Chasing after the anointing

Sometimes Christians get lazy in their spiritual walk.  They don’t want to do their homework, they don’t want to put in the effort so they seek people that will tell them what they want to hear.

³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; ⁴ and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. ⁵ But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.  2 Timothy 4

The Gospel is Good News, that Jesus died for us and that He rose again and that we are saved through belief in Him.  But some of us may be carried away with something that sounds good, and is too good to be true.

It is like a counterfeit dollar bill, and it is a very close match to the original.  There is only one original, the Word of God, but unless you hold it up to the light you cannot see the markings of the true dollar bill.  Instead you have all these forgeries when you hold it up to the light they show nothing.  They are fake and very deceptive.

How can you tell what is the Dollar Bill from the counterfeit?  You hold it up to the light and you hold the counterfeit up to the light and all the other counterfeits and then the one that has the marking of the true dollar bill is the one and you can use that to purchase in spiritual terms your inheritance, but the other ones are useless and pointless.

Have you ever seen the show – “To Tell the Truth?”  That’s where you have three people who all claim to be the same person, but only one is the real one, and by asking a series of questions they have to determine which is the real one.  That’s what we have to do as Christians, we must not believe everything and everyone we hear, and we must guard our eyes and looking for the real Jesus and not some fake.

How can we tell if we are choosing the right one?

2 Thessalonians 2

⁵ Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? ⁶ And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He^[d] who now restrains will do so until He^[e] is taken out of the way. ⁸ And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. ⁹ The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, ¹⁰ and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹ And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, ¹² that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Lawlessness is not so much about whether or not to follow the Torah, but is more about not having a repentant life before God.  When you sin, God hates it, and when He sees the Son, the blood of Jesus washes over the sin.

Hebrews 10 says –

²⁶ For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. ²⁸ Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,”^[e] says the Lord.^[f] And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”^{[g] 31} It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

2 Timothy 2 says –

¹⁴ Remind [the people] of these facts and [solemnly] charge them in the presence of the Lord to avoid petty controversy over words, which does no good but upsets and undermines the faith of the hearers.

¹⁵ Study and be eager and do your utmost to present yourself to God approved (tested by trial), a workman who has no cause to be ashamed, correctly analyzing and accurately dividing [rightly handling and skillfully teaching] the Word of Truth.

¹⁶ But avoid all empty (vain, useless, idle) talk, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.

¹⁷ And their teaching [will devour; it] will eat its way like cancer or spread like gangrene. So it is with Hymenaeus and Philetus,

In this context Hymnaeus and Philetus were people who said that the resurrection of the dead is past.   But the same can be said of all these preachers that are on television – not all of them, but a lot of them are not preaching what is sound doctrine, and anything that preaches against having an unrepentant heart and people that seek after gain, are deceiving.

From my experience you must test to see what kind of fruit bears in their life.  Of course none of us are there yet, we are all at different levels of maturity.  The anointing they have to preach is not the same as the person, especially if they are trained in being an instructor of the Word.

Some of them are eloquent speakers, and don’t we know our mistake with an eloquent speaker.  Do their lives bear fruit – are they seeking after the Kingdom of God.  Have they laid themselves down at the altar and taken up their Cross, and crucified their passions and desires of the flesh, if not then they may still have some work to do.  I am not talking about the average person who has not been thoroughly trained to be in ministry.  They deceive you with lying signs and wonders but as 2 Peter says, “They go back to their own vomit.”

After you’ve been back to the vomit, or after you’ve fed from the pigs, the Father still loves you enough to bring you back, but if you habitually sin, and I’m not just talking about bad habits, but I am talking about direct moral violations which are indicated in the Bible then there is a repercussion for those things.

Of course none of us is perfect, but God has to do that refining work in us to purge out all the impurities.  So while we wait on God let us remember not to chase after the anointing.  The only anointing we need is from Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith.

