The Place Of God!

I was at the airport, heading for North Carolina.  It had been raining, it was dreary and overcast.  Visibility was not good at all.  We boarded the plane, the pilot taxied out to the run way and we waited our turn for take off.  The pilot keep the engine revved up all along the way.  Finally, our plane was cleared for take off.  The pilot revved up the engines full throttle and down the runway we went.  As we were ascending, the pilot came on and said we would be ascending to 38,000 feet.

Usually when I get on the plane, I adjusted my body as well as possible and go off to dream land. On this trip, I was sitting next to the isle and there was no-one next to me, I loved it!

As I was about to close my eyes, it got really bright outside. It was a little bumpy as we were ascending through the clouds, but in only a few minutes there it was, the sun, as bright as ever. I sat right up, had some awesome thoughts, got my pen and paper out and began to write. I thought, it is amazing how clear it is up here. What a difference a few minutes and being on the right vehicle can make!  Up here, the sun is out (It’s always shining somewhere) and it is as clear as can be, but down below it is still damp, overcast and dreary. 

God spoke to me to tell His people to quit stressing over their gloomy, overcast situations and come up on another level where you belong (Ephesians 1:19-23; Ephesians 2:4, 5).  God is always the same, Many times He is just on a different level than we are. He is trying to get us to take our relationship and experience with Him on the level He is on, His yoke is easy. 

Just as that plane’s engines were revved up and it took effort to get to 38,000 feet, it’s the same way with us. We have to get our spiritual engines revved up in the word of God, prayer, praise and worship.  Make no mistakes my friend, it takes effort to move to a higher place.

I've heard people say, I am not growing, I am not satisfied, I am not feeling God!  Maybe so, but it is your responsibility to move to another level. Even if you are in a Spirit filled, word preaching church, don’t blame the Church or your leader for your problems or lack of growth. You have to contact the air traffic controller (Holy Spirit) and get clearance to move to another level that has less turbulence. Sometimes you may have to go ten thousand feet higher to get above the storm and the overcast. You must do something about your situation! 

Some people get depressed because they think and do the same things over and over, but expect a different results.  That insanity!  Jude 20 and Ephesians 5:19 says; speak, sing and make melody to yourself.  Philippians 4: 8, 9 even tells us what to think on.  It doesn't get any better than that!  If you start stressing, getting uptight and the pressure starts building, stop! Ask yourself; am I putting the word of God in action with a positive confession? Am I putting forth effort to move to another place?  If you are not, you must change your focus from your trouble to your praise!

Sometimes we may think that someone else has to change or our circumstance has to change. There are times when God will use the circumstances to change us. Once we are changed, we will change our circumstance!

Are you praising, singing, worshiping, declaring the Word of God and speaking to yourself to ascend to a higher place where there is less turbulence?  Go ahead, rev up your Spiritual engine!  Your praise, worship, singing and declarations of faith will give you clearance and move you above the gloomy overcast, through the clouds, above the turbulence and to the place of God!  In His presence is fullness!!

Escaping Satan's Subtle Traps

Three critical times of the believer’s life.

1 Peter 5:8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

#1. Matthew 2:13-15 - Your most vulnerable moment is when you are young in Christ.

Christ is our example in each incident. Herod (enemy) tried to destroy Christ when He was young and seemingly vulnerable. Christ had parents who watched over His Life. Every believer needs spiritual parents/leaders. These principles are the same today. As a young believer, it is imperative that you stay as close to the altar and to your leader as possible. Be consistent in church attendance. Be filled with the Holy Ghost, spend time in prayer and spend time in the Bible like it is the last words you will ever hear. If you will stay saved, you must avoid ungodly influences (1 Corinthians 15:33). You must separate yourself from those who refuse to walk with God (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). After you have grown in Christ, you will have plenty of chances to witness to old friends and relatives.

As a young believer the enemy will seek to overwhelm you with pride or pity or the ways of the old life. I say young believers, but there are those who have been saved 10 or 15 years, but are still immature in the things of God. Before Christ came into your life, you were independent, selfish, rebellious, stubborn and opinionated. These kinds of attitudes will try to linger after your salvation experience. They will seek to hinder your walk with the Lord. As a believer, you must be humble, submitted, loving and kind. A word in season: Stay connected to your leaders!

#2. Luke 4:1-13 - Your greatest temptation could be directly after Holy Spirit baptism.

Christ is the example in this incident. When you receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost you will have power! Holy Spirit baptism does not mean that you have finally arrived. It means that you are just getting started! You will have gifts that you have no clue how to use. You must be humble and learn about the Holy Spirit within you. You must spend time with the Holy Spirit and learn His way, His wisdom, His direction and His administrations. This level of the Spirit realm attracts an attack from the enemy. Be aware of sensual and fleshy desires that seem to be from God, but are not.

