Spiritual Archives

November 25, 2023November 7, 2023

Introduction of Darkness

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. ¹⁹And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ~ John 3:16-19

I recently watched a clip of a cathedral hosting what they called a ‘Beyonce Mass.’ During this mass, they sang Beyonce songs as if they were worship songs to God. The woman who brought the sermon for the mass also teaches a class at seminary entitled ‘Beyonce and the Bible.’ Today’s Church is full of celebrity worship. We know more about Beyonce than we do about God.

The Church loves John 3:16 but refuses to read past that verse. Because the moment that we do, we see the Truth. Yes, Christ came to save the world and not condemn it, but the world already stands condemned. Why? Because the world doesn’t accept the Light (Jesus) because of the love of darkness. The Church today loves darkness. We try to incorporate it every chance we get. We see it as freeing and progression, but sin isn’t freedom. Sin is a harsh slave master. It demands absolute and total submission. And one day, it will collect on the soul that it has imprisoned with shackles and chains.

The only freedom is in Christ Jesus. There is no freedom outside of Christ. Why? Because outside of Christ is just darkness. Christ is Light. Christ is freedom. Christ is life. To choose anything else would be to willingly choose death.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for all the times I chose the world over You. Please forgive me for all the times that I darkness over light. Please fill me with Your Holy Spirit that I might have a spirit of discernment to discern between light and darkness. Good and evil. Truth and lies. Thank You for not leaving me in darkness but for leaving the 99 to find me. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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He’s Worth More

¹⁰And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. ¹¹And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. ~ Matthew 24:10-11

Throughout the Scripture, there are prophecies after prophecies about how many will fall away and betray one another. Not only will they betray one another, but they will hate one another. This isn’t the world that these prophecies are about; this is the Church. Because these prophecies also tell us that many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. Is that the world they are leading astray? No, of course not. The world is already astray; it’s the Church that will be led astray.

And do you know why they are led astray? Because they don’t read the Bible for themselves. Christians have no clue what is in the Bible. Some have never ever read the Bible for themselves. This is why so many of us will be so easily led astray.

And as we are seeing even now, the false prophets who speak on behalf of God tell the Church that they can live any old way they want, and God will still accept them. Why will God accept whatever they give Him? Because they say that God is desperate for followers, so He has no choice but to take what He gets. He’s just a pushover who just loves and accepts everyone.

That is not the case at all. God demands that His Great Name be feared and respected. He is not a desperate housewife. He is Almighty God—a Mighty Warrior. God is a great King. He is God of all gods. He will not accept half-hearted worship and halfway sacrifices. Therefore, God will not accept our lukewarm worship.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for not spending time reading Your Word as I should. Please forgive me for not giving You the reverence, worship, honor, and glory that You deserve. Please teach me to love You the way that You deserve. Help me to dwell in Your love. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Freedom Through Love

⁴For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. ⁵We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, ⁶being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. ~ 2 Corinthians 10:4-6

I remember being a kid and watching the movie, Penelope. The movie was all about a rich family who had brought a curse on themselves because of how they mistreated a poor servant girl. The curse could only be broken if one of their own accepted the next daughter who was born into the family. The catch was that the daughter would be born with a face like a pig. Throughout the movie, the mother tries to find a high-society man to marry her daughter. Failure after failure, the movie finally ends with the girl accepting and loving herself and breaking the curse. The mother then comes to the realization that if she had just loved her daughter, the curse would’ve been broken from the moment she was born.

Many of us have generational curses that can be broken with the simple act of either forgiveness or love. So many of us are living our lives bound and in pain because of something that we ourselves didn’t even do. It’s true that where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom, but not every single curse is broken at the moment of repentance and acceptance of Christ. Sometimes, there are things we have to deal with and address. Sometimes, there are spirits that we have to remove from our lives. When we start breaking down strongholds and tearing down words spoken over us in the name of Jesus, that’s when we begin to see a change in our lives, and we have freedom.

Dear LORD, please help me to tear down all of the strongholds in my life. Help me to break every generational curse that has kept me down. Tear down every evil word spoken about me and to me. Help me to find complete and total freedom in You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Not Another Sacrifice

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. ~ Galatians 2:20-21

One of my favorite childhood shows was Avatar: The Last Airbender. In it, a young boy must save the world by taking the life of the antagonist of the show. This was difficult for him as he was a monk and was taught that all life was sacred, even the life of the enemy. Everyone told him he had to put those teachings aside. Even another monk told him that as avatar he had to sacrifice his spiritual well-being for the sake of the world. This teaching didn’t sit well with him, and as the show met its climatic end, he found another way to defeat his enemy.

There isn’t a time that two wrongs will make a right. There isn’t a time when you have to break the commands of God in order to bring people to Christ. God will never cause you to have to sacrifice your own soul for the soul of others. Why? Because Christ already made the ultimate sacrifice for all people. We don’t sacrifice our own souls and our own spiritual growth in order to save others. We live our lives to Christ, and it is His Light shining through us that saves others.