 

 

 

 

 

From a greedy heart to a loving one

 

This has really been on my heart a while about the dangers of greed, and I wanted to share it earlier. In the process I changed my title.   I want to venture out and say that sin has different levels, and while I was preparing this message, the verse that someone commented on this blog became alive for me.  12 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:11

Imagine running a race, when a 100 pound weight vest on.  That’s what people do on the Biggest Loser.  They sometimes run these races and they have these weights of all the weight they used to weigh and as they are running the race they drop off the weights in these containers.  Similarly, in the Christian walk, we all have weights that are called sin, which so easily ensnare us.  Yes Jesus Blood has cleansed us from sin, and removed all past sin from us, but we are still not perfect like Him, so then we have this sin that so easily ensnares us, and one of them I want to talk about today is greed. Greediness is tied into selfishness.

We know the world has greed and it can be seen anywhere, the stock market, George Fontenellis, said “operates on fear and greed”.  The world does not know any better.  Whether Christians should invest in the stock market, is not the purpose of this post.  But we as Christians should be set apart and act differently, than the world, and sadly, we don’t see that within the body of believers.  Sometimes we pray for stuff and then we get it and then the next day it’s something else, and something else.  It is also tied to not having a grateful heart or a heart full of thanksgiving.  We are always wanting more and more and more to the point that we are not satisfied.  We are always asking this and that from God, and sometimes forgetting to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”

We can also be greedy about love.  We want to have all the love to ourselves, and not want to share it.  We are in turn being selfish, and while God does know us, He wants us to recognize that we do have this area to work on.  The first step in problem solving is to identify the problem.  The Holy Spirit works with you to recognize the problem, and then He helps remove this weights of sin off our lives, if we let Him.  If we don’t let Him, then He can’t work in our lives.  We all have problems, and they need to be fixed, and Jesus is the Master of fixing problems, but often times He does not do it in the way we expect.  For example when He came to Israel, they expected Him, to become King and dismantle the political system and save the Jews from oppression by the Romans, but that was not what He was there to do.  He was there for a bigger purpose.  He had to commission His Kingdom, and set the process of transformation of lives to begin with.

Many people can have spiritual gifts and anointing, ministries, and the like, but unless they allow the Holy Spirit to work in their lives and remove the things that are keeping us from the glory to be revealed in us as it says in Romans 8, then all of that is in vain.  Unconditional love or Agape is the reason that Jesus died for us, and not just for our families, friends, and acquaintances, but for the whole world.  When we have this selfish greed in our heart it is keeping us from operating in the fullness of this Agape love, but since there are certain levels of greed operating in our lives, then we have to lay this sin upon the cross daily, and start renew and cultivate the love of the Holy Spirit operating in our lives.

What gets to me is when Paul says, “To be able to know what is the depth, and the height and the breadth of love, which surpasses all understanding”  We need to have more of this kind of love.  Greed is what makes people steal.  In 2 Kings 5:20 they talked about Gehazi who had greed, and the leprosy of Namaan clung to Gehazi.  Why?  Because He was not operating out of love.

This post is really not about tithing, or about money, or about possessions, but it’s about the character of God developing in you.  When you have this greed, or any sin, for that matter, it is like grime and it weighs you down so that you can’t run the race.  When you pray and you run to God to release the burden of the sin onto Him, and cast your cares onto Him, He allows it to work in your life, but you first have to surrender.

Many people think that once your saved, that’s it that you don’t have to change in anyway and that you can still be the same person, and that you cannot remove the old nature and to take on the new nature, but they don’t realize that this is all a process and a journey with many mountains and valleys, ups and downs.  Jesus is there to guide you through it all, and Thank God, for He is patient, kind, slow to anger, and merciful.  If it wasn’t for God’s mercy, we really would not be able to get away with all the stuff that we’ve gotten away with.

The power of redemption is to know what a sinner you were before, and to realize exactly what Jesus has done for you, so does that mean that once you have accepted you can continue to live in that way?  When you have redemption, not only has Jesus paid the price for your sin, but there is a transforming work inside of you that brings you from glory to glory so that you can be the shining example of victory that God has promised in your life.  Repentance, is not really just about saying I’m sorry, but like I said before, it’s about feeling remorse, and then turning, but as you turn it’s usually hard.  It’s where your faith comes in, and says if Jesus says that I can do it, then “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”, and in this context is where the verse is properly applied because the context is about knowing that whether abased or abound, you can be content.

