Spiritual Archives

August 29, 2023August 28, 2023

Do Hard Things

¹² The two men said to Lot, “Do you have anyone else here—sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, ¹³ because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴ So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. ~ Genesis 19:12-14^NIV

When you constantly dwell amongst wickedness, wickedness slowly finds a way into your life. Lot was a righteous man, yet he chose two unrighteous men to marry his two daughters. They weren’t upstanding men of God. They were amongst the men banging on Lot’s door in order to rape the two angels that came in human form to destroy the city.

Today, we are no different. We are like Lot, living in a wicked and evil world. Sin is everywhere, from porn being passed as adult entertainment to demonic symbolism, teachings, and plots being passed as children’s entertainment. Everything around us is saturated in debauchery and idolatry. Yet, we must live in the world but not be a part of the world.

We have to raise our children knowing the difference between right and wrong. Good and Evil. Sin and righteousness. We have to raise them up in the way they should go so that when they are old, they may not stray from it. We have to make sure that we aren’t allowing the world to influence them but the things of God. That we aren’t bringing in and introducing wickedness into their lives because of convenience or lack of understanding. We have to make sure that we are immersed in the Word of God so that we can influence the world around us and not the other way around.

Lot could have sent to get good, righteous men for his daughters, like Abraham did with Isaac. Instead, Lot’s daughters were betrothed to men who were a part of the wickedness that drenched Sodom. Never allow convenience and ease to influence your discernment of right and wrong. The right thing to do is usually never the easy thing to do, but it is always the only way to please God. Therefore, you must pick up your cross and follow Jesus in every aspect of your life, lest you be influenced by the world and miss out on eternity with Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Do Hard Things.

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Put All Things Under Christ

³⁷Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ~ Matthew 10:37

The concept of Christ being above every single thing in our lives is a difficult one to grasp when you really think about it. See, it’s not just the things of this world that have to be beneath Christ, but also our dearest loved ones. Why? Well, when you love your family more than you love Christ, then you’ll begin to not only overlook the sins of your family but fully accept and embrace them. We can see this throughout the Church today.

We don’t correct sin anymore; instead, we make excuses for sin to run rampant in those we love. When we do this, we put our family above Christ. And if we put our family above Christ, then we can’t actually pick up our cross and follow Him. We can’t abide in His love. Sin isn’t something that we can allow in our lives. We can’t let in even a grain of sin because sin’s one goal is to corrupt and destroy. It wants to rule your life. When you tolerate sin, you end up inviting more sin into your life.

So, when it comes to your family, don’t tolerate sin. Yes, love them. Yes, treat them with gentleness and kindness, but you don’t have to accept their sin. Place before God. Pray for them. Fast for them. Believe that God will intervene and show them the Truth. Spiritually fight for your family so that you won’t just save their soul but also your own.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Put All Under Christ.

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Push Back The Darkness

¹⁴You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. ~ Matthew 5:14-16

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.” He was speaking to the people of His day and age and to us here and now. This now begs the question, what is light? According to the Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains:

light, i.e., that which is contrasted to darkness (Genesis 1:3), note: in some contexts with the associative meaning of guidance, health, life, prosperity, enlightened judgment, and other positive things.

So, first of all, light is that which is contrasted with darkness. Which begs the question, what is darkness? According to wikipedia.org:

Darkness, the polar opposite of brightness, is understood as a lack of illumination or an absence of visible light.

If darkness is the opposite of brightness, or rather it is the absence of light, then we had better start spreading the light. Why? Because according to the definition above, light represents all that is good and useful for life.

Guidance
Health
Life
Prosperity
Enlightened judgment
And other positive things

And darkness represents the lack of all of the above.

Without light, there is no life, and we are the light. In other words, we carry the words of life taught to us by Jesus. What does that mean for us? We are to show God’s good work so that He might be glorified. But we must show God’s light now while we still can. A time is coming when darkness will overtake the whole world and forbid the working of light. We have to work while it is still day because night is soon coming when no one can work. Tribulation is coming for the full body of Christ, making it illegal to even say the name of Jesus. Unless we want that in our time, we have to spread the light now. We have to spread the Gospel throughout all the earth and push back the darkness that is closing in on us so rampantly.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Push Back The Darkness.

