Instruction of the Lord

Eph 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother"-which is the first commandment with a promise- 3 "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth."
4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Eph 6 also says to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. God commands parents to discipline children His way. This is the positive side of discipline.


The first word discipline means training with structure. We have been looking at this. It is discipline with teeth. Discipline is aiming at goals and using methods that will achieve them. It is training backed up with the rod. It also offers reward for genuine achievement.

But the second word, instruction, means seeing something in that child’s life that you know needs correction and verbally confronting him with truth. Whereas the first word speaks of discipline from without of rewards and punishments. The second word has to do with discipline from within, growing out of personal conviction.

Over the years, the emphasis in discipline should go from structured discipline to self discipline. Parents must coach children but learn to back off as they assume responsibilities.

He must be reached in his heart to do God will. God does many things in disciplining us. God sets his will. He lays out the rules and says what the penalty will be. Before the infraction takes place. He follows through if it happens. That is the basis for all consistent discipline as it appears in the Word.

Parents need not only clearly enfoced rules with reward, and punishment. They need, from the children's earliest age, to try to explain to them the reasoning behind the way they live. This is the teaching of ethics and morals, which we teach as we go through life. We never want our children, just to toe the line, never with the understanding about the "why's" behind the decisions made. These "why's" will be found in the word of God.

Family devotional.
Fathers, there is nothing better you can do as leader of the home than to have a family devotional. This shows that the Word of God is part of your daily lives and that men are to lead in spiritual things.

Kids are really smart. I am always surprised at kids capacity to understand the biblical reasons for the things we say or do. Don't underestimate. Use every opportunity possible as a teaching moment. Kids will begin to understand that you exercise your authority over them because you are under the authority of the Lord and his Word.

Raising kids is so much more than behaviorism. It is discipleship. May God bless you as you continue make disciples in your home.


Blessings

Underdiscipline and Overdiscipline

Last time we shared about how underdiscipline can lead to the exasperation of our kids. That kids need clearly and consistenly enforced boundaries. Let's look at some more traps of underdiscipline.

Have you ever been in a store and seen a youngster just whining and complaining to his mother? The kid is just screaming and hollering and the mother says, "Now Johnny, Mommy doesn't want you to hurt yourself with that, you musn't touch that." At this, the kid just hollers the louder. " Now Johnny, you wouldn't want to ruin mommy's shopping." The kid continues. The mother tries to hold it together, until she gets to the parking lot where she explodes at him as she tries to pack the car.

This is unfortunately too common these days.

Just say No!
Sometimes parents try to reason everything out with children, as if they were adults. Parents have to learn to say no and that their no means no. Sometimes parents say the silliest things to kids. Parents need to set the tone and teach the kids that they will not tolerate certain behavior.

Which leads us to our next point.

Defiant rebellion can be punished with the rod.
Prov 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but who who loves him is careful to discipline him.

In our PC culture, we have refrained from the biblical admonition that corporal punishment can be good for the child. Of course this is to be used only in the case of defiant rebellion against a command. And hopefully is needed less and less as kids mature and internalize the discipline of the parents. I know this is controversial and wont go into this too much now.

Restitution and Apology
Children from the earliest age, must be taught to take responsibility for their actions. Some time in our haste to help we actually hurt our child by shielding. For example, if Johnny breaks somebody's window with his baseball, he should be made to apologize, clean up, and offer to work until the debt is paid. This teaches them responsibility.

Our kids from the earliest age were taught to apologize and forgive directly. Even when they didn't feel like it, or really understand it. This is so important.

Now lets's look at the flip side.

OVERDISCIPLINE.
Overdiscipline is when parents become crushing to the child. How do we tend to overdiscipline?

1. Overreaction can crush communication.

Parents must act biblically--not react. Some overreact to the permissiveness in society and swing to the other extreme and become crushing to the child.

Dad learns he is supposed to be head of the home. So he puts on his uniform. Polishes the brass buttons. Then he walks around swinging the nightstick. Such an arbitrary use of authority is really abusing authority. Authority is not to be used for its own sake but it has been given for the sake of the child.

This overreaction leads sometimes to unfairness in punishments. Over discipliners use sledgehammers to drive in thumb tacks.

This can be exasperating to a child and crushing to him. He therefore withdraws from the parent and sees them as tyrants.


2. Making everything a federal case: Some parents need to lighten up . They say no to everything. That is exactly the way many parents come across to their children. As those that will always get on their back about something, and never say yes to anything. They don’t encourage their kids in anything or say anything positive about them.

3. Danger issues vs. Learning issues

There are some things your child needs to learn by experience. Some things are too dangerous to experience. For instance, you would not let your infant go and put his hand in an open flame. He doesn’t need to learn that way. He doesn’t need to learn about gravity by playing near an open window. So parents must learn what are learning issues and what are real danger issues.

This is especially hard to do as the child gets older. It can be a fine line.

Parents need to be in agreement on these. For instance, young romance. Some people think it’s a learn issue. "Oh they have to make there own decisions." I think it’s a more of a real danger issue at a certain age.

These need to be communicated to the child.

Blessings!

Children Obey Your Parents

Eph 6:1-4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 "Honor your father and mother"-which is the first commandment with a promise- 3 "that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth." 4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Is there anything more important to the way children turn out than the family? Society seems to be very concerned about crime, and delinquency. But it’s interesting that at the same time, society seems to do everything it can to undermine family. Society tries to redefine it, they try to introduce distorted concepts of the patriarchal family in the schools. Why should we be surprised at the way our children turn out as we accept the permissiveness of society? Let’s look at what the Bible has to say.


CHILDREN ARE CALLED TO OBEY THEIR PARENTS
Here is one of the first things you see. Paul encourages children to heed their parents. It seems such an obvious principle but with the present biblical illiteracy we have nowadays, it’s good to restate the obvious. Paul suggested this because it's the temptation of children to disoby their parents.

Notice it says "in the Lord" This is not an unconditional obedience. If a parent tells a child to do something against the Lord, the child does not have to obey. Parents need to realize that their authority is given to serve the child, not the other way around.


PARENTS ARE TO TRAIN THEIR CHILDREN
One of the interesting things about our verse in Ephesians is that the Bible seems to single out fathers for special instruction. Why is that? Don’t mothers have more influence over their children. They spend more time with them and seem more responsible for their nurture. So why this focus on fathers?

The reason he singles out fathers is not that he is ignoring the mothers, but what the mothers do the Fathers are responsible for. The father is the head of the home. And God is going to hold him responsible for everything that happened in the home.

But obviously it is the role of both parents to train their children.

Deut 6:5-9 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.


The Bible presents the picture of parents spending considerable time with their children in instructing them in the way they should go. As they do life together. Meaning that every moment can be a teachable moment.

Nowadays, this is seen as sort of an anachronism. In the days of agrarian culture, fathers especially spent much more time with children in the fields and at work. This is not as true today where most parents, work outside of the home. This makes it especially difficult and important for parents to take the time with their children.

Eph 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Col 3:21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

Fathers are twice called not to exasperate their children. What does that mean-- to provoke them to wrath, or to exasperate them?

The term means to take the wind out of them . To take the heart out of them.

