This is kind of a curious situation. We had never really sat down to talk about spiritual weapons before starting this series. Now here we are at part 7 and the list keeps growing. It seems we had not previously realized how extensive the armory of spiritual weapons really is. It seems there are different weapons for just about anyone who has a heart for the fight. For those of you who like to be loud and boisterous in facing down the enemy, there are shouting and singing and clapping weapons. If, on the other hand, you tend to be the more quiet, reserved personality type, you can hide in your closet and whisper your prayers. Since the battle is being fought by the angelic hosts of God, it really does not much matter which of the weapons we are using, the results are the same.
Prayer is kind of a tricky weapon to describe in very much detail in a limited space. This could end up being Part 7A, 7B, etc. In order for that not to happen, we are going to limit ourselves to the essence of prayer--what it is, how we use it, and what we can expect it to accomplish. That seems simple enough.
Prayer is communication with God. Oh, and of course the "with" there means both ways, to and from God. Most Christians know all about praying to God, but come up a little short on hearing from God. At least they know how to talk to God. At least they know how to talk? We love the old saying that God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Seriously, prayer is simply communicating with God. That should take care of number one above--what prayer is.
How we use prayer largely depends on the situation we are facing. As we have mentioned before, God has no boundaries. Therefore, when we pray to Him, our prayers have no boundaries. We are asking him to do something that we could not do. The reasons for our impotence in the situation are irrelevant. It could be that we are facing an enemy stronger than we are. Maybe the battle is at a distance from us and we cannot participate in person. Perhaps we simply do not know what else to do. Prayer is not a default, it is a good option when we are uncertain about what it is we should be doing.
Let us do a brief teaching that many have found extremely beneficial. By looking at just a few verses in the Bible we can be assured that our prayers are answered. The first thing we need to settle is this blog is intended for people who have made Jesus Lord of their lives and have been born again. We are then grafted into and abide in the one true vine. (John 15:1-8) Once we have done that, "...all the promises of God are Yes in Him [Jesus]..." (2 Corinthians 1:20, brackets added) Since all the promises are yes in Jesus, all we need do is find the promises that apply to answered prayer. We know they are good. The answer is yes in Jesus.
The first verses we want to look at promise that God hears and answers our prayers. After we explain that, we will validate it with another verse. Warning, do not succumb to the temptation to say, "I tried it and it does not work so I do not believe it." What we are about to tell you is so good and so powerful, the religious spirit has already convinced most of the church it is too good to be true. We invite anyone who doubts what we are going to teach here to study it out for yourself. If you come to a different conclusion, post a comment or send us a personal email. The email, in case you do not know how this works is, thechurchinsantamariaca@gmail.com
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him." (1 John 5:14-15) Briefly, for the sake of space, this verse says if we ask, He hears us and if He hears us we have what we asked of Him. You have most likely heard these verses taught to say God's hearing and answering only applies if what we ask is what is in God's will. The Greek text does not support that conclusion. His will in these verses is that we pray. It does not refer to what we pray. You may have to meditate on that statement. The verses are telling us that God calls us to pray. He does not tell us what to pray. The validation verse we mentioned above is John 14:14, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." We have no idea how Jesus could have been more clear than that.
The point of this post, in case you missed it, is that prayer is a powerful, spiritual weapon which is effective because Jesus has promised to do what we ask Him to do. The more specific we can be with those requests, the easier it will be for us to see the answers to them. He is literally waiting to hear us ask Him for what we want. He is trying to teach us to partner with Him in building His kingdom. With regard to this spiritual warfare, making our needs known to Him in prayer moves Him to direct the appropriate response. Try prayer. You will like the results.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
A Time Before Time Began
In 1985 we were busily and more or less happily pastoring the Foursquare Church in Davis, California. We say "more or less" because a day job was still a necessity with four young children to feed and clothe and a small congregation of mostly college students. We had started that church from scratch in the latter half of 1980. And ok, so the title of this post is a little misleading, but it seems like another lifetime ago, and it was before the time this blog has recorded heretofore.
That little church was Foursquare in every sense of the word. We had been licensed to preach the Foursquare Gospel in Davis and were diligent about that business. We believed and taught that Jesus is the healer of our bodies, the savior of our souls, the baptizer with the Holy Spirit and our soon coming King. We still believe He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) We think we even believed all that in our spirits, but somewhere in there a switch had not been thrown or something.
We saw people being born again and beginning their new life journeys. We baptized new believers in water several times a year. There had been a smattering of physical healings, but nothing on a regular basis. Then as He sometimes does, God began to work sovereignly, behind the scenes, to rock our world in a very positive way.
We had made arrangements to attend the annual Foursquare convention in Los Angeles. It would be good to get away and to see some people we had not seen in some time. We could also stay with relatives so the cost would not be prohibitive and it would be good to see them as well. We do not recall if we knew who the keynote speaker for the convention was before we registered, nor does it really matter. It was John Wimber--at that time a man at the pinnacle of a career which included leading the Vineyard churches, teaching at Fuller Seminary, writing, and actively involving himself in what he called "power evangelism". Power evangelism, as we understand it, is the demonstration of the Kingdom of God, on earth, in signs and wonders, for the purpose of bringing people to Jesus.
