Tag: Food For Growth

¹⁷ The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” ¹⁸ He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. ¹⁹ Look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy; nothing at all will harm you. ²⁰ However, don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” ~ Luke 10:17-20^CSB

When the seventy-two returned to Jesus, they were excited because even the demons were subject to them in His name. Jesus, however, brought them back to what was really important: that it is by His name that we are saved. See, Jesus understood that casting out demons didn’t automatically mean that you were saved because the name of Jesus is that powerful. The seven sons of Sceva, who didn’t know Jesus, were still able to cast out unclean spirits using His name until they got to one that was too strong for them.

Yes, there is power in the name of Jesus, and we should seek out that power, but even more so, we should seek out the love that covers us in the name of Jesus. Because it’s that perfect love that protects us and keeps us until He returns for us. Paul explained that if we have every gift of the Spirit but don’t have love, then we have nothing and are essentially worthless.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for all the times I sought Your power before I sought for Your love. Please forgive me for all the times I took Your grace for granted and ignored Your call. Replace my heart of stone with a heart of flesh and renew a right spirit within me, that I might dwell in Your love. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁴⁰ If a man loses the hair of his head, he is bald, but he is clean. ⁴¹ Or if he loses the hair at his hairline, he is bald on his forehead, but he is clean. ⁴² But if there is a reddish-white condition on the bald head or forehead, it is a serious skin disease breaking out on his head or forehead. ⁴³ The priest is to examine him, and if the swelling of the condition on his bald head or forehead is reddish-white, like the appearance of a serious skin disease on his body, ⁴⁴ the man is afflicted with a serious skin disease; he is unclean. The priest must pronounce him unclean; the infection is on his head. ⁴⁵ The person who has a case of serious skin disease is to have his clothes torn and his hair hanging loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ ⁴⁶ He will remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He must live alone in a place outside the camp. ~ Leviticus 13:40-46^CSB

The Levitical priests were given the task of not just being the moral authority of the people of Israel but also the doctors of Israel as well. Today, we, the Church, are to be like the Levitical Priests, but oftentimes, we fall short. How?

The majority of us aren’t a moral compass for anyone. The majority of us believe that we’re not called to judge, which is both wrong and right at the same time. See, we’re not called to pronounce a blasphemous judgment or condemn those in the world, but we are called to judge between right and wrong. We are called to judge the actions of all people in order to know whether or not they are of Christ or the Devil.

The few of us that still call sin sin and judge between right and wrong may save a soul, but we don’t disciple that soul. We move on to the next person to save. We leave these new Christians as infants, expecting them to feed and teach themselves, then are shocked and disappointed when they fall back into sin.

This is because we didn’t take the time to disciple them. The Levitical priests had to not only check to see if they were clean or unclean, but they also had to do a follow-up examination. They had to make sure that person left clean, or they’d be unclean and remain outside the camp. When we disciple someone, we’re looking for fruit that lines up with the Spirit. If we don’t see that fruit beginning to sprout, then we know that we can’t send them on their own way and move on to another person.

We’re to disciple people until we can confidently send them out to create new disciples. We’re not to just save souls, we’re to plant seeds and water them. We’re not to just pronounce someone unclean and leave them be. We’re to pronounce them unclean and then help them become clean by the precious blood of Jesus and the renewing of the mind through the Holy Spirit.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Do More Than Pronounce.

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¹⁰ You must distinguish between the holy and the common, and the clean and the unclean, ¹¹ and teach the Israelites all the statutes that the Lord has given to them through Moses. ~ Leviticus 10:10-11^CSB

The LORD was speaking to the Levites. They were the moral authority of Israel because it was them who went before the LORD on behalf of the Israelites. It was the Levites that were the priests and high priests of God. This is why the LORD told them they had to be able to distinguish between the holy and the common. The clean and unclean. Today, the Church represents the Levites to the world.