This is a real picture of what happens so often today. Children are exasperated with their parents. They have given up on them. They say “why bother?” Children have written off their parents in disgust. They close their minds, their ears and their minds in anger. Why? What causes this? Notice that this verse says this in the context of discipline. The wrong kind of discipline is behind this. What is the wrong kind of discipline? There are two. Underdiscipline and overdiscipline.

Uner discipline. What is underdiscipline?

Underdiscipline is not having consistently enforced rules in the home.

Notice I did not just say rules. I said consistently enforced rules. Believe it or not, it is underdiscipliine that exasperates kids more than anything else. Why is this true? You would think that permissiveness is what kids would want.

Suppose a child is told, "If you do X you’re going to get a spanking", and then the next day, he gets away with doing x. There is no consistent discipline. When rules change day by day, a child doesn’t know where he stands. When rules are not enforced they tend to provoke exasperation . They think. “You know it really doesn’t matter if I follow the rules.” Because they are only enforced on a whim.

Imagine, if you were playing baseball and the rules kept changing during the game. Wouldn’t that be frustrating?

So what does that mean? That means that if there is not a proper structuring of discipline that things will tend to get out of shape. Your kids will tend to get exasperated.

Today they get slammed for doing nothing. Tomorrow they get away with murder. Then they begin to think "What’s the use of keeping the rules anyway?"

Kids want to know where the limits are. It's amazing that when rules are clearly spelled out that kids feel better. When we get true discipline going you get a sigh of relief from the kids. Now they know where they stand.

Why do they parents inconsistent? Partially because of ignorance, possible because discipline is hard work and takes a lot of forethought to work out the rules in the home.

Also it takes time. Sometimes people give up too easily They set a rule but then stop enforcing it. They give up because it didn’t work quick enough. Because it didn’t work quick enough, they were too quick too give up.

What are other things that cause under discipline?

1. Too many rules. Sometimes the problem is too many rules. This may sound like over discipline, but in fact its still underdiscipline. Why? Because if there are too many rules, usually what happens is that you selectively enforce. You don’t enforce all the rules which leads to exasperation again.

When a parent fails to enforce the rules, he teaches that he doesn’t really mean business. You can teach discipline better with one rule properly enforced than with 25 rules that you don’t enforce well.

2. Making rules in the heat of the moment.
So often rules come out of the heat of battle. But that is a bad time to make rules.

A little girl pick up a flower for her mother in the backyard. She comes into the kitchen to deliver it. But her mother just looks behind her to see all the mud that she just tracked into her freshly mopped floor. "That’s it you are grounded for a week."

First of all let’s get real, she is not going to stay grounded for a week. She said that out of frustration. It wasn’t a fair punishment. The child could not have anticipated it because it was not spelled out ahead of time. It came out in the moment. That is too late.

3. Divided Authority: Another big reason for underdiscipliine is divided authority. Husbands and wives who disagree over discipline do so because it was never decided beforehand what the discipline should be.

Did you ever see, or maybe have you been guilty of undermining a punishment or discipline enacted by the spouse? Parents do this all the time. Pretty soon the kids learn. Mommy is strict, but Daddy is a pushover, or vice versa. They learn how to play one against the other. It is absolutely imperative that parents have a united front. The only way they are going to do that, is if they set the rules ahead of time. The only solution is this, parents must sit down together and think through what they will do.

Some time the husband and wife will disagree. The wife should submit to her husband in such circumstances. She must honor her husband’s God given authority in the home.

4. Who is in charge? Sometimes problems arise when you live with your in-laws. The in-laws have a certain understanding of what they want done and the parents have a different understanding. This is a recipe for disaster. Here is a tough one. The husband is the head of his family, no matter where he is living.

5. Yelling and Counting is not discipline. The person who yells or counts will find out that this does not work. The mother who uses the tone of her voice to get results will find that it is only when she gets to the highest level that children begin to respond. Why? because they know she doesn’t mean it. There are no consequences for delay. Same thing goes for counting. Okay I am going to count to ten.. one, two... . you notice that kids don’t start moving till you get to 9 and a half!

We must teach kids immediate obedience, delayed obedience is disobedience.

Parents, it's time to parent. Don't be afraid of parenting. God put them in your life to help and to nurture. You can do it. Even single parents. Don't be discouraged, steel yourself and give the discipline and structure that is so sorely needed and wanted!
Blessings!

Covenant Marriage

Last time we mentioned that our homes are key. God has called us to be an influence in this world. He has called us to be changed and then to change the relationships around us.

We established last week that the key thing that makes a home Christian is that a Christian home has admitted, and has learned to deal with sin. A Christian home has learned to communicate with one another truthfully and graciously by confessing sin and keeping short accounts.

Today I want to build on that foundation. I want to talk about marriage today because the whole concept of marriage has increasingly come under assault in this culture, but marriage is the basic unit of society.

Recently, the congress decided to leave the interpretation open. They refused to say that a marriage is a man and a woman committing to each other. But whether they define it or not, God has already done so. And those that feel that this is discriminatory are absolutely right. The right always discriminates against the wrong. We have many leaders in our nation who would call right, wrong and wrong, right.

Marriage is an invention of God and the state has no right to say its something that God says it isn’t. And those that set themselves up against God’s way are destined for pain.

It’s time that the church knew what it believes about these things and stands up as a prophetic witness against all the lawlessness that is going on around us.

MARRIAGE IS A COVENANT

The institution of marriage is not a casual one. Although Hollywood and our present culture of easy divorce, sensuality and individualism seems to have made its best effort at making it meaningless. God established the family as an institution. It was first and it is basic. For that reason alone we must preserve it.

A. God ordained marriage.
You know sometimes people think that in the beginning, the cave men and cave women just kind of hooked up randomly, until one particularly wise cro magnon man came up with the idea: "Hey let’s each have our own wives." No this is not what happened . In the very beginning marriage was established

Gen 2:18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

The first thing that God said was not good in all his creation was for man to be alone. He gave Eve to man--and it was good. Marriage was instituted before the Fall. The way some people joke about marriage you would think it was created by Satan. Marriage was given as a blessing to make man happy.

Paul relates marriage relationship to the relationship of Jesus to the church.

Eph 5:25-26 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

B. Marriage is a covenant for life
Prov 2:16-17 It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.

We see from this scripture that God consider marriage a covenant. A solemn , binding contract. A covenant is a solemn agreement between two parties. God is a covenant making God--from Adam, To Abraham, To Moses, to David, to the New Covenant.

God takes covenant very seriously.

Matt 19:3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" 4 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5 and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6 So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."

This is so important. If we don’t have an understanding about covenant, we will have very insecure marriages. Listen, a covenant is a source of blessing , but a curse is there, if it is broken. We need to treasure the covenant that we make very highly. This is not to put condemnation on those who have been divorced. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. Sometimes it isn’t even sin. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself on that. I just want to say that an appreciation of covenant, helps us. It can be the source of joy for us.

II. THE PURPOSES OF MARRIAGE.

A. For Companionship.

Gen 2:18 The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

One of the most fundamental purposes woman was created as a suitable helper for man. She corresponds to man at every point. Man needed help. Let’s face it guys we are a mess without women.

Now women might get very upset at calling them helpers. But if she wants to argue, let her argue with the Bible. But what about woman’s liberation? Well you know the thing that really makes one liberated is when one functions the way they were created. A train does not function freely when it is off the tracks and the same for us. The woman was created to help her husband.

