Remove the Thorns and Briers From Your Life!

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell (Numbers 33:55).
 
Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Corinthians 10:11).
 
God’s dealings with Israel in the Old Testament are filled with truths that help us in our walk with God today. Israel being led out of Egyptian bondage by way of the Red Sea is a type of our being delivered from the bondage of sin and being born again.

The land of Canaan, the land God promised to Abraham and his offspring, is a type of the born again, Spirit-filled, abundant life of the child of God today!   When I was a boy we sang about Canaan’s land in church and the song referred to Canaan’s land as a type of heaven for believers. But that’s just not true! There are no inhabitants that oppose us that we must run out of heaven! Heaven is a place of rest from our labors. But here, we must fight the good fight of faith every day.

These inhabitants of Canaan were to be destroyed by Israel. They were gross idolaters whose habits were vile and repulsive. Israel was to run them out of every city as they conquered Canaan. In the above verse, God told Israel that if these inhabitants remained, they would be irritants in their eyes and thorns in their sides. God told them that these inhabitants of their land would harass them and make their life miserable!

These inhabitants of the land point to the habits of the flesh in our lives as believers. When we come out of the bondage of sin through the New Birth, there is a residue of the old man that is left in our souls. Our minds and emotions have inhabitants embedded in them from our old life before Christ. It’s our job to run them out.

These inhabitants include selfishness, envy, greed, pride, stubbornness, rebellion, anger, lust, bitterness, malice, gossip, self-pity, and a host of other things. Our responsibility as a New Creation is to run these inhabitants out with the sword of the spirit, the Word of God! If we don’t confront these inhabitants, they become irritants in our eyes and thorns in our sides. They hinder our growth in God, and quench our joy. Don’t tolerate them in your land!

Israel did not conqueror these inhabitants all at once, and neither will you. Israel inhabited their promised land city by city. And it’s line upon line, precept upon precept that we grow in God and run these habits from the past out of out lives.

Be diligent to stay in the Word and keep your sword sharp. And when you come upon some inhabitants of your promised land from your old life, don’t put up with them. Run them out! Conquer your promised land little by little and you’ll walk in the peace of God and experience the best God has for you!

How to Stop Worrying

Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail) (Psalm 55:22 - Amplified).

We are not designed to worry. Worry is really faith in reverse. Worry is allowing the spirit of fear to dominate and rule the situation. Fear attracts the demonic the way that faith attracts God! Don’t allow worry to rule any area of life. Worry is a weight that drains energy needed for productive activity!
 
The antidote for worry is releasing faith in God’s Word about the situation at hand. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones (Proverbs 3:5-8).

We’re to refuse worry just as we would refuse the temptation to sin. Worry is the enemy seeking intrusion into your life. So Peter tells us: Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully (1 Peter 5:7 - Amplified).

Paul gives us the practical side of replacing worry thoughts with faith. Don’t worry over anything whatever. Tell God every detail of your need in earnest and thankful prayer (Philippians 4:6 – J.B. Phillips Translation).
 
To release worry and the spirit of fear that motivates it, go to the Father and tell Him every detail of what bothers you. Itemize it in detail. Tell Him what concerns you about the issue and what fear is seeking entrance. Tell Him every detail of your need. Once you do this, ask Him to intervene and to solve the problem. And right there believe that you receive the answer. If you believe you receive, then act like you receive the answer by praising and thanking the Father for working out the details of the situation.

Then every time the issue comes to mind, and every time the spirit of fear seeks to come back, don’t pray about it again. You’ve already cast the care of the thing over on the Lord. Just simply remind the Father of what you’ve already prayed and believed for, and then spend time in praise and thanksgiving instead of worry. Do this every single time the thought of the situation comes back.

You’ll find that the peace of God will guard your faith like a company of soldiers. And if you do this day after day, the day will come that you will see the manifestation of the answer to your prayer!

The Key to Receiving From God

Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them (Mark 11:24 - NKJV)
 
So then I tell you, whenever you pray and ask for anything, have faith that it has been granted to you, and you will get it (Mark 11:24 – Williams NT).

For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will get it (Mark 11:24- Amplified).

