Arm and Press

Sean, an undeserving servant of the Lord, I bid you…

Grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ our Savior and Light of the world and of our hearts and minds and lives if we keep our eyes clear of the distraction of this world to focus on him.

I wake from a deep, painful sleep – rested in the joy of the Lord renewed and revived to continue his work. His work is not to be taken lightly either. Some have said if you wish to serve God, just go and do. But would you rush into war in Iraq or Afghanistan without boot camp?

Not even the legitimate governments of the world allow such a thing. Not even terrorist groups anymore! What makes us so careless about the warfare of life? Remember the wars of the world begin in spiritual places and we are on the frontlines of that warfare.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:7 – “You are looking only on the surface of things.” Just before that he said, the weapons of our warfare are (carnal) not of this world. But they are mighty through God – have divine power.

The King James puts it this way; “Casting down imaginations… ” 2 Corinthians 10:4 - meaning we fight in places unseen to the natural eye and Paul goes into detail, “… and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” Thoughts! Meaning our warfare is for the minds and hearts and souls of humanity. And who do we know we will find in those places?

The enemy of God who has faced him long before we were created! In fact, it is that enemy who was here already waiting for us thinking this was his to rule, and was ready immediately to face the creation God made in God’s own image. But we were not ready; instead we fell into the enemy’s trap becoming subjects of his in his world!

However, God in his infinite love for his “better” creation, made a way to pluck us out of the grasps of that enemy but it cost him his Son. So now we have salvation from the enemy and are no longer his to rule but we still live in his world among others who have not been freed from his clutches.
So what now, is victory now won so we can become complacent? How arrogant we can be in our zeal. If winning us cost the Father his Son, what will it cost us who were called after and because of his Son?

This is why Paul wrote; “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:11, 12

You ever wonder why it is when you pray and minister to others then either face difficulties or grow heavy in the spirit. This is the nature of our warfare. We are not greater than our Master. If he suffered being fully prepared we must know we will suffer as well, if we are well prepared!

But woe to us if we go and are not to the best our present abilities prepared! Put simply, we can and will be crushed under the weight of the call! But to combat this; Christ through Paul gave us a clear way to be ready. We are to put on the armor of God, which simply means be prepared in:

Truth, (which comes about by always speaking the truth in love and not given to speaking, or listening to or the spreading of lies or gossip)

Righteousness, (living a life in the spirit not given to the ways of the world or flesh in – idolatry, lust, selfishness, spitefulness, cursing, hate, envy… instead being loving, caring, giving, gentle, forgiving, full of peace, meekness… )

Gospel of peace, (being ready to go – being supported by the confirmation of fellows in the gathering and the sharing of trials and testimonies)

Faith, (continue to press on in our belief – by simply leaving it to God – taking our hands off the wheel and not putting them on again)

Helmet of Salvation – (having the mind redesigned and made up - to know we now belong to an everlasting Lord who will never leave us nor forget us – and remembering we are sealed for him, to reign with him, forever, if we stand)

Sword of the Spirit – The word of God! (If we don’t know we can’t go. To be fully prepared in the word, by reading, and studying with the Spirit of God. Cross referencing, reading many versions NAS, NIV, NLT, KJV, Amplified, Greek translations, Aramaic [Peshitta], Hebrew texts, etc. and not being afraid to question what we read. Questions, lead to answers and those answers build preparation for those we would face that would use their cunning to trip us up.)

Prayer, “… And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Ephesians 6:18

What a great preparation proving ground we have in WORLDPRAYR. Here we come with readiness, even if not completely prepared for all battles outside of prayer and exercise our spiritual muscles. In this we are fully obedient to God and our call.

But we should never forget not forsake to every day, be prepared by going through our daily routine of readiness and being fully armed. For again, before wars take place in the physical world they begin in the spiritual places, in the minds and hearts of men. That’s where we are, and where we are called to fight.

We must pray for our leaders small and great, our neighbors friendly or otherwise, our neighborhoods and towns and cities and states and regions and nations and countries.

But most of all and dare I say before - and - after all - PRAY FOR FELLOWS, BROTHERS AND SISTER IN CHRIST! “With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” Ephesians 6:18.

In praying for one another we help lift the heaviness and the attacks of the enemy that come to saints who are praying for others and are at work in the mission fields of God. They/we need our aide foremost! If we are crushed the work ends. We know God will not let that happen on global scale until he is ready, but our overall effectiveness will wane, until it is choked off. This is our individual responsibility.

