Word of Christ
September 9, 2020
Word of Christ
Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
How wonderful to know and daily experience the living Word of Christ. It is no longer the dead letter of liturgy written on the pages of the book, but it is the living dynamic of Christ in us, the Holy Spirit having expression through us as He lives in us tooling and fashioning us in the image of His likeness. The Word of God is like the wood or the coal we place within the furnace of our spirit. The Holy Spirit is the catalyst that transforms that written word into the living Word, which is alive, relevant and personal to us. The wonderful thing is that as He is working that in each one of us, we are in turn using that revelation truth and experience to encourage one another. The Word says we are to take the wisdom that the Holy Spirit is teaching us and share it with our brothers and sisters to help them to grow and encourage their faith. This scripture encourages us that even our expression of worship and song is a form of building up the body even while we magnify the Christ that provides all for us. The songs, the hymns and spiritual songs are means of communication and expression that invite the Lord’s presence into our midst. As we are recounting to the Lord His great and wondrous acts it is magnifying Him, while it is building greater faith and confidence in our hearts toward Him.
This is the richness and value of the body of Christ. None of us are complete in ourselves. If we were there would be no need for fellowship and relationship with one another. We could just simply go off by ourselves with God and be complete, but individuality does not a body of make. We are all pieces of the puzzle that make the whole. We are a living dynamic organism, not organization, that makes up a living functioning body wherein each member is built up and edified in serving the other. Our increase is in our giving. Without our giving out of that which God has placed in us we become stagnant pools of water. That is the place where disease can culture and grow. We need exchange; we need to give out even the little things that God is working in us to others. God is giving each one of us a part. As we give our part and receive the other’s parts we are made complete and built up in the most holy faith.
My tendency is to try and be self-sufficient, but in doing so I can rob myself of the blessing God has for me through the lives of others. The Lord is encouraging us to embrace the body today, to love and share with one another our gifts and strengths in Christ. Even the least of us has something of importance that the rest of us need. No, God didn’t leave any of us out. If you don’t know what it is that Christ has placed in you, ask Him to show you. It is in blessing one another that we are blessed and built up in the unity of the faith in Christ Jesus.
Blessings,
#kent
You shall not Die, but Live
August 20, 2020
Psalms 118:17-18
I will not die but live and will proclaim what the LORD has done.
The LORD has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.
You shall not Die, but Live
“Has fear and doubt come against your mind? Has your faith been sorely tried? Reach out your hand from whence cometh your help. It is Jesus, for you He has died. Rise and be healed in the name of Jesus. Let faith arise in your heart. Reach out your hand from whence cometh your help. It is Jesus, for you He has died.”
I was just impressed that the Lord was bringing this song up in my heart as I began this writing. There are those of you who need this word this morning, because it is the Word of the Lord for you. If you need it, take hold of it with all faith and don’t let go.
Oh, the Spirit of the Lord has heard your cry as you have faithfully cleaved to Him. He knows your every need and He is your healing and your answer today. Take hold of Him, nothing wavering. Set your face as flint upon the promises of His Word and refuse to be moved, ‘for has the Lord spoken and will He not make it good?’ “God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent.” Ephesians 5:30 says, ” For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” “The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. (Romans 8)”
You are no longer identified with this man of the flesh, even though you can be touched by its infirmities and weaknesses. “You are more than a conqueror through Christ who loved you and gave Himself for you. (Romans 8)” 1 Peter 2:24 declares to us, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” We, who are in Christ, already possess our healing, it has already been done for us in Christ. The fact that we are afflicted doesn’t negate the truth that we are healed. Healing is not something we have to get. It is what we already have. When the circumstances of this natural realm presume to rob that from us then we have to stand in truth and declare the truth of God’s Word over our circumstance and affliction. We are not of this world, even though our natural man is still subject to it. We are kingdom people “who worship God in the spirit and put no confidence in the flesh.” As God’s children who set at the right hand of the father in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6), we have been raised up to declare and to live out God’s kingdom on earth. “His kingdom come and His will be done, in earth as it is in heaven.” We live our lives not out of the life of this natural man, but out of the Spirit of God. We are identified and one with a risen Savior, Christ and Lord; bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. God has declared life into us by the power of His Son and the manifestation of His Spirit.