This is very important. Maybe some have seen it the other way around. Now it’s not to say that men don’t help their wives. But women were created to help their husbands. So husbands should be being helped.

Now how does a woman help her husband?

She helps by being his partner. She helps by giving him companionship. All of us have need for intimacy. Marriage meets that need.

B. For Sex. – Sex is good. God created it and we must not be ashamed of it. It is only unholy when it is misused.

1 Cor 7:2-5But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self control.

Paul clearly taught that sex was good and was to be engaged in frequently, but it was exclusively for the context of marriage.


C. For procreation

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God is looking for a godly seed to continue to steward the earth in a godly way. I know most of what I shared today is basic. But that's just what we need-- to get back to the basics. For our own sakes, for the sake of our families, for the sake of the country. To be continued......

The Christian Home Communicates

Yesterday, we saw that a Christian home knows how to deal with sin. How? By communication.

Speaking Truth.
Eph 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body.

We need to take dominion over our family. The book of Ephesians is a classic about who we are in Christ. Paul spends the first half of the book expounding on the new realities that exist because of our new life in Christ. Then he spends the second half showing us how to apply these realities.

One of the main things he shares, is about how we are to live with one another in light of receiving the new life of Christ. Paul here talks about truthful communication. We find that without truthful communication we are not truly fulfilling the role of family, either in our immediate families or in the church.


A missionary and his wife came back home from the mission field. She was overcome by depression. During counseling, the truth came out when she said to her husband, "My problem is that when we married I didn’t love you. I haven’t loved you since. I have never loved you. But I‘ve never told anyone the truth before” She had been suffering this self pity and as hard as that was to share, that was the beginning of the healing. They eventually went back to mission field , loving each other. But that never would have happened had they not been truthful with one another.

You may be like this person. You may be holding things inside. You know that there are unresolved matters that are affecting you and your family because there has been a breakdown of communication. Iron wedges have been driven deeply in your family. Where should you begin? Start by admitting the truth to yourself and to God. Secondly go on the next verse.

Deal With issues daily
Eph 4:26-27 "In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

We need to deal with issues on a daily basis. We should not let the sun go down on our anger. We should not let issues pile up and fester and grow bitterness in our hearts.

Because if we do, we are giving the devil a mighty foothold. But here is the rub, in your effort to be reconciled, you should start with your own wrongdoings. Not in pointing the finger.

Matt 7:3-5"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.


Usually when there is conflict in the home between parent and child or between husband and wife, there is a tendency to point the finger at one another. “you did this” "You did that” But most of us recognize how futile that is. Because the other person just gets defensive and points at you and there is no reconciliation. Meanwhile the problem remains untouched. The issue is not being dealt with at all.

How can we get to the problem? We need to look realize that there is always two issues

The problem and the attitude.

Until you deal with the attitudes , it is going to be impossible to deal effectively with the problem

How do we deal with the attitudes? It starts with .....

Confession.
When party A begins by confessing to party B. then Party B can come in agreement there. You are agreeing. Not only that, then party B. can extend forgiveness and do some confessing of his own. And party A can extend forgiveness. It’s amazing how quick you can come into agreement with somebody when you say “I wronged you”and ask for forgiveness.

Are you having communication problems with your family? Your mother in law. Your children? Maybe its with your parents. Listen, you must communicate with that person. If you can’t talk about anything, you can talk about the wrongs you have done that person. If you don’t have any wrongs, you can confess that you waited this long to be reconciled.

Don’t let things go. If you are having trouble with someone, before the day is over, deal with it Write that letter, make that phone call. . In your family, sit down and make matters right.

Wholesome Words.
Now that you have confessed and extended forgiveness, you are to develop a whole new way of dealing with each other. A new pattern. Let’s look at the next verse .

Eph 4:29-30 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

This is the pattern that must be followed. Not letting things pile up anymore. He is referring here to any word that would tear down another. That is what Paul condemns: cutting each other up with your words. All energies must be directed towards the problems not at one another.

Chris and Jan had been fighting, meanwhile their friends were taking sides. When they came for counseling, they began cutting each other up. They were stopped and told that if they wanted to deal with the problem, they would first have to deal with their attitudes towards one another.

Christians can learn to live in peace. But they must work on keeping an attitude of good will towards one another.

The Christian home is a giving home. It is place of giving. Insist that your home be a place of communication, confession, and forgiveness.

The Christian Home Overcomes Sin

God has called us to occupy until he comes. He has called us to be followers of the Lord and that means to apply the principles of His word to our personal lives and also to our home lives. God has called us to be transformed and to be transformers. And the first area of transformation after ourselves should be our family life. We need to take our families for Christ.

First of all we need to see the problem . What makes a home Christian? Is Christianity just to be some sort of personal belief system or should Christianity affect everything we do?

Unfortunately, the statistics are not promising. Many surveys seem to indicate that the problems of the world affect the church just as much as the world. So what is that should make the Christian home different?

Well the first thing we need to see

THE CHRISTIAN HOME DEALS WITH SIN

This sounds like an absurd thing to glory in. A Christian home is full of people who sin. Well, isn’t that accepted?. No in fact it is not. In fact if you go by popular culture, we are just victims, not sinners. If you go by what’s fashionable we are emotionally disturbed , not sinners. If you go by Oprah, our problem is low self esteem, not sin. The way you diagnose the problem will lead to the solutions you come up with.

One of the chief things we need to say about the Christian home is that there are saints who occasionally sin that live there. Many times what we think of when we say "Christian home" is like some kind of TV family, idyllic picture. But in fact if it is anything like that, it’s not because of some magic , but because the family has learned how to deal with sin.

Of course this is the case. Sin is a destructive force that seeks to corrupt all of us. The difference between a Christian home and every other home, is that the Biblical home has learned to deal with the sinners that live there.

A. Christians Admit Their Sins.
There is something called the "sinners prayer." When people first become Christians, often they are taken through a prayer where they confess that they are sinners before God. Why, because that was the reason for Jesus Christ coming to earth to be a ransom for the penalty of our sins-- to die the death we should have died.

Now maybe some of us have gotten to the place where we stop confessing sins, as if we don’t have those anymore. But no, God wants us to continually be delivered from more and more sin and to learn how to overcome sin in practice.

1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Because we have a Savior who died for sins, we don’t have to be defensive. We don’t have to blame shift. We don’t have to try to cover our tracks. We can be honest knowing that we have a way out from sin. His name is Jesus Christ.

With the freedom to admit the truth, comes repentance. From repentance comes forgiveness and help from God.

B. Christians Know What To Do With Sins.
The truly Christian home differs from the non Christian home in that it uses biblical principles to successfully handle sin. The bible says

James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

A Christian home is one where they keep short accounts with each other, confessing their sins to one another and extending forgiveness. Isn't it great that we have grace! Without grace where would we be? I don't know about you but I don't just want the truth about myself. I want grace!
Jesus came full of grace and truth.

John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

I like that the grace comes first in this sentence. Praise God that we can be honest about sin because of the grace of God.

C. Christians are expected to progress out of sin.
Therefore the Christian home is where saints who sin learn how to deal with sin and overcome in Jesus name. It’s comforting to know the problem is sin. It is not illness. It is not emotional problems. It is not victimization or our past. The problem is sin. Pure and simple. We can have hope in that because of what we have just said previously, we know what to with sin. Confess and be forgiven.

