Some Thoughts on Our Authority in Christ

Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions[demonic forces], and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).

Adam’s sin gave Satan a temporary control over humanity and over the earth in general. Since that time he has become skilled in his killing, stealing, and destroying tactics (John 10:10). Romans 5 tells us that death reigned from Adam to Moses, indicating that there was a lessening of that reign when the law of Moses was established among those in covenant with God.

Under the Old Covenant sin was atoned or covered by the application of blood from a sacrificial animal to the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies where the presence of God dwelt. This atoning of sin severely limited Satan’s reign over God’s Old Covenant people. The problem with the Old Covenant was their rebellion to the will of God by wandering off into idolatry and gross personal sin. Humans are sinful to the core. So this Old Covenant was flawed because of sin and the wandering heart of man.

Jesus through the new birth gives us a new heart! We’re new creatures in Christ! The nature of sin is replaced by the nature of God in the heart of the believer! And Jesus captured Satan’s Adam given authority over man when He rose from the dead! That authority over Satan has been given to us, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ!

The demonic forces that have terrorized men for thousands of years are afraid of believers understanding and walking in their authority in Christ. Their scheme now is two-fold.

First, they want to keep Christians ignorant of their position and authority in Christ by watering down what churches teach with man-made traditions. This makes void personal spiritual authority over Satan in the average church going believer. Because they never hear their rights and privileges in Christ preached, most believers are unaware of what they can do to hinder Satan’s kingdom. Hosea said my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). Make sure you go to a church that strongly proclaims what Jesus did for us in His death and resurrection!

Secondly, if a believer knows about his personal spiritual authority over Satan, then the enemy schemes to push that believer to walk in the flesh. This will cancel the authority that believer has over him. Strife discord, disunity, unforgiveness, and lack of holy living are tools the enemy uses to keep an informed believer neutral in spiritual authority over him.

So the key to our walking in our God given authority is to feed our faith on the truths of who we are in Christ and on our position and standing before God in Him. And then make a choice to walk in the spirit by walking in love and by choosing to be a doer of the word.

Keep short accounts with the Father. Confess your sin when you miss it. The moment you mess up, fess up! Feed your faith daily on who you are in Christ Jesus. Pray the prayer of faith for yourself and your family. Believe you receive answers when you pray even when it seems as though the prayer isn’t answered. Pray on behalf of others. Take their needs before the Father and ask Him in specific ways to meet them. Take time daily to pray in the spirit. If you do these things, demon forces will fear the Jesus in you. And you’ll live in the cubicle of the Father’s care while living in a fallen world.

Prayer Importance

And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God. (Luke 24:53). These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers (Acts 1:14). So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart (Acts 2:46). And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31). Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God (Luke 6:12).

The foundation for all that God does in us and through us is in our prayer life. Jesus set the standard. Jesus’ days of ministry were preceded by nights of intense praying. The early church was formed after Jesus ascension in the incubator of prayer.

The kingdom of God functions on the prayers of the saints. The mighty forces that shape the world are not physical but spiritual. The answer to every challenge we face is first of all found in that place of solace with the Father. If Jesus heeded the importance of praying things out in His earth walk, should we not heed His example?

We’re facing pressures unheard of in previous generations. The climax of the ages is upon us. God has a grand and glorious strategy for the church in this hour. And it begins and ends on our knees! To neglect the place of prayer is to neglect the very purpose and plans of the Father for life.

Start today. Move yourself into a deeper place of prayer. Find a private place, and begin to tell the Father how wonderful He is to you. Ask Him to help you pour out your heart to Him. Then, take to Him every concern and problem. Give Him the details of what bothers you. Then ask Him to intervene and bring the solution. Remind Him of the promises of His Word to you. Spend time in thanksgiving for the answer.

While praying, take time to pray in tongues. This is the most effective form of prayer. Praying in the spirit enables you to pray the perfect will of God about the unknown future. It enables you to pray the will of God into manifestation in so many ways! Don’t neglect this secret weapon God has given to you! Use it regularly and watch the forces of the enemy back up!

The success of your day today begins in your prayer closet. Make it count!

Praise Power

Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls — Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills (Habakkuk 3:17-19).

Praise is the language of faith. When life turns sour, turn up the praise! James tells us to count it all joy when hard times arrive. Paul tells us to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!

Praise brings a manifestation of the presence of God that will give inward strength and that will attack the problem and bring a solution. Enemy armies had surrounded the people of God in 2 Chronicles 20. King Jehosophat and the people began to seek the Lord.

Through the prophet God told them that He would fight their battle for them. All they needed to do was to send the praisers to the front line of the battle and God would do t he fighting for them.

They obeyed and the praisers began to sing Praise the Lord for His mercy endures forever. As they sang, the presence and power of God manifested and the enemy army was defeated before they could lift a sword!

God will undertake to bring you out of the hard place if you will choose to put on the garment of praise. There is no feeling in this, it’s a total act of faith! When your flesh is screaming at you and the problems pile up, the best thing to do is to praise. Paul and Silas were set free from prison because they chose to pray and to sing praises to God while sitting in a dungeon.