We declare the Word of the Lord today over all sickness and death that is at work in God’s people. Declare this scripture in Psalms 118:17, “I will not die but live and will proclaim what the LORD has done.” Do it out loud and with all authority. The Lord is touching you even as you read this, believe and declare His Word. You shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord. Remember Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” Align your heart, your faith and your declaration with the Word of God. Stand believing and proclaiming what He has said. Don’t look at your symptoms as the proof of your healing, keep your eyes only upon His Word. Truth is greater than all the facts of the world. They that stand in it, will be vindicated by it. Rise and be healed in the name of Jesus!
This is the Word of the Lord to you who are sick or enduring the trials of affliction today.
Blessings,
#kent
The Word Hidden in Your Heart
August 6, 2020
Psalm 119:11
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
The Word Hidden in Your Heart
That which we store up and which we meditate upon continually, becomes the foundation of our thoughts, our values and our way of living. Even in those times when we stray, lose our way, are assaulted with trials, tribulations and temptations, it is the foundation of our heart that draws us back to our roots. Why do we need to hide God’s Word within our hearts, because it ties us and binds us to Him. It intertwines His values with our thoughts. It gives us compass and direction when we are not sure where to go or what to do. That Word in us, we want to be like a well-sharpened sword sheathed in the recesses and the presence of our minds. It is what we pull out when temptation and the enemy come against us. It is what checks us when the passions of our flesh are drawing us into their web of seductiveness. It is what gives us a greater wisdom and insight than does the conventional wisdom of this world. The Word of God is the most powerful weapon that God has given us. Because it His will and His mind and His authority. It is what we stand upon when all odds and natural reasoning stands against us. It is what we hope in, rely upon and what reveals to us our purpose and importance in God’s plan for our lives. When we clothe and armor ourselves in the knowledge and revelation of God’s Word then we can have the inner strength to walk and to abide in the Spirit of God. Our focus and eye is set upon our destiny in Christ and everything else becomes secondary to that purpose.
When Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness where He fasted for forty days and nights, it was the Word that sustained Him, because the Word is life. It was the Word that He gave back to satan when He was tempted. It was the Word that kept satan from finding anything in Jesus that he could use against Him. Christ is the Word and Christ abides within us, so His Word must abide within us. Out of the Word we flow in the Spirit of God in obedience and humility. Eat and drink a steady diet of God’s Word, for in it He will establish and keep you. When the written word is taken from you then all that you have is what you have stored in your heart. It is the oil that will light your lamp in the day of His coming. Hide the richness of that Word within your heart.
Blessings,
#kent
Random Order
July 29, 2020
Random Order
Psalms 119:133
Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
God does not operate out of chance. He does not spin a wheel and wherever the ball lands that’s the direction He goes. Our God is a magnificent God of design and order. He has a plan and He knows the beginning to the end. Your life and mine aren’t a chance happening, they are ordered of the Lord. He has put within each one of us a destiny and a purpose for our being.
Someone may be thinking, “You don’t know my life, what I have been through or what a mess I am.” God does and He is able to take what the enemy has meant for evil and destruction and turn it around to be a stronghold for His glory and praise. He is able to lift you up out of the death and darkness you have been in and set your feet in the way of light and truth. He is able to take our weakness and turn them into the strongest areas of righteousness and victory in our lives. God has a destiny, plan and purpose for your life, but the only way you will fully realize it is as you allow Him to order your steps according to His Word. God has a divine and fulfilling plan for each of us, but we don’t have to follow it. It is sin and rebellion that have caused us to miss it and that is why many of us are in the misery we are in.