John Wimber delivered an excellent teaching on physical healing and it's availability to The Church today. Well that was 24 years ago, but if Hebrews 13:8 is still good, the time would not seem to be relevant. At the end of his message, he called for anyone who wanted to participate in a healing time to come to the platform. I was in the first balcony in Angelus Temple, toward the front. The exit is in the back. I believe I was the second or third person to reach the platform. I was excited to be part of that ministry. John then called for anyone who needed a physical healing to come to the platform. He then told us to wait until the Holy Spirit showed us who to minister to in prayer. The end result of that is that I prayed for and watched as a woman, with tears in her eyes, stood erect for the first time in a long time. She was healed from a spinal condition that had kept her slightly bent forward.
Just a few weeks after we returned from the convention, we received an unsolicited invitation in the mail to have dinner at a restaurant fifty miles or so from Davis. The invitation came from a group calling themselves, "Friends of Deliverance". They were providing a complimentary dinner to introduce pastors and other interested people to the need for deliverance within The Church. Some note on the invitation linked the group with a Foursquare pastor we knew in the town where the meeting was being held. We made a telephone call to be sure this was not some kind of weird group and were assured by the pastor these were good people who simply wanted to expose more people to the deliverance ministry. Besides, they were buying dinner so we felt we had nothing to lose by joining them. We found what they had to say very interesting, encouraging, and even inspiring. Our sole, previous experience with a demon had not ended well. By the time we left that meeting we had a better handle on the deliverance ministry. I remarked to Judi on the trip home that I was pretty sure the Lord would not have been teaching us about healing and deliverance if He did not plan to have us doing something in that area.
Within the next several months we actually led our first successful deliverance session. We saw virtually everyone in the church who had physical problems receive their healings. Time and space, and the Holy Spirit, will not allow us to go into any further detail about all those things.
Sometime, I am going to have to rehearse for you, my call to the ministry. Until then, let me just tell you it came via a word from the Holy Spirit to my spirit from Luke 4:18-19. Verse 19 says, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Without a detailed teaching on this verse, let us say for now we are talking about a time when God is pouring out His favor on His people. This is not necessarily a literal 365 day year. I am writing this post, on this day, to tell anyone who will listen, you can have the Lord's favor on your life right now. All you have to do to appropriate it for yourself is to do as Jesus said. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7) It is time. If you need help with that feel free to give us a call or send us an email. You can even post a comment and perhaps help others too. God bless.
That little church was Foursquare in every sense of the word. We had been licensed to preach the Foursquare Gospel in Davis and were diligent about that business. We believed and taught that Jesus is the healer of our bodies, the savior of our souls, the baptizer with the Holy Spirit and our soon coming King. We still believe He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) We think we even believed all that in our spirits, but somewhere in there a switch had not been thrown or something.
We saw people being born again and beginning their new life journeys. We baptized new believers in water several times a year. There had been a smattering of physical healings, but nothing on a regular basis. Then as He sometimes does, God began to work sovereignly, behind the scenes, to rock our world in a very positive way.
We had made arrangements to attend the annual Foursquare convention in Los Angeles. It would be good to get away and to see some people we had not seen in some time. We could also stay with relatives so the cost would not be prohibitive and it would be good to see them as well. We do not recall if we knew who the keynote speaker for the convention was before we registered, nor does it really matter. It was John Wimber--at that time a man at the pinnacle of a career which included leading the Vineyard churches, teaching at Fuller Seminary, writing, and actively involving himself in what he called "power evangelism". Power evangelism, as we understand it, is the demonstration of the Kingdom of God, on earth, in signs and wonders, for the purpose of bringing people to Jesus.
John Wimber delivered an excellent teaching on physical healing and it's availability to The Church today. Well that was 24 years ago, but if Hebrews 13:8 is still good, the time would not seem to be relevant. At the end of his message, he called for anyone who wanted to participate in a healing time to come to the platform. I was in the first balcony in Angelus Temple, toward the front. The exit is in the back. I believe I was the second or third person to reach the platform. I was excited to be part of that ministry. John then called for anyone who needed a physical healing to come to the platform. He then told us to wait until the Holy Spirit showed us who to minister to in prayer. The end result of that is that I prayed for and watched as a woman, with tears in her eyes, stood erect for the first time in a long time. She was healed from a spinal condition that had kept her slightly bent forward.
Just a few weeks after we returned from the convention, we received an unsolicited invitation in the mail to have dinner at a restaurant fifty miles or so from Davis. The invitation came from a group calling themselves, "Friends of Deliverance". They were providing a complimentary dinner to introduce pastors and other interested people to the need for deliverance within The Church. Some note on the invitation linked the group with a Foursquare pastor we knew in the town where the meeting was being held. We made a telephone call to be sure this was not some kind of weird group and were assured by the pastor these were good people who simply wanted to expose more people to the deliverance ministry. Besides, they were buying dinner so we felt we had nothing to lose by joining them. We found what they had to say very interesting, encouraging, and even inspiring. Our sole, previous experience with a demon had not ended well. By the time we left that meeting we had a better handle on the deliverance ministry. I remarked to Judi on the trip home that I was pretty sure the Lord would not have been teaching us about healing and deliverance if He did not plan to have us doing something in that area.
