God's power and yours (part 2)

DAVID
When David told Saul he would fight Goliath, Saul doubted David's ability because David was young and inexperienced in war.  David told Saul that God had given David victory over lions and bears.  The same God who delivered wild animals into David's hands would deliver Goliath into his hands.  David focused on victories he'd already experienced.  God had already prepared David for fighting a giant far bigger and stronger than him.  Even Goliath was probably no match for lions and bears. He probably wasn't as big or strong as a lion or bear.  David had been prepared by God, and God will prepare you and me for any battle we must face.  But there's more.


When David prepared to fight Goliath, at first he tried to wear Saul's armor.  The scriptures say David wasn't used to them, so David took off Saul's armor.  He then went to a brook and gathered 5 smooth stones for his sling, which he was used to, and had experience and practice.  Like Moses had experience with his staff, David had experience with his sling.  God didn't tell David to use a weapon or armor that David found awkward.  David used the resource he had with the strength and experience he had.  The same is true for me and you.




What can you do? 
What do you have?




All God expects of you is to do what you can with what you have.  If all you have is to give is your time and attention, use them to honor God.  If all you can do is read and share these words, share what you've read for God's honor.  This is all God expects and requires of you, no more, but no less. 




If you agree, please pray with me:


"God, I offer you who I am, what I have, and what I can do.  No more, no less.  I commit to use what I have and what I can do as soon as I finish reading these words.  Be with me for your glory.  In Jesus name and by the Spirit.  Amen."




Now share this blog, or write your own. 
Or do whatever you feel you can do, with what you have, to honor God. 


God is with you.  God is in you.  God loves you.  God empowers you.


Natural and supernatural abilities and resources both come from God. 


Use what you have.
Do what you can do.


God is with you.

God's power and yours (Part 1)

The LORD turned to him and said, "Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian's hand. Am I not sending you?"  Judges 6:14


Are you powerless as a Christian to accomplish God's will in your life?  Some think so.  Some read Jesus' words, "Abide in me and I in you; apart from me you can do nothing."  After they read this, they think Jesus means they are passively powerless without him.  This isn't true. 


What is true is this:
God expects us to use the power and resources that we have, and to trust Him for what we don't have.  We act by faith in the strength we have, and God supplies the strength we don't have. 


The scriptures bear witness to this in the stories of Moses, Gideon, and David.


MOSES
God asked Moses, "What is that in your hand?"  It was a staff.  God told Moses to throw down the staff, which became a serpent.  He then told Moses to pick up the serpent, which became a staff again. This wasn't a magic staff, but the same staff Moses had been using for possibly years as a shepherd.  Moses didn't use supernatural strength to throw down the staff, but his own natural strength to throw down a natural staff.  When Moses did what he could do with what he had, and with the strength he had, God did what Moses couldn't do in his own strength.  The same was true for Gideon.


GIDEON
God told Gideon in plain words, "Go in the strength that you have."  Gideon shouldn't use more strength than he had, but he also wasn't to use less strength than he had.  This matches the first and most important commandment, according to Jesus:


"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength."


Take note:
with all YOUR heart
with all YOUR soul
with all YOUR mind
with all YOUR strength.


Yours, not mine nor anyone else's.  ALL of what you have, not some, not more, not less. 


God commands us in the same way He commanded Gideon.  His commands aren't a burden, as the apostle John said.  They aren't oppressive due to being more than we have the strength or resources to accomplish.  Finally, we see this with David in his fight with Goliath. (Click HERE for part 2)

What is the essence of sin? (Part 2)

"Who cares where I am if I am still the same, and why should I be any different just because He was made greater by force?  Here (in hell) we will be free at least:  God didn’t build this place for Himself, He won’t make us leave:  Here we shall rule undisturbed, and in my opinion, to rule is something worth wanting, even in Hell:  It is better to rule in Hell than to be a servant in Heaven."  Satan to the demons, from Milton’s Paradise Lost

Hell is attractive to those in rebellion against heaven.  Those who rebel against the real feel at home when God is no longer around.  The want Him to leave them alone.  He will.  Forever.  In the hell of their minds.  If they so choose.  But enough about “them.”  What about “us?” What about me?  What about you?  It starts with our minds.

My mind and yours is the place where we accept the Lordship of God our Creator, Jesus our Savior, and the Spirit our Master. We welcome His rule and reign over our minds and wills.  We see reality as His, and feel honored to exist in His Presence.  In our imagination we accept His revelation as the foundation of everything we are and everything we say and do.  Or we use our mind to define a world where God bows to us, a world where He is ignored, yet responds to our will.  It starts with our minds.