Isn’t that all that we want?  To be content.  It is the true heart’s desire for us to be content and satisfied, but in essence we are always wanting more and more and we cannot seem to settle in one direction or another, but to have that steadfast contentment in our hearts, knowing that no matter what happens as long as we have Jesus, all is well.  I know it is hard, but we shouldn’t let others’ discontentment, which can lead to issues such as anger and greed get to us.  At the same time, we need to avoid being greedy and avoid all kinds of sin around us.  Yes Jesus has removed us from the guilt of sin, so we do not keep on needing to beat ourselves up about it, but we need to allow God to transform and change us by surrendering to Him, and it’s all a little by little.  The seed is there and we are going to change, if we have the right attitude about it, and are willing to change for God.  The problem comes when we think we have completely changed once we are saved, and then our minds don’t need constant renewing in the Word of God, or that our character needs to change to develop Christ-likeness.  Then we can appreciate the Grace of God that allows us to change into the image of God because He put that seed to love in our hearts.

Heavenly Father,

We know we are not perfect without You in our lives, and we thank You that You have given your precious saints, the ability to change and to become more like You.  Guard our hearts today from any kind of sin, which so easily ensnares us, and let us lay down any weight that keeps us from You Lord God.  Transform our hearts and make us into the pure likeness of Your Spirit, and guide us all into discernment Truth.  I seal this post with the Blood of Jesus and I ask you Lord to renew our hearts daily so that we may become more like You.  Mold us, like the potter molds the clay, and make us conform to Your image Lord God.  Wherever there is violence or anger spewing in anyone’s heart, remove that and change into love, and compassion, and mercy, and forgiveness.  Teach people humility, and to be loving and giving of their time, resources, and the gifts and abilities You have given them so that they may know how they can reach out to others.  Thank You for this beautiful day for we know that whether it is sunny, or windy, or rainy, or snowy, or thundering, or shaking, You are still God and the midst of it all.

In Jesus Mighty Name I pray,

Amen.

 

 

The Truth makes you free

Recently, I’ve been swung back and forth like a pendulum between radical Law for Christians, and radical grace for Christians, so what I had to do is go back to the basics and read the Word of God for myself.  If the Word of God contradicts my opinions or what I have been taught, then I essentially have to go back to the Word of God and agree with what it says, and change my own mind, or repent for my opinions or beliefs that do not line up with God’s Word.

So here’s where I started this week –

2 Corinthians 3 –

The Spirit, Not the Letter

⁴ And we have such trust through Christ toward God. ⁵ Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, ⁶ who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit;^[a] for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Glory of the New Covenant

⁷ But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, whichglory was passing away, ⁸ how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? ⁹ For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. ¹⁰ For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels. ¹¹ For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.

¹² Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— ¹³ unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. ¹⁴ But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. ¹⁵ But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. ¹⁶ Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.¹⁷ Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The context of this passage begins with Paul’s exhortation to the believers in Corinth in stating that they are the “proof through the Spirit” or epistle that is not written with ink, but is a testimony of what Christ has done through the efforts of Paul’s ministry.

Some people like to believe that we take “too seriously” Paul’s epistle’s, and not the four Gospel books.  But in reality all the books from Genesis to Revelation are inspired [to be breathed upon] by God.  If you discount all of Paul’s epistles, then you also discount the book of ACTS too, which spoke of the ministry of Paul.  Paul went to the Jews to preach the Gospel or Good News, not Bad News, but they were too bull headed to believe it, so then he ran back and said, ok, “if you won’t believe in Jesus, then I’ll go to the Gentiles, and maybe they’ll receive the news better.”  The Early Church discussed on what should be done on what rules and laws that the Gentile believers are supposed to follow and the settled on a few and those are mentioned in the book of ACTS.  I believe they are to stay away from idolatry, fornication, and eating animals that were strangled, or the blood of animals.  If I remember correctly that was pretty much it, and they did what was “good as it seemed to the Holy Spirit.”

