THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE DIVORCED AND REMARRIED NEED TO HEED HIS WARNINGS.
This is part of the testimony a brother gave me about a woman he was in an adulterous marriage with who died in a car accident: "A truck ran a red light and hit the passenger side of our car killing her instantly. She never even saw it coming. She had been married three times before me (she was still young, in her mid-30s, when she died but they were very short). She and her first husband had married at 18 and divorced due to realizing they were too young. It was my first marriage and we had been married for seven years.... A couple days before the accident, she was confronted by another church-goer, at the church that we attended, who said that she was an adulteress for her remarriages. She was very touchy about the subject and got very angry. She stated that she would never worship or love a God who called her marriage adultery. It even came up in conversation when we ate breakfast on the day of her death, and she was still bitter about it during the ride where she was killed, even in the middle of reiterating her above statement when the truck hit." Pro 29:1 Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy. There are MANY preachers, ministers, pastors and "leaders" who are in SECRET SINS, struggling and even AFRAID because of their ROLES and TITLES and the people they have following them (they do not want to be exposed nor let those people down). They know its sin, want out but are trapped because they are SLAVES and ADDICTED. They are masquerading but heavy with convictions and condemnation... You NEED to get serious with JESUS, repent, get delivered, start HEARING and obeying HIM.. STOP Sinning... Forget EVERYTHING YOU KNOW.... Learn from JESUS CHRIST Himself afresh, just like Paul's testimony and just like John encouraged. Even if that means cutting yourself away from everything.. ALL distractions for MONTHS...
The religion your feeding people is a waste of time.. You know this cause you're still sinning... So how can you expect "your assembly" to be Holy as the Father is Holy, IF YOU ARE NOT, and you are leading them and they are following YOU?? Your not even speaking the Truth.. you just talk about the testimony of the Truth because you studied the Bible.. But you're still sinning and blind. Do not let pride hold you in a rock and a hard place any more. Step down and get the beam out your eyes. Then come back when Jesus says and DO WHAT JESUS SAYS... When you do what Jesus says, the system you understand as church will be destroyed... people will leave your "church" but those who listen they will come to the LORD and be grafted into HIS CHURCH, because Jesus will lead them to Himself through your testimony, through the very Words He has written in you that transformed you... Till then you and everyone you are "teaching" that follows you, will end up in Hell.. He who has an ear let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies and the pastors, and the ministers and the preachers and the "leaders"... I've only known Jesus for two years from the time of writing this note (April 2014), but I am inexpressably grateful for how mightily the Lord has intervened so many times on my behalf, to reveal His love for me. I, like so many of my brothers in Christ, have had amazing signs and wonders follow me, to say nothing of myself but all of Christ; these have secured my faith and given me the gift of being able to share powerful testimonies with others, especially in the halls of the high school I attend. This note is dedicated to any atheist or believer who struggles with God's voice and wants to hear it plainly for their lives. - Bro. Jonah MacDonald
God actually speaks! The big issue so many find themselves tackling is the idea that God talks. I can understand, and sympathize with, some people who find the idea of a real God, let alone apersonal God, very dubious. We have been brought up in a society that demands empirical evidence, and gives criticism and mockery for any supernatural claims. Real responsibility to God is a hateful idea in Western culture now; we all want to just believe that we can lead our lives our own way without consequence. But I'm digressing. The point is, no one believes in the talking God anymore. I met Him. So many claim they've met Jesus, or know God. Even Justin Bieber declares he has a relationship with Jesus Christ. When you really invest yourself in meeting Jesus, He does prepare to reveal Himself to you. And even more so when, after you've met Him, you give yourself over to becoming intimate with Him. Christ has spoken to me time without number—He speaks to me most every day—but many people say either God has never spoken to them (He actually likely has and they just don't know), has spoken to them on a few occasions, or that they find it difficult to discern His voice when He does speak. Because God usually speaks through the same way that we think to ourselves (remember the "little voice inside your head"?), we are not trained to distinguish between our own thoughts and the still, small voice of Jesus Christ. When we think to ourselves, what is really going on is our spirit is "talking" to us. God is a Spirit, so He usually communicates through the same means; His voice sounds the same as a thought sounds. His voice sounds like you thinking to yourself. Your thoughts or His voice? Two little tips, first. The question might then become, "How do you know it's