Tag: Spiritual

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Consult God First

14 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the Lord. ~ Joshua 9:14

The people of Israel had just entered their Promised Land. The Gibeonites heard all about what Joshua and his army were doing to the other cities in the land, and they were afraid. So, they came deceptively and tricked the elders of Israel. They showed them worn-out clothes and shoes, stale bread, and worn-out wineskins and told them they had come from a very distant country.

The elders believed what they heard, confirmed by what they saw, and they made a peace treaty with them. They gave those men their word without input from God. Three days later, they heard that those same men had tricked them and that they were actually their neighbors.

Now that these elders had given them their word, they could not break it because they swore it before God.

The key, or the problem, rather, was that the elders did not consult God about the matter.

Christians today make the same mistake. They make alliances with people they should not make alliances with. They go to places they should not be at. They accept favors from their enemy without even knowing it. Because they make these decisions with their flesh. They sample the wares. They look with their own eyes and listen with their own ears, but they don’t consult the LORD their God.

Spiritual laziness and prayerlessness have become the downfall of today’s Church. The Christian thinks with their flesh, driven by their greed and desire. It is like Jesus said to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan, for you do not have the things of God in mind, but the things of man.

So, the next time you have a decision to make, consult God. Before you forge unauthorized relationships, consult God. Before you fall for the biggest lie of the century, consult God.

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With Much Fear and Trembling

12 Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. ~ Philippians 2:12NLT

I saw a short of a devout Muslim man whose wife had just given birth to their first child. He explained that he was so scared of evil eye and, therefore, losing the child that he didn’t tell anyone, even his mom, that his wife was pregnant. This made me feel so sad. This man is a devout Muslim who prays daily, goes to the mosque, fasts, knows his Quran, but there’s nothing to protect him from evil eye with all that he does. Think about it.

We Christians are promised to be covered by the Blood of the Lamb, a hedge of protection built around us, angels of God concerning us, the prayers of Jesus Himself for us, and the authority of the name of Jesus to cast down and tear down all manner of evil spoken against us, yet we don’t even pray once a day for 10 minutes. This man isn’t even promised eternal life by his god, yet he’s devout to his god. Whereas Christians are promised eternal life and more, but we don’t give God the time of day.

We as Christians get so caught up in the love of God that we forget that there is likewise a wrath of God, which then makes us complacent. This complacency renders its users useless in the art of winning souls and disciplining the nations. True, God is love. True, it’s His love that saves us and keeps us, but never forget that that same love can turn to wrath if trampled upon. Therefore, serve the LORD in the beauty of holiness and work out your salvation with much fear and trembling.

Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me. Please help me never to forget my purpose or to become complacent. Give me the strength and the boldness to be a witness for You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Fill Up On The Good

45 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. ~ Luke 6:45CSB

I remember being in university, and a friend of mine told me that they were starting to subconsciously take the LORD’s name in vain when something happened, and they didn’t like it. I don’t remember what my response was or what happened after that, but I remember her saying that. See, at the time, we weren’t living our best Christian lives. We were listening to secular music and filling ourselves with darkness for a period of time. During that time, her subconscious had become darker than light.

See, it wasn’t that we were only filled with darkness that was the problem, but it was that the darkness began to spill over because it had grown more than the Light. As humans, our soul is a vessel that will either have good or evil. It will either be a light or a shade. The state of the Church is much like my friend was while we were acting like heathens.

The Church has a form of love for God, but we don’t fill ourselves with Him; we fill ourselves with the world. And if we seek out God, it’s only on Sunday mornings. Monday through Saturday, God doesn’t hear a peep from us; Sunday morning comes around. We show Him a few moments of our time, and then we’re back to being with the Devil until next Sunday.

Our thoughts are a reflection of our hearts. If it’s filled with foul language, anger, lust, etc., it’s because those are the things we’ve been feeding our hearts. If we want to change our thoughts, we need to change our hearts. How? Repenting of everything we’ve done that we weren’t to do and then replace it with Godly action. We do this by spending time in prayer, worship, and Bible reading daily. We fill ourselves with the good things of God and not the evil things of the world.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Fill Up On The Good.

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Prepare For The New

19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. ~ Isaiah 43:19

Renewing your mind is basically changing the way you think. Replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Replacing pessimistic words with words of optimism. Casting down the same old, same old, for the fresh and new.

