Stepping Away From the Word Invites Disaster

The foundation of a house determines its strength. Wind and Water are powerful forces of nature, but a house built on the right foundation can remain strong when they rise against it.

 

Likewise, a person who chooses to put the Word of God into practice has a firm foundation in life. Adversity has many faces and comes to us from so many sources, but a person who chooses to live life by obeying the Word will come out on top every time!

  

The Word never changes nor will it ever fade into useless nothingness. It’s eternal (Matthew 24:35). The Word will always accomplish the purpose for which it was sent (Isaiah 55:11). The Word has been sent by the Father to produce forgiveness, healing, strength, love, joy, patience, victory, prosperity, and abundance. The Father is always watching over His Word to make it good where believed (Jeremiah 1:12). Earthly things wear out, but the Word endures and is ageless (Isaiah 40:8). It stronger than rock, and is forever established (Psalm 119:89). The Father will never break the covenant He has with His Word. It will always produce fruit, and will be honored by the Father in the life of whoever believes it (Psalm 89:34)!

  

Since the Father’s Word is so sure, the best assurance of a blessed future is obeying and lining your life up with the Word now. A step away from the Word is inviting disaster. A decision to go your own way at the neglect of the Word is an invitation for the thief to invade your life by stealing, killing, and destroying in some way. It’s a real bad idea to forsake the Word for your own way!

  

I’m still amazed at how a person can hear the Word week after week, month after month, and year after year, and still refuse to act on it when challenges come. Don’t ever let yourself get so burdened that you make a decision that is contrary to the Word. Never turn a deaf ear to God’s will as found in the Word. That decision is a disaster in the making. The flood and winds of life will destroy a person who willfully chooses to ignore the Father’s counsel found in the Word.

   

Over the years I’ve seen people overcome great adversity and succeed when failure seemed apparent. They simply and firmly chose to obey God’s Word when it was not the most convenient or the most comfortable thing to do.

You’ll always come out on top if you’ll obey God and stand on His Word. It’s not always the easiest route. And yes, there are challenges when you choose the Father’s way through the Word. But the end result will always be the same. Victory, success, peace, and joy will rule your life!

Big Things Always Have Small Beginnings

or who has despised the day of small things (Zechariah 4:10).

Plants, trees, and shrubs begin life as a small seed that germinates. Human life begins as a zygote. Speech development in a child begins with one syllable words.

The kingdom of God operates on the principle of the seed. Something begins small and then grows a little at a time. When you are born again, God plants the seed of His nature within and it begins to grow and develop. With that seed from Him comes a talent, an ability, a skill, a calling.

Faithfulness in the small things causes the seed of His call on your life to germinate. No person in God’s kingdom starts out immediately after salvation functioning in their full calling. The seed must grow.

I began my ministry cleaning a large local church. There I learned humility, faithfulness, integrity, endurance, submission, respect for leaders, unselfishness, and how to adapt to different personalities. I also studied and developed my fellowship with God. The seedbed of my ministry now found its fertile soil in faithfulness in small things.

You may feel the call of a pastor, an evangelist, or a teacher in the body of Christ. You sense a seed of ministry in you. Find a way to be faithful in small things. Minister in nursing homes, prisons, Bible studies, home groups, in children's ministry, in youth groups. Assist your pastor in the local church in any way he needs you. Usher, greet, duplicate CD's or prepare mp3’s, cut the grass, repair the building, help with the sound. Look for areas of need and lend a hand.

Promotion in ministry comes from the Lord. Don’t despise the day of small things. Those days are the proving ground for what God can do through you for the rest of your life.

A Spirit Inspired Word For Our Day

For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, (9) to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, (10) to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. (11) But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills (1 Corinthians 12:8-11).

But one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them. (1 Corinthians 14:3 -NLT).