not just your own thoughts?" There are many ways. Here are two. Number one, if you train your mind and focus, you'll eventually realize that God speaking to you is kind of like a thought being placed inside your head, rather than a stream or flow of your own ideas. I know a fellow who was debating doing homework or attending a prayer meeting to which I'd invited him one night. He couldn't decide which to do, so he asked the Lord. Moments later, when he thought to himself, Okay, I'm going to do my homework, another "thought" popped into his mind, not his own: Go to the prayer meeting. He insisted in his mind, I'll do my homework, but the sentence repeated itself in his head: Go to the prayer meeting. He later described it to me as him being unable to make the decision to do his homework; every time he tried to assert his own will, God spoke up and insisted. Seeing his confusion, I told him that the "little voice" he'd heard was Jesus. Now, this seems like a flimsy defense, and yes, sometimes you can trick yourself into thinking that it's you when it's God, or that it's God when it's you. But the second defense is that God can literally speak over your thoughts. You actually can't interrupt a thought with another thought the way God can. Imagine your thoughts are a continual sound track going through your mind. When we suddenly think a thought, the first train of thought is cleanly cut off; like this: This wooden table is very—Whoa, what's Mike doing? But I've experienced God interrupting me in the middle of me thinking something, and it's like two tracks of thought overlapping one another; that is, I continued consciously thinking my own thoughts while God was speaking to me, the same way audible dialogue can overlap when one interrupts the other. We ourselves can't do this in our heads, so far as I know. How does He speak? How do we hear? Something that's important to know: human beings don't have just five senses. We have five physical senses which we use to interact with the material world. But we have spiritual senses, too. The physical senses need to be developed and honed; the spiritual senses are no different. Hearing Jesus is a practice that requires training and patience. It will take discipline to tune in to the voice of the Lord and recognize it consistently and clearly. Let me ask you, do we see with our ears? Taste with our nose? Touch with our eyes? Could we possibly describe the experience? I doubt it. So to call the experience of perceiving God's voice as "hearing" it is only as close as we can get to describing what it's like, when, in reality, we don't use our ears; we don't have a word to describe what our spirit does to interpret the experience of God communicating with us. It's not seeing, touching, tasting, smelling, or hearing—but we call it hearing. We use our spirit to do it, much the same way we don't hear our thoughts, but we call it hearing, too. Why am I saying all this? Because many have misconceptions about what God's voice is. Many call it a feeling ("I felt Him say . . ."). It is not. Although God can use feelings to "poke our heart," as I like calling it (for example, when we've done something wrong and feel a twinge of remorse), His primary method of getting your attention is with words. Armed with this information, how do you actually start hearing the voice of the Lord? The first thing to do is simply ask Him for direction; ask Him to talk to you. I guarantee you, He's not reluctant to speak to someone who wants to hear Him and know Him, if they're humble. He will gladly respond on principle (He loves you very much). Once you ask, wait. As you're waiting on Jesus, you'll sometimes notice you're mind suddenly becoming overactive or distracted. You may want to say to every thought that pops up, "Was that the voice of God? Was that the voice of God?" It's possible to get confused and frustrated. But here's why: remember how I said that God is a Spirit, so we hear Him the same way we hear thoughts? Well, the devil is also a spirit, and he tries to mess you up through thoughts. Have you ever felt your mind flooded with nonsense (gotten a song stuck in your head, can't stop thinking about a certain thing)? That's probably Satan trying to mess with you. You've just never known it was him up until now. You say: "This is too complicated; if the devil speaks the same way God speaks, and God speaks the way my thoughts speak, how can I ever know which is which?" Okay, first I want to point out that the reason Satan is trying to distract your mind is because he does not want you to hear the voice of God. He's going to try and get you to give up or doubt. But the difference between Satan and God is that Satan will never speak truth, only lies and lies and lies. And he'll also never encourage you. If you hear a voice in your head saying things like: God won't answer you, He's busy, or Why are you wasting your time? This is all made up! or Aren't you hungry? Thirsty? Don't you want to do something else? Aren't you bored?then you're hearing Satan. The simple point is that, many times, you can know who is speaking just by what's being said. It's really not as complicated as it first seems. Ignore the prattlings of the devil. Shake them off. Don't listen. Just ask the Lord believing that He'll answer you. He won't ultimately leave you hanging, but be very patient; He knows what He's doing if He makes you wait. You'll know it's Him also because His presence often accompanies His voice. When He talks