So then in Galatians 3 I read the following –

Purpose of the Law

¹⁹ What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. ²⁰ Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

²¹ Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. ²² But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.²³ But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. ²⁴ Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Galatians 1 says –

Only One Gospel

⁶ I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, ⁷ which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.

¹⁰ For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

Phillipians 3:

² Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the mutilation! ³ For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit,^[a] rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, ⁴ though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: ⁵ circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

⁷ But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. ⁸ Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; ¹⁰ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, ¹¹ if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Paul had all the “qualifications and requirements” to meet the Law, but he suffered a loss of all those things and his so called status symbol in the Jewish society, and he reached for something greater and when he found it he came to the conclusion that all of those things really didn’t matter.

So if the ministry of the death and condemnation is the Law, and the ministry of the Spirit and justification is by faith, then why still hold on to the Law, what benefit is the Law?  We have examined the Purpose of the Law, and that it is a teacher, but now the majority of the people getting saved are not Jews, so how do we distinguish?  The book of Romans goes through this quite a bit and I have studied on it, and I recommend that you do too as well as the book of Hebrews that goes quite into detail the depth of the study of the better covenant.

Then this statement from Jesus leaves us in a bit of a conundrum –

Christ Fulfills the Law

¹⁷ “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. ¹⁸ For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. ¹⁹ Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰ For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

There is another time that Jesus mentions “being great in the kingdom of Heaven” – ²⁴ And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers. ²⁵ But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. ²⁶ Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. ²⁷ And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— ²⁸ just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Also there is a mention of first and last where Jesus says that those who are “first will be last”, and “last will be first”.

I think the problem comes in is in the fact that our beloved Messianic Jewish Brothers and Sisters and the fellow Gentile Brothers and Sisters don’t seem to come eye to eye on the subject of the benefit of the Law and the Torah because the Messianic Jews have been taught all their life that the Torah is a Blessing, but in reality even the definition of the word, Torah means to “teach”, and that is how Paul used to define the purpose of the Law.  God is not the author of confusion.  Confusion comes from the enemy.

Matthew 23 –

Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, ² saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. ³ Therefore whatever they tell you to observe,^[a] that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. ⁴ For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. ⁵ But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments. ⁶ They love the best places at feasts, the best seats in the synagogues, ⁷ greetings in the marketplaces, and to be called by men, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’ [or Pastor, Pastor] ⁸ But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher [or Pastor], the Christ,^[b] and you are all brethren. ⁹ Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. ¹⁰ And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ. ¹¹ But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. ¹² And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

There is only One that is the Teacher, and that is Christ – what is the implication there, that Christ teaches you all that you need to learn taking the place of the Torah because the Torah teaches,  but Jesus is the Teacher.

From personal experience I’ve learned then when I listen to teachings about Christians or Gentile believers obeying the Law, and when I open up books like the Complete Jewish Bible, I don’t experience freedom, it actually seems like I’ll never measure up so that’s why I thank God for His Son who has given us freedom.  The Truth shall make you free, and if you sincerely believe in Jesus Christ, and follow the guidelines given the New Testament, then you are no longer under bondage and you are free.  You just need to be completely free and for that you really need Jesus to come in and teach you through the Holy Spirit.

I’d like to thank my fellow blogger mtsweat for his blog:  Resting in His Grace because it makes me realize that truly be able to rest is to know what Grace is all about.

This prayer is for me as well as for anyone else that might be struggling with this issue:

Dear Precious Heavenly Father,

We know that Your Word is Truth and in Your Word there is liberty.  We thank You that You are beyond our comprehension and that You have allowed as much as needed to understand You.  Thank You for revealing to us little by little who You are and what You are doing.  Help the believers to set the record straight so that Truth may abide in us and be made to dwell in our body, soul, and spirit, so that we are whole and undivided just like You are whole and undivided.  I thank You that You are revealing the Truth of God’s Word to all of your saints, and give us the eyes of understanding and ears to hear what You have to say Lord God, We Thank You.  You are not the Author of confusion, but you are the Author if wholeness, soundness, and You are abound in mercy.  Thank You dearly.