As we look back over our lives, what do we see? Are we satisfied and content with the results? Do you feel you have lived your life to the fullness of God’s will and design for you. We must come to the place that we realize our greatest joy, happiness and fulfillment doesn’t come out pursuing our own pleasures and desires, it will only be realized in the unity with God’s will and order for your life. As I look back over my own life and the times I have walked close to God and the times I haven’t, I can see that my greatest joy, blessing and fulfillment are the times when I am passionately pursuing Him and seeking the fullness of His will for my life. Our Father didn’t give us His Word and commandments to imprison us and make us miserable. He gave them to set us free to be the children of righteousness and holiness that could enjoy the riches of all that He has for us. It is our own sin and rebellion that prevent, inhibit and imprison us from enjoying the full blessings and promises that God has given us.
Our God is a God of divine and precise order. We can look all around our universe and see the evidence of that in all of creation. Only the fool could truly say the world and all its wonders were created by mere chance, how absurd. An atheist has to have more faith to believe that, than a believer does to believe in God. All of creation is a testimony to the wonder, greatness and order of God. We have to realize that so much of our thinking, values and beliefs have been the persuasion of a lie. All the chaos, disorder, anarchy, rebellion and discord in the world is the result of the devil’s influence on the minds and hearts of men. We at war with terrorism today because men bought the lies of satan and in the name of religion and their god they terrorize by killing, wounding and maiming innocent men, women and children. That certainly has no connection with the God I know.
If our steps are ordered of the Lord then He will not allow iniquity to have dominion over you. In fact, in Christ, He has already empowered you to have victory and dominion over sin and iniquity. He is our righteousness and we stand complete Him today because of Jesus. Jesus did it all. He has issued us all the equipment we need to go out, conquer and prevail. All we have to do is, in faith, put it on and use it according the operations manual of the Word of God, your Bible. If we are living in defeat, oppression and failure in our lives, then we are like a homeless person using hundred dollar bills to stuff the bag he is sleeping on. God has given us the resources, but we must rise up in the authority of His Word and the name of Jesus Christ and use them.
We cannot live our lives by random order and expect the fullness of God’s best in our lives. It will be a hit and miss proposition. As we live methodically and purposefully in the principles of God’s Word then we will reap the benefits of His promises and provisions. If you want victory, joy and fulfillment in your life then order your steps in the Lord and in His Word.
Blessings,
#kent
Robbed of Our Blessing
November 13, 2015
Haggai 2:10-14
On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Haggai: 11 “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’ ”
The priests answered, “No.”
13 Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?”
“Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”
14 Then Haggai said, ” ‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the LORD. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.
Robbed of Our Blessing
This is a day when the Lord desires to lay the spiritual foundations of His Temple again. What the Lord speaks to Haggai here He is speaking to us. In the analogy that Haggai brings forth, if a priest carried meat that had been sanctified and consecrated to the Lord in their pocket or the fold of the garment and touched another substance of food it didn’t automatically sanctify and consecrate that food. On the other hand if someone had handled or touched a dead body that defilement was transferred to all that he touched. The Lord says this people, His people, have been like those who have touched the dead body and so what ever they offer becomes defiled.
Are we wondering why we aren’t blessed, coming up short in our finances and experiencing so many struggles that we may not need too? The Lord says it is because we are defiled in our giving and our living.
We have talked about how the body of the old man is dead and crucified with Christ and we are a new creation in Christ, but when we fail to lay hold and live out of this reality and truth we are in affect touching the dead body. We are living out of corrupted fleshly thinking and attitudes. Thus what we touch becomes defiled because it is not the mind of Christ we are operating out of, it is the mind of the flesh, the old man, that which is supposed to be dead.
If God is to bless the works of our hands they have to be the works of His Spirit through us and not our fleshly efforts any more. When we lay the foundations of the Lord’s house, it is a spiritual house not built with human efforts and thinking, but directed and ordered by the Spirit.