This past Sunday morning during our first service, we had a great worship time. During the end of that praise and worship time, the Holy Spirit rose up within me and gave me an urge to speak words inspired by Him. The Bible term for what took place is that God gave me a prophecy, an inspired utterance. Prophecy, motivated by the Holy Spirit, will always agree with what the word of God teaches. And it will always strengthen, encourage, and comfort the believer. So I submit to you today what the Holy Spirit gave me on Sunday. Feel free to comment.

Sunday Morning, August 25, 2013, 9:25 AM:

For the Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.  It is written in My Word, and you are watching before your eyes an insidious plan from the kingdom of darkness to snuff out My life, to snuff out the truth, to snuff out the light and to cause people to go astray. His goal is to overthrow My Kingdom and to set up his throne on this earth. But I want you to know it’s written that it will never work.

For My people will be strong, and My people will do exploits. My people will know My name. You’ll not be strong in yourself, for at times you’ll feel weak. At times you’ll know not what to do. At times you’ll feel the fear come upon you. But as you lift your hands in worship, as you’ve stood before Me this morning and you’ve worshiped Me. And just as in the time of Jehoshaphat, the Israelites were surrounded by the enemy, and they came to their leader and they said, “We do not know what to do.” And Jehoshaphat bowed, and Jehoshaphat prayed. And the Word of the Lord came unto him saying, “The battle is not yours. The battle is the Lord’s. All you need to do is stand. All you need to do is praise.”

This is the hour that I’ll show Myself strong. And it will look at times like you’ll not win. But you will win, because I win every battle. I win, and I cause you to victor. I’ll cause you to triumph. So don’t you look at the circumstances. And don’t look at the arm of the flesh. And don’t go by what things seem to be. Walk by faith in My Word. Humble yourself under My hand, and I will lift you up. And I will come and receive you to Myself.

And you will win many to know Me. This is the hour of world evangelization. This is the hour that My Spirit will come upon the humble and the contrite heart to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. And there is a rhyme and reason even in this church, even at Victory Church, and the reason that you’re going where you’re going. You’ll be doing my bidding. You’ll be doing what I called you to do in this ministry from the foundations of the earth. For every ministry is called both to bring the lost to Me and then to equip them for eternity. You’ll be doing that, and you’ll give Me great glory. Lift your hands and shout, for the Lord will do great work in your day.

Patience Enables You to Keep Your Faith When the Pressure is On!

Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise (Hebrews 10:35-36).Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him (Hebrews 10:38).

 

Endurance or patience is an important ingredient of faith. It’s faith and patience that inherits the promises. The Greek word for endurance is hupomeno and it means to remain when under pressure. It’s the ability to keep your chin up when things aren’t going well. It’s the ability to remain joyful and expectant when it looks as though nothing you believe is coming to pass. It’s the ability to remain unmoved and unshaken by circumstances.

  

The very nature of what faith is makes patience so necessary in the faith fight. Faith is for what you don’t have in the physical realm yet. Faith takes the place of what God has promised you until it arrives in the physical and you can see it. Faith is the substitute for the thing God has promised you until you can physically see or feel it.

The Word promises healing, so you have prayed and exercised your faith. The pain increases and the symptoms worsen. Patience enables you to stand your ground in the tough time. Patience or endurance enables you to look away from the symptom and look at the promise of God, knowing that God is faithful to fulfill His Word.

The faith life is very challenging to the flesh! So many think that walking by faith means you receive instantly, but that is just not true! Abraham waited 25 years for the child of promise to come! And his patience enabled him to keep going strong when the impossibility of what he believed weighed on him.

  

Faith and patience are the twins of success! Patience keeps you from letting go of your faith! We have been believing God  for years for this new building we are moving into this week! It seemed that obstacles manifested every hour to keep it from happening. We had prayed as a congregation, and we were believing that we received the answer to our prayer, which was a the manifestation of a bigger piece of property for our future growth.

 

At times I would get so tired of resisting the circumstances over the years. They just kept compounding! But it was the hupomeno, the ability to keep on going when the chips are down, that refused to let me quit. I gritted my teeth and praised God for honoring His Word! This week you can see the results. We will worship the first time in this new property next Sunday!