That's why I tell you to have faith that you have already received whatever you pray for, and it will be yours (Mark 11:24-God’s Word).

Believe that you receive. That’s God’s method of giving us what we need. Faith (believing that you receive) is the way God provides to us what He has promised!

Believing you receive means that the moment you pray, you believe that God has answered your prayer. If you believe He has answered then you will act as though He has answered. Faith does not believe that one day He will answer in the future, but it is believing that God has answered or is answering right now.

Faith is never future tense. It’s either past tense or present tense. Anything that puts my receiving off into the future is hope and not faith. And hope is just not strong enough to receive from the Lord!

Our responsibility is to believe that we receive. God’s responsibility is to see that we have it. There is a period of time between the time that you believe you receive the answer to your prayer, and the actually physical manifestation of the answer. And what happens in this in between time is crucial!
 
When I believe that I receive an answer to prayer, I usually spend a lot of time praising and thanking the Father for meeting the need. Every time the issue that I’ve prayed about comes to mind, I verbally acknowledge that I believe the Lord heard and answered my prayer. This adds action to my faith!

Doubt thoughts may come to mind and tell you that God hasn’t answered the prayer. When they come, don’t speak them! When doubt thoughts come, say out loud that you believe you receive the answer to your prayer, and then spend some time praising the Lord. Praise Him and thank Him for the answer to your prayer the way you would if you actually had the manifestation of the answer! This drives the enemy nuts and boosts your confidence in the Father. Faith must be expressed in words to be most effective!

Faith expects. We say that a pregnant woman is expecting. She’s expecting a child to be born at a certain time. Likewise,  when I’m standing in faith, I’m expecting the manifestation of the answer at any time. Faith is a confident expectation that what you’ve asked the Father for has been granted. And this expectation produces joy!

Stand in faith today and believe that you receive. The day will come that what you believe is manifested! Faith works!

God's Will is for Your to Be Healed!

When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately his leprosy was cleansed (Matthew 8:1-3).
 
Faith begins where the will of God is known. If you are uncertain as to the will of God for your healing, you will not be able to exercise the faith necessary to receive the healing that belongs to you.
 
As a young boy in a denominational church, I always heard the sick prayed for with the faith destroying prayer, Lord if it be Thy will. If a person was healed, then it was the will of God. If a person was not healed, then it must not have been the will of God to heal that particular person.

This kind of behavior takes all responsibility off of the individual, and makes God totally responsible for everything that happens in life. And this type of believing is a dangerous fallacy! When the will of God is determined on a case by case basis, there can be no faith on the part of the individual to be healed by the power of God.

But we can know the will of God through the Word. God’s Word is His will! If you want to my will about a matter in my life, then simply listen to what I say or write! If you want to know God’s will in a matter, go to His Word! His Word is His will.
 
Jesus Words to this leper in the above verse clearly show the will of God to every person in need of healing. I am willing, be cleansed is God’s will for every person touched by sickness and disease. How do we know this?

The character of God never changes. For I am the Lord, I do not change (Malachi 3:6). Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). If it was Jesus’ will to heal this man in Matthew 8, then it is still His will to heal today.

God has no favorite children. He loves us all the same! What He will do for one, He will do for all! For there is no partiality with God (Romans 2:11). Jesus healing this leper is proof positive that it is His will to heal all!

Never pray if it be your will when praying for healing. If it be your will cancels faith! I never put an if in my prayer when praying the prayer of faith! In fact, the only time I put an if in any prayer I pray is when praying the prayer of consecration to do the will of God.

Jesus prayed if it be Your will in the garden of Gethsemane when facing His hour of greatest trial. And it’s ok to pray this way where we’re seeking to find God’s will for our lives. But this is not necessary in matters where His will is clearly stated!


Faith begins where the will of God is known. Let Jesus’ Word to this leper be His Word to you concerning your life. Here Jesus say to you today, I am willing, be healed! And exercise your faith in Him to heal you by believing you receive your healing the moment that you pray. It’s the prayer of faith that heals the sick! God’s wills you to be healed!

