Saturday, January 6, 2024

Sj: Be Excellent at What You Do

✅Where is our largest battle field?

Our largest battle field, (at least for this writing) is the world around us.  The world that we participate in everyday.  Do you know that the Lord can send us into the world to learn it’s ways without our feet ever having to leave home?  That’s the internet’s task.  Daniel had to be taken captive in Babylon, but we have it much easier.


There are places on the web, internet, or tv where I am taught about the lawyers, scribes, and pharasees.  I learn about the world’s morals (or lack of), norms, and expectation and I never have to leave my seat.  Or... I can worship with other believers, hear a powerful sermon, or chat live via the internet.  Do you have a prayer need and don’t want to wait till the pastor wakes up in the morning?  Enter the internet.  


The first time the Lord led to me get some schooling on media, I balked.  I humbly reminded the Lord that I had committed my eyes into His service and would not look at anything vile ever again.  The Lord reminded me I had also promised to obey.  I started with old vcr tapes of the Christian Faith Generals.  I watched AA Allen, Smith Wigglesworth, Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts, John G. Lake, and more.  I watched the series on God’s Generals by Roberts Liardon.  (All of this by watching TV.) lol


Later, there were historical things to learn.  I could learn about the exit from Egypt, the great flood, about the pharaohs, and much more.  I never left home nor had to pay for a plane ticket to Egypt.  But the best was that there always a ‘voice’ behind the scenes narrating what the Lord was doing in the event.  If I watched a special on the Red Sea, the Lord would always bring in many other little pieces of tidbits that would relate to His opinion of the Red Sea and it’s role on the earth.  Was the Red Sea birthed by the fire and brimstone that fell upon Sodom and Gahmorah?  Can you imagine in your mind large bolders of fire falling into the waters?  Do you begin to wonder where they are coming from?  Or why they are smashing a city?  Could there be a god who is angry? Might one try to find out?  We all know that inquiring minds always want to know.  lol


Anyway, it’s been several years now of this type of schooling.  Each movie, tv show, video, or Youtube always has a purpose for me because I have commited myself to always following His guidance.  As my education began to become more focused, my studies began to follow a path toward biblical counseling.  I got to tell you, some things are really strange out there in the world.  My most resent series was watching the story of Gypsi Rose, the girl who killed her mother and just recently got out of jail.  There were parts of that show that I could barely sit through, but do we really think that those we are going to be witnessing to or counseling are going to be ‘pretty and clean’ people?  No.  The weird thing was that Gypsi’s mother had a striking resemblence (character wise) as someone I knew years ago.  It made me question as to how people can become this way... so manipulative and easy to lie about something to get their way.  What can we do about it?  How can we help someone? How can we help a victim of the manipultor or even the manipulator him/herself.  


The Lord needs his people to be educated.  Consider a doctor.  He needs doctors... good doctors.  Doctors need schooling... good schooling.  Doctor are strange.  They study some yucky stuff, and they play around with cadaviers just a calmly as a fishermen puts a  worm

on a hook.  The Lord gives them a delight to do their studies.  They find it a joy to fix a broken leg or operate and give a person a second chance in life.  But, they have to get skilled. 


You and I have to get skilled.  We have to be the best at what we do.  We have to be the ones that can solve a problem that someone needs help solving.  

We’re servants.  

We’re to serve their needs as we have been called and trained to do.

We need to be excellent in our tasks.

Everyone has an area of excellence.


Be the best you can be.  

Study to show yourself approved... unto God.  


sj🊋


 

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Called into leadership, not a Service position

So, I was listening to Joyce Meyer talk about God's purpose

for our lives. One of the things she tries to do is get the pressure off of us by teach us to trust the Lord to be able to get the information to us concerning what He wants us to do in a way

we can understand. Then she started sharing how she experimented with finding her call.


She said that she tried several different roles and positions but found that the Lord had called her to be a leader. She tried being a ‘service’ member of the body of Christ, but found out quickly she was called to lead, not follow. When I heard her say that, I was startled and immediatly asked the Lord if a person could say that. It seemed so… so… ‘unreligious.’ 


