Over the last few weeks, there has been a shift. Everything that I have ever been concerned about as it pertains to my life has come back to haunt me. My finances took a huge hit, people that my wife and I trusted completely destroyed any trust that we had between my wife/me and them, just crazy stuff that don’t normally happen. The pressure of these events was short lived and the reason for them was quickly revealed.
The truth is that whenever God is getting ready to move, the enemy steps up his attack. If you’re about to get a promotion/raise at work, your tire blows out (for instance). It could even be that if you are going to meet with a friend and wind up ministering to someone, you will be detained and distracted by all sorts of stuff.
I said all that to say this: It’s time for a spiritual riot! A spiritual riot is long overdue. I heard about a news story where a bunch of teenagers stabbed someone an insane number of times because they thought that they were pleasing some pagan god or something. Thousands of children, in the very small town that I live, in go hungry every week. In fact, the reason that they like going to school is so that they can have at least one meal a day during the week. Young men and women walk around thinking that they have to be something that they are not to please some sort of false idea of what they are supposed to be. Those ideas can come from their friends, magazines, the internet, even their parents.
These things can be avoided. For WAY too long the church of Jesus Christ has stood by and let this kind of injustice happen. What can you do? Im glad you asked!
1. PRAY Do not think of prayer as an act of asking God for what you want. Think of it as a two way communication between you and Him. There are countless examples of people going before the Lord and just being with him. In fact, the first mention of the idea of prayer in the Bible (Genesis 4:26) is just about the sons of Enoch turning to God and awaiting instruction. Prayer is also a weapon of warfare. Paul and Silas were freed from prison because of singing and praying. David returned to Ziklag, saw everything was destroyed, went and prayed and received instruction to get it all back. Hannah prayed fervently and became pregnant even after many years of barrenness. In case you do not know, after seven years and tons of prayer, my wife is pregnant even after doctors told her that she would never even have a menstrual cycle without medication. Do not tell me that prayer does not work.
2 Chronicles 7:14
2. GENEROSITY You want to know how to end world hunger? Generosity. In 2013, Christians in America spent enough money on ice cream in one year to supply all of Africa with clean drinking water. I’m not saying that you should not have nice things. What I am saying is that God has blessed us ABUNDANTLY. We should have the heart of the Father and give to others just as we have been given to. There are foundations that are doing cataract surgeries for $30 apiece. How much have we spent going out to eat recently? The blind are seeing for $1/day.
Matthew 7:21-23
Jeremiah 22:16
3. READ YOUR BIBLE 2 Corinthians says that the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ, RIGHT? Now if the promises of God are the word straight from God’s mouth, where might we find said promises? You guessed it. In that book that we quote, but for the most part do not believe. We read things like, “Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit which is THE WORD OF GOD” (Ephesians 6:17). Ok, how do we use this sword? Find you a good meaty scripture. It may take some time. Think about something that happens often that you do not like. Ask a friend to help you with this. They may get something out of it as well. Next time one of those undesirable circumstances comes at you, repeat the scripture until you can either see the situation change, or an answer to the problem comes about.
Sometimes people ask why the New Testament is so about peace, but the Old Testament is so over the top violent. Now this is JUST my assessment of it . I have my ideas and you are welcome to your own. My assessment of that question is simply this: Before Christ, the war was natural against what I believe are the descendants of fallen angels. (Genesis 6:3-4, i.e. Goliath and the giants of the Philistines). When it comes to the New Testament, the devil is defeated by Jesus and then the war becomes all in the Spirit. We use the same weapons that Jesus did to defeat Satan, in Christ. He made the Satan go away simply by relying on the word to do His fighting for Him.
The previous list was just a start in the right direction in turning this mess around. No, you do not have to change the world yourself. If you can, GREAT! However, let’s take a hint from the prophet Nehemiah. Let’s say that you encounter 10 people that are non believers in a day on a regular basis. If you are kind, pleasant, non-gossiping, compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love as much as humanly possible, You WILL Change Your World! Build the wall of God in front of your house, and everyone else do the same and eventually the wall will be complete. The devil will try and get in your way. He will use the very people that you are loving on and trying to build relationships with to get under your skin and make you lose your testimony. Furthermore, please understand, that in every area of your life, you are responsible for your actions. Sometimes you get yourself in a mess, so just don’t confuse reaping from foolish decisions as an attack of the enemy, but I digress. If just 50 people in your church, show the love of Christ on a continuous basis, and then 50 from the majority of the churches in the area do the same, we will see the world change dramatically for the better.
Now, I want you to think about the last time you did something “good”. It don’t matter if it was giving a meal to someone, or giving someone that was having a bad day a hug. How did you feel? I can venture a guess as to why it felt so good. God’s way of doing things pursues healing and wholeness. More simply put, we are all separate parts that are one whole, and when we do things that are the way that the One that created us said to do it, we are pursuing completeness, wholeness without one missing piece, ehod. Ehod is also the very thing that holds the universe together. Satan is exactly the opposite of that. John 10:10 says that he has come to kill, steal and destroy. Elsewhere, Jesus says that he is the father of the lie and that there is no truth in him. He has come to tear apart the completeness that holds the entire universe together. That is why living our lives the way that Christ did is so very important. If you show healing and wholeness, ehod, to everyone that you know, they will want to know why you are the way you are. That is how the church multiplies itself and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Grace and Peace be with you ALWAYS!
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