Within the next several months we actually led our first successful deliverance session. We saw virtually everyone in the church who had physical problems receive their healings. Time and space, and the Holy Spirit, will not allow us to go into any further detail about all those things.
Sometime, I am going to have to rehearse for you, my call to the ministry. Until then, let me just tell you it came via a word from the Holy Spirit to my spirit from Luke 4:18-19. Verse 19 says, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." Without a detailed teaching on this verse, let us say for now we are talking about a time when God is pouring out His favor on His people. This is not necessarily a literal 365 day year. I am writing this post, on this day, to tell anyone who will listen, you can have the Lord's favor on your life right now. All you have to do to appropriate it for yourself is to do as Jesus said. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7) It is time. If you need help with that feel free to give us a call or send us an email. You can even post a comment and perhaps help others too. God bless.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 6
We are not entirely sure how blogger works, and it really does not matter all that much. The way we hope and pray this blog works is that we hear what the Holy Spirit is saying, write it down, and it becomes some kind of semi-permanent record on the internet. We mention that only to say, this post, we think, is going to show it was published on a Saturday. In reality it is barely Saturday by the clock. We are morning people, but this can hardly be considered morning at all.
Watchman Nee, who is one of our heroes in the faith, said every day was a spiritual battle while he was writing his classic The Spiritual Man. I was talking about that with my neighbor across the fence just yesterday. When we look back at the dates of these posts, we note we were publishing much more frequently when we started. Then something happened. The warfare became a little more intense. Trust me when I tell you this whole, past week was one distraction after another.
For most of the past twenty years, as we have alluded to previously, we have been unsure of what we were called to Santa Maria to do. We are embarassed to say most of that time we spent in ignorance can be directly related to spiritual deception. Not only were we unable to see what we were supposed to be doing, we thought we were doing what we should be. We know, that sounds sort of cryptic, but that is how spiritual deception works. One wrong turn, one false piece of information, one lie that we believe can send us down the path toward deception.
At this time, however, we can tell you, we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. In the past three months, more or less, we have moved out of that period of ignorance and deception, into a period of apathy, where we did not really care what happened, to peace. We now understand, with more than head knowledge, God is at work in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) Looking back over our lives, we see sometimes very clearly, sometimes less how God was bringing us to this time and place.
In the beginning, this blog was as effortless as anything ever has been in my life. Of course, most of the early posts were simply personal history so the most difficult part of writing them was remembering that far back with a brain that may have passed it's prime. It has become more difficult recently. We are aware of Satan's schemes. We also understand a little something about how God works in our spirits.
This is a real time update. I just learned what I am about to share, and I do mean "just" as in moments ago. It is also one of those "duh" moments as in, how have I been missing that? Let me explain what "just" happened. The Holy Spirit dropped a word into my spirit. The word is "schemes". I knew it was in the Bible, but I get a little fuzzy on addresses sometimes. I almost always blog with another tab open to http://www.crosswalk.com/. What a blessing that site is to The Church. Anyway, as we said very early on, we always quote from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted. So we search in that translation. Nothing came up. Maybe it was in the Authorized Version, a.k.a The King James Version. Not there either. Sometimes we do use the New International Version. Might as well try that. There it is, two times. The word "schemes" appears in 2 Corinthians 2:11 and Ephesians 6:11. Both times the scheme of Satan being talked about is division amongst God's people. For your information, the other two versions mentioned use the word "devices" instead of schemes.
We neglected to mention earlier the Lord has been working overtime dealing with us about our love walk. In fact, our pastor sent an email just yesterday reminding us that loving one another is one of the life principles of our church. That also came up in the conversation with the neighbor yesterday. He is a Christian man. We briefly noted that some people are just easier to love than others.
There is no way to over-emphasize the importance of loving one another. The Bible is God's love story to mankind. From Genesis 1:1 where God began His work of creation to provide a perfect place for man to live to Revelation 22:20 where He wishes us the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible is the expression of a Father's love for his children. Jesus prayed, "...that they may all be one...that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (John 17:22-23) We truly will show God to the world by loving one another as He has loved us.
I started writing this over an hour ago because I felt led to write. At that time I did not know what weapon I would be writing about. By now it should be obvious. The weapon is unity and it works by love. It seems I remember some historical figure saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." or was that just a song lyric performed by Sonny and Cher? (We do hope you recognize our sardonic comments that appear in this space from time to time.)
Now I had better get back to bed. Our grandson is here for the weekend and we would hate to miss any time with him. He is, after all, the cutest little boy in the world.
Work on your love walk and we will be "perfect in one".
