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.

This was the most important altar for it showed that God wanted to meet with the people at the Mercy Seat, and it was the place where the High Priest, once a year would offer sacrifice at the Passover for the sins of the people. Just as Jesus offered sacrifice for our sins. Notice how important it was to God that we obey Him exactly – Exodus 25:9 According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.

While the Ark was representative of God, it was not to be worshipped. And the Israelites committed a huge sin of mistaking the Ark for Whom the Ark represented. The Israelites were in battle with the Philistines, and the people were defeated. They decided to bring the Ark of the Covenant to the battle – but God had not instructed them to do this. The two sons of Eli the High Priest, brought the ark there and the Ark was captured by the Philistines. There was major defeat and Eli and his sons were all killed. God loved the Israelites so much that He arranged for the Ark to be returned, and the Ark was brought back to Israel. 1 Samuel 5 – tells us about how, when the Philistines put the Ark in the house of the pagan god dagon, dagon falls over. No pagan god can stand in the presence of the Lord. God inflicts the Philistines with tumors (hemroids). The people return the ark using milk cows separated from their young ones, and the cows still bring the ark to the Israelites. Unfortunately, the Israelites 1 Samuel 6:15 The Levites took down the ark of the LORD and the chest that was with it, in which were the articles of gold, and put them on a large stone. Then the men of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices the same day to the Lord.  But the people did not just meet God at the Mercy Seat, as God wanted, they opened up the ark to look inside (what’s inside – the tablets with the law, Aaron’s rod, the pot of manna) Because they looked inside God did not meet them with mercy, but with the law. 1 Samuel 6:19-20 Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Beth Shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the holy LORD God? And to whom shall it go up from us.” There was greater respect for God in this. But we are still doing that today, wanting to meet God with works and righteousness at the point of the law, instead of His mercy and grace.

This is the biggest picture of Jesus that God has provided us, and He wanted to make sure that not one thing was changed. And God would also teach the Children of Israel how he wanted the altar to be moved from place to place. At one point, David planned to move the Ark of the Testimony to Jerusalem and did not do it according to God’s plan, and this came with deadly consequences. 1 Chronicles 13:1-12 Then David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader. 2 And David said to all the assembly of Israel, “If it seems (seemed right to them in the flesh)  good to you, and if it is of the LORD our God, let us send out to our brethren everywhere who are left in all the land of Israel, and with them to the priests and Levites who are in their cities and their common-lands, that they may gather together to us; 3 and let us bring the ark of our God back to us, for we have not inquired at it since the days of Saul.” 4 Then all the assembly said that they would do so, for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people.5 So David gathered all Israel together, from Shihor in Egypt to as far as the entrance of Hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kirjath Jearim. 6 And David and all Israel went up to Baalah, to Kirjath Jearim, which belonged to Judah, to bring up from there the ark of God the LORD, who dwells between the cherubim, where His name is proclaimed. 7 So they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab, and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart. 8 Then David and all Israel played music before God with all their might, with singing, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on cymbals, and with trumpets.(sounded good – a real parade and showy performance) 9 And when they came to Chidon’s threshing floor, Uzza put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. 10 Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the ark; and he died there before God. 11 And David became angry because of the LORD’s outbreak against Uzza; therefore that place is called Perez Uzza to this day. 12 David was afraid of God that day, saying, “How can I bring the ark of God to me?”

They made many mistakes in moving the Ark, they put it on a wagon when God had ordained that it was to be carried on shoulders. The cart was showy, not worshipful. They also used instruments that required men’s skill to play, not worship to God. Much pride was used in this, and when Uzza put his hand out to steady the ark, he was not one permitted to touch the ark, so he took far too much liberty and pride in that gesture. Upon further research David realized that the ark had to be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, and when David obeyed those instructions the ark was able to be moved. 1 Chronicles 15: 25-29 So David, the elders of Israel, and the captains over thousands went to bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD from the house of Obed-Edom with joy. 26 And so it was, when God helped the Levites who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, that they offered seven bulls and seven rams. 27 David was clothed with a robe of fine linen, as were all the Levites who bore the ark, the singers, and Chenaniah the music master with the singers. David also wore a linen ephod. 28 Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of the LORD with shouting and with the sound of the horn, with trumpets and with cymbals, making music with stringed instruments and harps. 29 And it happened, as the ark of the covenant of the LORD came to the City of David, that Michal, Saul’s daughter, looked through a window and saw King David whirling and playing music; and she despised him in her heart.