Therefore:

  • Do not let circumstances dictate what kind of day you will have
  • Do not let someone else’s words disrupt your peace
  • Do not let negative thoughts, which are most probably not true in the first place, take up residence in your mind
  • Do not speak rash or say the first thing that pops into your mind
  • Your thoughts become your words, and your words will eventually lead to your destiny

Why? Because God is doing a new thing. Therefore, the responsibility is on us to tune in to His frequencies by the renewing of our minds. We stop focusing on the things that are now, that are keeping us down, and we start speaking God’s promises instead.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Prepare For The New.

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Rewire Your Mind

7 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: ~ Proverbs 23:7KJV

As humans think, that is who we are. Meaning that we become our most intimate, and most pronounced thoughts. My daughter, Arie, has a quote on her wall which reads:

Watch your thoughts,
they become words.
Watch your words,
they become actions.
Watch your actions,
they become habits.
Watch your habits,
they become your character.
Watch your character,
It becomes your destiny

Your destiny can be determined by something as small as your thoughts, and that is why it is so important and necessary to renew your mind. Basically, your destiny depends on it. The Scripture is as plain as day: if you think about sinful things, you will be dominated by a sinful nature. But if you want to be controlled by the Spirit of God, and if you want to please God and have His peace that passes all understanding, then you must have thoughts that are pleasing to the Spirit.

If you say, “I will never make it,” then you will never make it. Your words determine your destiny. So, watch your words. Be intentional with your words, for the enemy is always watching, looking for a way to trip you up and keep you from reaching your true potential in Christ Jesus.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Rewire Your Mind.

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Hold To What Is Steady

5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. ~ Romans 8:5-8

Culture shifts daily. It’s an ever-changing, never satisfying, shifting world. Therefore, society needs to have some sort of standard in order to not go into total depravity, which we are not far from today. For instance, today, we have groups of people getting together to promote the normalization of people who feel like dogs. So, they get together and howl together like dogs. They walk around on all fours, barking while on leashes. This is crazy. This is not normal behavior. It seems like society is ‘pulling out all the stops’ in order to make the abnormal normal; we need a balance.

But for that, we need an unchanging standard, which is God, Who is ultimately our final judge. For the Word of God says that the LORD does not change (Malachi 3:6a and Hebrews 13:8). How do we combat this darkness? We start with us. Paul urges us to not let society or popular culture dictate our thoughts and, ultimately, our actions by accepting their perverted notion of morality.

But How Do We Renew Our Minds?

Well, first of all, we must make a conscious decision to make a change. But before we can actually make a change, we must identify the problem or the thing we wish to change, like anger, lust, and other things that God frowns on.

What I mean is to bring our lives into alignment with God. But how do we do that? By knowing what the Word of God says. You can only know what the Word of God says if you read the Word of God for yourself.

Craig Groeschel said, “Our lives move in the direction of our strongest thoughts.”

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Hold To What Is Steady.

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Don’t Be Caught Lacking

15 Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it. ~ James 4:15-17CSB

My whole life, I’ve heard my parents say LORD’s willing when speaking of our future tasks. I myself have even said, but not enough around a certain person that she even told her husband she’s never heard me or my mother say it. When I search through my phone, I have message after message of me and my parents saying LORD’s willing, but I don’t have any to her saying it. This struck me as odd.

See, I was put in her life to help guide her in the Word of the LORD and help her grow in Christ, but I can’t find a message of me saying LORD’s willing to her. This could easily be something that anyone could say was just a coincidence, but I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in spiritual warfare.

When you become comfortable around someone, and you don’t know why they’re in your life, you stop being intentional with every word you speak. To my own shame, it wasn’t me who showed her or taught her LORD’s willing; it was her husband; she called me to see if he was right. I say to my shame because he had learned it that night and was being intentional with every word he said, making sure to use it so as not to be arrogant, as James says.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t being intentional because I didn’t even realize until recently my purpose in her life. While I was proud of her husband for his desire to grow in the LORD, I felt disappointed in myself that the enemy could remove an important covering phrase from my vocabulary when talking to the person who needed to hear it most.