We are supposed to be the light of the world because Christ now dwells in us and lives through us, yet we struggle with discerning good and evil. We call evil good, and good we call evil. We make sin normal, and we endorse it in our churches and on social media. We are to guide the world out of darkness to the Light of the LORD, but instead, we’ve become like the Pharisees. Like blind guides leading the blind straight into the pit.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for not being a light in this dark world. Please forgive me for all the times I’ve endorsed sin and blurred the lines between good and evil. Please soften my heart to the things of You and renew a right spirit within me. Teach me Your ways so that I might lead others to You. Let Your Light shine in me and through me. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁹ Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. ¹⁰ Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹ Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹² Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. ¹³ Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. ~ Romans 12:9-13

Let love be genuine, not only during this week that we call ‘The Love Week,’ but let genuine love shine through your words and your actions. Genuine love can be spotted. It can be felt or sensed. It can be tasted. It beckons you, calls you from far distances. It has a specific smell, the smell of life, a fragrance of grace.

When you walk in genuine love and talk with love, evil will become abhorrent to you, and doing good will become second nature. One way of doing that is to be the first to show honor to your brother or to your sister. Not in a half-hearted way, but in genuineness of heart. Genuine love does not hold back its affections. It does not resist the need to pay a compliment when a compliment is due. Honor one another in genuine love.

Do not be fake; believe me, folks can spot an impostor because it carries all of the opposite attributes that genuine love portrays. Genuine love builds up and never divides. Therefore, we love people, for by doing so, we show that we love God.

If you love one another, you show love to God. If you are zealous for one another, you show zeal for the LORD. Love will Rejoice in hope; it will be patient in tribulation, and it will remain constant in prayer. For who ever stopped praying for someone they genuinely love? Or who will withhold the needs of someone that they genuinely love? The answer is no one. So, be obedient children of God, and love one another; thus, you will spread the fragrance of life eternal through Jesus Christ our LORD.

Heavenly Father, help me to be genuine in love and to honor those who, by their own love for the saints, demand honor. Help me to never let love become insincere or lackadaisical but to always show genuine love. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. ~ Ephesians 5:25-28

As Warren Barfield put it, love is not a fight, but it’s certainly worth fighting for. I saw this on some social media the other day. It said:

I messaged my father-in-law today, and said:
“You need to come get your daughter, she’s driving me nuts.”
Him: “Package is opened, seal is broken, item is used, warranty is expired. Sorry, that’s not a manufacturer’s problem.

And so, it isn’t. It’s your problem, husband. For you are the one that is instructed to love your wife as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for the Church.

You likewise must give yourself for your bride. You must meet her every need. The need to feel safe. The need to tell you all about her day and to hear about your day. The need for a protector.

And you wives, you aren’t without responsibility. You, too, must find your husband’s love language and speak it fluently and speak it often. Remember, you are your husband’s number-one cheerleader. Find one good thing he does and talk about it for a while.

It’s not stroking his ego; it’s stoking the flames of love that will burn bright in your marriage. A flame so huge it would take the rains of a category 5 hurricane and the winds of an EF5 tornado to put it out, and even then, it will still burn bright.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Love Is Not A Fight.

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¹⁰ We have an altar from which those who worship at the tabernacle do not have a right to eat. ¹¹ For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the most holy place by the high priest as a sin offering are burned outside the camp. ¹² Therefore, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, so that he might sanctify the people by his own blood. ¹³ Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing his disgrace. ¹⁴ For we do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek the one to come. ~ Hebrews 13:10-14^CSB

Every right we have was paid for us by Christ Jesus. He went before and made a way for us. He did this by first being crucified outside the camp. What does that mean? Well, we can look at the camp as the world. The world is like the soul of the earth, and it’s bound to the number of days the earth has left until it will no longer be found on Judgment Day (Revelation 20:11). Jesus was crucified outside of the world. We have many rights because of this, but two main ones are that:

1. We are no longer a part of the world but called out of the world ( John 15:19).
2. We can be saved regardless of the time period in which we are born (John 20:29).

If Christ were crucified in the world, He would not have been able to call others out of the world. Christ had to be crucified out of the world in order to ensure each and every person who has ever lived had the opportunity to either accept His salvation or decline it.

Everything God does is for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes. Therefore, we must go outside the camp, outside the world we currently live in, in order to find the God who loves us and created us. The world may offer us shiny objects, but what Christ is offering is eternal. One day, the world will no longer be here, but there will never be a time when Christ is not here. He is the first, the last; the beginning, the end; the Alpha, the Omega. He is our Eternal, Everlasting God. Nothing on this earth can truly give us a replacement for what He’s offering; it’s all just a cheap knockoff.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Go Outside The Camp.