Michal was so caught up in appearances that she despised David’s pure worship of God. When we do not worship God we become barren and she never bore children. We need to focus on our worship to God, no matter what it looks like to others. God made sure that it was He who was worshipped, not a material object. And in all honesty, sometimes we treat the holy things of God with reverence, but forget that it is but a representation of God. When we stray from God, He will bring our focus back to what is important – Him.

All throughout the history of the Israelites, not only were there altars to God, but the Israelites often built altars in high places and idol worship was in their midst. God had specifically instructed the Israelites Exodus 20:1-11 exactly how important it was that they worship only Him. And God spoke all these words, saying:2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.  4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.  7 “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 8 “ Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

And yet, while Moses was up the mountain receiving instructions from God, the Israelites, despite their fervent promises to obey God, they built an idol. Exodus 32:7-14 And the LORD said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people! 10 Now therefore, let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” 11 Then Moses pleaded with the LORD his God, and said: “LORD, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians speak, and say, ‘He brought them out to harm them, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven; and all this land that I have spoken of I give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” 14 So the LORD relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.

Frequently the people turned to idols and every time that happened, God would withdraw His hand of favor over the people, until they came back to Him.

I spent a lot of time on the altar itself, as God instructed it to be built, and you may be asking yourself how can this relevant to me? I want to now share with you a few ways that it is relevant.

Since Jesus’ sacrifice, when the Temple veil split, we have become the Temple of God. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? 17 If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

The woman at the well asked Jesus about where we are to worship, and Jesus replied John 4:19-24 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Does this mean we don’t need to go to church anymore? No! Hebrews 10: 19-25 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

But when we assemble, we need to keep some things in mind.

ALTERCATION: When we come to God we have to come in the Spirit of Forgiveness, holding no anger or animosity. If we have unfinished business with anyone, we need to settle that, for God wants us to approach Him in love, for it is by love that we are known as His.  Mark 11:25-26 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 5:21-26 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. 23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny.

ALTERNATIVE So often we are double minded in our worship and in our faith. We need to settle once for all that God is God and we are not, and that we are to obey God. Not be pulled aside by other gods or other things. God needs to be prime in our lives.  Matthew 6:24  “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.  James 1:5-6 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord: he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Ezekiel 14:3-5 “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. Should I let Myself be inquired of at all by them? 4 “Therefore speak to them, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Everyone of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will answer him who comes, according to the multitude of his idols, 5 that I may seize the house of Israel by their heart, because they are all estranged from Me by their idols.

God clearly sees not only what we do, but what is in our hearts. We can look so holy and worshipful to others, but God knows what is really going on in us.

Ezekiel 8:6-17 Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.” 7 So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall. 8 Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall”; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door. 9 And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.” 10 So I went in and saw, and there—every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the walls. 11 And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12 Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The LORD does not see us, the LORD has forsaken the land.’”
13 And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” 14 So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. 15 Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.” 16 So He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east. 17 And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. 18 Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”

ALTER EGO God wants us to be consistent – often we have our church personalities and then our home personalities and they are not the same. Are we the same worshipping God in the privacy of our house as we are in public? Are we making a show of our worship to impress others, or are we worshipping God? Matthew 6:16 “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 17 But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Isaiah 29:13-16 Therefore the Lord said:  “ Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men, 14 Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work  among this people,  a marvelous work and a wonder;  for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,  and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.” 15 Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the LORD, and their works are in the dark; they say, “Who sees us?” and, “Who knows us?” 16 Surely you have things turned around!  Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; for shall the thing made say of him who made it,  “ He did not make me”?  Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

We need to come to the altar in an ALTERABLE state – willing to let ourselves be cleansed by God.

Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

In these last days we have to discern who and what we worship, and we will have to be strong in our faith, for the temptation will be to go with the flow.

Daniel 3:13-18 Then Nebuchadnezzar, in rage and fury, gave the command to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. So they brought these men before the king. 14 Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up? 15 Now if you are ready at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, and you fall down and worship the image which I have made, good! But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you from my hands?”
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. 18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

Matthew 4:8-11 Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”11 Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

Romans 1:20-25 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.
24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

Revelation 22:8-9 Now I, John, saw and heard these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who showed me these things.
9 Then he said to me, “See that you do not do that. For I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”

God wants us to draw near, and it is ever more urgent as the end times come.

Hebrews 10:19-25 19 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

Luke 21:34-36 “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. 35 For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

2 Timothy 4:7-8 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

We want to cast our crowns before His feet and worship. God is there to love  us and guide us as we seek Him.