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Harvest Before It’s Too Late

³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. ³⁶Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” ~ John 4:35-38

Jesus is drawing an analogy here. He said, “You are saying that there are still 4 more months left before I have to prepare for the harvest. So, I can do other things while I wait, and why not? I don’t have to worry about preparing for the harvest for another 4 months.”

Then He hits them with the reality that the fields are white for harvest. In other words, some of you are worrying about your earthly treasures or your physical harvest; what can I get out of life? You are busy climbing the corporate ladder, but you are ignoring the true harvest. The most important harvest is the spiritual harvest. The harvest of souls. There is no greater harvest, and the harvest is ready now. The fields are white for harvest now.

I looked up why the wheat field would be white unto harvest. Then I texted a farmer friend of mine who confirmed it. Apparently, there are several reasons. Fugus, disease, etc. The disease is usually caused by a lack of proper watering, insect infestation, or not harvesting the grain on time. In every instance of the grain fields being white, it leads to the death of the grain.

I thought about this, and every account can be related back to the harvest field. The lack of proper watering can be related to a lack of evangelism. Insect infestation due to lack of discipleship. Lack of harvesting due to, again, lack of evangelism due to not enough workers.

What am I on about? The fields are white onto harvest in your world. People are dying without being reaped for the LORD. In other words, they are not being evangelized. They are not being told of the goodness of Jesus. They are not being saved! We are called not to keep our light hidden within us but display it to the whole world. We are called not to be silent but to go out and spread the Word of God to anyone willing to listen. We are to harvest the crop before it’s too late and they die. This is our call. This should be our main focus.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Harvest Before It’s Too Late.

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Lean If Needed

¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ~ 1 John 4:18

⁸Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. ~ Leviticus 26:8

I remember several years back, we were visiting someone in their home, and the owner of the house was seeing 3 black forms with long straggly black hair. My wife also saw the apparitions. Not long after our visit, the owner actually died in the house.

I went back to the house and was praying and worshipping in the house all day until evening. When the night started to come on, I heard a voice, not audibly, but I heard it in my head, and to me, it was very clear. It said, “The night is coming. Soon it will be dark, and he is coming. If he finds you here, they will have to carry you out also.”

I’m not gonna lie to you; it shook me up a little. Okay, it shook me a lot. But in defiance of that voice, I still stayed right where I was for about another 30 or 40 seconds, maybe less, but about another, at the very least, 20 seconds, and then I got out there.

The hair on the back of my neck started to stand up. I felt like my only exit out of there was being blocked, and I would have no way out. In that moment, without even thinking about it, I second-guessed God coming to my defense.

You see, you cannot cast out or drive out what you fear! Fear is a form of weakness that leads to distrust. We have to trust God because He will never leave us, nor will He forsake us. If we don’t fully trust God, we can’t operate in power. Why? We can’t operate in power when we walk in fear. Likewise, we cannot operate in fear if we walk in love.

My family and I went back to the house after that, and we began praying and casting out any evil that was in that home. We went from room to room in the confidence of the love of God. And to make sure fear didn’t have a foothold in our hearts as we prayed, we went at night and left all of the lights in the house off. You cannot cast out what you fear. And if you aren’t filled and surrounded with enough love to face fear alone, take someone (or someones) with you that will believe and stand in faith and love with you. A three-strand cord is not easily broken. One can put a thousand to flight, but two can put ten thousand to flight. Therefore, lean on your brother(s) or sister(s) in Christ when you aren’t strong enough to stand alone.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Lean If Needed.

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The Uncorrectable

¹¹But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. ¹²When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. ¹³As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions?” ~ Galatians 2:11-14^NLT

Peter was one of the Twelve who walked and talked with Jesus Himself. He was arguably Jesus’ best friend. He preached the first message on the Day of Pentecost and brought in 5,000 souls. He was a well-respected leader in the Church; nevertheless, not even he was above correction. When Paul corrected him, he didn’t condemn Paul. He didn’t pull up Paul’s past. He didn’t point out how long he was saved compared to Paul. He didn’t try to drag Paul’s name through the dirt and get him ostracized. Why? Because no one is above correction, but today that’s not a common belief.