We are expected to say we are called to be the service worker and when someone says they are NOT called to that position, it shocks us. We hear things like.. “let the Lord exault you,” which is true, but don’t we believe it is important to know what we are NOT called to do?


So, basically what I am thinking is that if you are called to be a leader, then prepare to be that leader, and to be a GREAT one. Don’t get all bashful about it and wait until gold dust falls all over your head. Don’t be ashamed to say that you are called to lead. Don’t be afraid to reject jobs in the body of Christ that are NOT what you are called to do. Just make sure you are doing your best to understand the Lord’s call and then be as faithful as you can. That way, you’ll be ready when He needs you.


https://youtu.be/o9f6qdUsTeM?si=i9Sdu7RFulXfmlID 

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Rick Joyner: Don’t waste your trials.

Rick Joyner shares:  Don’t Waste Your Trials 

Everyone wants the mature fruit, but not many are willing to do what it takes to plant a tree and cultivate it until it has matured and can bear fruit. 

The price of bearing spiritual fruit is to take up our crosses daily, not occasionally. We must live not seeking our own will, but His. It is a life that is not self-seeking, but self-sacrificing. 

Even so, just one moment of the glory and anointing of God that we experience is worth any sacrifice many times over. It is a basic spiritual principle that between the place where we receive the promise of God and the Promised Land, or the fulfillment of the promises, there will be a wilderness that is the opposite of what we have been promised. 

We must learn to endure the hard, dry times in order to get to the land flowing with milk and honey. Even so, in the wilderness we will experience great things, and that is where the dwelling place of God was built in the midst of His people. 

Don't waste your trials. It will be hard at times, but it will always be worth it.

Joyner, Rick (2015-12-03). Army of the Dawn (Kindle Locations 370-377). MorningStar Publications, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Tuesday, December 12, 2023

The Topic of Demons in the Church

Many have been in church their whole lives and never heard teachings about Spiritual warfare. It is a purpose in my life to get this message out to the Body of Christ that the ’devil is alive and well on planet earth’ (also the name of a book written many years ago by Hal Lindsay.) Bible scholars say that up to one third of Jesus’ ministry on earth was spent in the deliverance ministry through casting out demons and healing people from demonic oppression. Do we believe that Jesus cast out all of the demons necessary and we no longer need that componet in the Church today? No, it says that as Jesus left, he commissioned us to continue to cast out demons.

We don’t want to deal with demons.

I called a minister to ask him if he could teach me about spiritual warfare and how to deal with demons. He told me to not get involved. He said that he’d been there and was glad to get out of that type of ministry. He said that we, the Body of Christ, don’t need to be playing around with the demonic. I don’t know what his personal experience was, but obviously it was not a good experience. But still, that does not change the fact that sticking our heads in the sand and avoiding the topic is going to satisfy the great commission Jesus gave to us.

Hos 4.6 says that the Lord’s people die because of ignorance.

Jesus cast a demon out of a lady who had been hunched over for 18 years. When Jesus cast the demon out, she was healed and free of the afflicition. Are you afflicted with any physical issues? Do you know for sure that they are NOT demonic? Not all physical afflictions are a demon sitting on a part of the body causing great pain and eventually death, but… some are. Some are demonic attacks that are meant to kill you, steal from you, and destroy your life. To ignore this is to ‘give a place to the devil.’ (Eph 4.27)

Scary and radical Deliverance Ministries

I am not a fan of radical deliverance meetings. I am not saying they are WRONG, but I am saying that I have a peace with a quieter approach. Kenneth Hagin taught that handing out a bag for people to throw up in (when they were delivered from a demon) was just asking for a demon. I will try to find that sermon again and share it. I am more comfortable in a meeting where things are much quieter. I understand that demons cast people down on the ground and make them look as if they are dead, but I also know that many are delivered without a visual profile taking place. The point is to be delivered, and that is a Jesus job. It is by His power, and in His name that demons are cast out. Anyway, that’s just my opinion, but is also one reason that many refuse to go to delieverance meetings. I am just saying that there is more than one way to cast out a demon. The point is that they need cast out.