Stop the complaining and begin to praise God in the troubles of life. God is not partial. He helped His Old Covenant people and fought for them. He will do the same for you!

Praise Power

Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls — Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer's feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills (Habakkuk 3:17-19).

Praise is the language of faith. When life turns sour, turn up the praise! James tells us to count it all joy when hard times arrive. Paul tells us to rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice!

Praise brings a manifestation of the presence of God that will give inward strength and that will attack the problem and bring a solution. Enemy armies had surrounded the people of God in 2 Chronicles 20. King Jehosophat and the people began to seek the Lord.

Through the prophet God told them that He would fight their battle for them. All they needed to do was to send the praisers to the front line of the battle and God would do t he fighting for them.

They obeyed and the praisers began to sing Praise the Lord for His mercy endures forever. As they sang, the presence and power of God manifested and the enemy army was defeated before they could lift a sword!

God will undertake to bring you out of the hard place if you will choose to put on the garment of praise. There is no feeling in this, it’s a total act of faith! When your flesh is screaming at you and the problems pile up, the best thing to do is to praise. Paul and Silas were set free from prison because they chose to pray and to sing praises to God while sitting in a dungeon.

Stop the complaining and begin to praise God in the troubles of life. God is not partial. He helped His Old Covenant people and fought for them. He will do the same for you!

Open Up to the Father

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me," even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You (Psalm 139:1-12).

I want to clarify something today concerning walking by faith. Part of the faith walk is maintaining a positive confession while waiting for the manifestation of answered prayer. Faith is always released from your heart with words. So saying what you believe is all important to having effective faith.

But the other side of the coin is that we are human and life brings disappointments and frustrations along emotional hurt and pain. Just the way we’re wired we sometimes need a place to vent these things and sort out our thoughts. And I have found that the best place to do this is in the presence of the Father.

You’ll find David in the Psalms venting his heart-felt frustrations to the Lord over and over again. Instead of stuffing his emotions, he let them go in a safe place. That safe place for all of us is in our closet in the Father’s presence.

Over the years in my life as circumstances have brought disappointment and frustration, I’ve learned to run the Father and tell Him everything, the good, the bad, and the otherwise. He understands our deepest thoughts and reasonings, and knows why we do what we do. He is the only person in the universe that knows us to the core of our being.

Taking time to get comfortable enough in His presence to pour out all your motives and thoughts will be one of the most worthwhile things you’ll ever do. Pouring your heart out to the Father is like a pressure valve being release from within.

I’ve learned to tell the Father every single thing I think and feel about a situation and why I feel that way. Then I just let His word minister to me. I ask Him to help me overcome the issue and give Him permission to speak into my life. He won’t unless you invite Him to. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you (James 4:8). Since He already knows everything about everything, why hide?

The more honest you are with the Father, the freer you will become. And the easier it will be to really be yourself with others. Faith will become a heart-felt process if you’ll spend time with the Father and talk to Him about life’s challenges and how you think about them. Afterwards, when you leave His presence and make a confession of faith, your intimate relationship with the Father will boost your faith and you’ll rise above the circumstance, carefree and joy filled.

In this context, the confession of faith that comes from heart-felt words will defeat the circumstance and bring you personal victory every time!

Personal Divine Help

For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:11). For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful (1 Corinthians 14:14). For one who speaks in an [unknown] tongue speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands or catches his meaning, because in the [Holy] Spirit he utters secret truths and hidden things [not obvious to the understanding] (1 Corinthians 14:2 – Amplified).

Learning to overcome wrong thinking and wrong responses to life is one our greatest challenges as a believer. The New Birth transforms my spirit, but my soul and my body have been so enmeshed into sinful thoughts, motives, emotions, and response patterns that it’s difficult for me to see and understand them all.

So, we know things from the scriptures with our head. We know what we should do, but often end up doing the opposite. Paul said it this way in Romans 7: 15-17:

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

Here is a key to being freed from wrong thinking and responses in the various areas of life. Take some time to get alone with God in the Word and just read it real slowly. Go to scriptures that deal with relationships, motives, and responses. I suggest Romans 12, Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, and 1 Peter 3 for starters. Read slowly going over each word carefully and asking yourself; Do I do that? Is there something that I need to put into practice here? Is there something that I need to stop? Is there some motive within me that needs to be changed? Is there a promise here that I need to act on? The key is going slowly and taking your time.

Then afterwards, take some time to pray in the spirit, in other tongues. Ask the Lord as you pray to unseat any wrong underlying patterns of thinking in your life that cause hurtful responses to others. Remember that your spirit knows things about your life that your mind doesn’t know. When you’re praying in tongues, you’re often praying out issues in your own life that need changing.

We all have similar issues to deal with in life. And we have a loving Father and a loving Holy Spirit within us that are ready and willing to help us work through the issues and challenges that we face in our personal lives. Give God a chance to work in your personal life by spending time as I mentioned in the Word, and by taking time to pray in other tongues. After a while, thoughts will come up from your spirit person that will reveal areas of needed change. The Lord will then quicken you and enable you to deal with things that may have bothered you for years. We have a Divine helper within us who is longing for us to work with Him to bring in us needed change. Let’s give Him opportunity to work!