Your mind and mine will define what we will be for all eternity.  Either we will serve in heaven, or reign in the insane make believe world of our own fantasy for all eternity.  We will be knights in our eternal nightmare, waking up in to new horror stories of resolved rebellion where we win against God and creation in our warped imagination. 

It starts with my mind.

It starts with your mind.

What is the essence of sin? (Part 1)

The mind is a place in itself, and inside it one can turn Heaven into Hell or Hell into Heaven.  Satan, from Milton’s Paradise Lost.

The essence of sin is prideful imagination, and prideful imagination is the throne of Satan. 

Consider this.  Eve reasoned with independent imagination a rationalization of first sin.  She believed Satan.  Adam knew Satan lied, but disobeyed nonetheless.  Why would he do this?  Did he imagine that he and the woman could live forever in the solitude of rebellious love?  Was her love better than the love of God?  Were her words more pure than Purity Himself?  For God said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree I commanded you not to eat from…”  Adam listened to Eve, and Eve listened to Satan.  From Satan’s prideful imagination the man and woman believed they could be more like God than they already were.  We dare believe the same when we doubt Jesus’s name, the name above every name, the name above our names.  We claim for ourselves a place that belongs only to God:  the right to define reality, to determine the true and untrue, the real and unreal based on what we feel.  Our pleasure becomes the measure of life and death.  With every breath we defy our Maker and Creator when we imagine a world without Him.  A heaven without God.  A heaven of our own making.  We say in our minds, “My kingdom come, my will be done in my imagination as it is done in heaven…my heaven.”

How to Change The World by Changing Your World (Part 2)

How do you feel about Noar?  Do you like him?  Are you like him?  How is he any different from you or me?  We live in our own fantasy and create our own reality daily.  We fight when people don’t do “right,” meaning what we want.  When they don’t respond according to our script, the life which is our play, we rage.  We are outraged because of how we see the world, our world.  We are confused about the two.  There is “the world,” but what about “our world?”  How does reality fit our fantasy of how life should be?  Ownership is the key to understanding our reality in relation to the reality.  Who owns reality, our reality and the reality?  In other words, where does reality come from, our reality and the reality outside of you and me?  The origin of all creation, which includes our imagination, must be the owner and thus the definer of you and me, of all reality, of our fantasies.  Who might this be?  Yes, it must be a who, because only a who can think and imagine.  Only a person.  Only The Person above and before and beyond all persons, unborn, undying, unchanging.  You know of whom I speak.  We were born, we change, we die.  But The Mind behind our minds must be of a different kind. Which means the world is not mine, or yours, or ours. 

We must change the way we see our world.  (Click HERE for part 3.)

How to Change The World by Changing Your World (Part 1)

The way we see the world can change the world.  Chuck Colson.


(Below is a fictional account of a man who lives in his imagination.)

I'm Noar. In my mind I am God.  My imagination is my creation, and you are my creature, subject to me and my will.  You are who I say you are, and you respond to me according to my fantasy.  My slave.  My servant.  Mine.  The world is mine in my mind.  Men fear me.  Women revere me.  It’s all about me.  I am the origin and destination in my imagination.  But it’s ok.  If you do what I say, you’ll be happy.  My world is a world of ecstasy.  Don’t you want to be happy?  Then make me happy, and you’ll be happy in my fantasy.  Say what I imagine you to say and do what I imagine you to do.  I have a good imagination.  I get a sense of what you would say and do in certain situations in my imagination.  My intuition gives revelations of who you are and what you are.  I want you to be happy in my fantasy.  So be who I see you to be to me and we’ll be happy, if I’m happy.  So how do you make me happy?  Simply.  If you’re a man, fear me.  If you’re a woman, revere me.  Live for me in my fantasy.  It’s easy.  See my reality.  See the world I see. (Click HERE for part 2.)

 

The Key to Satan's Power in Your Life (Part 2)

I’m looking into the eyes of someone determined to kill me.  I’m paralyzed with fear.  All of my self-defense classes mean nothing to me.  I’m not prepared for this.  I’m losing consciousness.  The killer squeezes the life out of my throat.  Her eyes lock with mine, matching the unrelenting force of her fingers.  She had decided to kill me; her spirit, soul, and body aligned in murderous unity.  Her gang surrounded me, six other girls who blocked all outsiders from view.  (The parking garage tended to be empty, especially on Sunday nights in Atlanta.)    The six girls surrounding me also unnerved me with their eyes.  Murderous unity.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Then it happened for what I think is no reason: her fingers loosen, and she raises her hands in the air.  I cough and suck in as much air as my lungs can take, desperate for life to return to my nostrils.  The other six killer girls had their hands raised.