Dear LORD, help me to never sacrifice my own spiritual health for anything. I know that You made the ultimate sacrifice, and there is no other sacrifice needed from me. Help me to let Your light shine through me so that I might show as many people as possible the way to You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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The Soldiers

³Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. ⁴No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer. ~ 2 Timothy 2:3-4

On the day known as D-Day, June 6, 1944, allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. It is estimated that 10,000 total allied casualties occurred that day, including 2,000 U.S. soldiers, 2,000 British soldiers, and 914 Canadian soldiers killed, wounded, or went missing, and another estimate of between four thousand and nine thousand German casualties on that day.

Apparently, there were so many dead bodies in the water and on the beaches from the first two waves that the third wave had to wait before they could be given orders to land and join the invasion.

These men, just young boys on both sides, were given orders to rush into the face of certain death, to try to kill each other. It was kill or be killed. They had no animosity toward each other. There was no hate between the fighting men, but their respective countries had drafted them and ordered them to go and fight. Kill or be killed.

These are the men who died defending the freedoms we still enjoy today. But how quickly we have forgotten the price that was paid and is still being paid. Places like Columbus, Ohio, are canceling their Veterans Day Parade this year, 2023, due to a major decrease in corporate financial support and a lack of attendance at the events.

It seems like people are just not interested in honoring our veterans. The ones who gave up so much for our freedom. While other parades are flourishing, vile as they might be, they are growing in popularity.

We are called to be soldiers in an unseen spiritual war, with hundreds of thousands of casualties daily all over the world. It is estimated that there are over 360 million Christians facing persecution and discrimination for their faith on a daily basis.

Places like North Korea produce videos to train state security agents on how to identify and silence those who promote religion in their country.

Christians like Mary in Nigeria, who was brutally murdered when Fulani Islamic militants attacked her village. Her husband was in town donating blood when the attack came. Their 6-year-old daughter was struck in the head, knocking her unconscious. Their 2-year-old daughter was shot in the stomach as the bullet passed through her little body and lodged in her mother’s chest, killing her instantly. The two little girls lay near their dead mother’s body through the afternoon until evening, when someone found them and rescued them.

This is only one of the millions of stories of the persecution of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Stories that the Western Church either does not hear or, sadly, does not take notice of. So, this Veterans Day, let us, with appreciative hearts, honor those who serve us by serving our country militarily. But also, let us remember the Christian soldiers who are serving in the unseen spiritual war. Some are even dying for their faith.

Heavenly Father, please remember the soldiers who are today in harm’s way. Let your hand of protection shield them. Please watch over them and encourage them and their families, their loved ones. LORD, I pray for the salvation of every soldier who does not know You as LORD and Savior. Save them, LORD. Reveal Yourself to them.

I also pray for the persecuted Christian soldiers. May Your Great Name be ever upon their lips as their faith continues to be strong. Give them boldness, and let their hearts not be troubled, even in the face of imminent danger. I speak Shalom peace over their lives. I ask You to please provide for their needs, according to Your riches in glory, for I ask it in Jesus’ precious Name, amen.

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All That He Counsels

¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. ¹⁸I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. ¹⁹Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. ~ Revelation 3:16-19

It’s the weakness of the Church that brings on the Great Tribulation, so do you suppose that we will be kept from what we ourselves have caused:

By our Pride.
By our prayerlessness.
By our lack of holiness.
By our alliance with darkness.
We have become lovers of self rather than lovers of God.
A proud and stiff-necked people.
Who love to tickle ears and have our own ears tickled.

We fool ourselves when we think we are so holy because we have hundreds of thousands of adoring fans, sitting in beautiful expensive buildings sitting on soft pews, and sipping our lattes, but Jesus said that we are:

Wretched
Pitiable
Poor
Blind
And naked

And He counsels us to buy from Him:

Gold refined by fire so that we may be rich.
And white garments so that we may clothe ourselves and the shame of our nakedness may not be seen.
And salve to anoint our eyes, so that we may see.

This last day Church is not all that we are cracked up to be. We are like the Pharisees and Scribes of Jesus’ day, for we honor God with our lips, but our hearts are far from Him (Matthew 15:8).

Dear LORD, thank You for Your grace and forgiveness. Forgive me for not making You the center of my life. Forgive me for putting other things above You and for not giving You the love, respect, and reverence You deserve. Teach me to buy from You all that You have counseled me to. Please guide me in my journey to You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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A Heart For God

²⁸ “What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ²⁹ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. ³⁰ And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. ³¹ Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. ³² For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him. ~ Matthew 21:28-32

I recently heard the testimony of an ex-gang member who found Jesus while in solitary confinement during his rather long prison sentence. He went from a life of gang violence from the age of 11 to finding Jesus in solitary at 18. When he found Jesus, he didn’t take it for granted. He put everything on the line to follow Christ. Everything, including his life. I read how he talked about not only reading his Bible and praying daily in prison but also fasting. He would stay in his cell and pray and read his Bible as the other inmates went to the cafeteria for lunch.