We all want the God’s blessing and favor to rest upon us and it is in God’s heart to want to bless and increase us, but there are things we need to get rid of and the primary one is the mentality of this old dead man. We speak often concerning our identification with Christ because His is the life and the mind that we are being renewed and brought forth in day by day as we walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Romans 8:5-10 says, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” It is easy to see from this scripture how much we may still be living out of that old man and nature mentality. The Lord says that this is a defilement and pollution of the life He wants to live through us and the works that He wants to accomplish with our hands. We must begin to truly put on the mind of Christ and view our world through God’s eyes and perspective. In doing so we will be blessed. It is imperative that we identify the thinking that is filled with doubt, fear and unbelief and turn that around to agree and line up with the Word of God. Anything less is sin. Allow Christ to be at the forefront of your motives, your intentions, your will and your purpose. Filter your world and all that you are dealing with through Him. Ask Him and trust Him for wisdom and direction in all of your ways. We are a people that are putting away that which is dead and walking in the consecrated and sanctified life that we carry within us. Walk in the Spirit, build the Lord’s house and live in His blessing. If you will come and build the Lord’s house by the Spirit, He will build yours.
Blessings,
#kent
I am what it says I am, I can do what it says I can do!
November 6, 2015
I am what it says I am, I can do what it says I can do!
Joshua 1:6-9
“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 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. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
The word and promise that the Lord gave Joshua so many years ago is as applicable today for us as it was for Him. The greatest limitations we have are our failure to see and believe God. “All things are possible to him that believes (Mark 9:23).” If we can see it, it is possible.
James 4:1-3 says, “1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” What we need is a heart, mind and soul that are in alignment and purpose with Him to whom we belong. In order for us to have good success we have to come out from under the darkness and lies that rob us of the truth and into all of the richness heaven holds for us. We are still conformed to the world in many ways of our thinking and reasoning. Our perspective is not often one of praying from the mind of the Spirit and the Word of God. Aren’t most of us caught up in our agendas rather than the Father’s? We are living this life, so we still need things to work our way; that is often the perspective from which we pray.
God is going to take us through battles, trials and testings to possess our land. We can not do it if our reliance is upon the natural man. That is why we meditate upon the Word day and night, so that we may have the mind of Christ. That is why the Word of God must not depart from our mouth, because it is our authority of truth that dispels the lies and darkness of the enemy. The spoken Word of God in our mouths drives the stakes and establishes the boundaries of our faith. Satan can not dwell in light, so light must flood our souls to dispel the deceitfulness of sin. We have the spiritual armory of God’s Word and its application to defeat our foes. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 tells us, “3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
God has told us, as He told Joshua, that there are great and mighty things that we are to do. There are enemies to conquer and victories to be won. There is a land to possess and promises that need fulfillment. 2 Peter 1: 2-4 makes this bold proclamation, “3His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4Through 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.” Our God is calling us to be a people of divine nature. We are after the image of our Father; we are called to be the sons of God, a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Yet, we ignorantly and constantly cling to the attributes and thinking of this lower nature. It isn’t because God hasn’t provided the means for us or that Christ didn’t die to make it a reality. It is we ourselves, that fail to grasp the vision, the faith and make the commitment to possess the impossible through the power of God that makes all things possible to him that believes. Everything in my life has to come into alignment with God’s Word so that the higher principles and laws of the Kingdom of God may take affect in this natural realm. Your are what the Word of God says you are and you can do what the Word of God says you can do. Do we really believe that and will we fully act upon it?