Discipline Yourself for the Purpose of Godliness

But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come (1 Timothy 4:7-8).

Godliness produces change that impacts life right now! Phillips translation of the latter part of verse 7 above reads: take time and trouble to keep yourselves spiritually fit. The New American Standard Bible of the same verse reads: on the other hand discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

The Word of God will have an impact on your personal daily habits if you’ll take the time and trouble to get into the Word and let the Word get into you! God gave us the capacity of habit to keep life from being difficult.

A habit is something that is done so frequently that it can be performed without conscious thought. We all have personal daily habits that affect our routines throughout the day. We prepare for our day pretty much the same way each day after day. Many things in our occupation become routine and habitual. And our ways of relating to ourselves and others can become entrenched in habitually patterns of thought and response.

We also develop bad habits that harm us and those around us. These habits can keep us from God’s best. Here are some tips that will help you break a bad habit, be it a habit of thought, word, or action.

Breaking a habit is a three step process. The first step is to catch the habit after the fact. It’s becoming aware that you’re even doing something wrong. That’s where the Word comes into play. Find scriptures that deal with the area of life you’re challenged with, write them down and read them over and over again. That will sensitize you to the need to change that area of life.

The second step to changing a habit is to catch yourself in the middle of it. Once the Word is in you, conviction to change comes. And breaking a habit takes time. Just keep catching yourself after the fact, and eventually you’ll begin to see what you’re doing that’s wrong right while you’re involved in it.

The third and last step to breaking a habit is to catch yourself just before you start to do it. This is all a process that may take weeks of time. Psychologists tell us it takes three to four week to begin forming new habits. So start the process and work yourself through it.

Habits are changed by replacement. Don’t concentrate on the negative, concentrate on filling yourself with the Word, and then making a choice to repent the moment you see that you’re violating God’s Word in your life. This works in any area: thoughts, verbal responses, emotions, or physical habits.

I’ve used this three step principle for years in my own life and can vouch for its effectiveness. I’ve changed colloquial expressions I’ve picked up from others, habits of gossip when I was first saved, mental traits of believing the worst of others, all sorts of wrong patterns of response to others, workaholic tendencies, perfectionist patterns, and all sorts of physical habits by using these three follow through principles.

Catch yourself and repent after the fact. Catch yourself and repent in the middle of a wrong action. Then you’ll catch yourself just before the engrained habit pushes you to action. That’s how the power of the Word can change you from the inside out. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

Praying in the Spirit

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).

Praying in the spirit is one of the most effective ways that we can pray. It plugs us directly into the spirit realm where we can be efficient in praying out the purpose and will of God for people and circumstances.

Mental praying is limited to your scope of understanding of a situation. But praying in the spirit takes you into God’s understanding and all-knowing bout things. Then while you’re praying in the spirit words will often float up to your mind from your spirit. Speak those words out and you’ll sometimes receive the interpretation of what you’re praying.

As I’ve mentioned over the last couple of days, we believers are the only people on earth that have a legal, God-given right to exercise authority over Satan and his forces. This authority does no good unless it is put into practice by us. It does not work automatically. Many believers are bound by the enemy because no one told them that they are free from his control and shown them how to take their rightful place in Christ.

Knowing your authority gives you a certain prayer responsibility before the Father. He wants you to take that responsibility and use your authority to command Satan to loose his hold on men and women.

Praying with the spirit and with the understanding combined can make you a tool in the hands of the Father that is dangerous to the kingdom of darkness. Take time today to pray in the spirit.

Here’s some practical instruction. It takes time to get into the flow of prayer when praying in the spirit. John was “in the spirit” on the Lord ’s Day in Revelation 1:10. That means he became more sensitive to spiritual things than mental or natural things. It takes time to get there. For me, it used to take me over an hour of praying in the spirit to get sensitive to the spirit realm and calm my thoughts down. Now it takes me anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes. Once you get to that place, it seems as though there is an easy flow of pray, and you can sense that the Spirit of God is working together with you. And in that place, your mind and spirit begin to work together to ask the Father’s intervention in the lives of people and in their circumstances.

The result for your own life is a deep penetrating peace and exquisite joy that is deep and almost beyond words. The result in others is changed lives. Take your place today and pray in the spirit and allow the Father to work with you to exercise authority over the work of the enemy. You’ll be glad you did.

Prayer Necessity

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.' "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!'" And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:1-8 – NIV).

Constant prayer is necessary for God’s highest and best to be realized in the home, in the church, and in the world. Because Satan obtained a legal right to rule on earth until the lease that God gave Adam on the earth runs out at the return of Christ, we must labor together with God in prayer. There are no shortcuts. If we refuse to pray, Satan makes inroads into life and circumstance. Our prayers of faith give God a legal right to move into life’s circumstances.

Refuse to yield to the pressure of the busy and necessary at the expense of prayer. To see a need is to have a call to this prayer life. Satan fears committed believers more than anyone else in the whole world. We alone have the authority in the name of Jesus to bind his activity and to command him to desist in his maneuvers against the will and purpose of God worldwide.