Regaining my orientation, I see ten men and women in black, guns pointed, silver badges gleaming.  “Put your hands on your head and get on your knees!”  The single voice possessed a tone that brought the 7 girls to their knees, and their hands to their heads.  The APD in one movement surrounded, grounded, and handcuffed the 7 girls.  I watched wide eyed.  I feel more afraid of the police than the girl gang.  Both the police and the gang seem like one entity, a unity in diversity, with one resolve, one mind, one focus, one purpose.  Both had leaders who unified the followers.  But the resolve of the officers felt like a thick brick wall dissipating a murderously forceful wind.  I learned four things from the girl gang and police that I’m taking with me for the rest of my life: 

1. I need one mind, one will, on purpose, one focus.
2. I must strive for unity in every relationship, whether I’m leading or following. 
3. If I lead, I must unify my followers.
4. If I follow, I must be one with my leader.

From now on, my spirit, soul, body, words, and activities are a lethal, invincible unity.

From now on, I unite with those who lead me.

From now on, I unite those who follow me.

(Click HERE for Part 3)

The Key to Satan's Power in Your Life (Part 1)

The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebub,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”  And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?  “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.  “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. “If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! 
Mark 3:22-26 NASB

Satan and the demons all act and agree upon one purpose: 

To destroy your life.  You.  The one reading these words right now. 

This is why they succeed in confusing you, tempting you, and deceiving you:  The demons assigned to you allow nothing and no one to distract, diminish, or destroy their goal to harm you.  Jesus illustrated the unified focus of Satan and demons when he dealt with religious teachers who accused Him of Satanic influence.  With four statements of truth, Jesus gave illustrations of Satan and demon unification against humans.

HOW CAN SATAN CAST OUT SATAN?

Think about Jesus’ question. In His question, we see Satan wants demon possession to happen.  He wants to capture and take captive human minds, emotions, and wills.  When he succeeds in their capture, he dare not negate his own conquest.  When he conquers a human soul, he wants that soul to remain conquered.  So how can Satan defeat Satan?  Why would Satan defeat Himself?  The answer should warn you:  Satan never acts against his own goals, nor does he allow division between his demons.  He knows that division will destroy his kingdom.  Satan knows the truth of Jesus’ next statement.

IF A KINGDOM IS DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF, IT CANNOT STAND.


We, as Americans, are “one nation, under God, indivisible.”  We strive for unity, successfully or unsuccessfully.  But the church of God should never fail in unity. The kingdom of God cannot stand if we are divided.  The family of God cannot enjoy the same household if there's fighting between brothers and sisters.

IF A HOUSE IS DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF, THAT HOUSE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STAND.

Your father and mother created a stable or unstable house based on their connection or disconnection.  You remember this.  The house felt tranquil if dad and mom were in agreement.  The home felt unstable if they fought like bitter enemies.  If they agreed, nothing could stop them.  If dad and mom disagreed, any obstacle defeated them and your family.  If you had only dad, or only mom, the same applies, because the absence of one parent is the expression of the ultimate division.  But even Satan does not and will not allow such a division in his family.

IF SATAN HAS RISEN UP AGAINST HIMSELF AND IS DIVIDED, HE CANNOT STAND BUT HE IS FINISHED.

Does it seem like Satan is finished in this world to you?  Does all the evil in this world seem weak and defeated?  It doesn’t to me.  Evil not only seems rampant, but flourishing.  This means the evil one is in perfect union with his demons.  When evil triumphs in your life or mine, keep these things  in mind:

Satan and his demons are in perfect union.

Satan and his demons all agree that you should fail in accomplishing God’s will in your life. 

(Click HERE for part 2)

The Key to Satan's Power in Your Life (Part 3)

Teach me your way, LORD, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.  Psalms 86:11 NIV


Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3 NIV




Do three things to resist and overcome the unity of Satan's kingdom:
1. Focus on one thing for one reason.
2. Focus on your leader.
3. Focus your followers.


FOCUS ON ONE THING FOR ONE REASON
This is what David means by having an "undivided heart."  Focus on the one thing David said to focus on:  Fearing God's name.  This means the one thing you strive for is to honor who God is.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Nothing other than this.


FOCUS ON YOUR LEADER.
You are either leading someone or following someone.  If you are following someone, then focus only on his or her will, unless his or her will conflicts with God's will.  This will bring invincible unity where you are.


FOCUS YOUR FOLLOWERS.
If you are leading someone, focus him or her, or them, on the one goal:  To fear the name of the LORD.  If you continue to focus them on this, and this alone, no matter how unified Satan is, he cannot overcome the unity of God's kingdom.