As believers we are kings and queens. The hearts of kings and queens are being constantly attacked. Gospel singer Debra Ashley sings on her album New Birth in the song "Do It Afraid:"
"Have you ever had a desire in your heart?
A desire so very strong you know it's from God.
Then the enemy has come your way.
Now your confidence is gone.
Well don't give up
Just trust in God.
And do it afraid."
No matter what our life looks like in the past and present, no matter if we feel fear, what God has put in our hearts will be accomplished. King David had enemies all around him. Yet he committed himself to trusting in God and to keeping on doing what God called him to do day in and day out. King David writes in Psalm 21:7 Amplified Bible, "For the king trusts, relies on, and is confident in the Lord, and through the mercy and steadfast love of the Most High he will never be moved." He says in Psalm 21:2, "You have given him his heart’s desire and have not withheld the request of his lips. Selah [pause, and think of that]!"
Sometimes we feel fear because the desires of our hearts do not always appear immediately, and/or they may not come in the way we imagined. Mary J. Blige sings in her song "Not Gon' Cry," about a woman who was a lover, mother and business partner dumped by her lover and business partner. She regrets ever getting into the relationship and laments, "11 years of sacrifice and you can leave me at the drop of a dime."
Every relationship is not for life. We have some things to give, receive and learn, and then move on. The end of a relationship does not mean the end of our heart's desires.
David didn't focus on his enemies trying to derail his heart's desires or on negative internal messages saying various versions of, "I can't do this." Just like Joshua had the Spirit of God living inside him (Numbers 27:18,) so did David; David had a relationship with God and focused on God. Like David we need to trust in God's abilities instead of our abilities to fix our problems and to fulfill our heart's desires. Is any problem to hard for God to solve?
Watchman Nee writes in his book The Normal Christian Life, "We are sinners, not because of ourselves but because of Adam. It is not because I individually have sinned that I am a sinner, but because I was in Adam when he sinned. Because by birth I come of Adam, therefore I am a part of him. What is more, I can do nothing to alter this. I cannot, by improving my behavior, make myself other than a part of Adam, and so a sinner....Unless we can change our parentage there is no deliverance for us."
Changing our parentage is to receive a relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost. With God as our Parent we can work the principles of the Bible and expect success because God is the one guaranteeing the success. Relying on our abilities inspires fear because we are aware of some of our inabilities. But with God as our Parent we can do it afraid and expect God to increase our courage and to give us the victory of having our heart's desires fulfilled. God never fails; El es indispensable y incomparable. Is God on your side?
Showing posts with label Deliverance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deliverance. Show all posts
Monday, March 18, 2013
Sunday, March 10, 2013
The Power to End Unequal Treatment
When the laws of people are in line with the law of God, these laws show us what sin is, how to properly treat people and what good is. Matthew 7:12 English Standard Version Bible says, "“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." Galatians 3:28-29 the Message Bible says, "In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises."
Rosa Parks, mother of the Civil Rights Movement, fought for the implementation in American society of the idea that all people are equal. When Parks refused to give up her seat in December 1955 in obedience to segregation law, she was arrested.
Parks had been branch secretary for the Montgomery, Alabama NAACP for several years. Along with Edgar Daniel Nixon, head of the Montgomery, Alabama NAACP, and other Civil Rights leaders, Parks agreed to use her case to pursue an end to segregation. The Civil Rights leaders also decided to boycott the Montgomery buses. Christian Minister and Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "We're going to work with grim and firm determination to gain justice on the buses in this city. And...we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong...If we are wrong, justice is a lie. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream..."
After a little more than one year of the boycott, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Rosa Parks, declaring Alabama's bus segregation laws unconstitutional. It was the beginning of the end of segregation.
Parks said, "People always say that I [didn't give] up my seat because I was I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically...The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."
Segregation eventually became illegal in the United States of America, but not all unequal treatment as evidenced by issues such as abortion, immigration, disability, sexuality and employment. Why do we still struggle with unequal treatment?