The unjust judge in the parable above is the devil. He will not let go of his victims unless we assert constant pressure on him and his kingdom with our prayers, intercession, and faith. Don’t buy the lie that your praying is ineffective and is a waste of time. Don’t allow the busy to take the place of the important. To God, our prayer time is the most important time of out day. Our prayers loose His benevolent hands and allow Him to demonstrate His ability to those in need.

Be a laborer together with God today. Be one of those that the Father can count on to work with as He seeks to save those who are lost. Can He count on you today?

Authority and Prayer

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints (Ephesians 6:18).

Our prayer life is more important than we often realize. John Wesley said: It seems as though God is limited by our prayer life; that He can do nothing for humanity unless someone asks Him to do it.

Adam’s original lease of dominion was transferred to Satan when Adam obeyed him, and Satan became at that time the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). You understand that God gave man authority and dominion over the earth when God created him (Genesis 1: 26-28). Satan gained a legal right to this authority when Adam chose to disobey God’s direct command. Since that time, the earth has been under Satan’s control. Jesus called Satan the prince (ruler) of this world in John 14:30. Satan is called the prince of the power of the air in Ephesians 2. John tells us that the whole world is under Satan’s power and control in 1 John 5:19.

During Jesus’ wilderness temptations, Satan offered Jesus the authority of the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would simply worship him. Satan told Jesus that the authority of the kingdom of the world was delivered to him. Who delivered authority over the earth to Satan? It was automatically transferred to Satan when Adam sinned.

Though God is sovereign overall, for a time limited period God had given some of His authority to Adam to rule over the earth under His providence. Now, Satan has a legal timed limited dominion over the earth since he obtained Adam’s original lease of dominion. This lease of dominion will end at the second coming of Christ.

Until then a thief has been let loose on this planet. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy. His desire is to mar human life and to make the earth a place of rebellion to God instead of a place of peace and tranquility. This is a sobering fact.

The good news is that Jesus Christ conquered Satan when He became our sin, died, and then was raised from physical death. Jesus cancelled the authority Satan has over Christian’s lives! When Jesus was raised from the dead, He spoke to His disciples just before He was taken into heaven and said: All authority has been given to me in heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18). Jesus spoke that as the representative new creation man, the God -Man who is the first-born from the dead (See Colossians 1). Jesus is now head of a brand new race of people, the New Creation folk, the church.

When He said in Matthew 28:19, Go ye, He actually transferred His authority over Satan to the church. Now, the only people who can exercise authority over Satan are Christians who know their rights and privileges in Christ. That’s the reason we must exercise our rights in prayer, binding Satan from hindering people from receiving the gospel, and demanding that He leave us and our loved ones alone.

The Father desires to use us to pray and ask Him to manifest Himself in the earth. God is limited to the prayers of believers because of this lease of dominion being transferred to Satan by Adam when he sinned. Since the church is the only group on earth that can exercise authority over Satan, God must now work through the church for His will to be accomplished.

Our prayers untie God’s hands. Take time every day to pray in the spirit. Praying in the spirit is a way to pray the perfect will of God into manifestation, and a way to pray for things that you’re aren’t aware of that need God’s intervention (see Romans 8:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 14:2). Pray with your understanding about things you know about. The Father has promised answered prayer. Take time to call on His name today, and invite His purposes into your life circumstances and into the earth.

Renew Your Mind

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. 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 (Romans 12:1-2).

In the new birth our spirits are transformed from darkness to light. The nature of sin is removed and replaced by the nature and life of God. A new motivation for living rises up from within. The things we once delighted in are replaced by an attraction to right living. And that’s where the challenge begins.

Before Christ we allowed our minds, emotions, wills and bodies to absorb habits that now bring regret if we participate in them. Paul said it to the believers in Rome this way: I am speaking in familiar human terms because of your natural limitations. For as you yielded your bodily members and faculties as servants to impurity and ever increasing lawlessness, so now yield your bodily members and faculties once for all as servants to righteousness (right being and doing) which leads to sanctification

(Romans 6:19-Amplified).

Stubbornness, anger, malice (the desire for bad things to happen to people who do you wrong), self-centeredness, habits of fleshly lusts sexual and otherwise, overeating to cover pain, overwork to escape dealing with relational issues, perfectionism; all of these things come from a soul (mind, emotions and will) that must be subdued and brought to obedience to the Word! The mind is renewed and the body submitted to God as a living sacrifice as we daily yielded ourselves to the Lordship of the Word, making a conscious decision to act on the Word when everything in you wants to go the other way!

Make a decision today and everyday to 1) meditate the Word, to let it revolve over and over in your mind. 2) Make a decision to be a doer and not just a hearer only of the Word. 3) Make a decision to put the Word first place in your life. Not last place, but to act on the Word in each situation life brings. Do what God says should be done in that situation. 4) Make a decision daily to obey your conscience, the voice of your human spirit speaking to you. As you train your conscience to obey the Word, the voice of God in your inward man will become clearer and clearer.