Faith Releases God's Healing Power

Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, "If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well." Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My clothes?" But His disciples said to Him, "You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?'" And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction” (Mark 5:25-34).
  
Faith releases God’s healing power into our bodies! There were crowds of people touching Jesus the day this woman was healed. The multitudes were thronging Him. They were pressing upon Him. Their touch released no power from Jesus into their bodies. But the moment this woman touched Jesus with faith in her touch, healing power went out of Him and into her. She was completely healed.
 
Now Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. He promised that when He left and went to heaven, the Holy Spirit would take His place and be to us everything He was to the disciples. That same healing power that was in Jesus is available to us as believers by the Holy Spirit! But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:11).
  
Remember that it was faith that activated the healing power to flow out of Jesus into this woman who was ill and it healed her. And it takes faith now to activate the healing power resident in you in the person of the Holy Spirit. If you’ll act your faith, you’ll activate the healing power of God that is in your spirit.
 
Mediate on the scriptures that promise healing, then act your faith. Pray in the name of Jesus and command the sickness to go! Then, believe that you receive the answer to your prayer of faith! Say it out loud, Lord I believe that I receive healing for my body in the name of Jesus. According to God’s Word, I believe I’m well and healed. Thank you so much Lord for healing me. Remind the Lord all day long of what you believe. Look past the symptoms to the promise of God’s Word!


Remember that faith takes the place of what God promises until it shows up in physical manifestation! Act your faith and give the Holy Spirit what He needs to manifest God’s healing power in you today!

Healing is Revealed in the Atonement of Christ for Us

Healing is provided for us in the atonement of Christ! Let me show you the evidence.
 
The Passover sacrifice offered by the Israelites the night that the firstborn of Egypt died is a type of Christ. Notice 1 Corinthians 5:7: Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.

In Exodus 12 you find that the Israelites were instructed to eat the flesh of the Passover lamb to give them strength for their journey out of Egypt. This is a type of Jesus being the life and health of our physical bodies!
 
In 2 Chronicles 30, the Israelites were healed while partaking of the Passover sacrifice:  But King Hezekiah prayed for them, and they were allowed to eat the Passover meal anyway, even though this was contrary to the requirements of the Law. For Hezekiah said, "May the Lord, who is good, pardon those (19) who decide to follow the Lord, the God of their ancestors, even though they are not properly cleansed for the ceremony." (20) And the Lord listened to Hezekiah's prayer and healed the people (2 Chronicles 30:18-20 -NLT)

In Numbers 21: 8-9, the Israelites were healed while they looked at a serpent that God had Moses put on a pole and hold up for all to see. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Jesus referred to this serpent on a pole as Himself being made our sin in John 3: 14: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. If the type, the serpent on the pole, brought healing to every Israelite that gazed upon it, how much more will Jesus, the anti-type (the fulfillment of the serpent on the pole), minister healing and life to those who come to Him!
 
Then in Isaiah 53, the great redemptive chapter, we find healing clearly shown in the sacrifice of the Messiah! He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows (pains) and acquainted with grief (sickness). And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses) and carried our sorrows (pains); yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
 
The words sorrows and griefs should be translated respectively pains and sicknesses in these verses! Any concordance will bear this truth. When Jesus bore our sins, he also bore our sicknesses. He dealt with both the sin and sickness problem with the same sacrifice at Calvary!
 
Some folk tell us that Isaiah 53: 3-5 is speaking figuratively of our spiritual sins and our spiritual sickness. And that he healing mentioned in Isaiah 53:5 is really spiritual healing. But we don’t need spiritual healing, we need spiritual transformation! We don’t get healed spiritually; we become new creatures in Christ Jesus!
  
The Father obviously knew that some people would try to spiritualize the healing mentioned in Isaiah 53 and He left us a Divine commentary. Notice Matthew 8: 16-17. It refers directly to Isaiah 53:4! When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."
 
Exercise your faith in the Father to heal you today! Believe you receive the healing that Jesus provided in His sacrifice for you. With His stripes you are healed!

God's Will is For You to Be Healed

Most people know that God can heal them. But they are not sure that it is God’s will to heal them. And it’s not what we know God can do, but what we know He will do that inspires faith. Faith rests in knowing the will of God, not in the ability of God alone.  Faith begins where the will of God is known.