Blessings,
#kent
Living Out of the Unseen
October 29, 2015
2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Living Out of the Unseen
Natural eyes, physical sounds, human reasoning, life circumstances, what others tell us, five senses, human conditions, perceptions, surroundings and our understanding all feed into what we perceive as real. In the moment and with all that processes through our being, that may be what seems real and factual. As believers, the word teaches us that there is a realm beyond just human natural perception. This realm is not ruled and governed by the same principles that govern our earthly realm. This realm is not dictated by earthly facts or circumstances. This is a realm that God wants us to more and more operate out of, because it is the realm of the kingdom of God and its principles are truth. Its government and dictates are spelled out in the Word of God. It supercedes that which is natural, for what we currently perceive and understand as reality is passing away. It is temporal, but that which now unseen will take its place for it is the eternal.
Currently, we see in part the invisible realm invading the natural realm, but until it has ran its course in fullness of Father’s time, we will not experience the fullness of the currently unseen realm made manifest. 1 Corinthians 15:50 tells us, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” In this present corruptible world we can not inherit the fullness of that kingdom which is incorruptible until death is swallowed up with life. This is currently taking place in measure even now as Christ comes forth in us and we live out of His life. His life is swallowing up the death in us.
Before the apostle Paul says this he gives us understanding of the state that we have been in and that which we are moving into. “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.” Now while we may see Jesus as the last and only Adam to presently demonstrate the fullness and likeness of the man of heaven, the Word of God and the message of Christ reorients the mind of the believer to not just be operating out of this earthly realm. Ephesians 2:6 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 3:1-4 declares, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
In light of these scriptures we can see how our spiritual position has changed as we have died to the old Adam and are raised up in the last Adam. In that spiritual identification we see that God has positioned us in heavenly places and in that unseen realm that is eternal. From that position, what does He tell us to do? ” Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” While our physical perspective and position hasn’t changed, our spiritual position has. Now you tell me, which one does God want us to live out of?
Romans 8:5-11 teaches us this, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” You can see where we run into conflict; we find ourselves in two different states, but in Christ we have made a declaration and a statement of faith to disenfranchise and disown our former natural man even while we still abide in this earthen vessel and have put on Christ and identification with His eternal life. That is the position we are to operate our physical lives out of. Even though we don’t see the fullness of that yet manifest we are as Romans 8:22-25 states, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
In that patient hope we aren’t focused on the temporal, corruptible and that which is passing away, but we are embracing the eternal as we declare and decree by faith the Word of God and its promises. It is out of these kingdom principles we now live, move and have our being as we walk by the Spirit and live no longer according to the dictates of the flesh. We are a new creation being made conformable in the likeness of Him who has translated us from darkness into His marvelous light, from death into His incorruptible life.
Blessings,
#kent
Attitude
September 28, 2015
Philippians 2:5
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus
Attitude
Our attitude, the condition and state of your mind, can be our greatest attribute and strength or our greatest detriment and weakness. Our attitude is one of the most important things that we possess and can have control over. Far too often we allow circumstances and feelings to dictate our attitude. We allow our attitude to be a thermometer, indicating the temperature of our life at any given moment, instead of a thermostat where we set the temperature we want to maintain regardless of the circumstances and feelings in our life. Our attitude, our state of mind, more than perhaps any other thing, determines our success and our failure in life and in relationships. We tend to attract what our attitude is conveying. If we are in a foul mood and our attitude is ugly and cantankerous, then we aren’t going to tend to attract a lot of smiling faces and sweet dispositions toward us. We tend produce strife and negative responses from others. On the other hand if we are bright, cheery, full of a positive and bright outlook on life, that tends to draw that response out of those we are around and it may serve to inspire them to a more positive outlook and attitude.
Our attitude is largely governed by the state of our mind. We all have days and times in our lives when everything coming at us is negative and bad news. If our attitude is a thermometer we will respond to that with a mental attitude that is defeated and depressed. If we are the thermostats we will set the temperature of our heart and attitude by the Word of God.