to you, you'll probably feel a rush of peace or joy, and this is the result of His Spirit coming into the room. It's undeniably real. You'll know. I know that sounds really cryptic, but trust me: you'll know. But can God speak with an audible voice in my ear? I have to admit, I find it funny when God is portrayed in movies as a booming voice coming from Heaven. You know, that's an interesting thought: does Jesus ever speak with an audible voice that you can hear in your ear? The answer is a resounding yes. Although apparently He doesn't often do this (at least in the West), He is both capable and willing. I for one have been so blessed. He's spoken to me audibly five times at the last count. I'll show you some references of this happening in the Bible: Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” - Acts 9:1-4. Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” - Acts 9:10. The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. [. . .] And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” - Acts 10:9, 13. “Now it happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance and saw Him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning Me.’ - Acts 22:17-18. So, you get the idea. In these examples and many others, people said that they literally heard a voice. This same voice that's spoken of in these above examples has come to me. I've heard it. I can speak personally of the same thing that these passages speak of. But although this may sound exciting, I would encourage you not to seek the Lord for signs and test Him; hearing Him audibly is not the most important thing. For now, focus on the still, small thought impressions He gives you, because that's the most common way He operates. If He chooses, He will come to you with an audible voice. You have to just trust Him. But I'll tell you of my experiences. The first time I heard the audible voice of the Lord, I was in my bed with a splitting headache, praying for it to go away. Needless to say, I was in a lot of pain. But I was wide awake, and I was not tired, nor dreaming, nor imagining this. All of a sudden, as I was praying, I heard a voice speak quietly into my ear: “You must stretch; be strong; wait for Me to bless; hold on.” Immediately I felt a special calm flood me, and the headache started ebbing away slowly. I began to praise the Lord for healing me and speaking to me. I hadn't been startled or scared by the voice; just delighted. I knew it was God the same way you recognize the voice of your own mother. The second time, I had just woken up from a deep sleep in the morning when I heard a shout. You can imagine the funny situation when someone wakes someone up from sleep by startling them, I'm sure. As soon as I opened my eyes I heard God say loudly, “Thank the Lord for this lovely day!” I jumped and then laughed. I began to sing that sentence like a mantra as I got up out of bed to commence my activities. I believe the two things the Lord had spoken to me were spiritual hymns given to my heart. I still sing them sometimes to this day. The third time was a little different. It was late at night, and I was praying once again, but I was planning on going to sleep. As I prayed for my mother and sister and my house, the Lord began to speak to me about His judgment (with His inaudible thought-voice): Your mother thinks I will do nothing, either good or bad . . . . As He was speaking, I began to drift off because I was tired. But in that state between sleeping and waking, I heard a loud voice say in my ear, “. . . and your sister thinks My judgment is a joke!” At the last word, I was startled out of sleep. The word joke had been like a trumpet. Scared by the seriousness of the statement, I got up from my bed and went downstairs to deliver the message to my mother. Now, this was a year ago, and the situation of my house has changed, but I'll never forget that night. The fourth time, I am not sure whether or not I was sleeping and dreaming. All I know was, in the middle of the night, I was once more in my bed, and I heard Him speak: “Our lives should be lived with as much liberation as those in the early church.” Why He said our instead ofyour, I don't know. I knew somehow that He was referring to the lives of the saints, and obviously didn't need to put Himself in the equation. It doesn't matter. The message was powerful and convicting. The last time wasn't so long ago. From the day writing this (April 13, 2014), it was probably about three weeks. I went up to bed one night to pray briefly and then go to bed. Jesus had different plans. As I had my face down, the Lord said to me in my spirit, Wait on Me. I knew He wanted me to seek Him and not just pray a dismissive prayer, so instead of laying down, which would make it easier to fall asleep, I sat right up and began to wait for what the Lord wanted to do. Within two minutes, I suddenly heard the voice of the Lord clearly say, “Longsuffering!” But the voice that spoke sounded like the voice of someone who was grief-stricken and weeping. Perplexed, I said, “Lord, are You crying? What's wrong?” He began to tell me that He is broken-hearted because people refuse to longsuffer; many of His people are abandoning their prayer altars, and abandoning Him, all over the world. Almost no one loves Him enough to wait on Him anymore. This is why He urged me with the word longsuffering. If you love the Lord, you will wait for Him and be patient and never give up on His plan. The next day I prayed a