"What is Your SPIRITUAL DNA?"

"This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk; in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness in their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been tatught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewd in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness."

                                                                                 (Ephesians 4: 17-24)

Out with the old, in with the new is the mantra most people have every year with the anticipation of New Year's Day. They sit and they meticulously plan the changes they want to make to improve their lifestyle, health, financial security and romance. They spend hours poring through books, magazines and videos listening to dozens of stories and "proven" remedies to fix whatever ails them.

But one the the areas that is almost always overlooked is the spiritual health of the individual. They should be asking this question, "If the Holy Spirit were to give me a spiritual check up today, would I pass?" Is my heart pure? Is my mind sound? Are the symptoms of lewdness traceable? Is my sin in remission?

As a Believer in Christ Jesus, the spirit-led man or woman has to recognize the characteristics of a son of God. They must fully engage in and exhibit all the traits and tendencies of Christ as Lord and Savior. They must transfer that same Spirit to others they encounter in the marketplace who are seeking refuge, peace, love and joy as they crossover from hope to faith and bastard to son.

The Spiritual DNA is determined by your father. Whoever your father is will determine your spiritual DNA. If your father is Satan, then you will act like Satan. If your Father is the Lord God, then you will display all the traits, characteristics and tendencies of Christ! The hard truth is that people you know and people you meet will be able to tell you who your father is when they meet you for the first time...

The final analysis is this, do you want anger, fear and turmoil or love, joy and peace? The decision is yours...Selah.

" A Train of Vanquished Foes!"

"Therefore it says, "When He ascended on high (Mt. Zion) He led captivity captive and He bestowed gifts upon men."

                                                                            (Ephesians 4:8)

In His ascension, Christ led a train of vanquished foes (those who had been captured by Satan, his angels, sin and death) up to Mount Zion symbolizing the third heaven where God dwells (1 Kings 8:30). He had successfully defeated Satan and the spoils of war was the gathering of the spirits He held captive through the power of repentance, reconciliation and redemption.

In captivity with Satan, you are bound by sin and death but in captivity with Christ, you are holy and free as a son and member of the Kingdom of Heaven complete with all its benefits, privileges  and protection. How glorious it must have been to be a part of that procession. Glory be to God that He had the grace and mercy to leave us the deposit of the Holy Spirit to watch over us until His return!

Will you be in the number? Will you ascend to Christ in the earth realm? What gifts has He bestowed upon you? Do you have the gift of faith? Do you have peace? What about love? Do you have the gift to love and what about forgiveness? That's a bigee! Can you even consider forgiving someone who has transgressed against you?

Have you received the gift of service to freely give of yourself to God's people in the marketplace? When was the last time you exemplified Christ to someone living in darkness?

What must Satan have been thinking as he witnessed the procession of those whom he thought belonged to him being led by the King of Glory into the Presence of God the Father....FOREVER? Selah....

"DELIVERANCE from the FIERY FURNACE!"

"Daniel 3:8-30"

In the Book of Daniel Chapter 3, there is a story of three men who were sentenced to death by King Nebuchadnezzar for not submitting to his authority. The "fiery furnace" was the ultimate behavior modification tool used by the King to get everyone to obey him and worship his idol gods out of fear of certain death! Who would want to die like that? Who would dare refute the King?

The three men had no fear of man, but they did fear God! it was because the were afraid of God that the furnace was a preferable fate than facing the wrath of the Elohim. Would you choose to be burned alive rather than abandon God? When the trials of life have come knocking on your door, have you buckled under the pressure of adversity? Did you whine, cry and complain or did you remain steadfast, immovable and unyielding while praising and worshipping God?

You have to know that people are watching you and your reaction to tribulation. Your family, friends and co-workers who have heard you declare that you are "blessed and highly favored" time and time again are just waiting to see how you handle your lackluster quarterly evaluation at work, negative doctor's report or unexpected expense from your daughter in college. Yes, my friend, they are watching you to witness your reaction to the "fire."

The man in the midst of the fire is the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can call you out of the fire because He is the same One who put you in! The fire is a type and shadow of "testing, reproving and purging" the things that so easily beset us. In short, all Believers are made "subject" to the fire. John the Baptist said of Jesus, "...He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11-12)." 

How does the fire lose its power? The answer can be found in (Daniel 3: 13-18). The fire loses its power when the man's perspective, belief and knowledge of who God is and what God can do or will do to manifest His Will in the earth. God's will is perfect (it does not change because of my circumstances).

This story was never about the three men or the fiery furnace; it was ALWAYS about GOD! It tells the truth about how He goes before us, is in the fire with us and delivers us out of it. It talks about how He had already made provision for us in the midst of the fire by the "name" He had given us in eternity (which is "son"). God's name for you will prevail in midst of your most difficult circumstances and sustain you to the glory of God. Amen...

"The Pitfalls of a MAZE!"

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus; who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did in sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh..."

                                                                             (Romans 8:1-13)

A man that pursues the lusts of the flesh is subject to (controlled by and manipulated by these spirits to the point of the inability to recognize what they are doing). Every turn in a maze is met with another wall. In a maze, a lab rat (a man who is reliant on his own strength) never stops moving; he never stops and reflects, he just hits one brick wall after another.

