A Very Common Attack of Satan (And How to Resist It)

"...praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit..."
An excerpt of Paul the Apostle to the Ephesian Christians

I'm praying and I feel it:  An invisible and cloud over my head.
Blocking my mind and stifling my feelings.
Shackling my words within me.
An enemy.

"In the name of The Lord Jesus, I command Satan and every demon, every throne and every dominion, every principality and every power, every ruler of the darkness of the age, and every spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places:  Be silent!  Be inactive!  Be absent!  Let the works of the devil be destroyed.  Let no weapon formed against me prosper!"

I'm feeling the dark cloud evaporate.
My mind is clearing.
My feelings are purifying.
My voice is liberated.

In place of the dark cloud over my head I'm feeling an invisible oil pouring on my mind.

The scriptures are seeping into my spirit, soul, and tongue.

From my mouth flows the word of God to God in prayer.

The devil is defeated.

Jesus is Lord.

How to Feel God When You Read the Bible (Part 3)

I used to despise any and every emotion, deeming emotions fleeting and untrustworthy.

I read the Bible according Inductive Bible Study Methodology. 

Specifically, I used Howard Hendrick's Bible Study Methods:

OBSERVATION.  INTERPRETATION.  APPLICATION.

 

No emotion.

Pure reason.

 

After all, "Emotions come and go.  We know God through scripture," as I just read in one of my comments.

 

I used to feel the same way.

I wanted consistency. 

I wanted certainty.

I wanted something that wasn't fleeting.

 

But as I did my Bible Study Methods, I saw that God Himself feels!

Do His emotions simply come and go?

Are God's emotions fleeting and untrustworthy?

 

• God FELT pleasure when He looked at all He made.  This is not a theological truth alone, but a historical fact!  God had feelings!
• He FELT displeased with Adam being alone.

• God approved of Abel's offering and disapproved of Cain's.
• His heart was FULL OF PAIN in response to the evil in the world before the flood.  In fact, He felt so much pain and grief that He regretted even making people.

God not only feels, but He feels things deeply.

 

• Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus and at the sight of Israel, upon whom He felt intense compassion.
• The Holy Spirit is deeply pained when we reject His leading.

I said in the beginning to "leave your brain at the church door," and to "stop thinking" for the time being.  I said that because we so often approach God with cold intellectualism that we forget He is a real person with real feelings.  Supreme and Sinlessly Perfect Feelings, but Feelings none the less.

 

Of course you shouldn't leave your brain at the church door.

Nor should you leave your heart.

 

Think God's thoughts when you read the Bible.

Feel God's feelings when you read the Bible.

 

We do this by God's Spirit in us, who alone knows the Mind of God, and who alone makes the heart of God known in His inspired word.

How to Feel God When You Read the Bible (Part 2)

Leave your brain at the front door of the church....for now.

Stop thinking, stop reasoning, stop "bible studying,"...for the moment.

Stop approaching the Bible with no feeling, as though the only true God has no feelings.
As though He is merely a Bible study.
As though heaven is merely theological debates.

One day I came across this passage in scripture:

The Ammonites also crossed the Jordan to fight against Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim; Israel was in great distress.  Then the Israelites cried out to the Lord, “We have sinned against you, forsaking our God and serving the Baals.”

 

The Lord replied, “When the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines,  the Sidonians, the Amalekites and the Maonites oppressed you and you cried to me for help, did I not save you from their hands?  But you have forsaken me and served other gods, so I will no longer save you.  Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!”

 

But the Israelites said to the Lord, “We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now.”  Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. And he could bear Israel’s misery no longer.  Judges 10:9-16, emphasis mine.

 

After reading this, I felt deep pain.

God's pain.

God's hurt.

 

Here is God, the Deliverer of Israel, delivering them over and over again.  Yet they reject Him and dishonor Him, over and over again.  Their enemies conquer them, they're in distress, they cry out to Him.  But this time He tells them to go to the gods they so love.  In pain, Israel accepts their punishment, knowing they deserve it.  They still seek God's deliverance, but they choose to serve Him, whether He delivers them or not, even in their misery.

 

And God couldn't bear their misery.

 

Can't you feel all of this?
(Read Part 3 CLICK HERE.)

 

 

How to Feel God When You Read The Bible



 



"You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to Me!"  The Lord Jesus, John 5:39  NLT

Have you ever read a book and felt a connection with the author? 
Like he was in the room with you? Like she understood your very soul?

