Friday, September 29, 2017
Kingdom Come!
When I was in grade school we started daily with the Lord's prayer, led by the teacher. I have it memorized by the continual repetition but now I realize how important that prayer is!
Think about this scripture, "Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." from Matthew 18:18.
Focus on the part about whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Stay with me for just a bit, this point is quickly made!
In the Lord's prayer, we ask for God's kingdom to come, for His will to be done, on earth! as it is in heaven! That is really a big thing, think about it? We all are anxious to go to heaven, but Jesus told us we can pray for it to come here!
That is point 1, but now for point 2, when I was a child in grade school praying this, there were millions of school children praying that very thing daily! and our country was much more stable with less violence and strife, less division. What if the prayers of millions of children were bringing God's kingdom to our world?
Now, what if we all started praying this every morning or evening? Yes, it has been removed from schools, but we can bring it into our world, our families can pray it, our churches can pray it. We think we have to be prayer experts to say the right things but Jesus gave us the perfect prayer, speak the words out loud and listen to the words as you speak them to your Heavenly Father, put your heart into them and watch Him change the very atmosphere where you walk.
So yes Lord, I do come to you and join the body of believers saying~
‘Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
‘Give us this day our daily bread.‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’ Matthew 6:9-13
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Unnecesary
One of the deceptions of the enemy team is to convince you that you are unnecessary.
The enemy may use different approaches, telling us that because other people have made us feel unimportant that we are totally unimportant, or maybe he enters through our own selfish desires to be free of the responsibility to the Kingdom of God and we listen and in our own thinking we decide that we might be unimportant to the body of believers...then we grab it and run with it!
We decide that we don't need to go to church Sunday or ever for that matter, it will go on just fine without us....or we don't need to give financially to church or that ministry, someone else will....we don't need to help in the nursery or cleaning the church, someone else will, we don't need to sing praises, someone else will....we don't need to pray about anything...someone else will... at this point you should be wondering who "someone else" is?
Part of becoming an adult is realizing that nobody else is going to pick up your responsibility, it is yours. A few people may appear to have bypassed their responsibilities but that doesn't mean they have become adults.
If you want to be an adult in the Kingdom, and who doesn't want to grow out of a baby believer status?...who doesn't want to become a disciple of Jesus?.....who doesn't want to start walking in the power of the Spirit?.....you have to accept your responsibilities, get up and go be part of the body of believers.
Yes, that means going to church, meeting with other believers, financially supporting God's work, bypassing your own leisure if it interferes with your walk with Him.
You are important, important enough that the enemy wants to lie to you and convince you that you don't need to bother to pick up your cross and follow your Saviour.
Imagine any sports team and remove one of the players...isn't the team always weaker because of that removal? That is the body of Christ without you. Yes, it can go on and it will...but it is not as strong as it would be if you stepped in and took your place of responsibility and you will never reach the maturity in Christ that you need to for yourself, your family and your community.
Do not believe the voice of the enemy of your soul. You are very necessary! Attend, give, support, pray, praise, encourage, work, minister, for the sake of the Kingdom and for yourself!
The enemy may use different approaches, telling us that because other people have made us feel unimportant that we are totally unimportant, or maybe he enters through our own selfish desires to be free of the responsibility to the Kingdom of God and we listen and in our own thinking we decide that we might be unimportant to the body of believers...then we grab it and run with it!
We decide that we don't need to go to church Sunday or ever for that matter, it will go on just fine without us....or we don't need to give financially to church or that ministry, someone else will....we don't need to help in the nursery or cleaning the church, someone else will, we don't need to sing praises, someone else will....we don't need to pray about anything...someone else will... at this point you should be wondering who "someone else" is?
Part of becoming an adult is realizing that nobody else is going to pick up your responsibility, it is yours. A few people may appear to have bypassed their responsibilities but that doesn't mean they have become adults.
If you want to be an adult in the Kingdom, and who doesn't want to grow out of a baby believer status?...who doesn't want to become a disciple of Jesus?.....who doesn't want to start walking in the power of the Spirit?.....you have to accept your responsibilities, get up and go be part of the body of believers.
Yes, that means going to church, meeting with other believers, financially supporting God's work, bypassing your own leisure if it interferes with your walk with Him.
You are important, important enough that the enemy wants to lie to you and convince you that you don't need to bother to pick up your cross and follow your Saviour.
Imagine any sports team and remove one of the players...isn't the team always weaker because of that removal? That is the body of Christ without you. Yes, it can go on and it will...but it is not as strong as it would be if you stepped in and took your place of responsibility and you will never reach the maturity in Christ that you need to for yourself, your family and your community.