In Jesus Mighty Name I pray,

Amen.

 

Day of Revolt by the Succeed in Life organization – don’t go there

I was going about my day and I noticed a little ad a company hung on my door and it quoted Psalm 7:11 which says – God is a just judge,
And God is angry with the wicked every day.

It had a sign on the front – “IT’S NOT FAIR”   and it said “And yet, throughout history men and women of faith experienced amazing victories only after they got angry and made an intelligent, planned out revolt against their situations”

There are many things wrong with this statement, and for Christians who may be new to their walk of faith, I do not want you to be deceived.  When David was quoting that Psalm – he had physical enemies, but in Ephesians 6:12 it says – “¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,^[c] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

The Psalm – is actually called deliverance from enemies, but we don’t have enemies that are physical, and a mass stream of people having a revolt is not going to help anyone.  And actually the verse in the King James Version says – ¹¹God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

How would a righteous person act?  They would act the same way Jesus acted.  Jesus didn’t fight His accusers.  He didn’t say life was unfair.  He didn’t revolt.  He knew His Father and our God would hear, but He instead said, forgive them they know not what they do.  The way to reach God’s heart is through repentance, and prayer and turning your heart towards God in love, and showing mercy and compassion toward other people.

Jesus said, “Many will come in the last days saying ‘He is here’ or ‘He is in the upper room’ do not go there because when the world sees me I will be riding on the clouds and every eye will see me.”

God is a just judge.  That part is true, but it is up to God to decide who He will have mercy on and compassion on.  God judges everything righteously and fairly and there is no unfairness in Him.  He weighs heavily on His heart before He does something.  There is hope for the righteous, and to tell you the truth that our righteousness is nothing but filthy rags, but it is His righteousness bought and paid with by the Blood of Jesus that makes us worthy and blameless before His sight.  Why does He allow all these things to happen?  He wants to show us His mercy and give us time to repent.

Ezekiel 18 says –

²¹ “But if a wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed, keeps all My statutes, and does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ²² None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. ²³ Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?

²⁴ “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.

²⁵ “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair? ²⁶ When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity, and dies in it, it is because of the iniquity which he has done that he dies. ²⁷ Again, when a wicked man turns away from the wickedness which he committed, and does what is lawful and right, he preserves himself alive. ²⁸ Because he considers and turns away from all the transgressions which he committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ²⁹ Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, is it not My ways which are fair, and your ways which are not fair?

³⁰ “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways,” says the Lord God. “Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. ³¹ Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? ³² For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,” says the Lord God. “Therefore turn and live!”

This passage talks about repentance – not revolt.  Isaiah 59 says –

We look for justice, but there is none;
For salvation, but it is far from us.
¹² For our transgressions are multiplied before You,
And our sins testify against us;
For our transgressions are with us,
And as for our iniquities, we know them:
¹³ In transgressing and lying against the Lord,
And departing from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt,
Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

Ezekiel 33:

‘The righteousness of the righteous man shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression; as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall because of it in the day that he turns from his wickedness; nor shall the righteous be able to live because of his righteousness in the day that he sins.’ ¹³ When I say to the righteous that he shall surely live, but he trusts in his own righteousness and commits iniquity, none of his righteous works shall be remembered; but because of the iniquity that he has committed, he shall die. ¹⁴ Again, when I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ if he turns from his sin and does what is lawful and right, ¹⁵ if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. ¹⁶ None of his sins which he has committed shall be remembered against him; he has done what is lawful and right; he shall surely live.

¹⁷ “Yet the children of your people say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ But it is their way which is not fair! ¹⁸ When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, he shall die because of it. ¹⁹ But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and does what is lawful and right, he shall live because of it. ²⁰ Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ O house of Israel, I will judge every one of you according to his own ways.”