This author has poured his heart into his book.  She put her spirit in each letter and chapter.

So it is with the scriptures.

The Bible is "God breathed."

When you read it, move from the intellectual to the emotional. 
This is how you feel God when you read the Bible.

Start simple.

When you read Genesis 1, what does the Bible say God feels?
Pleased!  He looks at what He made, and He feels intense pleasure!
Feel it as you read it.  Ask the question, "What is my impression of God?"

What kind of Person do you encounter as you read about God creating all things?
I feel Him to be a very artistic and organized Person.  My perception is of one who looks and thinks and feels deeply about what He is doing.  He makes distinctions.  Light and darkness.  Day and Night.  Above and below.  Earth and Sea. 

What about in the story of Noah and the flood,  when God says His heart is grieved, that He is filled with sorrow, and that He regrets ever making people?  How does that impact your heart?

I felt like I never wanted God to feel like that about making me.

Do you see what I'm doing?

I'm feeling Him.
I'm not just thinking.
I'm feeling.
Connecting with God's feelings.

In the Bible God is very emotionally expressive.
Vulnerable even.  Passionate.  Sensitive.  Fierce.

So the next time you read the Bible, read what He feels, and feel it with Him.
This will give you more than letters, but direct God encounters.

You'll know Him as He was, and thus know Him as He is.

Image from bound4africa.blogspot.com 

What you may not know about yourself that will kill you

What bothers you the most about bothersome people? Is it that you see so clearly what they are blind to:  Their very worst trait?

Man, it’s aggravating to see how they think so highly of themselves.  You can see it so clearly.
But what if they feel the same way…ABOUT YOU? OR ME?
Do we see in ourselves clearly the essence of our sin, and the thing that will kill us all if we don’t admit it?

What is it?
PRIDE.

It is the assumption behind our every assumption: that deep down inside, WE’RE OK. As a matter of fact, better than Ok! Down right awesome, if you really want to know! We think we’re the super stars in our own reality show. And if others don’t know, it‘s because they haven’t tuned in!

Our sin.

Our pride.

Will kill us.

Insidious because we don’t know the poison in us. The only antidote to this poison is the truth:

• We must admit that we are prideful.
• We must hate this about ourselves like we hate it in others.
• We must ask God’s forgiveness in humility, and humbly forgive others as God humbly forgave us.

If God takes His Gift From You‏

I’m losing the very thing God gave me for His glory: my voice. “You may never sing again,” the doctor said. But I don’t believe him. “Who made man’s mouth?” God asked Moses. Who closed lions’ mouths and opened a donkey’s? With these words my wife encouraged me. I believe them. I believe Him. God is my Healer. I will speak for Him again. I will sing for Him again. So if God is taking from you the very thing He gave you as a gift, you are not alone. God asked for Abraham’s only son. But God gave us His only Son.

To those who can't live without the voice of God (YOU ARE NOT ALONE.)

I'm writing to you and for you.
Only you.
We are one.

You are not alone.

If you believe in the one true God,
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
The God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Who died for our sins, and rose for us to be born again,
If you believe in His Spirit, and can't live without His voice,
I'm writing to you and for you.
Only you.
We are one.

You are not alone.

If you want more than to just read about the God in the Bible,
you are not alone.

If you want God to speak to you face to face,
by His Spirit,
as He does with His friends,
As He did with Moses,
Or Israel,
Or Samuel,
Or the 12, the 70, the 120, the 500...

If you want a constant conversation connection with God,
I'm writing to you and for you.
Only you.
We are one.

You are not alone.

If you know the voice of Christ,
let's listen to Him together.

If you want to learn the voice of  His Spirit,
let me teach you, and lets listen together.

The only wisdom I have is this: 
I know the voice of God.

As it is written,

"Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom...but let him who boasts boast about this:  that He understands and knows Me."  Jeremiah 9:23-24

I know the voice of God.
I cannot and will not live without it, as Jesus said,

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."
Matthew 4:4

Jesus didn't say, "every word written by the finger of God."

The Bible is a bunch of dead letters if the Spirit isn't inspiring it today as He did yesterday, as it is written,

"He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."  2 Cor. 3:6

If God breathes life into the Bible while we read it, then we encounter the Living God once again.

If you cannot and will not live without God's voice, then I am writing to you and for you.
Only you.
We are one.

You are not alone.

Join me this year.
Join my blogger circle.

Follow me as I follow the voice of Christ.
Listen to the Spirit with me.

Encounter God's wisdom--in me--FOR YOU!