  

Don’t quit if you’re in a faith battle. Rest in the promises of God. He is faithful that promised. He watches over His Word to make it good. Heaven and earth may pass away, but His Word never will! Allow patience to under gird your faith today. Keep your eyes on God’s promises and not the unmoving circumstance. You will receive if you just don’t quit!

What it Looks Like to Meet With God in the Private Place

your Father, Who is in secret; and your Father, Who sees in secret, will reward you in the open (Matthew 6:6- Amplified).

This most private room Jesus mentioned here is a bedchamber. It’s a place of intimacy between husband and wife. It’s a place where no one else is invited. It’s a place that is secure from intrusion.

 

The Father wants to develop an intimate relationship with each one of His children. He wants each of us to find that private place of meeting with Him where we can bear our heart to Him and share our deepest secrets. He wants to develop a closeness with us that affects the whole of life.

Many believers find this private place with the Father intimidating. They’ve not been raised in an environment that allows them to really bear their heart. Relationships are casual and surface.

 

It takes time to become comfortable enough with someone to be able to share the intimate secrets of your heart with them. The father wants this kind of relationship with us. It’s a branch-vine relationship. It’s life-freeing and life-producing.

 

To begin this private room experience with the Father, find a place free from intrusion where no one will interrupt you. Then read Psalm 139. Realize that the Father loves you as much as He loves Jesus! He knows every thought, purpose, motive, intent, desire, need, and want in your life. He sees everything about you. He is absolute love and wants the best for you. He is longing for you to open your heart to Him.

Talk to Him about the things that bother you. Tell Him everything; the good, the bad, and the ugly. He already knows. But He wants you to submit your needs to Him in simple faith. When you do this, it gives Him permission to help you, and it will free you from life’s intense pressures that build up inside. It’s this acknowledging Him in all your ways (Proverbs 3: 4-5) that allows Him to move on your behalf.

 

Intimacy with the Father makes us care free and worry free, and keeps stress from building up inside. Most of our mental, emotional, and physical problems are stress related. Personal intimacy with the Father is His answer to human stress.

The Father has a longing to be close to you today. Go find Him in the private room.

Don't Neglect Your Prayer Life!

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!

The Presence

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13).

 

The presence of God separates the believer from the infectious influences of the world! And the Presence in us that manifests throughout our day has a drawing effect on those around us. They notice something different about us. No other religion can do to a human what Christianity can. Christians in fellowship with God are bearers of the Presence!

  

Moses cried out to God when he came down from the top of Mount Sinai after he saw that the Israelites had sinned. He asked God not to remove His presence from the people. And notice why Moses asked this: Then he said to Him, if Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.

  

The Presence is not a feeling or emotion. It produces feelings and emotions at times. But it’s much deeper than feeling. The Presence exudes from our human spirit and carefully guards us from the effects of the world and the enemy from without. And the Presence moves us away from the tendencies of the flesh and creates in us a hunger and drawing toward the Father.

 

Carefully guard the Presence! Don’t allow unconfessed sin to remain in your life. Sin dissipates the Presence! If you miss it in some way, immediately confess your sin and the Blood will cleanse you!

 

Be careful with your words, for strife filled words can grieve the Holy Spirit who bears this Presence within (see Ephesians 4:29-30).

  

Time spent daily in the Word, in praise and worship, and in prayer will increase the manifestations of His Presence in your life. I have found that praying in the spirit, because it builds up and edifies the human spirit, will increase the manifestation of the Presence. The tell-tale sign of the Presence in you is joy! In His Presence is fullness of joy, pleasures forevermore!

  

Walk in His Presence today! Court the Presence! Lift your voice in praise to the Holy One. Thank Him for all that He is. Worship Him. He inhabits praise with manifestations of His Presence. Create change in the atmosphere wherever you are today. Release the Presence!

Our Hungers Motivate Us!