Be aware of subtle manipulations of evil spirits to keep you from the presence of God or to get you to over spiritualize everything or to get you to use the gifts before you understand their administration. You must avoid pride and arrogance. Pride comes before the fall. Stay open to teaching/training from your spiritual parents/leaders. Receive correction as perfection, not rejection.

#3. John 6:14-17 - your greatest deception may be when God really begin to use you.

Christ is the example in this incident. Your greatest ministry is not preaching, singing, casting out devils or healing the sick. Your greatest ministry is ministering to the Lord and being an example and person of integrity; Job 2:7-10.

It is possible that a spirit of deception will try to force you to take on a role/identity that has not been assigned to you and to believe that you are someone that you are not. You are somebody! Just be confident in the “you” that God has created! The enemy will try to give you a false identity. Know who you are in Christ. Know your calling and gifting. Keep your calling and gifting submitted to your spiritual parents/leaders in the local church.

There were people who saw the miracles of Jesus and wanted to force an earthly position on Him.  The position the people wanted to force on Jesus was less than the one He already possessed!  Jesus knew that His kingdom was not of this realm.  When He perceived that men would come and force Him to be a natural King, He changed His location and got alone with the Father.  If people try to fill your head with great words of who you are and what you can do and where you can go, beware!  It may be God, or it may not be Him.  Check out prophetic words and motives with your spiritual parents/leaders.  Learn to be confident in who you are and stay where the Lord has assigned you.  The place of your assignment and leadership will provide love, nurture, guidance, protection, counsel and Holy Ghost Life!   

If your being used causes you to become unstable, disrupting your marriage, family, finances and leaving the covering you have been assigned to, you are being used (but not of God)! Never conjure up the belief or be deceived into believing that “your” ministry is more important than your marriage or your family. If this happens, it is time to get alone with God, talk with your spiritual parents/leaders and take some time off for reflections and corrections. It may be time to put aside all of your aspirations, take a look at your life and see who is Lord. God’s anointing will only sit on the identity He has established, in the place He has assigned you to. Fear not, there will be plenty of needs to be met after a period time off.

The devil’s finest moment is when he can deceive you into acting out someone you are not because it looks glamorous. If you are a teacher, be articulate, but a humble teacher. If God uses you in the healing gifts, get as many people healed as possible and give Him the glory. If you are used in the prophetic gifts, do so and keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds! God did not give us gifts that we would be attracted to the gifts. He gave us gifts to attract our attention and that of others that He could win us to Himself!

Our finest moment is when God has used us, yet we remain humble in our gifting, abilities and identity giving Him the glory!

I Will Not Fear!

I want to expose a spirit that is more dangerous than any sickness, disease, poverty or sin. It derails destinies, causes depression and stress and accelerates sickness and disease.

This spirit will try to convince you that you are lost, broke, sick, and will never do better! Many people don’t recognize it for what it is or for what it does.

I am talking about the spirit of fear.  Fear is a latent spirit that manifests itself in times of crisis. You can read of an example of this truth in Mark 4:35-41.  The disciples were fine until a storm arose and then that latent spirit of fear manifested itself.  They were torment by fear.

Latent means;present but not visible, apparent, or actualized; existing as potential: remaining in an inactive or hidden phase; dormant; existing in unconscious or dormant form but potentially able to achieve expression: dormant or undeveloped.

That spirit attacks the mind and the emotions in times of crisis.  If a crisis occurs in your life and negative thoughts and emotions try to overwhelm you, you have just discovered something that may have been there all along, a spirit of fear.  Fear is a dangerous, tormenting spirit that, if allowed, will blind a person to the word of God and to faith that causes us to overcome!  If you ever have an experience of this kind, do something about it.  If YOU do nothing about it, it will control your thought and your emotions when adversity arises.  YOU must acknowledge that evil spirit, rebuke that evil spirit, bind that evil spirit and command it to depart from your soul and the very atmosphere around you!  Then you must loose from the throne of God, His love, His peace, His power, His joy and His authority into your very spirit, soul and body!

After you have done those things, lift your hands and begin to praise, worship and magnify God for His victory in your total being!  Fear and torment does not come from God.  Treat fear and torment like the enemy it is!  Crush it with the word of God!  Speak words of faith, words of life, words of healing, words of victory, words of deliverance, words of success and favor over your life!  When you get rid of fear and it's torment, you can get rid of sickness, diseases, defeat, poverty depression and stress!