1 Cor 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

This is an important scripture which gives us hope. It gives us hope because we see that we are always given a way out of temptation. And that God is in control. That means that we have the resources to face any challenge. This passage is saying there is no unique problem.

“Well if you had the wife I had. Well if you had the boss I had. Well if you had the child I had.” No let God be true and every man a liar. There is no thing really new under the sun. God can deal with it!

There is no unique situation. We all face what is common to man. And God says that we can overcome by His Word. What makes a home Christian? We know how to deal with sin!

The Lord Is My Shepherd Part 2

Yesterday we began to look at Jehovah Rohi--The Lord my Shepherd. We began to look at the character of the Shepherd and that He is good. Therefore, His desire is to bring good things into your life. Unfortunately, many people think God is desiring to send evil things into their lives. Yes God allows evil into our lives but there is a difference between allowing and being the source of, or causing.

CAUSING AND ALLOWING

Are sickness and poverty good? Some teach that sickness is good. Just because God can bring good out of your trial doesn't mean the trial itself was good or from God. Some teach that bad things can make us more humble or spiritual. They think it a blessing. They make God the source of them. But what does the Bible say?

Deut 7:15 And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee

How does God describe sickness? EVIL. God says that He does not tempt anyone with evil, so therefore He could not be the source.

But you may say "But yeah, it says at the end of the verse that God will lay them upon all that hate thee. Doesn't that make Him the source?"

Not so fast. The Word "lay" in Deuteronomy 7:15, according Strong's Concordance, comes from the Hebrew word "nathan" . According to Strong's, this word is can be used in many ways. Many words that probably should have been translated to show that God ALLOWED something instead shows Him to be the CAUSE of it.

In some cases it may mean "appoint, ascribe, assign, charge, ordain, suffer" and it even means "withdraw." Therefore, we could translate that to mean that God "will SUFFER, or appoint, or assign" the sicknesses upon their enemies. This does not however make Him the source of them.
There is a big difference between causing and allowing.

In Exodus 12, God gave instructions on how His own people would avoid this last plague, which would kill all of the firstborn. They had to put the blood of the lamb upon their doorposts. This blood was a "type" of the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus, when applied in faith, will offer us the same protection.

In Exodus 12:12-13 God seems to make Himself responsible. And He is as far as He is the one who has appointed this. But in verse 23 we see that He is not the source:

Ex 12:23 When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit (suffer) the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

The word "permit" comes from the same Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy 7:15 that is translated "lay." The Amplified Bible translates the latter part of Exodus 12:23 this way: ".....the Lord will pass over the door and will not ALLOW the destroyer to come into your houses to slay you."

So you see "lay" in Deut. 7:15 can be used in the "allowing" sense and not just the "causative."
If the Israelites hadn't applied the blood, the Destroyer would have gotten to them as well. When you see this in context you see that, many scriptures that have this sense of God causing should really be read in the sense of allowing.

God is not in the business of sending you evil things to mature you. No, He is Jehovah Rohi. He may allow things into your life, but that's only because it has been allowed because of sin---either your sin, somebody else's sin or Adam's sin.

Have you been accepting things that you thought were from God that are really evil? Trust Jehovah Rohi for good things.

The Lord My Shepherd
Another aspect of God being a good shepherd is his promise to be a leader. A shepherd is a guide. The sheep follow the voice of the shepherd.

John 10:2-4 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3 The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

What does that mean? That means it is God's will for us to hear his voice and know his direction. One of the greatest lies is that God has stopped speaking to his people in this age. But communication is one of the highest expressions of love.

God wants us to seek him for guidance.
Matt 26:39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

This is the prayer of dedication to doing God's will. Jesus was submitting his desires to God's desires.

Aren't you glad he did?

But in order to seek God's direction in life, you need to believe two things. First that he is a Good shepherd that would not lead you to harm you. Second you must believe that he wants to communicate with you. He wants to guide your personally.

One of the ways is through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He lives in you and Jesus promised that He would guide you into all truth and show you all things that God has for you

John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
In the case of seeking guidance in things that the Bible does not speak to, it is fine to say "Lord if it be thy will"

When not to pray "If it be thy will."
There are also times when we shouldn't pray "if it be thy will". Religion and tradition have taken ONE incident in the life of Jesus and tried to make it the pattern for ALL prayer. However, many people have used the "if it be thy will" statement as some sort of a lucky charm.

Believer's must realize that there is more than one way to pray. In school there is more than one type of MATH. We have geometry, algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc. All of these different types of math have different rules for solving specific problems.

Some have been taught that every prayer we make should end "if it be thy will." So we pray very humbly. "Lord heal this person if it be thy will. Lord save this person, if it be thy will. Etc." But in fact part of God's shepherding of us is that He made his will or desire known on so many things.

People are "hoping" that God will do or give them what they are asking. but they are not CONFIDENT that He will. This is a wavering person and that person cannot expect to receive anything from God.

James 1:6-8 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

However, when we pray in line with God's will for us then we have a GUARANTEE that our prayers will be answered:

1 John 5:14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him.

The confidence you receive that you have a sure answer is because of the fact that you prayed in line with the will of God. God promises that when you do this then He will hear you. If He has heard, you are guaranteed an answer.

The problem with people who always end their prayers with "if it be thy will", is that they do not take time to search the Word, to first find out what the will of God is in the area that they are praying in.

When the Bible gives no clear and definite promise concerning the thing that you are praying about, then it is essential to ask God to reveal His will to you concerning the subject. However, when there is a clear, definite promise in the Bible concerning the thing that you need or desire then you need not ask God about His will. It has already been revealed to you through His Word.

God has given to us "exceeding great and precious promises" These promises are His will for us. We don't need to ask Him, if it is His will to give us something that He has already said that He would do.

When you pray in accordance with God's promises you can end your prayer with a statement of confidence instead of one of that implies a lack of assurance.

When it comes to healing, forgiveness, victory, or any other good thing that God has specifically and clearly promised then there is no need to question God's will concerning it.

If you want to be able to pray with faith and confidence then find out what God's will is BEFORE you pray. This can be done by simply searching the Bible and finding what God has promised you. When you find His promises then take Him at His Word and act on it.
Jehovah Rohi wants to guide us by what he has already spoken and by speaking to us the things that are not covered in His Word. Do you believe it? Do you believe that God is a good shepherd?

Do you know God as "My Good Shepherd? Will you embrace Him as yours? Believe that He means to bring you good things like healing, and provision. Will you believe Him to guide you into the way you should go? God is good!

The Lord is My Shepherd

I want to share on Jehovah Rohi: The Lord is our sheperd. Immediately this reminds us of Psalm 23

Ps 23 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul.He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,for you are with me;your rod and your staff,they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.You anoint my head with oil;my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. NIV

David knew what it was to have God as his shepherd. He knew this from experience.

David himself was a shepherd. Me, I'm a city kid. I don't know anything about rural life. All I know is electric heat, Supers, and elevators. But David knew a lot about it sheep.

Apparently sheep, need constant attention. They are not very bright. They have no claws or sharp teeth to protect themselves. They are kind of defenseless. They need someone to take care of them.