Blessed Are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled (Matthew 5:6).

  

Our hungers define us. Hunger motivates. What we desire shows us what we really are within. Spiritually, hunger is the indicator of our spirituality. Physically, hunger is one of the signs of health and prolonged lack of hunger is an indicator of illness.

  

If we lack spiritual hunger, something has gone wrong! When my children were young, they sometimes came to the dinner table with no appetite. I learned to go check their rooms, and I would find candy wrappers in the trash! They were filled with the wrong food for health!

  

Too much occupation in leisure time with entertainment at the expense of spending time with the Lord can quench spiritual appetite and leave a believer unfulfilled and vulnerable to Satan’s assaults. The candy of the world must be guarded against or we may lose our zeal and passion for God.

  

Life has become so compacted with things to occupy us in so many ways that we must make God our first priority if we’re to survive spiritually!  In the parable of the sower Jesus spoke of the cares of this life entering in and choking the word in us, making it ineffective. To maintain our spiritual lives, we must stay hungry spiritually. That means we must have a desire for spiritual things that is so strong with us that it moves us to make time for Jesus throughout our day.

 

Desire follows attention. I must devote time and attention to whatever I want to create a hunger for in my life. That means I must find a way to make sure my spiritual life is nurtured. A regular devotional time at the beginning of your day will start this process.

  

Maybe you seem to have no hunger or desire for God right now and you know you need to change. Let me offer the following suggestions. If you’ve been involved in sin of some kind, confess it to the Father in repentance. Sin quenches spiritual desire. Sin hardens the heart. Tell the Father what you’ve been doing, and make a consecration with His help to cease! If you’re sincere, the Spirit of God will enable you.

 

Then, ask the Father to create in you a hunger for Him and for the Word and for spiritual things in general. Ask Him to deal with anything that is encroaching on Him in your life, and make a change.

 

Finally, set your clock back early enough to spend some time, 10 to 15 minutes reading the Word when you first get up. And then spend a few minutes in real prayer, pouring your heart out to the Father to begin your day.  Three to four week of this will start a new habit of putting spiritual things first in your day!

  

I’ll end with these quotes from Smith Wigglesworth:

Spiritual hunger is when nothing satisfies us as much as being near to God.

I’d rather have a man on my platform who is not Spirit-filled but hungry, than a person who is Spirit-filled and satisfied!

Worldliness is that which cools my affection towards God.

I’m only satisfied with the dissatisfaction that must be satisfied over and over again.

The Tremendous Power of Praise

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

the 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 were slain 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!

Let God Take You From Weariness to Strength!

He gives power to the tired and worn out, and strength to the weak. Even the youths shall be exhausted, and the young men will all give up. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:29-31-The Living Bible).

Here’s an interesting way to look at a familiar passage. In my Companion Study Bible there is a note by this verse that calls this a Katabasis, which is a going or marching down, a retreat, or a gradual descent.

  

Here in Isaiah, notice that as the believer waits on the Lord he moves from flying to running to walking. In our walk with God, at first we are doing what seems natural, which is relying on our own wits and strength. But as we grow in God, and learn what it means to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, we learn to relinquish the control of life and its circumstances into His hands. We learn to seek God and roll the care of every circumstance onto Him.

 

Instead of flying in our own strength, we learn to slow down and move into a strength that surpasses our own, and we begin to run. Little by little as we learn that Father knows best, we lessen our striving and begin to enter into the rest of God, the rest of faith. We then begin to walk.

 

The fast pace become an easy stroll with respect to energy expended. As we wait on the Lord and in prayer and faith place every circumstance of life in His hands, we begin to live in the power of His might! We don’t become as weary as we did before. We go farther with greater energy reserves. And it becomes with us as it did with John the Baptist, He must increase, but I must decrease.

  

Take time to build God’s strength in you today by waiting on the Lord. You’ll accomplish more, and you’ll walk in a state called rest as the Father works through you with His power. This is the way He created you to live!