 

One thing we have to understand about God is that God is a God of justice, but He is also a God of love, mercy, compassion.  He is gentle, kind, longsuffering, peaceful, kind, slow to anger, good to all, and the more we praise Him, the more He finds answers to our problems.  The more we trust Him and become like clay in the hands of the Potter, the more we can rest in peace knowing that the God we serve has answers to our problems.

Nehemiah 9:

They [Israel, but could apply to all of us] refused to obey,
And they were not mindful of Your wonders
That You did among them.
But they hardened their necks,
And in their rebellion^[b]
They appointed a leader
To return to their bondage.
But You are God,
Ready to pardon,
Gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger,
Abundant in kindness,
And did not forsake them.

So what is the answer – Jesus is the answer – prayer is the answer, seeking God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself is the answer, and repentance is the answer.

I don’t know what this organization is about, and I hope I have not brought more publicity to their cause, but if I have then God has His purposes.  But fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I do not want you to be deceived into thinking that a Day of Revolt is going to answer anything.  Now I know that people reading this will take this out of context and twist this and use this for their own purposes, but without the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of you none of this will have any value.  There is a warning in there for taking one verse and using it out of context without applying it to revelation given by the Holy Spirit that matches up with the Word of God because if words are abused, then there will be consequences for that as well.

So for all those people that “work hard but see very few results, gave your life to someone who betrayed you, events caused your dreams to fall apart, doctors give you no hope” here is a prayer for you:

Heavenly Father,

I have been working very hard all my life, but am not seeing results, but I trust in You and I lean not on my own understanding knowing that all things work out together for good for those who love You and are called according to Your purpose.  Help me to see what Your purpose is and to know that I am not just burning my fuel on things that don’t matter to Your Kingdom.

Lord I have been betrayed by someone, and I feel like it’s unfair, but I know that You are fair and just and that You Yourself was betrayed by someone and I know that You understand what I am going through.  Thank You Father for sending Jesus who understands.

Lord I know that events in my life caused my dreams to fall apart, but I know that Your plans and dreams for my life are much bigger and that Your thoughts and Your ways are higher than my thoughts and my ways.  Thank You for helping me not to be discouraged by my circumstances.

I have been to every kind of doctor imaginable, and the answers are not there, but I know that through the stripes of Jesus I am healed and the sickness in my body is a lie, but Lord Thank You for being Jehovah Rapha, My healer, and I have faith that You will put Your loving arms on me and the anointing will follow through and You have already healed me.

I turn to You and confess that I am a sinner and that nothing is possible without Your Blood sacrifice that was shed for me.  I may not understand everything right now, but I believe and have faith in a God who is just and gives me hope, and that You will work in my life.  Thank You Lord, for Your miraculous power in every day little things.  I know that whatever my problems are they are not as bad as other people, and that someone else has it much worse.  Lord God I thank You, and I accept Your Son Jesus into my life.

In Jesus Mighty Name I pray,

Amen

At this time you can also pray with your heart as well.

 

 

 

A very important lesson about grace and lack of knowledge

I learned something today about how sometimes we take God’s grace for granted sometimes.  We went shopping today at a store, which shall be nameless to protect privacy.  Two things happened, which made me reflect on the prospect of not knowing the rules, and just getting by and knowing the rules and being prevented from future mistakes.  I’ll start with the coupon for “Tree-Nuts”.

Scenario #1:

For the past 2 weeks we have been getting store brand trail mix, in 24 oz package, with a coupon for tree-nuts in same brand in the same 24 oz.  Both weeks the computer at the cashier wouldn’t let the coupon work, but we found grace through the cashier who just made a decisive decision and just let us have the trail mix for the discount for the tree-nuts.  This week we got a different flavor, but the same thing – a 24 oz container of trail mix, but then the cashier and the manager wouldn’t let us get discount for it. My dad tried to debate with them saying they’re still tree-nuts, but this time as much as we tried to we didn’t get the discount.