Many people have religious roadblocks in the way of receiving their healing from the Lord. They quote the scripture taken out of context, “Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6).  And the religious roadblock tells them that God sometimes uses sickness to chasten the believer. But God does not make people sick. And He is not a child abuser! We would be accused of child abuse if we harmed our children physically, but people refer to God as a child abuser when they say that He puts sickness on us to teach us a lesson. God chastens us in our spirits through His word!

Other people say that God puts sickness on us to teach us to trust Him.  Still others tell us that God lets us get sick so that we can glorify Him in the sickness. And I’ve heard others say that “I’m in God’s hands, and nothing can come into my life except it come through Him first.”

But what does the Word of God teach? It teaches that “…God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). It teaches that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17) It DOES NOT teach that God puts sickness on His people!

Jesus prayed in Matthew 6:10, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There is no sickness in heaven, and it is His will that there be no sickness on the earth! Moses admonished the Israelites to keep the Word of God in their hearts “that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth” (Deuteronomy 11:21).

Sickness came with the fall of man, and its’ cure is found in God’s remedy for the fall, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ! To listen to some people, it sounds as though God and the devil have changed jobs over the last two thousand years. To them, God is the one who makes us sick, and the devil is the one who heals us! But “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

For me, the will of God concerning my healing is settled by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 8. Jesus came down from the mountain where He was ministering the Sermon on the Mount to His disciples, and there was a man stricken by leprosy waiting for Him at the base of the mountain. The leper said to Jesus, “…If you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’” If Jesus could tell this leper that it was His will to heal him, then He must also tell me that it is His will to heal me, or He is partial and treats some people better than He does others. Romans 2:11 reads, “For there is no partiality with God!” Again, if it’s the will of God to heal the leper, then it must be the will of God to heal me!

If it is the will of God to heal some and not all, then there is no basis for faith in God to heal except through some special revelation. That’s the reason we sometimes hear the faith destroying prayer for healing, “Lord if it be thy will…” Folk that pray that way for healing simply do not understand the Word of God on the subject. We as Christians know the will of God through His Word. His Word is His will for us!

How To Receive Healing By Faith

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases (Psalm 103:1-3).
 
Jesus sacrifice on the cross provided both forgiveness of sin and healing of sickness and disease for us. The same kind of faith that brings the new birth to us also provides healing for our physical bodies. The same faith we exercise to be forgiven when we sin is the same faith we exercise for healing. Let me explain.

When you’re born again, the confession of your mouth that comes from the faith in your heart brings salvation into your life! That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:10).

Faith is released with words. Be careful with what you say. Words carry what you believe! And words bring your salvation into a real experience in your life. It works the same way with healing. If fact the Greek word for salvation, sozo, includes everything that salvation brings us, including healing!

So you could read this verse in Romans this way: That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be healed. For with the heart one believes unto health, and with the mouth confession is made unto healing!

The same faith that saves from sin also heals disease. Here’s how it works. When you sin, you go to 1 John 1:9, where the Word says If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. After you act on that scripture, you probably don’t feel forgiven initially. You’ve confessed your sin. You’ve asked for forgiveness, but your emotions retain the remorse of failure.
 
And that’s where faith comes in focus. You then say out loud, Lord, I thank you that I’m forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. And you stand your ground on the word where God says He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse confessed sin. It may take a while, but eventually the feelings of failure subside, and the peace of God returns. The bottom line here is that you must believe you’re forgiven before you feel forgiven.

Faith for healing works exactly the same way. You go to the Father with the symptoms that are attacking your body. You remind Him of what His Word says about you; that Jesus took your infirmities and bore your sicknesses the same time that he took your sins. You command the sickness to leave your body. You resist it in the Name of Jesus! Then, you ask the Father for complete healing and according to Mark 11:24, you believe you receive your healing.

Then, just as you do for forgiveness of sin, you stand against thoughts and feelings that tell you that you’re still sick. Your faith in the Word declares that you’re healed while the symptoms are still raging. You continue to voice aloud the promises of God for health. And healing eventually manifests in your body. Your faith in the Father through the Word for healing will make you whole. Act on the Word for healing today!