Mind renewal is a lifelong process that will only culminate when we get to heaven and are like Him! Work towards that end everyday! He must increase; I must decrease!

Faith and Words

And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak (2 Corinthians 4:13) For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says (Mark 11:23)

Faith cannot be released from your heart to the Father without words. You could say that your words are faith carriers.

In the circumstances that you encounter today, the words that you speak about that event show what you really believe about it. What I say is really my faith speaking.

It’s highly important to speak what you believe. Words fix the landmarks in our lives. We never rise above the words we speak.

Thoughts of doubt bombard us continually. But thoughts that are not put into word or action wither and will not produce results. You can’t keep negative thoughts from coming to your mind, but you can keep them from lodging there. The best thing to do when thoughts of doubt come is to speak out loud what you believe from the word of God.

In the tests that arise in life, my victory in it will keep pace with how steadfastly I speak what I believe in the face of the grueling circumstance. My faith keeps pace with my confession. So many times I’ve had terrible circumstances arise that seem so stubborn. And that’s the time to boldly confess out loud what God says is true about you and your life!

Let me balance this out by saying that there is a place where we must go before the Father and candidly express where we are, how we feel, and how things affect us. The key is not to live there. I always pour my heart out to the Father, but then I go back to His promises and ask Him to specifically work in the situation; often reminding Him of what He said. In that way, I keep my faith active.

Remember to affirm the word of God out loud today. Faith’s confession changes things!

Words

Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk ever come out of your mouth, but only such speech as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace (God's favor) to those who hear it. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [do not offend or vex or sadden Him], by Whom you were sealed (marked, branded as God's own, secured) for the day of redemption (of final deliverance through Christ from evil and the consequences of sin) (Ephesians 4:29-30).

Words are the most powerful force in your life! God used words to create natural things from spiritual things. Your words create things. James tells us that words determine the course of our lives from the cradle to the grave. In the same way that a bridle governs the movements of a horse, and a rudder controls the path of the ship, so our words direct us.

Don’t say a thing unless you want it to come to pass. Be careful to say what you really believe, for words are meant to move us in their direction.

Words can vilify, defame, and wound or they can bless, mend, and heal. Our words have a huge impact on others. We can inspire or de-motivate with a simple comment. The adage sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me is just not true! It takes so much longer to heal from the wounds inflicted with an offensive, hurtful comment than from a physical abrasion.

Make a decision to never use your words to bring harm. Don’t repeat the scandal of the hour. Keep your words positive and winsome. Be a creator of blessing, cheer, and encouragement. One sentence spoken to a person can change their whole day.

Remember that you are a creator today. You’re creating an environment everywhere you go with words. The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary (Isaiah 50:4).

Be a Blessing

The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to hear as the learned (Isaiah 50:4).

All of us are equal in the eyes of God. He has no favorite children. What He makes available to one, He makes available to all. But though we are all equals before God, not every person has an equal start in life.

The good news is that each of us can take the word of God and begin the process of renewing our minds and learning godly ways to relate to others. The word of God can help us to change habitual patterns of response to others that may erect walls and isolate.

Be careful that you don’t judge another person’s actions without knowing the background of what they deal with in life. God is the only righteous judge for He sees the thoughts and intents of the heart.

A person that to you looks like they have their life together may be struggling just to survive day after day. What seems easy to you is a great challenge for another that did not have the same foundation that you had in life.

Be careful not to judge another person at face value. The real issues are usually buried beneath a façade erected to keep emotional and relational pain at a minimum.

The Father wants to use each one of us today to bless and help another life. Be aware that hurt people hurt people. A person that seems harsh and distant is usually carrying some pretty heavy emotional baggage from their years of living. The Father wants to use you today to being cheer and comfort. He can only love and reach people as we allow Him to reach through us! Go today with the expectation that the Lord will use you to bless and help others. He’s counting on you.

A Relationship Problem Solving Formula - A+B=C

If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men (Rom 12:18)

Here a simple formula Chip Judd gave me for understanding how to deal with others and their responses to you when challenged or when you’re just simply interacting with them. This formula affects us all without fail. You can use this at home, at work, at church, or into any social interaction.

The formula is A+B=C. (A) is the issue at hand i.e.; a disagreement with your spouse; a sudden financial problem revealed; or a disagreement with someone at a church function, etc. (B) is the problem or issue at hand filtered through a person’s thoughts. (C) is the reaction or response to problem (A). So the problem (A) is really never the whole problem. (B) is usually the problem. It’s (B) that usually causes conflict in relationships.

(B) is filled with personal biases that come from years of living with and/or interacting with imperfect people! Someone may have judged you for something and treated you with contempt or a cold shoulder. Someone may have taken advantage of you in an area of life and your (B) is filled with debris from this. Your (B) could be filled with deep mistrust of authority figures; women, men, people that you get close to, pastors, government, etc. What has happened in the past that affects us with emotional and mental negatives often fill our (B). Again (B) is a current problem filtered through my conditioning from life’s events. And when A (the event) is filtered through B (personal thoughts and emotional biases created from past interaction) the outcome is C (my personal response to a problem).