Watchman Nee, who is one of our heroes in the faith, said every day was a spiritual battle while he was writing his classic The Spiritual Man. I was talking about that with my neighbor across the fence just yesterday. When we look back at the dates of these posts, we note we were publishing much more frequently when we started. Then something happened. The warfare became a little more intense. Trust me when I tell you this whole, past week was one distraction after another.
For most of the past twenty years, as we have alluded to previously, we have been unsure of what we were called to Santa Maria to do. We are embarassed to say most of that time we spent in ignorance can be directly related to spiritual deception. Not only were we unable to see what we were supposed to be doing, we thought we were doing what we should be. We know, that sounds sort of cryptic, but that is how spiritual deception works. One wrong turn, one false piece of information, one lie that we believe can send us down the path toward deception.
At this time, however, we can tell you, we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. In the past three months, more or less, we have moved out of that period of ignorance and deception, into a period of apathy, where we did not really care what happened, to peace. We now understand, with more than head knowledge, God is at work in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) Looking back over our lives, we see sometimes very clearly, sometimes less how God was bringing us to this time and place.
In the beginning, this blog was as effortless as anything ever has been in my life. Of course, most of the early posts were simply personal history so the most difficult part of writing them was remembering that far back with a brain that may have passed it's prime. It has become more difficult recently. We are aware of Satan's schemes. We also understand a little something about how God works in our spirits.
This is a real time update. I just learned what I am about to share, and I do mean "just" as in moments ago. It is also one of those "duh" moments as in, how have I been missing that? Let me explain what "just" happened. The Holy Spirit dropped a word into my spirit. The word is "schemes". I knew it was in the Bible, but I get a little fuzzy on addresses sometimes. I almost always blog with another tab open to http://www.crosswalk.com/. What a blessing that site is to The Church. Anyway, as we said very early on, we always quote from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted. So we search in that translation. Nothing came up. Maybe it was in the Authorized Version, a.k.a The King James Version. Not there either. Sometimes we do use the New International Version. Might as well try that. There it is, two times. The word "schemes" appears in 2 Corinthians 2:11 and Ephesians 6:11. Both times the scheme of Satan being talked about is division amongst God's people. For your information, the other two versions mentioned use the word "devices" instead of schemes.
We neglected to mention earlier the Lord has been working overtime dealing with us about our love walk. In fact, our pastor sent an email just yesterday reminding us that loving one another is one of the life principles of our church. That also came up in the conversation with the neighbor yesterday. He is a Christian man. We briefly noted that some people are just easier to love than others.
There is no way to over-emphasize the importance of loving one another. The Bible is God's love story to mankind. From Genesis 1:1 where God began His work of creation to provide a perfect place for man to live to Revelation 22:20 where He wishes us the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible is the expression of a Father's love for his children. Jesus prayed, "...that they may all be one...that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (John 17:22-23) We truly will show God to the world by loving one another as He has loved us.
I started writing this over an hour ago because I felt led to write. At that time I did not know what weapon I would be writing about. By now it should be obvious. The weapon is unity and it works by love. It seems I remember some historical figure saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." or was that just a song lyric performed by Sonny and Cher? (We do hope you recognize our sardonic comments that appear in this space from time to time.)
Now I had better get back to bed. Our grandson is here for the weekend and we would hate to miss any time with him. He is, after all, the cutest little boy in the world.
Work on your love walk and we will be "perfect in one".
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 5
It is as impossible to prioritize spiritual weapons by effectiveness as it is to do so with physical weapons. Sometimes a .50 caliber sniper rifle is the correct weapon to employ in conventional warfare and sometimes a .45 caliber handgun is the right one. In spiritual warfare there are times to use one weapon and times to use another. In this post we would like to discuss worship, praise, and music.
We said in a previous post, the word of God is the most effective spiritual weapon because it is the very essence of God and brings all His power to bear in any given situation. It works every time it is employed. We also noted it is employed by speaking it out loud. When we add music to our speaking of the word, we move into a different dimension in our use of the word of God. Music opens our spirits to the Spirit of God. We make the distinction between speaking and singing the word of God understanding that we will not always be quoting scripture in our singing. Music can, in and of itself, be a spiritual weapon or it can add power to the weapons of praise, worship, and prayer.
Music was created by God. Theologians and preachers like to point to Lucifer, who before challenging God's authority, was the worship leader in heaven. They say he was a being uniquely created to lead worship because he was created for that purpose. As far as we can tell, this is probably true. He is only mentioned twice by name in the Bible, but there are other references that are generally believed to refer to him. He is also generally believed to be Satan since the time of his fall from grace in heaven.
Ezekiel chapter 28 is almost universally considered to refer to Lucifer. Verse 13 says, "...The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created." He had timbrels and pipes! What an amazing being he must have been! It is true Lucifer was uniquely created. Such is the nature of angels. They were each uniquely created. None of them is like another. We are going to let you in on a little secret. You have timbrels and pipes. It is true. A timbrel is a simple, percussion instrument. Clap your hands together. You just made the sound of a timbrel, more or less. There is a tube that runs from your nose to your lungs. It is generally referred to as a wind pipe. We have timbrels and pipes. We can worship. We can make music. Granted that some of us make music and some of us just make noise, but God still receives it as praise or worship. I, for one am glad of that. I have four children who sing like angels. They did not get that ability from me.