Let us therefore not be arrogant and think one: we can just go. This is a real war! It’s “The” real war.! It all happens in the realms we live in before it happens in the physical world. And this war like all wars needs real soldiers. The better trained military will be victorious. The enemy has worked hard to train his. They fight well without knowing how used they are and how strong they are at it.

And two: let us not think we can go ‘un’ – or half prepared, this is folly and will bring more stress in our lives, and may even damage our faith overall and may even crush our very lives. This is why we must press on. We have been plucked from the Matrix to use a popular movie analogy. And there is no way back in.

We belong to Christ, so let us do his will as soldiers drafted, but we do not grumble as drafted soldiers do, for our draft is a calling, the highest calling one can be called to by GOD. We have been adopted and given eternal life with Love himself. So learn, be prepared and fight the holy and good fight!

Be blessed in the Lord my fellows. With love and peace toward you all I wish you the best of days in the battle of life.

REVIVAL IN AMERICA -

Comment to Chris, Fellow Tweeter and Brother In the Lord, Thirsting for Revival

I actually wrote you before but this new mouse I have is so fast it clicked on "sign out," right in the middle of my comment. That's the earthly explanation, but since the topic was revival I see the explanation being much more spiritual.

To continue however, great post by the way. Here's what I was struck by.

First off you spoke of NW America, the most lush land we have, never ever lacking in rainfall. But you also spoke of spiritual drought and a “dry place.”

As you may remember I have been praying for revival for sometime, and for reasons only now clear I was praying for a joining of many Churches to act as one Church of the area directly proceeding and during the ensuing fire of revival.

Now I live in the Mojave Desert. Today it will get up to about 110 degrees or 43.3 C degrees with a sky full of sun. We do not get much rain, but when we do it comes with violence; wind with gust sometimes upwards of 30, 60, 90, and in some rare cases, a 100 miles per hour and is often accompanied by ground shaking thunder and wickedly bright and powerful lightening.

These torrents can bring flash floods that sweep cars and trucks away. I myself was caught in one such deluge in 2003, but by God's grace escaped with my car barely getting out of a flash flooded intersection at Rainbow and Gowan that minutes later entrapped a rescue fire engine.

Recently, my Pastor announced that we and other "small" churches were joining together to become a central network of churches that could be described in truth as one Church with many campuses!

He said this was placed on his heart to do so and so, it is already happening! This it would seem to be the outward fruits of my and I’m sure others’ secret prayer. This is the pre-requisite I believe for a tremendous out-pouring of fire from the Holy Ghost. So that souls can just walk in any one - and be part of the whole.

Friend, it would appear, that God intends this outpouring to stick. So order is being set up to handle the souls that will be coming.

For revival to happen here first, is significant, for this is Las Vegas it could not stay a hidden thing and would be a significant blow to the enemy’s pride of having a town named for his affliction on mankind in America. My Pastor envisions "Sin City" becoming "Grace City."

Unbeknownst to me, he has been like a man who has not seen a cool drink of water in years; he thirsts for this, I now see. But this is the power of prayer, which I and others will continue to do. Thank you for your post. It blesses me greatly.

Now realize if revival is to come from the NW first, sobeit! Just please O LORD Jesus let it come!

But again your own words lead me to a slightly different conclusion. (I see a very dry place where the wind suddenly starts to blow. Very little at first, but it builds and builds until it’s a storm force wind bringing the fresh rain of revival – not as a spring shower but as a mighty torrent. And with revival is coming the very presence of the Lord God Almighty and no man shall stand in that presence. You shall not cry out for healing – it will just happen. You shall not pray for the unsaved – they shall walk in off the street – convicted of their sin before they know what is happening. You shall not ask for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit – it will happen to anyone and everyone.) Your words describe in this town and its weather patterns and potential almost perfectly.


You brother, IHS


Sean S.

ANGER

After our last topic (Lust by 2ND Look), I thought it would be nice to lighten things up a bit and discuss ANGER. [Due to the graphic nature of the former topic I took it down. If you would like a copy I can email it to you. Just DM me @HisFriendlyWay w/your address]

Be angry, but don't sin...

In walking the spiritual way you could say: yes, we must. But in reality the balancing act of anger and sin is quite an act of dance in art.