William Barclay, that great New Testament scholar, says:
"The life of a shepherd was very hard. No flock ever grazed without a shepherd. And he was never far off duty. There being little grass, the sheep were bound to wander, and since there were no protecting walls, the sheep had constantly to be watched. On the other side of the narrow plateau the ground dipped sharply down into the craggy desert. And the sheep were always liable to stray away and get lost. The shepherd's task was not only constant but dangerous. For, in addition, he had to guard the flock against wild animals, especially against wolves, and there were always thieves and robbers ready to steal the sheep.
Constant vigilance, fearless courage, patient love for his flock, these were the necessary characteristics of the shepherd."

David describes God not as "a" Shepherd or even "the" Shepherd but as "my" Shepherd, which pictures the personal, intimate concern God has for every aspect of the life of His "sheep". Yes, God is the "high & exalted One Who lives forever, Whose name is Holy" but He draws near to care for His sheep.

Yes, we don't spend a lot of time with sheep these days but we need to understand how very much Jehovah Rohi loves us and cares for us. We need to get to know Jehovah Rohi--The Lord our shepherd. He's the one who cares for you. He's the one who comes after you, when you get in trouble. As a matter of fact that's what Jesus called himself.

John 10:14 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me- 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father-and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Get the "my" into your relationship with God. I love it when the men and women of the Bible make it personal. The Lord is my shepherd. Can you say that the Lord is your shepherd?

Don't ever say God doesn't care about you. How could you say that after reading...

Ps 8:3-4When I consider your heavens,the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?

David said. " as magnificent as you are. You are so magnificent. Why would you have anything to do with me?" But God revealed, "You are my most prized possession. I am your God .You are my object of my love and affection. I am the One who feeds you. I am the one that leads you to still waters and rest. I am the one that leads you through the valley of the shadow of death. Who leads you with my staff and rod."

Even though He is busy running the universe, He still has time to be your personal shepherd. Oh we have a good God!


The second thing we understand is that Jehovah Rohi is a GOOD shepherd.

As we read in Psalm 23, a good shepherd cares for the sheep. He feeds them. Leads them by still waters. Prepares a table for them. Because He is a GOOD shepherd, a good shepherd brings good things to His sheep. Unfortunately, many of us have grown up with the thought that God brings bad things to people.

So many times people because of religion and tradition, get confused about what is evil and what is good. But its The Bible, and not men’s interpretation, that's the standard for understanding what is good and what is evil

Heb 5:12-14 You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Because of a lack of Bible knowledge, many people are calling good what God says is evil and they are calling evil what God says is good. They call things blessings that God specifically said were curses and vice versa. They even thank God for evil things when they come upon them. They say this as though God were the One responsible for them.

Don't misunderstand me. I believe in praising and thanking God when I am going through trials. But I don't thank God for the trials because I don't believe that God is the One giving them to me.

James 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

Why do trials come? First of all they come for the sake of the Word in you.

Mark 4:16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.

The temptations mentioned in James are the "trying of your faith." They come to find out if faith is truly genuine.

The trials are actually designed to DESTROY your faith by stealing the Word from you.

Mark 4:15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.

Satan does not want you to have anything the Bible promises because it glorifies God when you receive and he hates that. He wants God's glory for himself and he wants to make sure that God gets no glory at all. Satan is the one who comes against your faith. Some people have a problem in believing that there is a Satan, because the world has made such a caricature of him. But yet he exists and is the one that tries to destroy faith in God. Here is what Jesus said.

Luke 22:31-32 "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

If Satan can destroy your faith then he has defeated you. It is only by faith that we overcome Therefore it is Satan who brings trials in order to "try your faith."

So why are we told to count it all joy? Because of the results of standing on God's Word in the midst of the trials. God has made His blessings available but He has never said that they would come easy. The trying of our faith produces patience and it is through faith and patience we inherit the promises

Heb 6:12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

We have to persevere in the midst of the trials. Then we will learn patience and we will be mature. We will become and receive all that God has promised us.

God is not the source of our problems.
James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

The word tempted in this passage is the same Greek word used in James 1:2 when it says consider it joy when you fall into temptations. So according to this James 1:13, the temptations that we fall into do not come from God. James goes on to tell us what God does send.

James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Here, James says that God is the source of all that is good and perfect.
Anything that is evil has its source in the EVIL ONE, who is Satan It is an insult to God to accuse Him of Satan's work. If it is evil then we must not tolerate or accept it, we must resist it

James 4:7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

The Bible is clear concerning what is good and what is evil. Unfortunately, many of us have been persuaded by religious teaching that what God says is evil is good and we therefore accept it. Yet we must make the choice whether we will believe what the Bible says or what man's traditions say.

God is a good shepherd!

Getting Back On Track

Last time, we looked at how God has a "there" for us to get to--a destiny that he calls each of us to. But the enemy brings distraction, discouragement and accusation to try to bring it to a screeching halt. He was able to do this for a season with the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, but God raised up some prophets to do warfare on behalf of the people and to stir them back to their mission.

Similarly, the church has prophets today to stir God's people to their destiny--to get people back on track, if you will. So how do we get back on track, if we are derailed?

A. Obey the Word of the Lord!
Hag 1:12 Then Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the whole remnant of the people obeyed the voice of the LORD their God and the message of the prophet Haggai, because the LORD their God had sent him. And the people feared the LORD.

Here we see that the Prophet didn't waste his breath. The people responded to the prophecy and they got back on track. When the challenge of the prophet came, they were obedient. It seems so simple and straightforward, but we need to realize that an obedient heart means a heart of faith and of humility. There was a recognition that God had sent these prophets, and the people feared the Lord. The fear of the Lord is key to the zeal with which the people obeyed the word of the Lord. Is that your attitude to God's will?

B. Know God is with You
Hag 1:13-15 Then Haggai, the Lord's messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: "I am with you," declares the LORD. 14 So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, 15 on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month in the second year of King Darius.


I love it. At the last, the prophetic word to the people was simply, "I am with you", and the spirit of the people was stirred up. Look at how they responded. That little word stirred up the spirits of the people so much that they went to the work wholeheartedly.

The same God who was with the Israelites is saying today "I Am With You, now Go!"

Let the Word of God stir up your spirit right now so you can breakthrough into the plan and into the place that God is trying to get you to! You can prophesy. You can teach. You can lay hands on the sick. You can cast out devils.

I challenge you. I provoke you . You can do it. You will make a difference. You will do something for God. You were born to make a difference. It's breakthrough time. The anointing breaks the yoke. Break the limitations. It's breakthrough time! It's time to get back on track, obey the word and get back to your destiny!


Ezra 6:14 So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, a descendant of Iddo. They finished building the temple according to the command of the God of Israel

The people continued on as they were encouraged by the prophets. Against all the odds, they finished what God had sent them to do. They persevered. Let the Word of God stir you up! Don't give up! The job of us pastors and prophets is to make sure you don't give up--to provoke you--to challenge you--to stir up your spirits until you fulfill your destiny in God. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you right now. What is your destiny? What have you given up on because of the enemy? It's time to reclaim your mission and your destiny!

Hag 2:6-9"This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7 I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the LORD Almig8 'The8'The silver is mine and the gold is mine,' declares the LORD Almighty. 9'The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,' says the LORD Almighty. 'And in this place I will grant peace,' declares the LORD Almighty."