Music elevates and empowers our words and moves our speaking of the word of God to a higher plane. Music inspires the angels who fight on our side and confuses the demonic hordes who fight against us. By way of real life illustration, consider your personal reaction to different types of music. I am not a huge fan of opera in most cases. I feel less enthusiastic about rap music. I have been known to leave the room if someone is listening to rap--or change the station in the mission van. (Were I preaching this message, I would add something like, "Angels cannot fight to the accompaniment of rap music because they have to put down their swords to cover their ears.")
As mentioned earlier, we will not always be quoting scripture when we are singing. Although scripture is the best thing to speak or sing, God receives praise and worship from our lips whether accompanied by music or not. He delights to hear what is in our hearts. He knows it is good for us to hear it too. That is why He encourages us throughout scripture to speak or sing.
We said in a previous post, the word of God is the most effective spiritual weapon because it is the very essence of God and brings all His power to bear in any given situation. It works every time it is employed. We also noted it is employed by speaking it out loud. When we add music to our speaking of the word, we move into a different dimension in our use of the word of God. Music opens our spirits to the Spirit of God. We make the distinction between speaking and singing the word of God understanding that we will not always be quoting scripture in our singing. Music can, in and of itself, be a spiritual weapon or it can add power to the weapons of praise, worship, and prayer.
Music was created by God. Theologians and preachers like to point to Lucifer, who before challenging God's authority, was the worship leader in heaven. They say he was a being uniquely created to lead worship because he was created for that purpose. As far as we can tell, this is probably true. He is only mentioned twice by name in the Bible, but there are other references that are generally believed to refer to him. He is also generally believed to be Satan since the time of his fall from grace in heaven.
Ezekiel chapter 28 is almost universally considered to refer to Lucifer. Verse 13 says, "...The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created." He had timbrels and pipes! What an amazing being he must have been! It is true Lucifer was uniquely created. Such is the nature of angels. They were each uniquely created. None of them is like another. We are going to let you in on a little secret. You have timbrels and pipes. It is true. A timbrel is a simple, percussion instrument. Clap your hands together. You just made the sound of a timbrel, more or less. There is a tube that runs from your nose to your lungs. It is generally referred to as a wind pipe. We have timbrels and pipes. We can worship. We can make music. Granted that some of us make music and some of us just make noise, but God still receives it as praise or worship. I, for one am glad of that. I have four children who sing like angels. They did not get that ability from me.
Music elevates and empowers our words and moves our speaking of the word of God to a higher plane. Music inspires the angels who fight on our side and confuses the demonic hordes who fight against us. By way of real life illustration, consider your personal reaction to different types of music. I am not a huge fan of opera in most cases. I feel less enthusiastic about rap music. I have been known to leave the room if someone is listening to rap--or change the station in the mission van. (Were I preaching this message, I would add something like, "Angels cannot fight to the accompaniment of rap music because they have to put down their swords to cover their ears.")
As mentioned earlier, we will not always be quoting scripture when we are singing. Although scripture is the best thing to speak or sing, God receives praise and worship from our lips whether accompanied by music or not. He delights to hear what is in our hearts. He knows it is good for us to hear it too. That is why He encourages us throughout scripture to speak or sing.
We discussed a little on the difference between praise and worship in an earlier post, More on Spirit vs. Soul, 6/28/09. We do not intend to reprise that here. However, it is important to understand that praise and worship are two different activities. Someone has summarized the primary difference well in saying that praise is thanking God for what He has done while worship is thanking God for who He is.
Praise is a two-part activity. While our spirit is supposed to always be active, it is not necessary for it to be when we praise. We make a decision to praise (soul) and tell our body to do so. That can involve using the pipe and timbrels and doing anything else with our bodies that seems right. There are some in almost any church who think it undignified to dance or lift hands or objects to to the Lord during praise. Unfortunately for them, God does not agree with that perspective. The Bible is replete with examples of various physical activities associated with praise. Granted most of those things are in the Old Testament. For those who believe Jesus did away with the Old Testament celebrations and such, we would strongly encourage you to re-read your Bible.
Worship is a three-part activity. Worship may look like praise to the outside observer. The difference is that in worship, the worshipper is one on one with God. Many "worship" leaders make a fundamental mistake in leading people to worship. They do not get out of the way so the individuals in the group they are leading can get one on one with God. The job of a worship leader is to lead in praise so the people turn their souls and open their spirits to God. When this is accomplished, they are ready individually to enter into the presence of God. It is only when our spirit touches His that worship happens. Most people do not understand this concept, but now you do.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman, in slightly different words that it does not matter where we worship. God is simply looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:23-24) Where we worship, how we worship, with whom we worship is unimportant. What is important is that we worship the one true God in spirit and in truth. Those are the kind of worshippers God prizes. We would challenge you to be one of us.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 4
One would think after attending church regularly for the best part of fifty years it would be obvious there is some spiritual benefit to the practice. Pastors say that all the time. So does my wife. Yet, I am still surprised when the Holy Spirit actually speaks or clarifies something to my spirit during a Sunday morning service. That happened today. Tom Demaree of Pentecost Walk fame was our guest speaker. We missed much of the actual worship time because we were handing out bulletins and greeting at the door. Nonetheless, my mind, as it is apt to do, ran to this blog during the service. It was one of those flash things that sometimes happen. I flashed on how difficult it seemed to be to write this post. The problem was that I had not been writing this post at all--I had been writing the next one. The next post is about the place of praise, worship, and music as spiritual weapons. This one is about the name of Jesus. Psalm 138:2 says, "...for you have exalted above all things your name and your word." (NIV) We previously discussed the word of God, but not the name. Logically, since those two things are placed together in the Bible, we should put them together too.