Christian Minister Watchman Nee said in his book The Normal Christian Life, "When God's light first shines into my heart my one cry is for forgiveness, for I realize I have committed sins before him; but when once I have received forgiveness of sins I make a new discovery, namely, the discovery of sin, and I realize not only that I have committed sins before God but that there is something wrong within. I discover that I have the nature of a sinner. There is an inward inclination to sin, a power within that draws to sin. When that power breaks out I commit sins. I may seek and receive forgiveness, but then I sin once more. So life goes on in a vicious circle of sinning and being forgiven and then sinning again. I appreciate the blessed fact of God's forgiveness, but I want something more than that: I want deliverance. I need forgiveness for what I have done, but I need also deliverance from what I am."
We all need a daily dose of God the Holy Ghost to be delivered from who we are and to live in growing evidence of the love of God on the inside showing up on the outside. The more people living in the ways of God empowered by God, the less unequal treatment and the less other sin. God living on the inside is the power to fulfill love. Romans 13:10 Amplified Bible says, "Love does no wrong to one’s neighbor [it never hurts anybody]. Therefore love meets all the requirements and is the fulfilling of the Law."
Follow me (michelelove30) on Twitter. Recommend this article on Google.
Rosa Parks, mother of the Civil Rights Movement, fought for the implementation in American society of the idea that all people are equal. When Parks refused to give up her seat in December 1955 in obedience to segregation law, she was arrested.
Parks had been branch secretary for the Montgomery, Alabama NAACP for several years. Along with Edgar Daniel Nixon, head of the Montgomery, Alabama NAACP, and other Civil Rights leaders, Parks agreed to use her case to pursue an end to segregation. The Civil Rights leaders also decided to boycott the Montgomery buses. Christian Minister and Civil Rights Leader Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "We're going to work with grim and firm determination to gain justice on the buses in this city. And...we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong...If we are wrong, justice is a lie. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream..."
After a little more than one year of the boycott, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Rosa Parks, declaring Alabama's bus segregation laws unconstitutional. It was the beginning of the end of segregation.
Parks said, "People always say that I [didn't give] up my seat because I was I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically...The only tired I was, was tired of giving in."
Segregation eventually became illegal in the United States of America, but not all unequal treatment as evidenced by issues such as abortion, immigration, disability, sexuality and employment. Why do we still struggle with unequal treatment?
Christian Minister Watchman Nee said in his book The Normal Christian Life, "When God's light first shines into my heart my one cry is for forgiveness, for I realize I have committed sins before him; but when once I have received forgiveness of sins I make a new discovery, namely, the discovery of sin, and I realize not only that I have committed sins before God but that there is something wrong within. I discover that I have the nature of a sinner. There is an inward inclination to sin, a power within that draws to sin. When that power breaks out I commit sins. I may seek and receive forgiveness, but then I sin once more. So life goes on in a vicious circle of sinning and being forgiven and then sinning again. I appreciate the blessed fact of God's forgiveness, but I want something more than that: I want deliverance. I need forgiveness for what I have done, but I need also deliverance from what I am."
We all need a daily dose of God the Holy Ghost to be delivered from who we are and to live in growing evidence of the love of God on the inside showing up on the outside. The more people living in the ways of God empowered by God, the less unequal treatment and the less other sin. God living on the inside is the power to fulfill love. Romans 13:10 Amplified Bible says, "Love does no wrong to one’s neighbor [it never hurts anybody]. Therefore love meets all the requirements and is the fulfilling of the Law."
Follow me (michelelove30) on Twitter. Recommend this article on Google.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Choose Principle Over Presentation
Nick Vujicic is married to Kanae, expecting his first child with his wife, an evangelist and a motivational speaker who was born without arms or legs and also heads the nonprofit organization Life Without Limbs. Vujicic wanted to star in a movie, but ended up turning down his first movie offer. He says in his book Life Without Limits, "How do you want to be remembered? I didn't want my grandchildren to one day discover a DVD of a movie in which Grandpa Nick curses, drools tobacco juice down his chin, and lives like a degenerate. So I said thanks but no thanks to that first movie offer."