Because of the obedience of the people to the priority of the building of the Kingdom of God, the Lord releases this prophetic encouragement. He promises them to bless them. Though formerly all there work was always in vain, now they were going to have the blessing of God. I don't know about you but I want the blessing of God.

Today I call you to get on track with the destiny of God. Today I say, "Surely Jesus is with you even to the end of the age." I declare that you are well able. I declare that God is so proud of you. God loves you so much and we as pastors love you too much to let you stay in mediocrity. I declare that accusation is broken off you. I declare that discouragement is broken off you. I declare that distraction is a thing of the past!

Father God, we praise you. This day, my Father, we come before you, we repent of small thinking. We repent of thinking that we had no part to play and that we had no purpose. Lord, we repent of giving in to discouragement, accusation and distraction and being sidelined. But God, we say that that day is over. Thank you for the destiny we are walking in. We refuse to turn back . Amen

God is Taking You "There"!

God has a "there" for you to get to.

Today I want to talk to you about getting to your destination in God. You see every believer has a place that God is trying to get them to. God is wanting every single person’s life to count for eternity. The children of Israel came out of Egypt because God had a promised land for them. The twelve apostles were picked by Jesus, not because they were going to stay at home and watch TV , but because he had a purpose for their lives--a purpose to extend the Kingdom of God. You see there is not a life that God does not want to redeem. He has redeemed you and your purpose. I don’t know what you were pursuing before you became a Christian, but I tell you what, the things I am pursuing now are not the things I used to pursue. God changed my purpose. God changed my reason. Hallelujah!

Ezra 1:1-4 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing:
2 "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
"'The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Anyone of his people among you-may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the LORD, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem.

A. Know God’s purpose
Here we see something really interesting. Israel had been in captivitiy for 70 years. They had been punished by God in Babylon and then by the Medo Persians. Jeremiah prophesied that the captivity would last this long. Now suddenly a heathen King named Cyrus issues a decree that the Jewish Temple is to be rebuilt.


Why does God turn the heart of the heathen King to rebuild the temple? It has always been God’s heart to call out a people for himself--a people that would worship the Lord. It is God's desire that His name would be lifted up and that more and more of the world would recognize Him an worship Him. And that is still his plan today.You see, just because they were in the desert 40 years, didn’t mean God changed his plan. Just because they were in Egypt 400 years didn’t mean God changed His plan. Just because they were in captivity 70 years doesn’t mean God changed his plan! He has a Kingdom advance mandate. The Kingdom is about advance! God’s purpose is to see more and more come under his influence and love. His purpose is to redeem mankind.

Before anything else is rebuilt, God wants the temple rebuilt. Similarly, Jesus said to seek first the Kingdom of God. God has a purpose in the earth. You are a part of it!


B. You are a part of this purpose!
Another amazing thing is that Cyrus said, that anyone of God's people could join in the project.

What this says to me is that God’s Kingdom purposes have always been corporate. God never plays favorites but wants all people to align with His purpose. So many of us think that only the movers and shaers have a part to play in the kingdom advance. We think that God wants to use leaders but not everybody. Not so. God has a corporate mandate for his people. He has a role for everybody to fulfill. Like they say in the theatre: "There are no small parts, only small actors"

Some of you may have thought that because you have been in captivity that God changed his plan. Maybe you haven’t gotten that job you desired. Maybe you didn’t get that relationship you desired. Some of you have been in the desert so long that you think God changed his plan. Well God wants me to tell you today that He has not changed his plan! You are part of His Kingdom plan! If you don’t know what that part is, God is going to show you if you will ask Him.

We need to get vision for our lives. Some are languishing in the body of Christ. There’s no vision--no purpose. I’m telling you this is not of God. This is a stronghold that has to be broken off of you. Man was not made to live without purpose!

Your Father is a good father. He says "son/daughter all that I have is yours. Take over my family business. I love you so much. I trust you with it. You are well able. I’m giving you a purpose. A vision. A legacy."

Do you believe that you have a part in the advance of the Kingdom?

What will try to stop you?
A. Discouragement and Distraction

In the midst of the building of the Temple something happened: the work came to a halt.
Why? What happened?
You see something happened in the process of building this temple. How many of you know that God’s purpose on the earth does not go unopposed? Anything that tries to advance the Kingdom of God will be opposed. Satan tried to have Moses killed while still an infant. He tried to kill Jesus the same way. He opposed Adam and Eve in the Garden. He opposed Jesus again in the desert.

You see opposition is no sign that you are doing the wrong thing. On the contrary it is a sign that you are probably on the right track.

Ezra 4:4-74 Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. 5 They hired counselors to work against them and frustrate their plans during the entire reign of Cyrus king of Persia and down to the reign of Darius king of Persia.
6 At the beginning of the reign of Xerxes, they lodged an accusation against the people of Judah and Jerusalem.
7 And in the days of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and the rest of his associates wrote a letter to Artaxerxes. The letter was written in Aramaic script and in the Aramaic language.

Now here we see something. The building process of the temple had come to a screeching halt! Why? Because the enemies of Israel wrote a letter to the new King of Persia and asked him to see that Jerusalem was always involved in insurrection, and in no way should the Jews be allowed to rebuild the Temple and the City. Then King Artaxerxes agreed with them and Israel was compelled to stop building for a season.

Isn't that funny, that God wasn't going to have his purposes thwarted by a new King? We have a big God. It doesn't matter how many Kings write orders to bring God's purposes down. If you fight against God, I tell you, that is a fight you are going to lose! Artaxerxes just picked the wrong horse. Pobresito (poor little guy).

But God had a couple of guys waiting in the wings. Doesn't He always? These brothers were called prophets. The prophets were God's I.M.F (Impossible Missions Force) (good movie)

Anyway, God raised up prophets in Haggai and Zechariah and they encouraged the people not to give up on God’s priority.

Hag 1:9 "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the LORD Almighty. "Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house.

I love God. He doesn't even bother to mention Artaxerxes and his letter to stop. Isn't that great. You would think that the people of Israel might have said, "Well God you have to understand , the King expressly forbid us to build. What do want us to go against the king? I mean things will get preetty hot down here . You should understand...."

God is amazing. You know, He really thinks he is God! Imagine! And that we should heed Him!

You see, this is the temptation for many of us. We believe that we know God’s purpose and are aligning ourselves with that purpose, but then we run into opposition. We run into problems and we let ourselves get sidelined. The devil is able to take us out. The little king looks bigger to us than THE KING!


B. Accusation
During ths time Zechariah had some revelation too:

Zech 3:1-2Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?"

Here we see Satan bringing accusation against the high priest who was, along with Zerubbabel, one of the chief workers in the rebuilding of the temple. Here is another tactic of Satan. You are trying to fulfill your destiny and there is the Devil making his accusations against you. He says “Who do you think you are? You are not qualified to do this?"

But Zechariah had a vision into the spiritual realm. Here is one of the benefits of prophets. They are assigned to do spiritual warfare on behalf of the church.

That is part of the role of the prophetic. The prophetic stirs people to their destiny. The prophetic puts you back on the track with God. The prophetic goes to war on behalf of the church! Let those prophetc voices stir you up today. "You can do it. Satan is a liar and God has a plan to bring you to your "there!"

What accusation--What discouragement-- What distraction is keeping you from your "there"?What is God calling you to overcome today?

Meditation- From Hope So to Know So.