He was what one would describe as an undesirable. A murderer. A thief. Nothing short of a terrorist. But when he found Jesus, everything changed. So many of us who grew up in the church have never even fasted a single day. This young man grew up in violence and never even went to church as a kid, but as he got saved, he studied to show himself approved. This isn’t a new phenomenon either. There’s a real sadness in this truth that we who grew up in the church experiencing the love of Christ oftentimes take it for granted, while those who would be categorized as the undesirables of society seem to rarely, if ever, walk away from grace when they find it.

We who grew up with Christ should be paving the way for them. We should be teaching them how to eat meat, but we ourselves can barely even handle milk. Imagine if we stopped looking at ourselves the way society sees us and started looking at ourselves the way God sees us. We’re all saved the same way, by the redeeming blood of Jesus. We all have to say the same prayer of repentance regardless of how many sins we’ve committed. Our past doesn’t matter. How good we think we are doesn’t matter because we’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. If we could just grasp the weight of our sin and how much Christ really has done for us, we would all be seeking God the way this young man did from inside the walls of his prison cell.

Dear LORD, please soften my heart towards You and Your Word and Your Kingdom. Help me to seek Your face above all else. Renew in me a right spirit and crucify the flesh that tries to hold me back. Give me a heart for You, oh God. Mold me into a vessel that can be used by You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Knowing Which Battle

⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. ~ Romans 8:6-8

The flesh is a rough enemy to fight because your flesh is a part of you. You can’t get rid of it. It’ll always be there nagging at you, trying to pull you down. Oftentimes, we confuse the flesh with spiritual oppression. We blame the Devil for everything, even when it’s not him but ourselves.

Derek Prince once said:

You can’t crucify a spirit, and you can’t cast out the flesh.

That means that there’s a difference between the flesh and spiritual oppression. And as Christians, we have to know the differences in order to overcome. Otherwise, we’re just blindly fighting a losing battle. We have to have discernment to know the difference between our own flesh and spiritual oppression so that we might be able to know how to fight our enemy because not all enemies fall the same way.

Dear LORD, please help me to be aware of the difference between my flesh and spiritual oppression. Teach me when to crucify and teach me when to cast out. Please give me a spirit of discernment so that I might be better equipped to serve you. Help me to focus on the matters of the Spirit and not on matters of the flesh. Teach me to love Your Word and Your Law so that I might not sin against You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Peace Peace

¹¹ They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace. ~ Jeremiah 8:11^NIV

The understanding of prophecies that have been locked up for 1000s of years is now being released in our generation. Prophecies are being fulfilled, and the stage for the end is being set right before our eyes, yet many will still say there is peace. Why? Because things have been bad before. Each generation has thought they were the last. And if it is the end, we’ll meet Christ before things get bad anyway.

These are the people who are usually in places of authority, from pastors of large churches to family patriarchs and matriarchs. People we’re supposed to trust without hesitation or reserve are the same ones steering us in the wrong direction because of Church Tradition and self-denial. Israel had the same problem. Their leaders and men of authority were preaching peace when destruction was banging at the door. They were preaching all will be well, when death was unlocking the lock.

Too often, we don’t get the preparation needed in order to withstand the coming trial and tribulation because we’re too busy not questioning those in authority around us. The greatest apostle who ever lived, Paul, was checked every day by the Bereans to make sure what he was saying was true. This didn’t offend Paul; it impressed him.

This world is coming to an end. The signs are all around us, but in order to see them, you have to read your Bible and seek the Truth of God and not somebody else’s truth. If you seek someone else’s truth or even your own truth, you will miss the Truth of God, and you’ll be swallowed up by the coming destruction that is banging at the door.

Dear LORD, please forgive me for not seeking Your Truth the way I should. Open my eyes that I might see and give me ears that I might hear so that I might not be unaware of the times. Teach me to pray, worship, and study Your Word that I might strengthen my body and prepare for the time of trial coming. Please let me not be caught unprepared and asleep when that day comes. Use me, LORD God. Mold me into whatever vessel will best serve and further Your Kingdom. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Who Was the Serpent in the Garden of Eden?

In the Garden of Eden, a mysterious being tempts Eve with fruit from the forbidden tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. There’s a bit of a debate surrounding the identity of this being who is simply called the serpent. So, who was the serpent? Was the serpent paid by Satan, or was it actually Satan? Or was the serpent some kind of lesser human? Join ArieRashelle as she searches through Scripture for the Truth behind the identity of the serpent in her video, Who Was the Serpent in the Garden of Eden?

Genesis 3:1-7
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-15
Genesis 3:8-15
Revelation 12:1-6
Revelation 19:15
Revelation 12:7-9
Revelation 12:13-17
Genesis 3:15
Genesis 3:13
John 8:39-47
Galatians 3:7-9
Galatians 3:28-29
Luke 1:26-38

Who Was the Serpent in the Garden of Eden?

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” ²And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. ⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
⁸And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” ¹¹He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹²The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” ¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
¹⁴The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. ¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”