David was a good example of a man that had learned how to choose his attitude rather than letting his attitude choose him. In Psalms 42:5 David cries out, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and [why] art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him [for] the help of his countenance.” Psalm 35:9-10 says, “And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD: it shall rejoice in his salvation. All my bones shall say, LORD, who [is] like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him? Psalms 62:5 says, “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation [is] from him.” All through the Psalms David speaks often of those that pursued his life unto death. He struggled with fear, despair, disappointment, failure and rejection. So many times he had to give himself attitude adjustments and remind himself of whom His God was rather than what the circumstances indicated. Right and positive attitudes don’t just always happen. The sun usually isn’t shining upon our life everyday and some of us are going through some pretty dark valleys and deep pits. Isn’t it wonderful that God gave us men like David that could show us how to sit ourselves down and talk to the attitude of our soul from the Spirit man within us. If everything was turning up roses why would we need faith? We need faith to trust God for the things that we cannot see and feel. It is faith that can rectify our negative and wrong attitudes. It is faith that can cause us to hope in our salvation and deliverance that only comes from the Lord.
If there is one thing that determines the direction, the success or failure of a man’s life, attitude is the key factor. While two men may meet with the same defeat or failure, one will give up and say, “It can’t be done, I am just a failure,” and the other will say, “I will not be denied, I will find a way to overcome.” Attitude, more than aptitude or ability determines our success or failure in life. This is why it is so imperative that we seek to put on the mind of Christ. It is that attitude that was in Him that changed the world and the lives of so many. It changed us and we want it to continue changing us as we meet the challenges we face every day of our lives.
It is time for you to rule and set your attitude by the Spirit of Christ within you. Don’t allow your circumstances and feelings to dictate what your attitude will be. It is time for our soul to subject it’s self to our spirit. God’s has called us to overcome and to be more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. We shall be what He has called us to be by the strength and power of His life in us. Have this mind and attitude in you that was also in Christ Jesus.
Blessings,
#kent
The Rains are Coming!
August 26, 2015
Joel 2:21-24 (The Message translation)
Fear not, Earth! Be glad and celebrate! God has done great things. Fear not, wild animals! The fields and meadows are greening up. The trees are bearing fruit again: a bumper crop of fig trees and vines! Children of Zion, celebrate! Be glad in your God. He’s giving you a teacher to train you how to live right—Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words to refresh and nourish your soul, just as he used to do. And plenty of food for your body—silos full of grain, casks of wine and barrels of olive oil.
The Rains are Coming!
As I was asking the Lord about what to write this morning, I heard in my Spirit, “Tell my people the rains are coming.” He then reminded me of the rains spoken of in Joel 2:23. King James reads, “Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.” Just as the rains of heaven rejuvenate and give the life giving fluids to grow the crops, so the Spirit anointed teaching of God’s Word will come like rain to cause His people to come forth in spiritual fruitfulness. We have all set under much teaching and even good instruction, but this teaching and Word of God will be life changing and spirit transforming. It will come with the demonstration of such power and life that it will be a well of restoration, breakthrough and freedom. This rain comes after a time of great darkness upon the earth. It comes after a time where the people of God have entered into fasting and praying, of rending their hearts and not just their garments. It comes as we fully return to the Lord and bring the acceptable sacrifices of a broken and contrite heart.
When this rain breaks forth it will be like none you have seen before. It will be the former and the latter rain together, a double portion blessing upon the people of God. The rains are necessary both for preparing the soil to plant and also for bringing the harvest to fruition. These rains are for the bringing forth of a great harvest in the earth and also for the fruition of that which has already been planted. The rest of the passage of Joel 2 goes on to read, “24And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. 25And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. 26And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. 27And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed. 28And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
29And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
30And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
31The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come. 32And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.”
There is a season for every purpose under heaven. There is a season for tearing down and destruction, but that preceeds the season of restoration, blessing and life. Let us prepare our hearts in the manner that God has prescribed, seeking Him in fasting, repentance and prayer. For surely He will answer us and bring the showers of His blessing and life.
Blessings,
#kent
tricklesoftruth 