That’s the reason two people deal with the exact same issue and come up with such different responses. Learning to deal with your own B (personal thoughts and emotional responses created from past life events) is the key to getting along with others.

The scriptures call this the renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2). I must choose to open up and deal with my person biases (my B) that make me defensive, critical, distant, cold, indifferent, judgmental, sarcastic, etc. James tells us that the engrafted word has the power to save the soul or to renew the mind (James 1:22).

Every action, reaction, thought, motive, word, and attitude in my life must be weighed and measured against the love of God. Love is my standard for living in relationship. The more I adapt my words, thoughts, and responses to the love way, the easier I will adapt in relationships that are difficult. When I learn to love, I will be able to get along with the most trying, difficult people in my life. The more I yield to love, the easier I am to get along with.

Love cures the problems in my personal (B). The key is my willingness to open up my (B) to be examined and weighed in a balance alongside of love. I must be willing to change self-centered responses that come from past hurt and pain to love responses that come out of obedience to God and His word. The more fully I do this, the easier I enter into relationship with others.

I leave you again today with a compilation of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Use this as a gauge to deal with your (B).

Let me describe love. It is slow to lose patience; love stays in difficult relationships with kindness, and it always looks for ways to be constructive. There is no envy in love. It is not possessive and never boils over with jealousy. Love makes no parade of itself; it never boasts, nor does it puff up with pride. Love is never arrogant and never puts itself on display, because it is neither anxious to impress, nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Love never gets irritated and is never resentful. Love holds no grudges, and it keeps no record of evil done to it. Love refuses to be provoked and never harbors evil thoughts. Love is not rude or grasping or overly sensitive, nor does love search for imperfections and faults in others. Love does not compile statistics of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails. Love celebrates what is real and not what is perverse or incomplete. Love never does the graceless thing. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. Love never insists on its own rights, never irritably loses its temper, and never nurses its wrath to keep it warm. Love is not touchy. Love can stand any kind of treatment because there are no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust. Love bears up under anything; it perseveres in all circumstances. Love’s first instinct is to believe in people. If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best in him, and always stand your ground in defending him. Love never regards anyone or anything as hopeless. Love keeps up hope in everything. Love’s hope never fades. Love keeps on keeping on! It trusts in God in every situation and expects God to act in all circumstances. Love goes on forever. Nothing can destroy love. Nothing can happen that can break love’s spirit. In fact, it is the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

Faith Overcomes

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith (1 John 5:4). Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses (1 Timothy 6:12). 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).

It’s faith that overcomes the attacks of the enemy, period. We need to remember that our faith enables us to reach into the unseen realm where God is and where His answers to our prayers are stored. As we believe with real time faith, our faith literally and sometimes ever-so-slowly pulls the answer to our prayer from the spiritual realm to the 3 dimensional realm where we can see it.

That’s the reason that faith and patience inherits the promises of God. Our faith in the word of God overcomes the enemy’s resistance. Satan will try to keep the answer to our prayer and the manifestation of our faith from coming to pass. He does this by sowing seeds of doubt into our minds so we will hopefully yield to them and give up on our faith. Satan also seeks to increase the pressure of circumstance after we pray so that we’ll become weary in the faith fight. He also will try to circumvent our faith by creating opportunities for us to yield to strife, anger, and unforgiveness. In this instance we defeat our own faith, for faith will not work in an unforgiving heart.

So let me encourage you to stand fast in your faith! Stand your ground and believe you receive when it looks like the job is not coming through, or when the finances seem delayed, or when the healing doesn’t feel like it’s there, or it seems as though the prayer is not answered. Someone said that God is never late and seldom early!

Pray about every challenge and obstacle in your life. Believe that you receive the moment that you pray. Take plenty of time to praise and thank the Father because you believe that you have what you asked for. You’re not waiting to get it sometime in the future; you believe you have it now!

While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18). That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises (Hebrews 6:12). For we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Spirit, Soul, and Body

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

I am a spirit being, I possess a soul (mind, emotions, and will), and live in a physical body. Let me explain.

With my spirit I make contact with the spiritual realm where God exists. My conscience is the voice of my human spirit. My spirit is eternal, ageless, and will never cease to exist. My spirit is the seat of my human personality and motivations for living. The new birth has removed the sin nature from my sprit and placed within me by the Holy Spirit the nature of God (which is love). I am to allow this reborn human spirit to rule my actions, my thoughts, my words, and my choices.

My human spirit is nourished through the word of God and prayer (Matthew 4:4). I must feed my spirit the word every day by reading and meditation. I must exercise my spirit daily by praying in my natural and spiritual language. I must learn to listen closely to the promptings of my own spirit, for that is where I will hear the voice of the Father speaking to me intuitively about my life. The more I allow my human spirit to rule my conduct, the simpler and freer life will be.