peculiar prayer: “Lord, I know that You're my friend, and You always hear what I say, and You comfort me. But I want to be Your friend and listen to Your thoughts and comfort You, if I can.” Sometime after praying this, I was reminded that before I had even asked this request, the Lord had answered it by sharing with me why He is so hurt. Has the Lord ever answered a prayer that you were going to ask in the future, and then when you ask it, He reminds you that He answered it before? It was amazing. He knows everything you need and desire. I assure you that I'm not lying. The Lord does exist and can speak with an actual voice, just as I could speak to you face-to-face. These are amazing experiences, no doubt, but whether He uses an audible voice or not doesn't really matter. What matters is you listening to Him and obeying what He tells you to do, by faith. Conclusion. Jesus Christ is constantly speaking, truth be told. It's not that He only talks when we ask Him questions; He always has a message to deliver to His people. It comes down to you deciding to tune in to His radio station that's on 24/7. He'll speak to you as often as you listen. If you want to meet Him, hear Him, and get to know Him intimately (which you need if you have any hope of making it to Heaven), then get on your knees and ask for Him, like a child asks for his/her father. Ask Him to speak to you and deliver you from sin. The only thing standing between you and God is you. If you seek Him through humble and persistent prayer, you will find Him. He is waiting on you. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. "True Christians will stop sinning.
"We're all sinners" is a common stance concerning the state of the human race. This is a lie. The scriptures (the Bible—I habitually call it "the scriptures") make a clear distinction between saints and sinners—sinners are not saints, and saints are not sinners. The scriptures emphatically state, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). This is often misquoted, and sometimes deliberately, as a statement in the present tense, when it clearly says all have sinned. Yes, at least once, every single human being (aside from Christ Himself) has made the choice to sin. If it were otherwise it would remove the need for Jesus. But the scriptures also make statements, just as emphatically, concerning the state of the believer who abides in Christ: "And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God." Many people don't believe this passage, though I'm sure many have read over it. Some of the truths John stated when he wrote it seem staggering and absolute, but bear in mind that when he wrote this, he was writing to babes in Christ: "Little children, let no one deceive you." These truths that many Christians refuse to swallow today were delivered to fresh converts in the early church! So what does this mean? It means that anyone who truly abides in the Lord Jesus Christ comes to stop transgressing against Him completely. No justification nor excuse for any sin. I have spoken to people at school about this and been denounced as arrogant or accused of elevating myself to the level of Christ (for the statement that I don't sin). Yet the truth doesn't go away, no matter how long you keep the book closed from your closed eyes, believer. Some common counter-arguments; some points against them. Many people counter this with such scriptures as 1 John 1:8: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." And 1 John 2:1: "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Firstly, one can't try and "disprove" certain scriptures they don't like with other scriptures. Doing so testifies by his/her own actions that the Bible is self-contradictory (in his/her belief); in which case, why regard them at all? But these verses—all of them—were written for a reason. To 1 John 1:8, I want to point something out about the way Jews wrote back then. In Canadian English, when we want to emphasize something in text or speech, we'll capitalize it, shout it, italicize it, or underline it, maybe. It was habit for the Jews to repeat that which they wanted emphasized—over, and over, and over. So John wrote that it's deceitful and dangerous to claim we have "no sin". Two verses later he makes a very similar statement: "If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us" (1 John 1:10). He's repeating what he wants people to understand: that everyone hasunquestionably sinned, and saying otherwise is outright falsehood. Verse 10 illustrates better the message of both scriptures. The message is not about admitting continual sin, but that we, very humanly, are inclined to sin by the nature of our flesh—whether we yield to that temptation varies from person to person. As for 1 John 2:1, the apostle even began by stating the purpose of his epistle: so that we would be exhorted, reminded not to sin, so that we may not sin. If we couldn't stop sinning, his writing to Christians would be pointless, wouldn't it? Notice as well that John says we have an Advocate with the Father if we sin. Not when. Sin among the brethren was frankly not expected to occur. Believers who did sin, and a vital difference in two types of believers. But sin did occur among early believers, nonetheless. See such examples like the Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 5:1) among others, whom Paul urged to forsake sin (1 Corinthians 15:34). Even Peter fell in hypocrisy once after his conversion (Galatians 2:11-13). But Paul by