Read 1 John 4:18...Overcome fear by developing your love life and your faith life.  There is no fear in love....Galatians 5:6 Faith works by love....Love’s passion is the fuel of faith....John 14:23, 24, The evidence of love is obedience to the word of God....2 Timothy 1:7, God did not give you fear… 1 John 4: 18, Fear has torments... it causes disease, depression, stress.  Job 3:25, Fear attracts the very things you are afraid of.

If you are afraid of cancer, fear is attracting cancer and is developing it.  On the other hand, faith attracts and becomes the very things you are in need of.  Faith becomes our miracles and healing!

Faith is the supernatural, Divine, tangible substance and evidence of the heart that says, I AM MORE THAN A CONQUEROR THROUGH CHRIST AND I CANNOT BE DEFEATED!

Faith believes and confesses the promise, not the problem. Anyone who confesses the problem instead of the promise has a greater revelation of the problem than they do of the promise.  Meditate in the word of God until it becomes miracle life in you, healing life in you, peace life in you, joy life in you, authority life in you!

Your faith should stands in the gap and confessed the promise until the thing confessed becomes the thing possessed!  Fill your life with so much miracle healing word until there is no room for sickness, disease, infirmity, poverty, depression or defeat!

Read Psalms 118:6, be determined; I will not fear!

The Blessings And Benefits Of Paying Tithes!

Psalms 103:1-5 The Lord wants us to understand that there are benefits to serving Him. Philippians 4:19; God is, and has all of our supply. Genesis 8:22; His process is seed, time and harvest; 1 Corinthians 16:2, God established seed time; on the first day of the week (Sunday) an amount is given as God has prospered you. Genesis 28; 22There is an amount to be given; and of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto thee. Numbers 18:21; reason for tithing; tithing was paid to support the work of the priest in the Tabernacle (storehouse); it was given to the priest. Malachi 3:7-13: Tithing; a blessing when you do, a curse if you don't. Why? Tithing is an issue of obedience, trusting God and caring for His house. New International Version 6 "I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty. "But you ask, 'How are we to return?' 8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty. 12 "Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty. John 16:13, Ephesians 2: 17-19, Tithing gives us access to the presence of God for information/revelation. Deuteronomy 8;18; Tithing gives favor with God; for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth. Luke 6:38; Your sowing should give you favor with man and produce a large increase. The place to sow is where you are fed. 2 Corinthians 9:6-10: You will reap according to your sowing, sparingly or bountifully; give cheerfully in faith; God makes all grace abound toward you that you always have all sufficiency in all things; God ministers seed for you to sow and bread for your food and then multiply your seed sown. God then increase the fruit of your righteousness. Or in other words; you can live right (free from bitterness at God for poverty) and see the fruit of your righteousness. Genesis 12; and thou shalt be a blessing. God bless us to be a blessing! Tithing was not under the law, it was before the law. Abraham paid tithe before the law (Genesis 14:18-20). Abraham tithed out of gratitude to God for who He was. He didn’t pay tithe because a law required it of him. Abraham was under grace; Abraham was justified when there was no law to guide him and he tithed when there was no law to enforce it (tithe)! Matthew 23:23; Jesus declared that the scribes and the pharisees paid tithes. Tithing is talked about very little in the New Testament because it was not an issue; it was embedded in the Jewish religion and they did so faithfully and consistently. Exodus 36:4-7; the Tabernacle of Moses and the temple were built on the freewill offering of the people and not the tithe.

The Relentless Pursuit Of God!