The words of Paul in Ephesians 4:26 "In your anger do not sin : Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.." True, but just how for some is the difference between winning the day for Christ, and losing moments of life for themselves, their families, friends and co-workers. For some if the balance tips in favor of their anger into sin, they can lose everything! So this blog is dedicated to those who fight the good fight against ANGER.
First we must define ANGER in spiritual terms. Now anger does not come from the devil. If it did, it would be impossible for it to be any good at all. And the word clearly states, in today's parlance, to "get angry..." Now Paul would say go ahead do this if it were a sin.

But beyond Paul we have a greater example. Our Father, gets angry. Zechariah 1:2 "The LORD was very angry with your forefathers." Deuteronomy 1:37 Because of you the LORD became angry with me also and said, "You shall not enter it, either." Numbers 32:10 "The LORD's anger was aroused that day..."

But the very first time the words "anger' or 'angry" appear in the word, is with Cain. Genesis 4:5 "... So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast." In this first story of anger that turns into the first murder, it almost seems like God is picking a fight with Cain. But was he?

In the first part of the story, Cain and his younger brother Abel offer God their offerings. God was pleased and looked on favor with Abel's offering, but Cain's he did not. Now this act of "favor" angered the older brother. God saw this asking Cain, why?
Now, the answer as we can read it, was simple. While Cain gave God his first fruits, he didn't give him his "choice" fruits. Abel gave God his first fruits, but in giving he gave God his "choice" fruits. The best of his crops, the cream, that which rises to the top, the fat-portion of his best crops.

But in his anger, instead of understanding and learning how God wants things to be offered to him, Cain held only onto the rage from hurt and loss of pride. This led to murder. Cain's anger became sin.

Before the murder though God told Cain; Genesis 4:7 "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

And later God's point is revealed. Sin was crouching at Cain's door, and it did desire to have him. But God also told Cain that he must "master it."

But what happened? Through pain, hurt, pride, his anger boiled, until it blew. And Cain committed the first murder, and the first lie as well.
This is the cycle of ANGER boiled over. Destruction, lies, and shame. You know full well how you feel after you've acted out of the flesh. How it pains you. You've hurt someone.

But ANGER for some is addictive because the need it feeds is in some cases, greater than the punishment it deals. Until sin, the devil, has you right where he wants you. This is where MASTERING ANGER is so critical. The word says, resist the devil and he will flee. Resist, MASTER your feelings.

This is how you can break free.

Before the steps, know that anger before it becomes sin is righteous, i.e. Jesus turning over the money tables in the temple. Anger, is a defensive mechanism against injustice, danger, evil, and harm. But remember Satan is not a creator he is a deceiver.

God creates and Satan attempts to rob the good God made and pervert it, for the purpose of taking it away from God. Do not be fooled! Satan wanted God's Throne! He wanted to be "like the Most High." He uses deception to steal from God Himself. Of course the war is "finished," but Satan's opportunistic pride has not abated.

The Book says he fights until he is thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where he will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Amen! But this is the second death. Be wise, because this enemy never knows it's over!

Here is what is good. If you get angry when someone is being picked on that is the righteousness of God in you. If you go to the one picking on the person and attempt to stop them that too is righteous. But if you do them one better, hurt them after the threat is gone, or do nothing but have visions of beating maiming or killing that person, you've sinned.

Also, not dealing with injustices toward ones self is also the sin of anger.

It's called DEPRESSION. You have simply traded outward anger for inward anger. Balance. You are not allowed by God to hate even yourself.

Remember 1 Corinthians 3:16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?

1 Corinthians 3:17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.

1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.

Recognize the truth:

First know that the devil desires to "devour" you. Now the Greek word for devour literally means "to drink." He cannot have your soul, if you are saved but he can hurt your testimony, keep you from achieving the things Christ has for you, and he can keep you from becoming a witness for Christ in the venue Christ would have you. So your anger-fueled offenses will not amount to much, until the devil has you right at the point where you benefit him the most and hurt Christ the greatest.

Get support:

You can't get through life alone - period. There's no qualifier here. You're not God you can't do it alone. CANNOT. And by the way, not even God wants to be alone. "Let us make man.." God in three? Please, get over yourself. I mean that in love. Remember "it is not good for man to be alone." Now having said that: men seek help from men, and women from women. This is critical, and without option. Talk things out with fellows. Join a group, create one, your GOD is The Creator, you're made in his image - he creates - you create. But by whatever means that is holy under God get it done. DO NOT STAND ALONE!