no means left any church whose members sinned off the hook; he said quite plainly that anyone who practices the works of the flesh will certainly not inherit the Kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21). He never justified any sin. Nor should anyone else. Remember how John said that if we sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous? Well, it is also said, very gravely, that "if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries" (Hebrews 10:26-27). This is the vital difference: some Christians may sin out of ignorance; maybe they are tricked or overcome, maybe they slip (i.e., not willfully or with the intent to sin), in which case, Jesus' advocacy comes into play: they go to Jesus, get forgiven and washed, and are taught by the Holy Spirit how to stop this sin. Those, however, who become hard-hearted to the truth and, in their insubordination, continue to satisfy the flesh unlawfully are in extreme danger—Christ will not pardon outright defiant sinners who have been exposed to, and tasted, the truth, and who neglect to fear God. Their end will be just. So there remains not only no sacrifice for continual willful sin, but no excuse either. If you know you can stop sinning, you know you must stop sinning, and you know how to . . . what are you doing still sinning? If you don't know how to, then know this: the Holy Spirit's role is our teacher (John 16:13; 1 John 2:27), and He can teach you how. You must yield and listen to His instructions. An analogy inspired by Paul Washer, and what the Lord taught me. Consider pigs. Pigs like eating slop. It's, as widely known, their nature to like that kind of food. But if I put the nature of a human being into that pig, and it found itself eating slop, it would probably spit it out pretty fast, rub its tongue feverishly, and ask for a Coca-Cola to wash the taste out. Could it technically go back to eating slop after being endowed with the nature of a man? Physically, it's possible. But it would neither want to, nor could it actually continue doing so in any comfort or pleasure. This is rather like the relationship between the new believer and sin. A true believer will, by his/her new nature (the "new man") not want to sin at all. This is one of the core characteristics of a Christian. Sin will so basically repulse the Christian that he/she will have no reason to sin. And if he/she does stumble into sin, they will be convicted and they will scramble out of it ASAP. It's like trying to force a pig with a human nature to continue eating slop. Physically he could, but no part of him will be inclined towards it at all. This is what proves the real follower of Jesus. If a real Christian sins at all, he/she will not continue in it, guaranteed. And it's fundamentally necessary that he/she hates the sin he has committed. It's the attitude, not always the actions, concerning sin that bear witness of the Christian's genuineness or lack thereof. The nature of the purified Christian is diametrically opposed to sin; you couldn't get him/her to actually like sin no matter how hard you tried. He/she is sealed by the Holy Spirit. He/she will only ever stumble in sin by accident. Conclusion. Anyone who abides in Jesus will overcome all sin. Anyone who believes in Jesus—believes His words—has the resources to stop sinning as well. Many get offended by the idea, but you should be delighted. As it is written, "He who overcomes. . . ." - words of Jesus. Overcomes what? Take heed to yourself. Be blessed in the name of Jesus Christ." -by Jonah MacDonald This is a very edifying writing written by Brother in Christ
It is in response to a statement made to him: “You say you had to be taught how to tell the difference between what you call "good" and "evil" thoughts. Who taught you this, and how did they teach you?” "It was at once very simple yet time consuming. The basis of this is in Hebrews. Heb 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. The first two verses are context. The operative part is verse 14. Mature Christians are those who by reason of practice have their senses trained to discern between good and evil. The reason is that evil thoughts do not come directly at you. They come obliquely. The enemy always seeks to influence you by lies. There was a period of time that the Lord showed me how to discern the lie that was behind every thought. Satan can only work through lies. It is impossible for him to tell the truth. Consequently every attempt to influence comes with a veiled lie. The training was to be able to see the underlying lie. The enemy always appeals to a few “hooks” he has in our minds (or in our flesh so to speak). Those hooks are: (1) If we are controlled by the acquisition of pleasure or by the avoidance of pain. (2) If we are subject to pride. (3) If we are trusting in our own goodness to be acceptable to God. (4) If we believe God no longer judges man for sin. (5) If we are attempting to reform ourselves without submitting our lives to the Lord for His transformation. (6) If we are deceived into thinking that in order to be like God, all we have to do is obtain the right knowledge. (7) If we think that God no longer speaks to mankind. (8) If we trust another knowledge source instead of God Himself. (9) There are more, but you get the gist. If there is a “chink” in our armor, he will make a suggestion using one of the hooks and try to convince us to do evil because of one of our “hooks”. For example, he might say, “Go ahead, you