Over here in the west, we have minimized, instead of maximized the meaning of certain words. Pursuit is the word I am referring to today. True pursuit is costly, it requires something of you! I want to give meaning to the word pursue. Luke 18:1-8, this woman was relentless in her pursuit of justice. Relentless: pitiless, harsh, and persistent. Pursue: to follow in order to overtake, to chase. To proceed along or follow as a specified course action or plan. To try to find; strive for, seek. To follow as an occupation, profession or study. To continue; carry on. To continue to annoy or distress. I am convinced, we need to chase after God and overtake Him. The lady with the issue of blood understood that what she needed was in Christ. So, she pursued Him relentlessly (Mark 5:25-34)! She chased and overtook Jesus. The leper knew that his cleansing was in Jesus, so, he pursued Him relentlessly in faith (Matthew 8:2-4). Blind Bartimaeus knew that his sight was in Jesus, so he pursued Jesus relentlessly (Mark 10:46-52). Many people have the wrong impression of God and His ways. They believe that God will have pity on them while they wait in doubt, fear and unbelief. They think that God will feel sorry for them in their condition and manifest Himself outside of faith and His word. So, they sit and wait for God to do something. Usually their situation gets worse! We must come to ourselves, rise up and relentlessly pursue what belong to us in Jesus Christ! Jesus makes who He is available to us, Phil. 4:19. In Him we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28). We must understand what is in Him? The Way, the Truth, the Life! Paul pursued and got grace. The blind got his sight. The lame was made to walk. The dumb was made to talk. The deaf was made to hear. He multiplied the fish and loaves. He stopped the storms, the winds and the rain. He walked on water. He raised the dead, cast out devils. Everyone’s need was in Him. They pursued until they overtook what was in Him! We must pursue after Him until His presence invades our lives, get His faith, get what He’s got and we can accomplish the things He has assigned to us. When we pursue after God, after the Holy Spirit, the same way we pursue many other things, we would be as full of God as we are these other things. What we have pursued after the most is what we are full of and what dictates our lives. Let there be no shortage of His presence of peace, joy, power, healing anointing, money or ministry in our lives! They are waiting for us in Him! Other people pursued until they apprehended that which they were apprehended of. It takes faith, focus, determination, tenacity and a relentless heart to acquire what is needed. You must chase after God!

Serpent On A Pole

Numbers 21:5-9, John 3:12:14, 15, John 12:31-33 In Numbers 21:5, the people had sinned against God and Moses; verse 6, God sent fiery serpents among the people, they were bitten and many people died. Verse 7, the people repented and ask for prayer, Moses prayed. Verse 8, The Lord instructed Moses to make a brass fiery serpent and put it on a pole. Everyone that is bitten, when he looketh upon it , shall live. Moses made a serpent of brass, put it upon a pole, it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. In scripture brass is significant of divine judgment. That Old Testament serpent on that pole was a type of Christ on the cross and what He accomplished there for us. Jesus was in the Old Testament concealed; in the New Testament revealed. The serpent on the pole was for the sake of the people. Everyone of us have been bitten by sin, sickness, poverty, pressure or stress. Jesus became to us as that brass serpent on a pole, in the form of judgment against it, that we may live free from it. In John 3:14, Jesus refer to Himself in relation to the serpent on the pole. In John 12:31-33 Jesus talked about His death, being lifted up and the judgment of this world; the serpent on a pole. Everyone who has been bitten by sin, sickness or poverty can receive deliverance. Beheld; to see or look at: I was surprised at the use this word, they looked until it became a past tense. Behold; lay eyes on, see, to perceive by sight or have the power to perceive by sight The key to deliverance is to; “behold the Serpent.” Most people have taken that part of the process to lightly. It is not a; snap, crackle, pop/slam, bam, yes maam type of thing. He must become our heart’s desire and total focus. We must spend time with Him. We must become Him. We must gaze upon Him, into Him and all of who He is to us. We must study Him. The Greeks were known to be people who study the scripture, they came to Jesus disciples and said; we would see Jesus (John 12:21). They went looking for Him! 1 Corinthians 1:22 says; the Greeks seek after wisdom. They wanted to see Jesus because they wanted to study Him, gaze upon Him! As our trust is in Him alone, He becomes Judgment upon the things that have vexed us. He became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) He became poor for us (2 Corinthians 8:9) He took sickness upon Himself for us (1 Peter 2:24). Jesus took sickness into Himself on our behalf and judged them to set us free from them. Jesus was then made unto us; wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30). Jesus became to us all of who we would need to be, what we would need to know and what we would need to do. You must behold Him, gaze upon Him and keep gazing until He becomes life in you and judgment comes upon your infirmity. It will cost you something; Obedience!

Women In Ministry

For many years, women have taken a lot of heat for their call to the ministry. I have listen and have heard the horrow stories of how many of them have been rejected and mistreated by male leaders, mislead saints or by various denominations. I would like to offer a word of encouragement to these women and also a suggestion. My suggestion for women who know they are called to the ministry: know your God; always be willing to forgive, stay free from bitterness, never try to justify yourself before man;never engage in a conversation about your ministry with those who doubt your calling. Establish fellowship with people who are of like precious faith. without reservation or hesitation, go and do what you have been called to do. Enjoy the ministry; enjoy the anointing; enjoy being used of the Holy Spirit! Win as many souls to Christ as you can and; preach! preach! preach! I have licensed and ordained women to the ministry for many years and most of them are very successful. People who are against women leaders either don't know the word of God or don't know the will of God (or neither). Such people should spend less time railing against women leaders and spend more time discovering who they are in Christ. When you discover your identity in Christ, you are not intimidated by others.