Bring your flesh under submission:

Read the word, as much as the daylight will allow. Pray often. It helps to pray for others, this takes you out of yourself and places others ahead of you. This is good and helps kill the flesh. And don't be afraid to start by apologizing often for foul language. This is a step but a good one. Get uncomfortable with bad language. This is a big flesh killers.

And Love:

Catch yourself and apologize to God for saying bad thing for thinking less of someone, for being apathetic regarding people you don't like. Ask God as situations arise to help you see as he would, not as you would. Do it all the time. You'll find God beginning a change in you. The Christ journey is beautiful, but not always delightful, so take the steps along the narrow path and choose love over hate. And trust in God over fear.

Love = trust. Love the Lord your God with your whole being, heart, mind and soul, and when tough times arise - you can resist the devil, and he will flee. He really does have a short attention span, lots to do and not a lot of time left. He can ill afford to hangout with you.

But God will never leave, and his Holy Spirit will guide, but you must choose to listen. You develop ears by taking all the steps of love. Then you'll be ready to master your flesh when in counts the most and not let your anger turn into sin.

Walking by the Spirit of GOD

If walking the Spirit were easy, Jesus would never have had to say, in Mattich/Matthew 7:21-23

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

And it is also not as difficult as some would make as said in Colossians 2:21-23

"Do not touch; do not taste; do not follow; for these things are customs which are changeable and they are the commandments and doctrines of men. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."

We walk by faith, not by sight. What seems right to a man will certainly come under God's judgment.

But more than that and at present, we as the church have to be concerned that we do not choke off the spirit with such doctrines and teachings of man's will, for they profit only the man who decrees these things.

We do not sin because we do not wish to hurt Jesus.

We don't wish to place him again up on that cross in our hearts.

We don't want to be separate from the closeness that comes in the spirit by suffering in the flesh for the way of the spirit.

We do not wish to harm others.

And all this because - LOVE - dominates our walk and our lives; not because we're told "don't do this, don't do that or that we will suffer the fires of hell. There is no perfection in fear. But perfect love casts out all fear.

But here is the true test of truth as to whether we walk in the spirit or not;

"whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." 1 John 3:20-22

It's really that simple! When we have confessed with our mouth the Lord Jesus, having faith and fully believing in our hearts the work of the cross, being baptized into a spiritual birth by blood, water and spirit, our hearts become our guide!

That simple and yet, sometimes so difficult because this flesh is with us. And thus, the very reason for this blog.

If you have certain sensitivity for one matter or another you may not be able to read all things I will discuss because I will not pull any punches.

I will discuss, the war against the flesh we fight to become masters over it through the power and love of and in Jesus Christ and so attain our heavenly reward.

So here is your warning:

This blog is dedicated to walking by the Spirit of GOD, however to do so, we have to talk about how to defeat the flesh:

Lust

"Mastur"-Of Your Doman?

Pornography

Hate

Anger

Rage and fits of rage

Indifference

Judging others

Cursing

Lying

Favoritism

Cliques

Sex outside of marriage

Adultery - true and by thought and emotional

Self-gratification

Self-pity

Self-judgment

Suicidal tendencies

Smoking

Intoxication by alcohol

Taking pleasure in hurting others

Murderous thoughts

Drugging

Self-centeredness

Self-worship

Worship of nude bodies by sight or thought

Idolatry - of world idols - (music & movie literary, stars) -

Fantasies of romance with those of the opposite sex - same sex

Love of the world and the things of it.

All of these things hurt/damage your spiritual walk and lead you away.

But do you need to rid yourself of all things at once? We know this is most cases is totally impossible, unless you do as Paul and through love, die daily.

Here now is the difference in the law and doctrine verses walking in the spirit, you understand Christ died for all of us to take on these sins in a very personal way with him, and defeat them as we work to win souls for him.

We are not Vulcan's, and so the walk of the spirit is a journey of love and through love - come true change.

All these things come from us - not the devil. These things reside in our hearts, and therefore come out of it.

If the devil can find opportunity to exploit these desires of the flesh, he will. This blog's purpose is to give you yet one more piece in God's plethora of weapons in the spirit to conquer your flesh and the devil.

For as in Romans 8:37 "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

And know this Christ wants us to conquer these things, not cover them, or pretend they don't exist.

There is no victory in pretending or ignoring! This is why doctrine cannot save you.

These things must be defeated by acknowledgment and a fight head on with Christ as you head and GOD the Father as your rear guard!