My soul relates me to natural life in a fallen world. My soul consists of thoughts, emotions, and volition or will-power. My soul has been influenced by my surroundings since birth. It has absorbed much of its habits from observing and associating with events and people around me. My soul is full of residue from the sin nature that left me when I was born again. Negative, wicked, and malicious thoughts have been deposited in my soul from past events. I must learn to resist and replace these thoughts by renewing my mind with the Word by meditating and acting on it. I must purposely resist the negative deposits from my past into my soul, and must actively seek to control what my mind dwells on.

I must harness my emotions and not allow them to control my behavior. I must realize that my emotions have been greatly influenced too by my former sin nature and they will often feel things that are wrong and perhaps untrue. My emotions will seek to highjack my life perspectives and make me feel things that are not really true. I must purposely subject my emotions to the word of God. Instead of acting on emotions, I must act on the word. I must choose to believe the word over emotional feelings. This is a difficult thing to do at first but must be practiced until acting on the word and overriding wrong emotions becomes a way of living.

I must learn to moment by moment yield my will to God. My will has a stubborn streak from the residue left by my former sin nature. I must refuse to allow my will to chart its own course in my life. I must consciously yield my will to the word of God throughout my day. I must choose God’s word over my own self-centered desires. This too takes much practice and effort. My first attempts to harness my will may be met with failure. But I must repent when I fail and consciously yield my will to God by yielding it to His word.

My body is the temporary house for my spirit and my soul. One day, I will either leave it behind in death. Or it will instantly change at the rapture of the church. My body bears much scarring from my former sin nature. It has many appetites and desires that are reside from the sin nature and that were learned in my before Christ days. I must invoke stern discipline on my body or it and its appetites will seek to rule and ruin my life. I must set boundaries for what I allow my body to do. This is a lifelong struggle. One day, the Father will clothe me with a new body that will fit me for eternity in His presence. This new body will be in accord with my spirit and will allow me the freedom to express my spirit and soul in eternity as I walk with my Father through the eons of time in the New Heaven and New Earth.

I must keep this perspective of life continually before me.

Emotionally Free

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

We are spirit beings, who have souls, and live in bodies. Our souls are made up of our mind, our emotions and our willpower or volition. I want to discuss the use of our emotions, but let me mention a few things first.

God gave us every sense to be used for His glory. With our spirit, we contact the spiritual world, and discern God through our conscience, the voice of our human spirit, and through the Holy Spirit who comes to reside in us in the new birth.

With our bodies, we contact the physical world in which we live; the five senses enabling us to enjoy God’s beautiful creation. He created every sense to be used.

With our intellect we think and reason, exploring the vastness of God’s creation, and we are constantly learning more and more about its’ complexity and the simple synergy with which every organism works. From the farthest galaxy seen from the Hubble Telescope to the smallest matter seen with the most powerful lens, there is a Divine design to all of creation.

God also gave us emotions. They have a purpose in us and the Father expects us to use them for His glory and for our benefit. Our emotions are a gauge that we can use in our relationships. Happy, sad, exuberant, melancholy, exasperated, or joyful; the Father wants our emotions to work but not to rule us.

I have come across so many people who have emotions that are numb. They feel nothing. They live from day to day with no real emotions about much of anything. Psychologists sometimes call this the flat effect. I call it just being numb.

Here’s what happens. If a person has a traumatic experience, and they try to keep from feeling the pain of the trauma by shutting off the feelings or emotions it produces, then they also shut off every other emotion. They way emotions works is that when you shut one down, you shut them all down. For some reason with emotions, you just can’t turn one off and keep the others running. You either feel the good and the bad, or you turn then all off and don’t feel anything!

Many people lead emotionally numb lives and it is not the will of God. God created emotions so that we could feel relationships with others and with Him! Through the years many people have told me that they never feel the presence of God. When I inquire, they also tell me that they don’t feel much of anything ever emotionally, and that’s when I see that there’s a big problem.

If you find yourself emotionally numb, go back and make sure that you’ve really forgiven every person that has emotionally wounded you. Forgive them from your heart and release them. Release from yourself every hurtful thought created by any incident with any person. Sometimes people let these hurtful feelings and thoughts pile up, and they don’t know where to begin.

Here’s an exercise that may help. Start with each close relationship in life, beginning with parents and go on to siblings, friends, teachers, bosses, relatives, and those you’ve loved. The people closest to us are the ones that have the ability to wound us the most emotionally. We must choose to forgive each one.

Make an itemized list of the hurtful thoughts that come to mind when you think of each relationship in your life that has brought you emotional pain. Take the list and purposely forgive each item listed, releasing the person from the judgments you’ve had against them because of what they said or did to you. Ask the Father to forgive you for holding offense, and then pray for God to bless and help the person, even if you don’t think they deserve it! Pray for their salvation if they don’t know the Lord.

Emotions will wake up if you release hard feelings and grudges that lie deeply buried. Work on it! The Father doesn’t want you ruled by feelings, but He does want you to experience them in relationships!

This won’t happen constantly, but at times the Father also wants us to sense Him with our emotions. And He wants the Holy Spirit to be able to use our emotions as He uses us to minister to others. The Father sometimes wants us to feel what He feels when we minister to or pray for others, and we can’t do that unless our emotions are free! Start the process today of releasing the weights from your emotions so that the Father can use you; spirit, soul, and body!