Yesterday we talked about going from head faith to heart faith. In order to do that, we saw that we needed the Word of God to drop that six inches from our heads to our hearts . We really beleive in our hearts, or in our spirits. How do we get there? Revelation and Mediation. We need a revelation from God of his Word. After we get that revelation from pressing in to God, we need meditation. We have to meditate on that revelation. As you meditate on the scriptures, you think deeply what was on God's mind--onHis heart.

When we are talking about meditation, we are not talking about making your mind a blank and chanting like the false religions. We are talking about meditation on the promises of God for you specifically. Why? Because this word has to drop, like we said, from our heads to our hearts. So not only do we need revelation, we need continued meditation.

Josh 1:8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

You see, we first have to believe that God wants to speak to our spirits and guide us. But then, we have to fight the fight of faith. The fight of faith is when we need to meditate on the promises that God has made to us.

Let's go back to the example of Abraham

Gen 15:5-6 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

I love this part of the story because this happened after Abraham stumbled, but God wanted to encourage him, and once again reiterates his promise to Abraham. But not only that, he gives Abraham this assignment and that is to begin to count the stars--to look up at the stars, and as he did so, he began to contemplate the awesome plan of God. How exciting is that!

This is what meditation is. As he meditated on the promises of God , He and Sarah were transformed.

Rom 4:19-21 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead-since he was about a hundred years old-and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Abraham was fully persuaded. He didn't deny the fact that his body was good as dead. He wasn't in denial. But the promise of God was bigger than the circumstances.

If we could only get to the place where the promises of God were bigger to us than the circumstances! This is what cracks the code. This is faith. It is faith that receives from God. Faith receives the miracle.


Hope is not Faith. Hope is great, but there is a difference between faith and hope.
Hope is future oriented. Hope is something that is still out there in the future. And hope is important. But hope is not faith. Because faith is present tense oriented. Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Faith is the evidence of things not seen.

Another translation says Faith is the certainty that what we hope for will come to pass.

A lot of people substitute hope for faith. Hope will not create the good future. Faith will do the job. Faith is what gets the healing from Jesus in the New Testament--not hope.

I have seen where sometimes folks come up for healing, and after prayer, they say, "I hope I'm healed." But see, that's is not faith. Faith says, "I believe God for healing because the Bible says By his stripes I am healed--past tense."
Hope is a good waiter but a poor receiver.

What would you think if, after someone gave his life to Christ, you asked him if he was saved, and he said, "Well I hope so. " No--Jesus did all that was necessary for you to be forgiven and restored on the cross. If you put your faith in him, you are born again of the spirit. You wouldn't tell this person "hope so", you would say, "believe and receive." Well that is just how it is for any promise of God.

From Future Tense to Past Tense
So many promises in the scripture have already been bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus. We as believers have a covenant sealed by His blood. We have forgiveness, the adoption as sons , we have been made new creations. But all these things have to be appropriated by faith in order for us to walk in them. Unfortunately, many times we are waiting, like Thomas, to see it before we believe it.

Mark 11:24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

When does the believing come , before or after you receive it? Before! Sometimes people come again and again with the same request, because they are waiting for the physical evidence to believe. But the Bible says that we need to believe first, then we will have it.

We have got to get our believing right before we are going to get our receiving right. So many times I have prayed for people’s healing, and when I ask if God did something for them, people will say, "I hope so. I hope I get healed." Let’s see, "I hope I get filled with the spirit. I hope I get saved." Now all these things are promises based on our receiving them by faith. So we need to act on them.


If we want to walk by faith, the Word must be superior to everything else and anything else. So the word starts out in our minds, but as we meditate on it, it drops down into our spirits. To believe with the heart is to believe in spite of what the senses may tell you.

How do we partake of the divine nature? Through the very great and precious promises.

2 Peter 1:3- 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

Prov 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;

Most people practice this verse backwards. They trust their own understanding and lean not on their hearts.

Head faith says, "God can heal me. "Heart faith says, "I'm healed." Head faith says, "I hope God will fill me with the Holy Spirit." Heart faith says, "I know God will fill me if I ask." Head faith says, "I know God can provide for me." Heart faith says, "Thank you for providing all my needs." Will you go from head faith to heart faith today and begin to take God at his word? Stay in that place until you can say it is done.

When you begin to press in and find out the will of God for your life--generally and specifically, when you begin to meditate on His word, your head faith will turn into heart faith and you will be unstoppable. Then will you be ready to declare what God has said to your mountain.

Blessings,

From Head Faith to Heart Faith

Why is it that we can sometimes think the right things, but yet we don't get the breakthrough?

A lot of Christians become mechanical in this sense. They have a list of scriptures that they want to confess. But its like a parrot. You can train it to say "I love you" but it doesn't really love you. You are taking passages and confessing them but we are talking empty words. So the reason that many Christians don't receive is because they are saying words like a magic trick, or like a parrot, instead of really meaning those words. We need to have a revelation of the words of God to us generally, and to the specific words of God that he gives to us individually. Now that's okay as far as it goes because you have to start somewhere, but I believe that the main problem is that the Word does not go deep enough into our hearts and spirits. It just stops in our minds. I'd like to show today that there is a difference between head faith and heart faith. We get ourselves from head faith to heart faith through Revelation and Meditation.


REVELATION-- FROM THE MIND TO THE SPIRIT

You know the most incredible thing in the world is that we have a God that wants to have a relationship with us. We have a wonderful Father. When Jesus addressed God as Father, it was a revolutionary thing at the time. This revealed the goodness of God-- the fact that He wanted to have an intimate relationship with his people. The unfortunate thing is that when we try to apprehend God merely with our own intellect, or merely with the senses, we make God into a concept instead of having the life giving relationship that is His will is for us.

One facet of that destiny is that He wants to reveal things to us.

Some of us have this idea that God is too busy to be bothered with little old us. So we stand in the doorway of the Holy of Holies--never entering in to receive in our spirits. Here is the fact: we can't really apprehend spiritual truths with our minds. We apprehend the spiritual truth with our spirits.

Why is it that sometimes we don't get the breakthrough? Because we are trying to understand the promises of God with only the natural mind. Ultimately, we need to have revelation of God and His truth in our spirits.

Let’s take a closer look at Believing. Does believing simply mean to agree mentally with the Word? No, somehow the believing has to go six inches from the head to the heart.

Rom 10:9-11 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

It is with the heart that man believes. Notice it says heart --not mind. What is the heart? The heart refers to the deepest part of us. The heart of man is our spirits.

As human beings we are comprised of body, soul, and spirit.

1 Thess. 5:23 May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible declares that we are body, soul, and spirit. The soul is our personality-- our mind, emotions, and will. But it is with the spirit that we know things of the Spirit.

You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body

Many times the biblical writers use the word heart and spirit interchangeably. So when the biblical writers say "heart", we know they are not referring to the physical heart. No-- a thought is trying to be conveyed. The heart means the very core of us. The center of us. The center of man’s being is his spirit.

What part of us is reborn, when we are born again?

John 3:5-6 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

Jesus said we must be reborn of spirit. .

John 4:24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

"in spirit" means that we worship God with our spirits. You see we do not commune with God with our bodies or our minds but with our spirits.

Rom 2:29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

This passage links the expression "heart "with "spirit". .