"...God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord..." (Philippians 2:9-11) These verses show us that the name of Jesus is the name above every other name. Everyone with a different name, a lesser name, is going to bow down at the name of Jesus. That is everyone everywhere, heaven, earth, under the earth, everywhere. The name of Jesus incorporates every other name of God because Jesus is the completion of God's plan to bring many sons and daughters to Himself. Jesus is the name we are given to use in addressing God. It is the name above all other names.
The forces of hell cannot resist the authority in the name of Jesus. When we speak that name they have to bow. They are included in the verses above. They already know Jesus Christ is Lord. He is not their Lord. They do not follow Him. He is still Lord, the Christ, the Messiah, the second part of the Trinity that is God. As such He has all authority over everything that has been created. He created all things. All things were created through Him. (John 1:1) We have been given His authority because we have accepted His lordship over our lives. We are entitled to use his name. It has the same authority on our lips as He does in person.
We recently learned that the county Sheriff--any county Sheriff--has absolute authority within his county. He is unique amongst law enforcement officers. No other law enforcement agency trumps his jurisdiction in his county. In fact, they all have to yield to him. The deputy Sheriffs in the county carry the same authority within the county. Jesus has deputized us. We have all the authority He has when we use His name.
The encouragement here would be to invoke the name of Jesus in any situation that involves a demonic, spiritual force. Even in times when the spirits are unidentified, the name of Jesus can be used to beneficial affect. When something does not seem right, but we can not put our finger on the problem, we can still speak the name of Jesus and see things change. We have seen physical and soulical healings take place as a result of the name of Jesus being spoken over the problems. Try it. You will like the results.
"...God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord..." (Philippians 2:9-11) These verses show us that the name of Jesus is the name above every other name. Everyone with a different name, a lesser name, is going to bow down at the name of Jesus. That is everyone everywhere, heaven, earth, under the earth, everywhere. The name of Jesus incorporates every other name of God because Jesus is the completion of God's plan to bring many sons and daughters to Himself. Jesus is the name we are given to use in addressing God. It is the name above all other names.
The forces of hell cannot resist the authority in the name of Jesus. When we speak that name they have to bow. They are included in the verses above. They already know Jesus Christ is Lord. He is not their Lord. They do not follow Him. He is still Lord, the Christ, the Messiah, the second part of the Trinity that is God. As such He has all authority over everything that has been created. He created all things. All things were created through Him. (John 1:1) We have been given His authority because we have accepted His lordship over our lives. We are entitled to use his name. It has the same authority on our lips as He does in person.
We recently learned that the county Sheriff--any county Sheriff--has absolute authority within his county. He is unique amongst law enforcement officers. No other law enforcement agency trumps his jurisdiction in his county. In fact, they all have to yield to him. The deputy Sheriffs in the county carry the same authority within the county. Jesus has deputized us. We have all the authority He has when we use His name.
The encouragement here would be to invoke the name of Jesus in any situation that involves a demonic, spiritual force. Even in times when the spirits are unidentified, the name of Jesus can be used to beneficial affect. When something does not seem right, but we can not put our finger on the problem, we can still speak the name of Jesus and see things change. We have seen physical and soulical healings take place as a result of the name of Jesus being spoken over the problems. Try it. You will like the results.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 3
As mentioned in the previous post, many people think the word of God is our only offensive weapon. Also as mentioned, it is not. It is, however, the most effective. To understand why we have to understand what the word of God really is; facts that are not often understood or taught.
The primary Greek word for "word" is logos. Logos means everything that can be known about a given subject. It is used to refer to both Jesus and the Bible. Jesus and the Bible are each full and complete revelations of everything God has revealed about Himself to mankind. We cannot know anything about God aside from His word. Jesus is His living example of the life we are to live on earth. If we were able to do everything Jesus did, we would fulfill God's will for us. Similarly, if we were able to do all that is written in the Bible, we would be perfect before God. He did not leave anything out that we need to know.
Hebrews 4:12 tells us, "The word of God is living and powerful...piercing even to the division of soul and spirit..." The Bible works on us every time we read it. It shows us the difference between what is spirit and what is soul in us. Additionally, we can put it to work by speaking it out loud. In doing so we are imitating the acts of God in creation and the works of Jesus in restoring life and health to mankind as He did throughout His ministry.