Scenario #2

There’s a discount we were told of by someone who worked in the store, that if you bring in plastic bags for the groceries, as we understood it, that you would get a discount for every plastic bag you bring in.  Turns out we were wrong, the store policy is actually if we bring in fabric bags then we would get a discount per bag.  This whole time since around September, which would be like two or three months we’d been bringing in the same plastic bags, and every time the cashiers would allow us to have discount on the bags we were bringing in.  They probably only once tried to mention it to us, but we were still ignorant.   So today we found out we were wrong. There was no real harm done, but I particularly learned a very important lesson about the walk of faith.

What was to be learned from this? We were unintentionally deceived because of our lack of knowledge.  This whole time, we’d been getting away with things we shouldn’t be getting away with.  Had the rules changed?  No.  But what did change?  What changed is that we found out we did not know the whole truth.  We only had part of it.  We had been getting grace and favour in our shopping, but then that all stopped today.  But we were informed for the better, so that we can make the right choices, like decide to pay full price for the trail mix anyway or start bringing in fabric bags, so we could change and adapt to the situation.

How does this apply to the Bible?  This is not to bring any condemnation whatsoever because there is no condemnation in Christ, but sometimes knowing the rules helps.  Knowing the foundation helps.  Knowing the roots helps. Knowing what the Bible has to say about the Law in the Bible helps. The Bible says “My people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge,” referring to the LORD.  Not knowing what the WORD of God has to say about a certain issue can bring us to a point where we are walking by blindly, and just sliding by, by the hair of our teeth.  We may just be barely making it, or “scarcely saved”, as the Bible puts it.  Some of us are beyond that, and we know that we are the righteousness of God in Christ, but there are others, and if it’s you read this you know it’s you, are one step away from falling to the point, that grace can’t pick you up.  It’s happened in the Bible before like with Esau when he sold his birthright, and with Saul when he sought the LORD, and He could not be found.  There are those times, “The Silent Years”, or the times when you are clinging on to the last hope that you have.  That it seems like everyone has turned against you, and even the crowd that was for you is now against you.  To those people, and you know it’s you God still has a plan in all this – He has plans to prosper you and not to harm you; to give you a future and a hope.  Jeremiah 29:11  The Scripture in this passage are about the captives that were carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon.  It was about the elders, prophets, and priests, that were being yanked out of their homeland, and sent to live in a foreign land.  God brought them back didn’t He.  He will get you through this time, but you have to make the effort to invest time in God’s WORD, and get to the point where you begin to know the zoe (or abundant kind of life) that God has for you.  Don’t give up now you brothers and sisters.

For those if you, which it doesn’t apply, for those of you who are walking right with God, know this – that the closer you to get to God and His WORD, and an intimate relationship with Him, you will come to that point where you cannot sin and you do not want to sin because you first don’t want to be operating out of love, and you know that you abide in Christ and Christ abides in you….This is not saying that we are Christ, but it is saying that we are at the level that the world around us, is only a place where we can shine the light of Christ, and be a blessing to other people.  We can get to that point where we realize that even though we were sinners Christ died for us, and allowed His Holy Spirit, and like Benny Hinn said, “that it is only skin that is separating us from Christ”, but before we get there it is a refining process and it may hurt, it may have ups and downs. I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten to the point where I see God in everything.  It’s like what David said in Psalm 139:8 – “If I ascend into heaven, You are there, if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there,” and the vs. that says that “nothing can separate us from the love of God.”

As I was reading Psalm 139, I found the part that says, “Such knowledge is so high, I cannot attain it.”  That is so true.  The God of this universe, our LORD GOD, our Heavenly Father, and Blessed Trinity, knows everything from each and every detail with such an intricacy.  Nothing that we do, say, think, or feel is a surprise to Him.  He knows us beyond anything.  At the end of this Psalm it says, “Search my heart, know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me.”  Because He knows you so well, you don’t have to be afraid, He’s right there, it’s not like He didn’t know that you were going to sin, because He foreordained everything from the foundation of the world, but when times go by when you’ve been taking Him for granted, and the things that He has done for you for granted, is when you have to go back to realize all that He has done for you and just appreciate Him.