Putting Off and Putting On

That you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24).

Putting off and putting on are terms Paul used to describe the change in a believers life after salvation because of mind renewal. Before salvation, we’ve trained our bodies to yield to certain appetites, we’ve trained our minds to think in certain ways, and we’ve trained our emotions to act and react certain ways.

Stopping these learned behaviors is called putting off the old man with his deeds. The sin nature that produced appetites, thoughts and emotional responses has been removed by the new birth! We have become new creatures in Christ, and our daily lifestyle must be retrained to yield to this new person that we’ve become inside.

Developing new habits that reflect the new person that we’ve become within is called putting on the new man.

This process occurs in us as we feed on the word and purpose to live a life of obedience to God. A key to putting off and putting on is in understanding the fundamentals of how behavior changes. We can’t stop a habit by constantly refusing to act it out. That keeps the attention on the habit.

Habits change by being replaced. When we make the decision to renew our minds with the Word, we decide to act on what we read and meditate on in scripture. For instance you read in Ephesians 4:29 that you are to refuse to allow yourself to speak any hurtful words to or about others. You meditate and think on this scripture over and over again for a period of time. And you may find that you still slip up and say things that shouldn’t be said and you repent. Just keep that process up, and the habit of hurtful speech will be broken and replaced by a habit of blessing with your words.

At first, it’s hit and miss. You may take a step forward and then a step backward. The key is persistence. Just keep on meditating in the word, and acting on it by repenting when you miss it with your words, and soon you’ll be catching yourself just before you begin the tirade of negative speech.

Putting off the old man and putting on the new man is a process that continues throughout our lives as we grow in Christ. His plan is that by the time He comes for us, we act just like Him in our thoughts, our words, and in our responses to others!

The foolishness of God

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence (1 Corinthians 1:25-29).

It’s not talent, skill, mental acumen, or social standing that causes God to place His anointing upon our lives. It’s faithful, obedient hearts that catch His gaze. Regardless of what “side of the tracks” we come from, there are no special privileges due to social or financial standing, or even natural abilities in the kingdom of God.

What the Father does in us and through us is all a work of His grace of which we cannot boast. He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.

God has a purpose for you as a member of the body of Christ. That purpose is not rooted in your natural heritage or background, and does not depend on natural strengths. That purpose was programmed into you from eternity past when God planned your life.

Moses was a murderer with a stuttering problem at age forty and years later was called by God to lead his generation. David was a shepherd little known by his fellow man. Joseph was ridiculed by his brothers and sold as a slave and did prison time. Amos was a farmer. Elisha was called from the back of a plow to lead a nation spiritually. Peter was unstable, but used by God to lead the church after the resurrection of Jesus. Paul was one of the most educated men of his day but counted his education as a pile of trash compared to knowing Jesus.

When God called me, I was an awkward introvert with no plan for my life. None of us can trust who we are in the flesh, talented or unskilled. It’s the power and grace of God that make us what we are in the family of God. So we can’t boast of anything God does through us. We’re merely the pipeline for the glory of God to be revealed to our generation through the good news of the gospel.

Don’t allow who you are naturally, good or bad, strong or weak, keep you from the glorious things that the Father has called you to do. You’re His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has planned for you to fulfill. Don’t look at yourself or you’ll get discouraged; don’t look at others or you’ll envy and compare; but look unto Jesus. He’s the beginning and ending of all you are and all He’s called you to do.

Authority

Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).

No one has more authority over satanic forces than you, the child of God. The lowest member of the body of Christ has just as much of this authority as the most spiritual.

Serpents and scorpions in the above verse are referring to the demonic forces that are seeking to hinder the purposes of God in the earth.

Exercise your authority over these forces today that are seeking inroads into your home, your family, finances, your church, your nation, the purposes of God at large, and that are seeking to hinder your walk with God.

Jesus has given the church the exclusive use of His name against these diabolical forces. Walk in purity and holiness, and command these forces to stop in their maneuvers against you and the kingdom of God of which you are a part.

Satan wants us to get so busy that we don’t take the time to be proactive in the exercise of our rights in Christ against him and his kingdom. As a result we can see darkness increasing in our communities, nation and world. If we believers don’t take our place and stand against the forces of Satan then who will? We have been commissioned with authority, and the Father is looking to us to take our place. He wants us to work with Him in the salvation of the lost, and in the advancement of His kingdom all over the world.

The Father is depending on you and me today to pray and ask Him to manifest Himself and His kingdom all over the earth. We have not because we ask not. Let’s take our place and push back the forces that are seeking to destroy all that is holy and pure.

Remember that God gave authority over the earth to Adam when He created Him. When Adam sinned, he transferred that authority to Satan and his kingdom. Jesus returned to the church the authority that Adam gave away! God needs you to take your place in His family today. Don’t sit back. Don’t remain idle spiritually. Be aggressive. Let’s push together, walking in the light, and pushing back the darkness with the name of Jesus, the force of our praying (praying in the spirit too!), and with the power of a godly life!