 

Don't Let the Flesh Keep You From God's Best

In Numbers 22-24, You can read the story of how Balak (King of the Moabites) tried to get the prophet Balaam to curse Israel. And what a blessing we receive when we read of Balaam’s response, How can you curse whom God has not cursed! (Numbers 23:8). We are the people of God as Christians, and are Like Israel destined to be blessed.
  
But there is an interesting twist in the story of Balaam. Though he could not entice God into the notion of cursing His own people, Balaam through his warped spiritual view encouraged the Israelites to go and party with their heathen relatives, the Moabites (See Numbers 25). The Moabites worshipped Baal through very gross immorality. And the Israelites went right along with the Moabites into their heathen fleshly sexual indulgences in their worship of Baal.
  
As a result, 24,000 Israelites died of a plague that broke out. Balaam couldn’t get God to curse the Israelites, but the Israelites brought a curse on themselves through yielding to the flesh and purposely disobeying God and breaking their covenant with Him!
  
Esau was to be blessed with the inheritance of the first born (which was getting 2/3 of the inheritance passed down from his father), but he gave it away in a pledge to his brother Jacob. Esau became so hungry that he despised his own birthright (which in that culture was the greatest honor) for a bowl of soup! His flesh caused him to loose the blessing destined to him by God!
 
Samson took the vow of the Nazarite. He consecrated himself to God and became a national hero in Israel through feats of supernatural strength. The power of God would come on Samson, and he became a one man army as he single handedly defeated the enemy. But he lost God’s blessing on his life when he fell in love and sinned with a Philistine prostitute named Delilah. She coerced him into telling her the secret of his strength (his long hair through the Nazarite vow). Sin had so numbed Samson’s life that he was unaware of when the Spirit of God left him. Unconfessed sin cancels God’s blessing.
  
The lesson for us today is strikingly clear. We are destined to be blessed with Abraham’s blessing as believers! We’re the head and not the tail. The Father wants to lavish us with His best. But we through our own disobedience can cancel the destined blessing. Let’s keep the flesh under, and refuse to sell our birthright of blessing for a moment of selfish pleasure!
 
I’ll leave you today with the words of the prophet Isaiah on the subject:
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword"; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 1:19-20).
 
If you miss it, repent! God forgives when you confess sin. Refuse to live in disobedience. God blesses obedience! Walk with God, refuse the offers of the flesh to dishonor your Lord. And you’ll be available for the best that God has for you.

Believers Inherit the Blessings of God

We are destined for blessing! The Father’s desire was for the human race to be blessed beyond measure! Adam’s sin ended the blessing and instead allowed the curse to creep into this wonderful planet. The goodness and blessing of God was curtailed as a result.
 
God appeared to Abram and told him that he was going to bless him and make his name great. He told Abram that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. The blessing that Adam lost through the fall is being restored through the blessing of Abraham! This blessing will reach it’s finality when Jesus returns, reigns for one thousand years, judges all His enemies, and then the earth is renewed and the curse removed! The blessing will be back in its entirety then!
 
Until that time God has instituted His blessing back into the earth through the family of God! It started with Abraham, and has been passed on to the believer through Christ Jesus! The blessing that belonged to Abraham now belongs to us by faith! Take what belongs to you in Christ! You’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing!
 
The Old Testament word for blessing means to endue with power for success, prosperity, fecundity (Webster’s - fruitfulness, fertility, productivity), longevity, etc. (1) As believers we are enabled with BLESSING! We have the Father’s favor that He poured out on Adam, that Adam lost through disobedience, but has been reinstituted in the earth through God’s promise to Abraham! In Christ we are blessed with faithful Abraham (Galatians 3:9). That means that we have the same blessing that God gave him!
 
Notice again Galatians 3:13-14, and Galatians 3:29: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.  And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
 
You are BLESSED! Success, prosperity, fruitfulness, productivity, longevity, health, wholeness, soundness, belongs to you in Christ! Take it by faith. Confess it, believe it, act like it, and release it to others!
 