Oppressed or Possessed

Some believe a christian can be possessed. I don’t. But I am not going to argue the point. I believe that oppression can be strong enough to make it look and feel as if someone is possessed. Have you ever covered yourself with sand at the lake or beach? It’s heavy. Oppression is like that. It’s heavy and makes life hard. Some say that a christian can be possessed and use Jesus casting demons “out” as support for this. I submit that Jesus cast demons out but that this was ‘before the filling of the Holy Spirit’ was available. Still, I don’t believe that the topic of ‘oppression vs possession’ is important enough to keep us from agreement in that people need deliverance.

Jesus has set us free. Let us receive this freedeom and help others get free.

Begin with the prayer for understanding, mercy, and love.

Monday, December 4, 2023

I Need a Place to be Me

I Need A Place to be Me

I opened up my Bible to Jeremiah chapter 1 and read the verse that the Lord gave me when he called me to be a watchman and my heart burns within me with such a passion.

After the call, I entered school of the Holy Spirit and majored in spiritual warfare 101. Now, after several years, I have such a desire to be in my own personal office, fulfilling the call to the Lord placed on me. I feel like I graduated from (spiritual) college a few years ago, but I’ve been getting my upper level education in the Lord in these past couple of years. It’s been one advancing step at a time. And now I just have a passion to find a place to be me.

I want to share what it was like sitting at my desk in a small town in Colorado back in the 90s. The presence of the Lord came upon me and he opened my eyes in a vision to a ceremony where he ordained me into my office as a watchman. It was a formal setting, and it was wonderful. and then immediately after that, I stepped into spiritual warfare, 101 class. And it has been warfare ever since.

I’m not in that class anymore as I believe I have graduated from it. It’s like the arena training that they give the gladiators. We will always be warriors, but I’m not in that type of setting anymore. I think I’m on the outside of that in the little outskirts buildings that they have where the Warriors are set aside for a time to heal and get reconditioned into full strength. So I think that’s where I am.

So, I feel like there’s been a lot of healing. I’ve still got some toning to do along with getting good nourishment and  strengthening, but I have a desire now to interact with people. But in a different way. One of the aftermath affects of the arena was that i couldn’t trust anybody or go anywhere without watching your back and watching your step or walking on eggshells. I don’t think that where the Lord is going send me now. 

So I have a desire to be who I am, and to be free at that. And I’m coming out of a place where I never have been free to be myself.  I believe we can be ourselves in any atmosphere as we learn to walk in wisdom.  

New Attitude

New Attitude

There are seasons that the Lord will take you through, and no matter how hard it is,  he’s gonna give you the grace to get through it. In the future, you’re gonna look back at this time, and you’re gonna wonder how in the world you went through it and you’ll pick up that saying that says “been there … done that … and I ain’t buying that T-shirt again…“

Certain things that were distasteful to you during that season will still be distasteful, but it’s a different kind of distastefulness. It has a tinge of, “nope… not going to happen” attitude attached.  It just means the Lord’s grace is changing and he’s gonna keep things right for you… Just stay with him. 

Perhaps you read stories about the holy discontentment. This is what we’re talking about.🊋

#Character

Osborn: Faith Comes by Hearing…

FAITH COMES by hearing the word of God.]

Faith is never derived through sympathy. 
Faith never comes through discussing with people their pains and aches, weaknesses and sicknesses. 
Faith is born when we hear the word of truth.

Jesus said: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make You free. He is the truth.
If we want to see people delivered from the bondage of disease, we must teach them the part of God’s word that sets them free from disease. The truth is: Christ wills every person (you) to be healed, or He would not have taken the stripes by which you were healed.