are a special person to God, He will overlook this tiny infraction. Go ahead and do it”. That would be appealing to 1, 2, 3, and 4. If there are hooks, you will fall because you believe the wrong things. The enemy can get you to do what he wants because he can see your hooks too. Unfortunately most people can’t see their hooks. The means of teaching is really simple. It is to learn the same way an infant learns. Jesus not only said you must be born again in order to enter into the Kingdom of God, He also said if you don’t become as a little child you won’t enter or even SEE it. All that mankind knows is contrary to the knowledge of God. In order to learn the things of God, one has to become like the little child. Little children have no knowledge base with which to sift things they are told. Consequently, they accept by faith what they are told. They have no knowledge to make a decision as to the rightness or wrongness of what they are taught. Selective learning comes later, after a base of knowledge is built up. They then sift whatever they hear through that knowledge base, and will not accept things that go against what they already know. Up to the point that a child has a knowledge base with which to judge incoming information, they learn by faith. The knowledge of man has never been able to discover God. 1Co 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. In order to learn from God, one has to first be disabused of all the falsehoods that he has been taught all his life. He must make himself into a little child to be untaught, and then taught all over again in the right way. Children, when they are born can hear and see. They do not understand what they are hearing or seeing. They are a blank slate. The beginning of learning starts the first day when the baby gets hungry and starts to cry. Suddenly he is fed. That produces a revelation in the child: he can influence his environment. He can communicate his wants to those around him by a simple noise. They start to communicate immediately their likes and dislikes concerning their environment. I think the next revelation is when the baby starts to make sounds and sees a wider causal relationship in different sounds. The baby says “mama” and that parental unit with the feeding station chest goes berserk with excitement. Wow, the child thinks, that sound must have some special meaning. Then comes “papa” and the other parental unit goes berserk. So now they know two very specific sounds that cause changes in their environment. Before too long the baby figures out which parental unit responds to “mama” and which parental unit responds to “papa”. This learning curve is based solely on recognizing a causal relationship between something the baby does and its environment. From those simple revelations, the child then begins to put together an understanding of its environment. That process is what is being spoken of above. Mature Christians are those who by reason of practice have their senses trained to discern between good and evil. We hear something we think is from God. We make a decision to respond to the suggestion, and then consequences come. Sometimes we do hear God, and in those instances there is a good outcome - Peace, joy, comfort, etc. Other times we will be hearing a suggestion from the enemy, we act, and there are bad consequences – conviction, chastisement, God’s correction, God’s wrath. We learn not to listen to that voice again. As I said before, this process can take a long time. I knew it might, and I recognized how it was that God was going to teach me how to recognize the voice of the enemy or His voice. At first I learned the timber, the sound, of their voices. Then I learned how to spot the underlying lies. The entire process of being trained how to discern between good and evil is EXACTLY like a baby learning how to communicate with those around it. While the senses being trained are not PHYSICAL senses, they are senses nonetheless. The spiritual senses at first are not recognizable, but as time goes on the ability to exercise your spiritual senses grows easier and easier. The spiritual senses are communications in the Spirit, not in the physical realm. Each physical sense has a similar spiritual counterpart. The spiritual senses are prophecy, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, tongues, interpretations of tongues, revelations, visions, dreams, and, the #1 and most important, spiritual discernment. Spiritual discernment is that one can tell the state of the Spirit of God within him. Discernment is a binary switch. If the Spirit is sanguine and at peace, then that indicates the Spirit is approving of whatever is going on. If the Spirit is not at peace, it indicates trouble, beware. When one trusts God for guidance, this is the primary means for delivering that guidance. The process of learning is one that requires thought, an analytical mind, and remembering outcomes. Learn from your mistakes, and learn from your good choices. In the end, you senses are trained to discern between good and evil. And in the process, all of the “hooks” that the enemy uses to oppress you into doing evil are exposed and removed. Also, this is the way one can cease from sin entirely. This is a very condensed overview of thirty five years of walking down this path. In order to even go down that path, there are certain things you MUST accept by blind faith. (1) God is good in every way and has only our best as His priority. (2) He can speak, even