Today, the Church has become unable to take correction. I’ve noticed that when someone doesn’t agree with one of my beliefs, they’ll start very friendly and kind, but as soon as I use Scripture they can’t defend against, they point out three things to me: I’m older than you, therefore wiser than you. I’ve been a Christian longer than you, therefore, I know and understand the Bible better than you. If they’re a man, they bring up that I’m female and, therefore, can’t possibly know better than a man. They never use Scripture. In fact, I was recently condemned and called all sorts of things in the comment section because I wouldn’t accept the beliefs of a man who believes he’s older than me (his age was never said, so I can’t say for sure). His biggest problem with me was that I used Scripture for why I didn’t believe his beliefs. He wanted to discuss the Scripture without quoting it. That is the temperature of the majority of “Christians” today. We want to push our ideology, our narrative, our truth, and when they contradict the Word of God, and someone points it out, we get angry. We get defensive. We get aggressive. Why? Pride.

Pride will blind us, keeping us from seeing the Truth. It will force us to create our own truth and disregard whether or not it agrees or disagrees with the only Truth, the Word of God. It will cause us to lash out when asked for Biblical evidence and see anyone who shows us the Truth in the Word of God as a bigoted hypocrite. This isn’t how the Church is to react. We are to use the Bible for correction so that we can grow. No one is perfect. Not me. Not you. Not even Peter, arguably Jesus’ best friend. Pride will keep us from God, for He humbles the proud but elevates the humble.

If your beliefs are challenged, defend them with Scripture. If they are weighed, measured, and found wanting, then change those beliefs. No one is above correction because no one is perfect.

Dear LORD, please search me. Convict me of any false beliefs, practices, or stances that I have within me. Show me any sin that has made a home in my life. Help me to root my beliefs in You and Your Truth and not in myself or another’s truth. Help me to strive to better myself each day. Teach me to take correction, and humble me so that pride may not build up in my life. Help me to always seek You and Your Kingdom. Guide me in all of my ways so that I may not be led astray by another shepherd. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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Build Up Your Spirit Man

⁸Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. ~ 1 Peter 5:8

Have you ever played any type of Mario game? Ever noticed the little boos, the circular ghosts…? Ever noticed when they attack? The only time they will approach you is when your back is turned to them, making your character unaware of their presence. As soon as your character turns around, they will back away, slowly fading so you no longer see them. This is the same way the enemy works.

You will never be attacked while you’re on guard, ready for him to come your way. Instead, he will only come when your guard is down; when you’re unknowing; when you’re confused; when you’re preoccupied with other things; when you’re weak.

Matthew 4 speaks of Jesus being tempted. Remember when He was tempted? It wasn’t right after praying. It wasn’t when He felt strong, powerful, and filled with the Holy Spirit. It was after fasting for forty days and forty nights. He was hungry. He was tired. He was weary.

Have you ever gone all day without eating and then felt so weak you couldn’t walk, talk, think, or focus, and you’re all confused…? Imagine not eating for forty days and forty nights. That was Jesus. But Jesus relied on His spirit man who was well-seasoned and prepared for defense.

We are each Mario in this scenario, and our spirit man is the player controlling Mario. The spirit man can see the enemy attacking, but we can’t. If we build our spirit man up, as Jesus had done through prayer, worship, reading and studying the Scriptures, and fasting, then our spirit man will be able to guide us through our attack.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Build Up Your Spirit Man.

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Meditate

⁸ This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. ~ Joshua 1:8

You know, when it comes to meditation and Christians, there are really only two main groups. The Christians that look at meditation as pure Satanism and want nothing to do with it. Then there are those Christians that just embrace anything that is the new popular. The everything goes Christian. I think that they’re both, in a way, wrong. I think that every Christian should embrace and focus on meditation. But only Christian meditation. What do I mean?

I’m not talking about yoga or any other Eastern meditation. I’m talking about Christian Meditation. This is very important for a person to grow as a Christian. Why? Because the Bible tells us so. If we have to meditate, but only Christian meditation, how do we do that? Three words.

Worship. Seek. Listen.

First, you worship. How do you worship? Well, worship can be defined as a few different things. According to Reverend Kenny and Celia Yates, worship is:

Acknowledgment and exaltation of who God truly is.

¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.

Romans 12:1

In other words, you have to bring forth a sacrifice. Back in the day, the Israelites had to kill a lamb, a goat, a cow, etc. But now you sacrifice yourself. Not your literal physical self, you’re your spiritual self.

You set a specific time for God and stick to it no matter if there is a new episode of your favorite show on TV, or you just don’t feel like it, or you’re too busy, etc. It’s about shutting out the world and focusing on God. Once you set a time and you’re about to start your quiet time, try playing worship music so that you can get your mind prepared.