Money, fame and power obtained from evil behavior can be tempting. The Apostles Paul and Barnabas said thanks but no thanks to a tempting, but bad offer. God used Paul to heal a man who had been born unable to walk (Acts 14). Instead of praising God for the miracle the Lycaonian people called Paul and Barnabas gods and wanted to make a sacrifice to worship them. Paul and Barnabas could have gone along with this situation since it presented that Paul and Barnabas were visible whereas God was not. Yet Paul and Barnabas chose principle over presentation. Paul said in response to the false worship in Acts 14:15 Amplified Bible, "Men, why are you doing this? We also are [only] human beings, of nature like your own, and we bring you the good news (Gospel) that you should turn away from these foolish and vain things to the living God, Who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything that they contain."
Choosing principle over presentation is not always popular. Even though Paul did a good deed and also told the truth, the Lycaonians stoned him. Vujicic sometimes suffers persecution for living a life that pleases God. So does Charlene Cothran. Today there is a push to legalize the sin of homosexuality and lesbianism through gay marriage and to present the gay life as positive even Biblical in contradiction to Scriptures like Leviticus 18 and Deuteronomy 22. There are also those fighting for principle over presentation in this area. One such person is Charlene Cothran, who lived the gay lifestyle for almost 30 years, but today is a Christian minister and heads The EVIDENCE Ministry, Inc. Cothran says, in her article Redeemed! 10 Ways to Get Out of the Gay Life, If You Want Out, "Many argue that each individual should determine for themselves what God intends for him or her. This would indicate that we each have a separate set of biblical rules to live by. This is untrue. If you are ready for change and willing to open yourself to the truth, God’s love can bring your current belief system in line with His Word. Jesus will cleanse and forgive all confessed sin from a willing heart. Homosexuality is only one of them. It is no greater sin than any of the others, but it is sin."
Please share about instances where principle was chosen over presentation.
Money, fame and power obtained from evil behavior can be tempting. The Apostles Paul and Barnabas said thanks but no thanks to a tempting, but bad offer. God used Paul to heal a man who had been born unable to walk (Acts 14). Instead of praising God for the miracle the Lycaonian people called Paul and Barnabas gods and wanted to make a sacrifice to worship them. Paul and Barnabas could have gone along with this situation since it presented that Paul and Barnabas were visible whereas God was not. Yet Paul and Barnabas chose principle over presentation. Paul said in response to the false worship in Acts 14:15 Amplified Bible, "Men, why are you doing this? We also are [only] human beings, of nature like your own, and we bring you the good news (Gospel) that you should turn away from these foolish and vain things to the living God, Who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything that they contain."
Choosing principle over presentation is not always popular. Even though Paul did a good deed and also told the truth, the Lycaonians stoned him. Vujicic sometimes suffers persecution for living a life that pleases God. So does Charlene Cothran. Today there is a push to legalize the sin of homosexuality and lesbianism through gay marriage and to present the gay life as positive even Biblical in contradiction to Scriptures like Leviticus 18 and Deuteronomy 22. There are also those fighting for principle over presentation in this area. One such person is Charlene Cothran, who lived the gay lifestyle for almost 30 years, but today is a Christian minister and heads The EVIDENCE Ministry, Inc. Cothran says, in her article Redeemed! 10 Ways to Get Out of the Gay Life, If You Want Out, "Many argue that each individual should determine for themselves what God intends for him or her. This would indicate that we each have a separate set of biblical rules to live by. This is untrue. If you are ready for change and willing to open yourself to the truth, God’s love can bring your current belief system in line with His Word. Jesus will cleanse and forgive all confessed sin from a willing heart. Homosexuality is only one of them. It is no greater sin than any of the others, but it is sin."
Please share about instances where principle was chosen over presentation.
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