When we talk about speaking the word of God out loud, the less frequently used Greek word, rhema, comes into play. Rhema is defined as "the spoken word". It is a part of the logos. It is the word Paul used in telling us to take up the "sword" of the Spirit. (Ephesians 6:17) The word spoken from our mouths becomes an offensive weapon. The spoken word carries power to change things in the spiritual realm. It cuts through spiritual darkness and deception bringing light and understanding. Romans 10:17 tells us the spoken word is the thing that produces faith in us.
As we will find in continuing our discussion on the weapons of our warfare, we use all three parts of our being simultaneously when we wield the weapons. God speaks into our spirit what He wants us to do. We process His instructions in our soul according to what we think of them and how we feel about them. We then use our will to decide what to do. If our decision is to fight, we engage our bodies to fight. Of course we can also engage our bodies to flight, but that is not what we are about here.
The word of God has intrinsic power. When simply spoken it changes things. The word of God changed the dark and formless void that was earth into a world teeming with all kinds of plant and animal life as He spoke it. (Genesis 1) Psalm 107:20 says God sent His word and healed them. Although the word in this verse for word is in the Hebrew language, it is equivalent to rhema in Greek. He spoke the word and people were healed. What he said is not even important. The word of God has intrinsic power. (I read that somewhere recently.) The same Hebrew word is used in Isaiah 55:11 where God assures us His word will never return without accomplishing what He sends it forth to do.
Let us jump into something that can be extremely controversial within The Church today. There are segments of The Church that believe we can have anything we desire if we can find it in the Bible. This group teaches that any portion of scripture can be used as seed which, when properly planted and cared for will produce a crop yielding fruit after it's own kind. Pastor Bill Winston from the Chicago, IL area tells a story about a pastor who was visiting his church from Africa. As Pastor Winston relates the story, the pastor stopped practically in mid-sentence and said, "Pastor Winston. Your airplane is in Ecclesiastes chapter ten." He then resumed preaching his sermon. Pastor Winston looked through that chapter and found the phrase, "a bird of the air may carry your voice" in verse 20. In context, this phrase has nothing to do with an airplane, but the word of God has intrinsic power. When Pastor Winston used that phrase as seed and planted it into the spiritual realm with his voice, his airplane was on the way. Believe it or do not. Believing is harder, but so very much worth the effort.
Perhaps, aside from this spiritual battle we are discussing, you have problems that need to be dealt with spiritually. May we encourage you to put the word of God on your lips continually and see what God will do in response. At the very least it is good training for using the word of God in spiritual warfare. That can never be a bad thing.
The primary Greek word for "word" is logos. Logos means everything that can be known about a given subject. It is used to refer to both Jesus and the Bible. Jesus and the Bible are each full and complete revelations of everything God has revealed about Himself to mankind. We cannot know anything about God aside from His word. Jesus is His living example of the life we are to live on earth. If we were able to do everything Jesus did, we would fulfill God's will for us. Similarly, if we were able to do all that is written in the Bible, we would be perfect before God. He did not leave anything out that we need to know.
Hebrews 4:12 tells us, "The word of God is living and powerful...piercing even to the division of soul and spirit..." The Bible works on us every time we read it. It shows us the difference between what is spirit and what is soul in us. Additionally, we can put it to work by speaking it out loud. In doing so we are imitating the acts of God in creation and the works of Jesus in restoring life and health to mankind as He did throughout His ministry.
When we talk about speaking the word of God out loud, the less frequently used Greek word, rhema, comes into play. Rhema is defined as "the spoken word". It is a part of the logos. It is the word Paul used in telling us to take up the "sword" of the Spirit. (Ephesians 6:17) The word spoken from our mouths becomes an offensive weapon. The spoken word carries power to change things in the spiritual realm. It cuts through spiritual darkness and deception bringing light and understanding. Romans 10:17 tells us the spoken word is the thing that produces faith in us.
As we will find in continuing our discussion on the weapons of our warfare, we use all three parts of our being simultaneously when we wield the weapons. God speaks into our spirit what He wants us to do. We process His instructions in our soul according to what we think of them and how we feel about them. We then use our will to decide what to do. If our decision is to fight, we engage our bodies to fight. Of course we can also engage our bodies to flight, but that is not what we are about here.
The word of God has intrinsic power. When simply spoken it changes things. The word of God changed the dark and formless void that was earth into a world teeming with all kinds of plant and animal life as He spoke it. (Genesis 1) Psalm 107:20 says God sent His word and healed them. Although the word in this verse for word is in the Hebrew language, it is equivalent to rhema in Greek. He spoke the word and people were healed. What he said is not even important. The word of God has intrinsic power. (I read that somewhere recently.) The same Hebrew word is used in Isaiah 55:11 where God assures us His word will never return without accomplishing what He sends it forth to do.