Now again to make this distinction between mind and sprit. We can look at ....

1 Cor 14:14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.

Here the distinction is made again between our spirits and our bodies. Your spirit is not your mind. We need to get this. And your mind is not your spirit. Because when we pray in tongues we are praying with our spirits, but our mind is unfruitful because many times we don’t know exactly what we are praying.

The mind is where things start. But we have to go beyond the mind. The Word has to go the six inches from our minds to our heart or spirits.

And here is exactly where some of us miss it. If our spirit is not apprehending, if we are not believing in our hearts, are we really believing?

Will you receive what God has freely given? Because God is a spirit. He wants us to commune with him in spirit and in truth.

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The natural mind cannot understand the things of the spirit because they are only perceived by the spirit

What is the Natural Man?
The word translated natural, in the Greek is Psuchikos. Psuchikos literally means “SOULISH” from the word Psuche which is either translated SOUL or LIFE in the New Testament.

That’s the reason you can go along and hear the same verse over and over again but then all of a sudden one day it makes sense to your spirit. It just springs to life! You just got revelation in your spirit. It went from the natural mind to the spiritual mind.

That's why we need to pray that God would enlighten our spirits to His Word.

You see so many of us say, "Well I was confessing healing. But my healing never came." I said it but it didn't happen.

But here is something. You'll never get revelation unless you believe God wants to give it to you. But our God is a speaking God.

Am I saying that we can have whatever we want? No, but I am saying that we can have what we want if God has promised it to us. And we can know that God has promised us.

Let's look at a famous example of

Abraham Vs. Thomas

Rom 4:17-19 As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations." He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed-the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. 18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

God made a promise to Abraham. He promised him that he would be the father of many nations. He promised him that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars. And guess what? Abraham believed. He received a revelation of this truth in his spirit.

And in the same way, God gives us his great and precious promises. And it is by these that we partake of the divine nature.

If we have put our faith in Christ, we are the sons of Abraham. We are the children of faith. We believe therefore we speak.

But we just don't speak anything. We speak what has been revealed to us. What we have the faith for. Not everyone's faith is the same or on the same level. We don't want to get beyond ourselves and then get discouraged.

John 20:25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he (Thomas) said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

Look at the difference between Thomas and Abraham. Thomas was depending on his senses. What he could see, feel , hear and smell. Abraham believed with his heart--with his spirit in spite of the cirumstances. He beleieved the naked word fo God.

This is the difference between head faith and heart faith.
First you have to receive revelation. Insight into the mind of God. You know exactly what God is wanting to do in your life. There is no doubt about it. You know that you know. This is where we really need to press into God.

Isn't it awesome that as Christians we have been born anew in the spirit. We are temples of the Holy Spirit. Our Great Father wants to commune with us. Will you press in to Him and receive the revelation that he wants to give you for your life? Oh if we would just believe in the goodness of God and press in!

Think Right and Do Right!

We've been loooking at dealing with self pity and worry. Yesterday we said, first of all to repent , not to call self pity and worry : "thinking", and to cast our cares on the Lord. After we do that, what we need to do is to take control of our thoughts and words.

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR THOUGHTS AND YOUR WORDS

In Philippians, right after the scripture about praying about all things, it says the following.

Phil 4:8-9 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

In other words, after you have cast it to God, don’t pick it up again. Has any of you ever done that? We get up from prayer, but two minutes later we are back at it again. We have to say, "Enough, I’ve laid that at the cross in Jesus name now I am going to choose to think good things. Positive things."

Paul tells us to choose our thoughts. The same thing happened to David in Psalm 73, What got David out of his self pity and envy? Let’s look .

Ps 73:16-17 When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

David needed an attitude adjustment. He needed an adjustment in his thinking. He got it in the house of the Lord. It was too painful for him, but in the sanctuary that’s where he got an attitude adjustment. He began to understand at that time. He started remembering who his God was. That God was a holy, awesome judge. That God was a God of righteousness and justice.

He understood that feeling sorry for himself and envying the wicked was foolish.

Ps 73:18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.
19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! 20 As a dream when one awakes ,so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

The real condition of the ungodly is that they are on thin ice. The real condition is that without repentance they will be swept away. In fact, even now there is no peace. All you have to do is look at the entertainment news to hear of divorce and splits and false religions and emotional turmoil. There is no peace there. Look, when you ignore the blueprint for life, the Bible, life does not work right.

Do you understand? It is the wicked who should be envying the godly. If you are a believer, you can have true peace. The world should be envying you!

Unbelievers are finding that out: Emotional distress; drugs-trying to fill an empty void in the life. The ungodly live in a fantasy world. They are living in a dream world. A fantasy.

Ps 73:23-26 Yet I am always with you ; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

We need to start meditating on who we are in Christ. You are an overcomer not a victim. You have been adopted and accepted in the beloved. You are temple of the Holy Spirit. You are a new creation. You are the righteousness of Christ.

We should be ashamed that we find anything to envy in a lost person’s life when what awaits them is eternal destruction.

Words
David realized he had to take a hold of his tongue as well.
Ps 73:15 If I had said, "I will speak thus,"I would have betrayed your children.

David realized that his words would have had a negative effect on others. We have to stop being so selfish and realize that your pity party can hurt other people. It’s not just about you.

We need to take control not only of our thoughts but of our words. We live in an age where it is culturally acceptable to “be real” , in other words to say anything that crosses your mind to say. But the constant rehashing of problem just brings despair and self pity. If you are speaking discouragement don’t expect to experience encouragement.

Another part of the Philippians 4 says. That when we cast our cares we should do so with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an important weapon with dealing with worry or self pity. Thanksgiving has to do with taking control of your words. You see here is the struggle for many of us. We cast our cares on the Lord, but then we can either thank him for the answer or we can pick it up again. Your thanksgiving is evidence that you've really cast it on God. --and you are keeping it there.

Some people don’t pray with thanksgiving. They don’t close their prayers by giving thanks. They close their prayers by sighing. Or by moaning. Or they jump to the next topic. You are already undermining the prayers that you just prayed when you do that! We need to give thanks to God before the answer is materialized.

Thanksgiving builds faith. Anxiety destroys faith.

ACT ON THE WORD-- STOP THINKING AND START DOING
The very next thing is get about busying yourself with present responsibilities.
What do I mean by that. I mean after you pray, you stand on the word and give thanks. Then get busy. The worst thing you can do is just sit there and think again. Get busy with the next thing. That will preoccupy you with obedience and won’t give you the chance to slip back into negative thinking.

For instance, Susan had not seen her father for a long while after a bitter divorce. She found herself just sitting for hours just feeling sorry for herself and depressed.
She was counseled to think about it for two timed minutes but (because she can’t allow herself to become immobilized by self pity) she is to pray to God leaving the whole matter in his hands with thanksgiving. Then turn to a present chore or responsibility and put your energies into it.
She got the breakthrough.

After we pray and thank God, we have to stop navel gazing, stop analyzing, get up and do what needs to be done. Do something. Do something. Do something. Just thinking, well mess you up again.

Ps 73:28 But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

Praise God you have a purpose. David realized his purpose when he came to himself. Your purpose is to declare the glory of God--to go into all the world and represent God. You gotta take yourself by the hair drag yourself to mirror and say "You are going to stop that pity party. You are a child of God and You have a purpose in life and that