The purpose of a maze is to create suffering and torture. In ancient Egyptian times, mazes were used to bewilder their prisoners. They frustrated, confused and infuriated their captives. A maze is a complex series of passages. These passages themselves fork and eventually do one of only two things: either they come to a "dead end" (Satan) or the passage closes in on the lab rat in a loop with itself or connects with another passage separate from itself that does not provide a solution (escape). There is usually "only one correct path" (the Lord God) in the maze from start to finish.

God's vantage point is the same as the scientist (Satan) who is observing the lab rat he placed inside the maze. The difference is that God can see the way of escape (1 Cor. 10:1-13) while Satan's goal is to keep you bound. God has afforded each of us a way of escape (through the power and authority of the Holy Spirit) from temptation.

God has also given us examples of what has happened to those who have fallen prey to temptation. They become crushed by the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life. The only way out of a maze is for the hand of God to reach down, push Satan out of the way and lift you out of your futility with His Mighty Right Hand (Christ Jesus).

"WANTING to Hear versus NEEDING to Hear from GOD!"

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them and they follow Me."

                                                       (John 10:27)

There is a profound difference between "needing" to hear from God and "wanting" to hear from God.

"Needing" to hear from God is a reactionary response, in most instances, to an adverse situation in one's life. Perhaps it involved injury, loss of a job, sickness, debt or loss of life. It is not the desire of the individual to seek God but, in fact, he/she is seeking and "answer" (or more specifically a solution to his/her problem). In essence, the Presence of God or the relationship has very little or nothing to do with this petition. Needing to hear from God has a definitive time limit assigned to it for a response.

Conversely, "wanting" to hear from God does not require an answer or remedy from Him. The encounter has no time limit assigned to it and is solely motivated by the individual making himself/herself "available" to hear from God whenever He decides to make the visitation. Wanting denotes the existence of a relationship between God and the individual. Intimacy, reverence, fear and love motivate the Believer into wanting to be in the Presence of God eternally. Selah...

"The MINISTRY of SUFFERING!"

"This things I have spoken, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

                                                                                                 (John 16:33)

This might be hard to hear for the modern day Christian but "suffering is a ministry!" Jesus gave every Believer the promise that they would suffer tribulation because of His name. Jesus, like Job and so many other patriarchs, was given the "ministry" of suffering as a badge of honor and test for qualification and acceptance into the Kingdom of God.

Suffering goes with the territory. It is the Holy Spirit who administers the test. The ministry has a weightiness (heaviness, pressure) to it. The Hebrew word is "kabod" or "the glory of God through the sheer weight of His majesty, power and might." The suffering gets lighter the closer you get to God because there is a spiritual transference.
God's glory absorbs our pain, agony and despair and turns the anguish into love, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.

Suffering can't be avoided by sleep; it will chase you into you right into your dreams and be waiting for you when you wake up. Suffering begats hopelessness, frustration and turmoil. It also can create dillusions whereby the sufferer can miss the opportunity for an encounter with the Holy Spirit because of their depression and fear.

Did you see what happens? The suffering never leaves, God just changes your perspective, maturity and endurance. In essence, the suffering becomes your "witness" because the suffering is not for you: it is for the people God has assigned to you. Your witness is more than your testimony. Your testimony is a good story but your witness is signed, sealed and delivered by the Blood of Jesus Christ as a testimony of His sacrifice (suffering) so that we may have eternal fellowship with the Father. This is how a sufferer can be free; through the Blood of Christ!

Finally, the weight is also the "world." The world is simply translated "temptation." Jesus said that in this world you will have temptation; but don't be concerned because, I have overcome temptation (the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life). Selah...

"There is no SAFETY in IGNORANCE!"

When it comes to the things of God, the Christian cannot use, “I didn’t know” as an excuse for repeated offenses against the Gospel of Peace. Being “ignorant” is just pure laziness. There is no reason whatsoever to “not know” unless you just don’t want to. Of course, as we have discussed many times in the past, many Christians enjoy their sin too much to cross over into the realm of repentance, redemption and reconciliation.

Don’t be lulled to sleep thinking that you are “safe” because you act like you don’t know what you are doing is perverse, rebellious or wicked. If you are above the age of five you know right from wrong and, I can state emphatically that when I was engaging in sinful activity, I knew exactly what I was doing! There is no sugar coating the truth here. I did it. I enjoyed it. And the rest is history.

          

The deception of “safety” is manufactured by Satan. He wants you to be “comfortable” in your sin; so comfortable in fact that you feel safe committing the sinful activity over and over again while being a hypocrite before the eyes of God. The deception is rooted and grounded in the fact that you will be concerned with your wife and kids finding out what you are doing than God! Imagine that; being more afraid of your wife or husband than God?

          

Ignorance and stupidity are two different paradigms. Ignorance is defined as not knowing something, while stupidity is being comfortable with not knowing something. Think about a person who has high blood pressure, feels bad all the time but won’t go to the doctor out of fear. The person knows he is sick but he is afraid that the doctor is going to confirm what he already knows. So he stays away from the doctor because he doesn’t want to hear the truth, however, the truth will save his life. The truth will identify the problem, expose it and then cure it! This is a prime example of how ignorance and stupidity can be symbiotic. The man who remains ignorant of his health is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. There is no doubt a major a major heart attack waits him in his future.

Because of ignorance, he thinks he is safe.  He thinks that he is safe because he does not know. But stupidity will replace life with death and add another chump to the growing number of Christians serving the devil through deception.