Let us jump into something that can be extremely controversial within The Church today. There are segments of The Church that believe we can have anything we desire if we can find it in the Bible. This group teaches that any portion of scripture can be used as seed which, when properly planted and cared for will produce a crop yielding fruit after it's own kind. Pastor Bill Winston from the Chicago, IL area tells a story about a pastor who was visiting his church from Africa. As Pastor Winston relates the story, the pastor stopped practically in mid-sentence and said, "Pastor Winston. Your airplane is in Ecclesiastes chapter ten." He then resumed preaching his sermon. Pastor Winston looked through that chapter and found the phrase, "a bird of the air may carry your voice" in verse 20. In context, this phrase has nothing to do with an airplane, but the word of God has intrinsic power. When Pastor Winston used that phrase as seed and planted it into the spiritual realm with his voice, his airplane was on the way. Believe it or do not. Believing is harder, but so very much worth the effort.
Perhaps, aside from this spiritual battle we are discussing, you have problems that need to be dealt with spiritually. May we encourage you to put the word of God on your lips continually and see what God will do in response. At the very least it is good training for using the word of God in spiritual warfare. That can never be a bad thing.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 2
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
There is a common misconception amongst many who teach on spiritual warfare that we have only one offensive weapon, the Word of God. Without doubt this misconception comes from Paul's teaching in Ephesians 6 about the armor of God. In that passage (Ephesians 6:10-18) "the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God" is the only offensive weapon mentioned. Some of the other offensive weapons are, the Name of Jesus, prayer, praise, worship, and commands. Before we look at some of them in detail, let us first look at what we are trying to accomplish with them according to the verses above.
A spiritual battle is fought with spiritual weapons. Those weapons are effective for pulling down the strongholds of the enemy. They are able to silence arguments against the works of God, or even arguments against the very existence of God. These weapons bring down everything that attempts to put itself in the place of God. We sometimes miss the fact the thoughts being brought into obedience at the end of these verses are not ours, but those of the enemy we are fighting. Our thoughts should have already been brought into obedience. However, if they are not, we need to stop and make sure they are before we join the battle. This is not really as difficult as it looks at first glance. We simply need to be sure the idols we talked about in a recent post (The Idols in Our Hearts; 7/6/09) have been removed and we are constantly striving to follow Jesus to the best of our ability. He will do the rest. We are to "...work out (y)our own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you (us)..." (Philippians 2:12-13, parentheses mine).
Salvation is not really a topic of this post, but we need to remind ourselves that being born again is only the first step in our salvation. Salvation actually means to be made whole and complete in every way, spirit, soul and body. The new birth saves us from the guilt of sin. The new birth is an essential prerequisite to being able to participate in spiritual warfare. As we walk out our salvation, we are progressively saved from the power of sin in our lives. No soldier would go into battle unless he understood his weapons and how to use them. We usually do not go to war at all or we go to war in the flesh or the soul as mentioned in Part 1. We have had no need of spiritual weapons because we have not discerned the spiritual battle. We hope to change that with this blog. There is a spiritual battle going on right here in the Santa Maria valley. Actually it is more like an occupation. A religious spirit has been occupying the area and we, The Church have allowed it to happen and to continue. If anyone else is fighting it, please make your presence and activities known to us so we can join forces.
We have a friend who was among the first people we introduced to this blog. He asked us to leave him out of this. He did give me a compliment. He said, "You are either a prophet or you are crazy." (Incidentally he is not the first person to say either one of those things--the latter being the more common statement.) Then he said, "I am a man of peace and I am called to live at peace and walk in love toward everyone." If you are reading this, we also have been called to walk in love toward everyone. We have also found what it is we are supposed to be doing and we are doing it with all our heart. The two are not contradictory. Let us be clear. We are not saying he is doing anything wrong by not fighting alongside us. Everyone is not called to the battle. May that also be an encouragement to those of you who are interested and supportive of what we are doing, but do not feel called to take up arms against the religious spirit that is blinding the hearts and minds of people across the Santa Maria valley. We heard a report the same spirit has also been identified in the Santa Ynez valley. That, we think, is interesting.
When we returned in 1987 from an extended time away from Santa Maria, we met some Christians who were amazed at the spiritual battle they thought we must have faced. They were familiar with the Davis, CA area and its spiritual dullness and deception. When we left we had the upper hand in the spiritual battle. The community hospital that had previously done abortions, but no live births was changing that policy. Planned Parenthood was involved in legal issues that would eventuate in their closing up shop. A Christian based, crisis pregnancy center had been established. Even the church of Scientology had left town due to lack of finances. We are not saying we were the reason for those things happening, only that we were a part of it. We chuckled at the notion the spiritual warfare was any more intense in Davis than it was in Santa Maria. Coming into town, we knew there was spiritual warfare going on. We had not identified the enemy as a religious spirit at that time. The saints of God here thought they were winning the spiritual battle. It is almost twenty-two years later and perhaps the battle is just now beginning in earnest.
Obviously there will be at least three parts to this series on the Weapons of Our Warfare. We will discuss the various weapons and how they are used in Part 3.
We need to solicit your prayer covering. It is already becoming more difficult to write this blog. The spiritual interference is beginning to be felt. Please pray the forces of the enemy will be dealt with so we can pursue this writing and this battle.
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