if we do not know yet how to hear. (3) What might seem to us impossible is not impossible to God. (4) He will not lead us astray. (5) He will do exactly as He has said without failure. (6) That which used to seem like imagination might not be imagination. (7) That which used to seem to us like coincidence might not be coincidence but divine intervention. (8) You are placing your entire life in His hands; therefore you must trust Him completely. (9) You MUST believe that there are supernatural things, even if you do not yet know what they are. (10) Those who trust in the Lord will never be abandoned or failed. Those that are damaged by the presupposition that there is nothing supernatural cannot go down this path. They are completely lost, and have no hope of ever hearing God speak to them. And the final answer to this question who taught me this? When I believed in Jesus, repented of my sins, a new person entered into my body. He is called the Holy Spirit. It is the same Spirit that dwelt in Jesus and produced His supernatural life. I had to learn to communicate with that Spirit in the manner in which the Spirit communicates. It is not like the physical, although some things are similar. When I learned on what level and how the Spirit communicates, it opened up a direct link with God. The first level of learning is how to identify the Spirit’s way of communicating. The next level is to practice it. After that one has to grow in understanding God’s character. One also has to learn the tactics and weapons the enemy uses against us. It is EXACTLY like becoming a baby again, and growing up all over again with your focus not on the physical things of this world, but the spiritual things of the Kingdom of God. Atheists like to discount the Bible as being myth or unreliable, but they have never tried to PROVE it is true. It is impossible to prove it to be false, becasue it is impossible in the laws of logic to prove the negative. The only thing that can be done is to prove it true, and it fails to prove out to be true, then one can assume it is false.They simply assume it to be myth and untrue. I approached it with a different perspective. I wanted to PROVE it, not DISPROVE it. I believed that if it was true, it would have to work for me. If God was real, and the Bible was true, I should see the same supernatural reality become reality in my life. I never grew faint with unbelief, as Dave M did to his own destruction, but I pressed on believing that if the Bible is true, then it would happen to me as it happened to them. Since I did not grow weak in faith because of the conundrums in the physical/spiritual "contradictions", what the Bible describes became real in my life also. I know what I am talking about. I have heard the Lord speak to me times beyond numbering. I have seen Him with my own eyes and touched Him several times. I was taken to heaven not once but twice. The one who created all things has even called me His Friend. In addition, all the miracles recounted in the Bible, with one exception, I too have done. That includes a feeding miracle (multiplying food like the loaves and fishes were multiplied). I have not yet been asked to raise someone from the dead, but I expect that will come in time. He told me once that if I went into the ministry, there would be resurrections. That has not yet happened." -Bro Cope Video showing more of the meteor activity I had dreamt about from back in August 2012 (Click Here for dream). Increase in meteor activity (kid gets hit in the head), crazy flooding, weird signs in the sky, crazy up front tornado footage... A man and his wife watch TV every evening at 7:00pm, they never miss it. One night the man decides he no longer wants to watch TV any more, he is DONE with it, and now spends his time with more productive things. So he stops... After some weeks his wife realises how serious he is. Out of selfishness she then tries to get him to watch TV with her, she lures him to the couch and seduces him and after, next thing you know he is watching a show with her... After the show he catches himself, freaks out in disgust and leaves, then she does it again the next day and he find himself watching a show but this time stops... He is angered and he catches on to what she was doing, he said to himself: My wife gets to me by having me be with her in the chair then she leads me into watching tv.. So I will not sit in this chair any more, and I will not be with her there. He stops and his wife cannot get Him to sit with her in front the tv nor watch tv...
Weeks and even months go by, now the wife gets even more conniving. She buys a new TV and puts it in their BEDROOM. He is laying there while she has it playing at late hours, he then finds himself laughing at some of what he hears, then peeping as she nudges him and then he catches himself watching a show... Immediately he gets up and says to his wife: You know I do not watch TV yet you do this, if you choose to watch then fine but I will sleep in the other room... He started sleeping in the other room... And stays away from the TV when it is on in his bed room. Overtime his wife, impressed by his discipline and seeing how productive he is with his time also chooses to stop watching tv... This man, does not watch TV... Though his wife tried, though she caught him off guard sometimes, he learned and overcame... Dear friends this is how we must be with sin. |
Askg7Daily encouragement and exhortations. Archives
January 2016
Categories
All
|