In closing let me remind you of your BLESSING:

Deuteronomy 28: 1-14

"If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God: Your towns and your fields will be blessed. Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. "The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven! "The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. "If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you. "The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

---

(1) (from Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)

Copy God's Faithfulness!

Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Moreover it is essentially required in stewards that a man be found faithful – proving himself worthy of trust (1 Corinthians 4:2-Amplified)

A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20).

God is faithful, and renews His mercies to us every single day. His steadfastness is surer than the rising of the sun. His desire is that we be faithful just like Him. Faithfulness is something that we must choose to walk in. It transcends feelings and circumstances. A faithful person is as faithful when the storm is producing relentless rain as he is when the sun is shining. Outward things simply do not shake the person of faithful heart.

Here are some definitions: Faithfulness: the quality or state of being faithful.
Faithful: true or constant in affection or allegiance; loyal; firm in adherence to promises oaths, or undertakings; firm and thorough in observance of duty.

The Father abundantly blesses the faithful. Part of this may be due to the fact that the faithful person will hang in there through thick and thin. It takes consistency to receive from the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

To find God’s best for your life you must be faithful! He rarely speaks to a slack person! He’s already spoken 66 books full of directives! And unless we’re after obeying what He’s already instructed, He’s not likely to add more in the way of specifics! And let me mention that this is not a legalistic thing. When Jesus bears His presence on my heart through His Word, that precious presence urges me to bless and be a blessing. That presence from within urges you and me to action.

I began ministry just by being faithful in small things. Whatever I saw that needed to be done in my church, I just pitched in and helped without being asked. There are so many who are much more skilled than me to preach and to pastor. But God rarely looks at skills. He looks at the heart. And there He yearns to find faithfulness!

If you’re not sure of exactly what the Father has for you, just start being faithful! Two things will happen. First of all, you’ll be blessed! And secondly, the Father will shed His light on your path, and you will eventually walk into the plan of God for your life!

What Desire Has God Placed Within You?

And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry (1 Timothy 1:12).
 
The Father has given each one of us divine ability to fulfill the tasks He has called us to do. He enables us to do His will. One translation reads, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has made me equal to the task. Ephesians 4:7 reads, But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. This grace is a divine ability to walk in the calling the Father has for the individual believer.
  
Each of us has a purpose in the family of God. The will of The Father has been placed deep within us. He places in us a desire for something. Following that desire will move you into the purpose of God for your life.
 
For me, after I received the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, I began to have an innate desire to help people see who they are in Christ. I would find myself constantly encouraging and teaching as I had conversations with friends. That desire to build up the believer led me into the call that is on my life today. I simply yielded to that inward tug of the Father.
 
Some have a desire to help children. Others have a yearning to ministry to the imprisoned. Still others find a sense of fulfillment in ministering to the elderly in nursing homes, in helping singles parents and widows with house repairs and natural things they can’t do alone. Many will find great fulfillment in helping the pastor in the local church with ushering, greeting, with sound, in children’s ministry, and in all the necessary things that make ministry happen each week.
 
When people ask me what think God has called them to do I ask them a question. What do you want to do deep down inside. The Father places His desires in us (Psalm 37:4). Then, He gives us the ability to perform those desires. Jesus said, The Father who dwells in me does the work (John 14:10).
 
To walk in God’s best for you, listen deep within to the want to the Father has placed within you. Then follow that want to and you’ll eventually end up fulfilling the high call of God in Christ for your life (Philippians 3:14)!

You are a "King" and a "Priest"

And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (Revelation 1:5-6).
 
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).
 
We have two important positions as believers. We are kings! And we are priests! Being a king doesn't mean that we whiz around with the pomp and circumstance of royalty having servants cater to every whim and fancy. A king rules his domain. We have the spiritual authority of a king! Historically, a king’s word was the bottom line in his kingdom. Where the word of a king is there is power (Ecclesiastes 8:4). We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That means that He actually shares His authority with us! Demonic forces must bow when we exercise our authority.

