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Archive for July, 2013

The power of the word or word of the power

How many times do we speak the word of God into a situation and see nothing change? It can be extremely frustrating, causing us to question God’s will in a situation. My heart hurts as I recall the people I’ve talked to who have struggled with seeing the power of God manifest in their lives and their world around them. When nothing seems to be happening they usually respond in one of two ways.

  1. They give up, thinking that either God word doesn’t work or there is something wrong with them. Most people get frustrated and start looking for another answer.
  2. They become more fervent in their prayers. They beg and plead God to move, many times adding fasting or repentance trying to “activate” the power in the word.

God has been really impressing on me these past couple weeks that we need to change our perspective. Quit focusing on the words that we speak and start focusing on where those words come from. It’s not the power of the words, it’s the words of power. Let me explain it this way.

Scripture is valuable to know, knowing it and rightly dividing it gives us the guidance we need for our lives. Yes, even Jesus quoted scripture, but it wasn’t really what He said that stopped Satan’s temptation, it was who was saying it. He didn’t ask God to make Satan go away, He didn’t go through all sorts of rituals, He just spoke, and if He would have said, “ That’s a lie, be quiet!”, it would have been just as effective. You see, Jesus knew something we all need to get a greater revelation of. He knew He was God’s beloved son and that His Father was well pleased with Him.

ImageAs born again believers we too are beloved sons (both male and female) and God is very pleased with us. It has nothing to do with your actions, Jesus made you righteous and holy by the finished work of the cross, your Heavenly Father is pleased with you in the same way He is pleased with Jesus. As a matter-of-fact, He is so pleased with you that He has seated you at His right hand in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That’s right, He seated you in a place of authority. And that gets us to the main point. It’s from that place of authority that we must speak. It really isn’t important what we say or the words used. What is important is having the revelation that it is spoken from that position of power and of having all authority. It’s from a position of the authority of all of Heaven and earth that gives the words power. When we speak from that position we don’t ask God to do it we demand the situation change and conform to the will of God. We should no longer ask God to do what He has given us authority to do and commanded us to do.

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Hurts of the Church

Many years ago, in my youthful exuberance and raw passionate love for God, I set out to change the world for God. I preached the love of God and healed the sick everywhere I went. There were no grey areas in my life; everything was black or white, right or wrong. I knew the nature of God, He was revealing it to me through supernatural experiences; unfortunately, I can’t say I always demonstrated it.

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During this time I sought a church to call home; one that would “understand my passions”. Needless to say, I wasn’t received everywhere I went. Sometimes it was my fault, sometimes not, but regardless of the reason, I took offense and the hurts started to build.

Funny thing about hurts, if not dealt with, they will influence every part of your life and ministry, especially your relationship with God and others. Those hurts will start dictating how you view others, and if you are ministering, you will minister out of those hurts instead of love.

Anyway, my hurts against “the church” built causing me to become more and more separated from all Christians except for those I was ministering to. Gradually my message changed from God’s unconditional love to one that was centered on going against the popular doctrines that I saw were unscriptural. I slowly went from loving all, to seeing the faults in the lives and beliefs of others. Now, I realize some may say, “ Aren’t you supposed to expose false teachings?” Yes and no. We are called to expose false doctrine but the way we go about it is as important as the exposing of it. If you look at the life of Jesus, He taught the truth. He didn’t teach against anything unless he was addressing the teachers of the Law. Even then, He never sought them out, they came to Him and addressed Him; He was just responding. So yes, we expose the false but we do it by teaching the truth. Light will expel darkness if you just let it shine.

So, my hurts continued to build and I became more and more isolated from other Christians until finally one night, sitting in a restaurant in Malawi Africa, I walked away from ministry. I still loved God tremendously; I had just allowed the hurts to build until my discontent with the condition of the church caused me to want no part of it or  even to minister to it. The not-so-funny thing about isolation is that the enemy knows that as long as he can keep you from the fellowship with other believers, you will never be healed from the hurts.

I stayed away from any organized Christian service for four years; even then it took my wife telling me it’s time for us to start going to church again and prodding me for me to go. I knew this was from God and I knew where He was telling me to go, I was just reluctant to go. I had never been to the church He was telling me to go to, but I had seen the pastor and had seen his heart. I knew he had a heart  in love with God and with love for the people.

We’ve been going to Christian Center Shreveport for 3 years now and God has used the people there to heal my heart. He has once again restored my love for people and the desire to see them become all God has created them to be. I could not have been healed of hurts from the church unless I started going to and started being around the church again. (I realize we the people are the church and the place isn’t but give me some grace here 🙂 ) We cannot be all we were created to be apart from the rest of the body. I’ve learned through all this that it’s not about being in 100% agreement on every issue, it’s not about people understanding you or recognizing your “anointing”. It is about loving people, serving people, and laying your life down so they can be who Jesus has created them to be. I’ve learned that it’s about having a family that when you are down, they are there to stand with you and help support you. I’ve learned that it’s all about love and for that I’m very thankful to my Christian Center Family. I love them and even when I’m not able to be with them physically, I’m there in spirit.
To all of you that have isolated yourself from others because of hurts or because they don’t believe the way you believe, get back in the fellowship. Don’t worry about them or what they do or say, love them, serve them, and watch the wounds heal.

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