As Christians, we have to yearn for and earnestly seek the Spirit of Discernment so that the Holy Spirit might be able to speak through us, even in things that we wouldn’t necessarily see as big. We have to be intentional with our words and focused on our purpose in people’s lives so that the enemy has no room to trip us up in our words or actions or the lack thereof.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for all the times that I’ve been unintentional with my words. Please forgive me for every time I’ve missed the role I have to play in someone else’s life. Please fill me with Your Holy Spirit and with the gift of discernment. Teach me to discern right and wrong. What I need to do and what I need not to do. Who is in my life, and whose life I am in. Teach me to strengthen my spirit man that I might not be caught lacking. Teach me to be a light in this darkness. Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Who Is Satan?

Satan (the Devil) is one person in the Bible that everyone knows, even if they’ve never been to Church. The problem is that most Christians don’t actually know who Satan is or how he deceives the world. When pastors teach about Satan, 99.9% of the time, they use verses that have nothing to do with Satan while seemingly ignoring the verses about Satan. If we never really know who our enemy is or how he attacks, how will we ever defeat or overcome him? Join ArieRashelle as she searches through Scripture to clarify the being that is Satan in her video, Who Is Satan?

Revelation 12:9
Isaiah 14:12-15
2 Peter 2:10-11
Jude 1:8-9
Job 1:6-12
Isaiah 6:1-7
Zechariah 3:1-2
Revelation 12:8-12
Genesis 3:1
Genesis 3:13-15
Revelation 12:2-4
Revelation 6:4
Psalms 12:6
Psalms 66:10
1 Corinthians 3:11
1 Peter 1:7
Isaiah 48:10
Proverbs 17:3
Job 2:1-7
2 Samuel 24:1
1 Chronicles 21:1
Genesis 18:20-22
Revelation 12:10
Revelation 12:13-17
Exodus 19:4
Isaiah 40:30-31
Micah 7:17
Luke 10:19
1 Peter 5:8
Luke 22:31-32
Matthew 4:1-11
Luke 4:1-13
Matthew 16:23
Mark 8:33
Luke 22:3
John 13:27
Revelation 2:12-13
Genesis 30:27
Numbers 23:23
Leviticus 19:26
1 Kings 20:33
2 Kings 17:17
Revelation 2:24
Genesis 3:2-7
Psalms 104:21

Who Is Satan?

The Revelation 12 Account of Who Satan Is

1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. 3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. 5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.
7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

Revelation 12:1-12

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The Tongue’s Power

21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. ~ Proverbs 18:21

The tongue has the power to speak life or to speak death. That’s a very frightening thought, if you think about it, that our tongues hold that much power. I want you to stop and think about what I just said for just a moment. Our words are life, and they are death, and people throw words around as if they count for very little or for nothing.

People will let words like:

  • I will never succeed
  • I can’t do anything right
  • I will never make friends
  • I am a born loser
  • I will never get over this sickness
  • This is killing me

Just roll off their tongue as if it was water on a duck’s back, so to speak, without us even thinking about it. Listen, you don’t have to know it in order to speak it into being.

Words are alive because they are breath, which is spirit. Therefore, words will never die. That’s why the words of our prayers can come up before God as a memorial years after they have been spoken.

That’s also why the prayers of:

  • The saints long dead
  • Grandmothers
  • Grandfathers
  • Parents
  • Holy men and women of God

Will come to pass eventually because they are words that were spoken.

On the flip side, that is the same reason why curses, also known as generational curses, can plague generation after generation after generation because words have the power of life or death, and if they are life or death, that means they do not die, but they can be canceled.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for every careless word I’ve spoken about myself or other people. Please cancel each and every curse I’ve spoken, whether out of anger or idle talk, in the mighty name of Jesus. Please let life be the words I speak out of my mouth instead of death. Let my words be holy and pleasing to You, LORD God. Bridle my tongue. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Combat With Humility

6 But He gives greater grace. Therefore He says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. ~ James 4:6CSB

Shame enters us when we dwell in sin and are conscious of it. To combat this shame ourselves, we become prideful. We try to justify our own sin and force others to accept and affirm it as well. If anyone protests or disagrees, that shame (fueled by pride) comes to the surface and gives birth to anger.

Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame.

Uncle Iroh

Only when we humble ourselves before the LORD will our sins be washed clean and the power of shame broken within us. Pride gives shame its power, but humility uproots shame and destroys it. Shame cannot stand when we dwell in the perfect love of God that can only be accessed through humbling ourselves before our God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Combat With Humility.

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