Do not believe the voice of the enemy of your soul. You are very necessary! Attend, give, support, pray, praise, encourage, work, minister, for the sake of the Kingdom and for yourself!
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Old Wisdom
Don't believe everything you hear and only half of what you see.
This is a very old saying of wisdom. There used to be a lot of them, what happened to them? They seem to have been swept away from public knowledge or thinking.....
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
A stitch in time saves nine.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Actions speak louder than words.
All that glitters is not gold.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I want to share something that I thought I witnessed. We were recently at a fast food restaurant for their WiFi and I thought I saw an act of laziness, and I even started grumbling to Lane about a man that went off and left his tray of trash on his table. I started saying, "that man went off and left all of his wrappers and stuff for someone else to clean up for him"! I couldn't see everything that was on the tray, but I did see the trash! Lane looked over and said he could see food on the tray too. Where we were sitting we could see the man walk out, so we knew he wasn't coming back.... but then we saw the truth of the situation. Another man, kind of scrubby looking, came to the table, looked at the tray and picked up an already wrapped burger, put it in his pocket and then picked up an ice cream dessert with a spoon, and then the tray. He took the tray to the trash can, dumped it out and went away with the burger and ice cream.
At this point, I'm not sure what all I had just witnessed, except I think maybe it was a kindness that we saw instead of laziness. The old saying "Don't believe everything you hear and only half of what you see" came to mind and I thought what a good lesson that was and an important thing to remember before I start trying to judge someone else's actions!
This is a very old saying of wisdom. There used to be a lot of them, what happened to them? They seem to have been swept away from public knowledge or thinking.....
If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
A stitch in time saves nine.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Actions speak louder than words.
All that glitters is not gold.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
I want to share something that I thought I witnessed. We were recently at a fast food restaurant for their WiFi and I thought I saw an act of laziness, and I even started grumbling to Lane about a man that went off and left his tray of trash on his table. I started saying, "that man went off and left all of his wrappers and stuff for someone else to clean up for him"! I couldn't see everything that was on the tray, but I did see the trash! Lane looked over and said he could see food on the tray too. Where we were sitting we could see the man walk out, so we knew he wasn't coming back.... but then we saw the truth of the situation. Another man, kind of scrubby looking, came to the table, looked at the tray and picked up an already wrapped burger, put it in his pocket and then picked up an ice cream dessert with a spoon, and then the tray. He took the tray to the trash can, dumped it out and went away with the burger and ice cream.
At this point, I'm not sure what all I had just witnessed, except I think maybe it was a kindness that we saw instead of laziness. The old saying "Don't believe everything you hear and only half of what you see" came to mind and I thought what a good lesson that was and an important thing to remember before I start trying to judge someone else's actions!
Friday, September 8, 2017
Stay Spiritually Clean
Lane and I have been to a conference recently and we know we are entering a new season of growth that while it brings exciting new opportunities it also puts us into new battles in the spirit realm.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12
He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. Revelations 3:21
He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. Revelation 21:7
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:12
The Lord does not leave us on our own to fight the battles as best we can, but teaches us! He has equipped us with His armor, Ephesians 6:10-17, His Holy Spirit reveals things to us and matures us in our walk if we submit to the changes and the teaching.
The lesson I have been given this week is to not allow the enemy to have anything "in us", even as Jesus said in John 14:30, "for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me". The visual that He allowed me to see was frightening and convinced me that it is vital to follow these instructions! They are not just casual suggestions, but instructions for our survival.
Daily we are to put the Armor of God on and sometimes more than once a day if we remove part of it at any point! But we are also to walk clean, to give the enemy no ground in ourselves.
What does that mean? It means to give no room for fear, bitterness, envy, jealousy, criticalness, lust, selfishness, addictions, anger, pride, depression...the list goes on and on, but whatever the enemy holds out is bait of this world and that if you bite at it, that is the ground you have given to him to come against you. If you bite at his bait, he takes you deeper and deeper, if you resist, you are free from him and he has nothing in you, you are clean!
In this season, it is vital that you stay clean! Pick up your cross daily, walk the path that Jesus walked, selflessness....at the end of the day, ask the Holy Spirit to show you any "slime" that you picked up through the day, any place that you might have slipped into the enemies grasp and confess it, get clean again! Don't go to sleep dirty! You cannot defeat the enemy if you do not stay spiritually clean.
Remember he is wily, but with the Lord you are victorious! Sometimes all it takes to overcome the enemy is to stand firm and refuse to be dragged into it. James 4:7 says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” An overcomer is one who resists sin no matter what lures Satan uses.
He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. Revelation 21:7
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