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⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. ~ Romans 14:7

I have a friend who I was extremely close to but eventually pushed and put a halt to our friendship because I wasn’t being lifted up. I felt like I was just being torn down. Like they just wanted me in their life to lean on me but it wasn’t reciprocated. This bothered me a lot because I was expecting to have a friend, an older sister, I could go to in hard times, and we could help each other, but it wasn’t like that at all.

This became very discouraging to me. I felt so discouraged that I went to my mom and told her, “I have friends now, but I’m still alone.” I stopped communicating with her in the way that she was used to. Less involved and talkative, so our conversations became fewer and fewer. My mom kept encouraging me by telling me to try to overlook her shortcomings because she believed our friendship was important. One day after she told me that, I went to my computer, sat down, and began to write a song where I was pouring out my frustration with her, and I felt like God was opening my eyes to see (as I’m freestyling in the microphone) that the friendship wasn’t about me. It wasn’t for me. It was for her.

See, I was expecting a big sister I could lean on, but God had other plans. He didn’t put her in my life for me to have someone to lean on. He put me in her life so that I could be someone she could lean on. Someone she could learn from and grow because of. It wasn’t until I stopped expecting my own desires for the friendship and changed the way that I saw our relationship that I was able to speak with her and not feel distant and far off.

The people in your life aren’t always there for your benefit. Sometimes, you’re in their lives for their benefit.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Look For God’s Reasoning Instead Of Your Own.

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¹⁹ And He said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” ~ Matthew 4:19

Have you ever spit into a lake or pond and watched all the fish rush to consume your spit because they think it’s food? The fish are hungry, jumping at any chance of possible food thrown their way. This is the world we live in as well. So many people swarm spit, following a large crowd because they’re hoping that they might just be getting fed. They’re hungry. They have an emptiness in them, and all they want is to fill it.

Jesus said that He is the bread of life. He said that man doesn’t live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. He is the Word of God. So many people get caught up with mysticism, magic, and darkness because they don’t know that no matter how much they consume of that spit, they’ll never be nourished and satisfied.

No other religion or belief system is afraid of offending the world the way that Christians in the West are. We’ll even chastise and verbally attack a Christian who shares the Gospel and the love of Christ with another person. We condemn them and tell them that they need to be tolerant of other people’s beliefs like Jesus was. Jesus never gave the people empty words that lead to death. Peter said Jesus alone had the words of life because Jesus alone understood that the hungry fish needed bread and not spit.

Every time you condone, endorse, affirm, or tolerate sin, you’re spitting into the water, expecting to give nourishment to the fish around you. You’re doing nothing more than feeding them empty words that you will one day have to answer for yourself.

Dear LORD, teach me to give real food to the world. Help me not to be afraid of offending or pushing people away. Teach me to love people the way that You do, always striving to share the true Word of God with them. Help me to never spit into the water again but to throw in the bread of life. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁷ Anyone who rebukes a mocker will get an insult in return. Anyone who corrects the wicked will get hurt. ⁸ So don’t bother correcting mockers; they will only hate you. But correct the wise, and they will love you. ⁹ Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more. ~ Proverbs 9:7-9^NLT

Having a predominately online Church, I’ve had to learn this teaching the hard way. See, when we first started, I would respond to everyone who commented because I didn’t want to be rude. It quickly became apparent that there are some people you shouldn’t respond to. Sometimes, it’s still hard to see who to and who not to respond to.

They’ll start off nice, the conversation is pleasant, and then as soon as you point out the flaw in their beliefs, they become rude, insulting, demeaning, and aggressive. They’ll then accuse you of all of the things they’ve done. Why? Pride.

There’s a proverb that states that there’s more hope for a fool (one who says in his heart there is no God) than for one who is wise in his own mind. What a frightening verse.

Pride will cause you to lash out when confronted and corrected. It’ll cause you to insult instead of defending your own beliefs. It’ll cause you to accuse others of attacking you when all they’ve done is show you your errors. Pride is one of the biggest separators between God and man because pride won’t allow correction to help you grow and fix flaws within yourself and your own beliefs.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the years. If you want to see a change in a prideful person, you don’t respond to them. You pray for them. You lift their name before the LORD daily as you pray against the Spirit of Pride holding them captive. No amount of true statements or verses will open the eyes of the prideful. Only the fervent righteous prayers can get the attention of God to intervene in their life.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Silent, But Pray.

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