A king reigns with words. The Father wants us to fill our words with His word! He watches over His word to make it good! He is the King of kings! When we speak as a king, our King’s power backs it up and brings it to pass! Jesus is Lord of lords. We are lord over our domain. And Jesus is Lord of us! We have spiritual authority in our homes and families. We have the legal right before God to command Satan to keep his hands off our lives! He must go with his sickness and disease, with his poverty and lack, with his strife and rebellion, with his depression and fear! We’re kings. Our words rule. The King of kings backs them up. Exercise your kingship!
 
We are also priests before God. A priest represents others before God. Jesus is our High Priest. He ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). As priests, we are to go before the Father on behalf of those who don’t know their rights and privileges in Christ. We are to bear their burdens, and be the go-between for them before God. We represent the weak, the helpless, the fear-filled, the sick, the depressed, the poverty stricken before God in prayer. We ask on their behalf. Then, as the Father gives direction, we go minister to them! And His power becomes available to set them free.
 
Exercise your rights as a king and a priest today. The Father depends on you to help Him. We are laborers together with God!

How Meditation in the Word Changed Me

I have been sharing the importance of meditation the last couple of days. Today, I want to give an example of how meditation in the Word of God changed my life.

The Word cancelled fear in my life! Due to circumstances when I was young I developed a fear of rejection. I developed a self-consciousness that feared people’s responses to my words and actions. I would walk into a room and immediately size up who was there and how people viewed me. My thinking had a default setting that assumed others did not like me and wanted nothing to do with me.

When I entered ministry as a young man, this rejection syndrome worsened. I would preach and then have a terrible next day while thinking of all the reasons no one received what I was saying. The focus was all on me and not on the blessing the Lord wanted me to be to others.
 
The Father began to show me the self-centered thinking that was producing these emotions and feeling of rejection. He gave me this scripture on day: But as a matter of fact, it matters very little to me what you, or any man thinks of me – I don’t even value my opinion of myself (! Corinthians 4:3 – J.B. Phillips).
 
I began to see that my thoughts and emotions were fear based instead of Word based. I had developed a habit of allowing my mind to set me up to be dominated by the fear of others rejecting me! This was a deep seated ingrained behavior in my life. I knew that there was no way that I could survive in ministry with this kind of thinking ruling me.
 
I cried out to the Father and He showed me this scripture in 1 Corinthians and then led me to 1 John 4:18 in the Amplified: There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love's complete perfection].

I began to meditate daily on these two scriptures. I let them revolve over and over in my thought life. I said them slowly to myself. I spoke out loud when alone. I did this several times a day. This type of meditation dropped the Word down deep into my personal belief system, my underlying thought patterns, or as Ephesians 4:23 calls it, the spirit of my mind.
 
I also developed a siege mentality with respect to my wrong thinking and emotions. Your mind will try to convince you that what it is thinking and what your emotions are feeling is reality. And often they are not. So I deprived my mind and emotions of power over me by following the principle of a siege.
   
Enemy armies in Bible days would often siege a city in order to conquer it. Cities in that day had very high walls erected all the way around them to keep out predatory animals and enemy forces. Sentries were stationed on top of the walls providing a lookout for detecting the enemy. This made a city basically impenetrable.

An enemy army would simply surround the perimeter of the walled city far enough away as to be immune to arrows shot by the troops on the wall. And they simply cut the supply lines of food and goods to the city. It may take as much as two years for the city to run out of food and supplies, but eventually the enemy would defeat the city. The only factor was time and the siege.

Using this principle along with meditation on the Word cured me of this fear of rejection. My mind and emotions would tell me people did not like me, and I would simply call the person or see them personally and engage them in conversation. I was really conversing with them to see if my mind and emotion were telling me the truth, and I found that the majority of time they were not!

So the siege began! I refused to give in to my thoughts and feelings of rejection! Every day I would siege my thoughts and emotions, refusing to allow the thoughts to remain in my mind, and refusing to believe what my emotions told me. I meditated on the Word and then purposely called people just to talk to them to prove that my perceptions of rejection were wrong!

The siege worked. Now the Word has replaced the fear of others! Meditation on the Word along with actions that demonstrate belief in the Word will change your wrong belief system and produce a change in your behavior. The Word did it for me! And the Word will work for you too!