This a time when you invite the Holy Spirit into your home. This is the time of humbling yourself in the astounding presence of God and truly acknowledging Him as the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Jehovah-Yasha (LORD my Savior). So your worship can be seen kinda like opening a door to go somewhere. When you start worshipping and singing and praising God, that’s opening the door, but you still gotta walk through the door.

This is where seeking comes into play. You cry out to Him. You pray. You SEEK after Him. A lot of times, as Christians, we wonder why stuff happened the way it did and why we didn’t get this or why this happened. It’s because, for the most part, we didn’t put it in His hands.

² You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

James 4:2

If we just put our desires before the LORD with good intentions, we’ll receive what we have asked for. So now we’ve reached our destination. We’ve walked to the door. We’ve knocked on the door. Now, all that’s left is to wait for someone to open the door. This is where we listen.

Sometimes, we forget to listen. Listening is more than just sitting there and waiting to hear the audible voice of God. Because for the most part not saying He wouldn’t, but for the most part, He speaks to us through His word. So you read your Bible, and when you read, really think about what the verse is saying. If you focus and pay attention to the words instead of what you’ll be doing after this, you’ll hear from Him. I’ll leave you with this,

⁷ Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:7-8

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Meditate.

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Battling Sin

¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ²¹envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. ²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ~ Galatians 5:19-24

Many of us have the desire to know how to battle sin so that we can begin to dive into spiritual warfare, but we don’t want to lay the foundation in order to be successful. Before we can battle sin, we have to make the conscious decision to carry our cross and follow Jesus regardless of what the world says or does to us.

If we decide to follow Jesus, we must understand the difference between right and wrong. They’re broken up into the desires of the Spirit & the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5 explains that we have both flesh and Spirit. The Spirit is our desire for God. The flesh is our desire to sin. But over the years, the majority of us have built up our flesh and starved our Spirit.

This is why when we become convicted of our sins, it’s so hard to break free. We have this idea in our heads that once we accept Jesus, all desires of the flesh will be gone, but that’s not the way it works. We have to go through trial after trial, battle after battle, until we have finally crucified our flesh.

After we make that decision to follow Jesus and carry our cross regardless of our situation, circumstance, surroundings, etc., we have to do an honest self-evaluation. But because we’re human, we’re going to overlook certain things about ourselves. So, what are we to do? Pray and ask God to search us. To show us anything that is in us that we need to change. Anything in us that we need to remove. When God shows us something, then we go into battle and take each fleshly desire down one desire at a time.

We fast. We pray. We read our Bibles and memorize verses that build us up and defend us against temptation. Then we make sure we don’t give the Devil a foothold into our lives. We stop going to places, hanging out with people, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, etc., which caused us to sin in the past. We change our lifestyle to match the commands of Christ Jesus.

This is a lot easier said than done, and it’s not going to happen overnight. But if we continue, we are promised that we will overcome sin because Jesus has already overcome the world. We can’t just pray and expect God to do all of the work; we have to meet Him halfway. We have to do something. We have to fight.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Battle Sin.

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Convict Me LORD

⁴³ Why can’t you understand what I am saying? It’s because you can’t even hear me! ~ John 8:43 NLT

Jesus sounds befuddled, if not frustrated. I can imagine Jesus throwing His hands up into the air and sighing deeply, “Why can’t you understand what I am saying?”

Jesus was trying to explain the way to eternal life. Jesus is the only way to eternal life. He is explaining deep, spiritual things to them and was amazed that although they heard the words, they could not, or would not comprehend them. Jesus soon realized that it was because of the hardness of their hearts, which were blinded by sin.

Sometimes it’s the same with us. We read the Bible, and the Holy Spirit will try to get our attention on something that we just read, but we’re too preoccupied with reading and getting it over and done with that He can’t penetrate our focused attention. Or we sit through a sermon that is aimed directly at us, but we look to the left and the right, and we point our finger. And Jesus replies, “Why can’t you hear what I’m saying to you through the preacher? You’re not even listening to my Spirit. You’re not even feeling the conviction.”

We have to be vigilant and pay attention to what the Spirit is saying. It’s not always the person next to us but the person looking back at us from the mirror.

Heavenly Father, it is not my brother or my sister, but it is I who is standing in need of prayer. Help me to feel conviction and be ready to change so that I can be a better servant, LORD Jesus, for it’s in Your name I pray, amen.

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