Then one may ask, “Why do not more get healed?”
The answer: Because of the lack of teaching and preaching the Bible truth of healing.

Let us not stand by the bed of sick people to sympathize with their pains. Let us never insinuate that it must be God’s will to “take them;” or that “it will teach them patience;” or that perhaps, “they will be drawn closer to the Lord” through their sickness. Let us rather declare war on every form of sickness, and take authority over every form of demon power through the name of Jesus Christ. Let us minister deliverance to those in need of healing.

T. L. Osborne
🔹🔹🔹

I know that the Lord wants us to be in good health.  I know He wants us to be 'walking testimonies.' I don't pretend to know why some are healed and some are not, but I know that it is His will that we are healed and fit for service.

I remember back several years ago, after a hurricane went through and made a mess throughout the rental properties,  that the elderly owner's wife came to help clean up the debris.  She was a tall and frail woman with 'spit fire' in her bones.  She rushed through the grounds and outworked everyone around her.  At the time, I had two apostles (husband and wife team) staying as my guests in one of the apartments.  They had come to the area to start a church.  They were 25 years younger than her, but they were unable to help us clean up the grounds.  Both of them had some kind of ailment that prevented them from lifting or standing for any length of time.  

When my employer asked if they were going to help clean up, I had to tell him no.  I really could not give him any kind of valid reason to explain to him why his elderly wife was out raking up debris and my guests (good christian leaders) were sitting in an air conditioned apartment.  I just knew in my heart that these two people (my boss and his wife) would not be believing anything the 'apostles' had to tell them (nor anyone my boss talked to about them.)

My point to sharing this is that in my heart, I know that having these two people being healthy and out there giving a hand in clean up would have gone a long way in the message of Christ being a healer.  Sad thing is that they were acting more like the baptist that they had come to convert (into charismatics).    


#Healing, 

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Jane Hamon: Pitfalls of Discernment

Pitfalls of Discernment
Learning to Discern 
by Jane Hamon


In the beginning I made a lot of mistakes, not necessarily in what I was seeing or hearing but in keeping my heart right. It was easy to become judgmental and critical from what I was hearing God say. I had to learn to discern what came from my soul and what came from the Holy Spirit. I had to learn that sometimes my own opinions got involved and blocked me from seeing what was occurring in the spiritual realm or in the natural realm. Ephesians 1:17 speaks of having a spirit of revelation but also a spirit of wisdom. I had a lot to learn and great leaders around me to help me grow in grace and wisdom. 

At times, I felt overwhelmed by what I was seeing or overburdened by the responsibility of the revelations. What was I supposed to do with everything God was showing me? Many times I became frustrated and said or did the wrong thing. There were times when I simply wanted to ignore the gift or close my spiritual ears to the voice of God because I dreaded making a mistake on such important matters. 

Others with the gift of discerning of spirits express similar challenges. Some shut down the operation of this gift in their lives because they grow frustrated with seeing things in the Spirit when they have no idea of what to do with that information. The internal pressure of receiving a flood of revelation without any strategy for its use is overwhelming. Others shut it down because they made mistakes with some of the information information they received. Those bad experiences hurt people or led to misunderstandings with leaders in their churches. 

It is imperative for people with discernment revelation to pursue the balancing anointing of wisdom that Paul spoke about when he prayed for the church at Ephesus. This was written to a first-century church planted right in the heart of a city that was the center of the known world for goddess worship, magic and occult training. If anyone needed discernment it was these believers. 

He wrote: [I pray] that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; . . . according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

🔹🔹🔹

I'm one that shut down.  I have a history of shutting down my gift.  Then I repent and start all over again.  As Jane said, it can become overwhelming.  

I have been very blessed to be reading about Sister Jane's struggles with this gift.  I know that as I press on into her teaching, I and stay humble before the Lord, I learn to grow more faithful to this gift.  I am amazed at the ignorance surrounding the gift of discernment.  It makes it hard on those who have the gift because those who don't have very accusing things to say to us.  Yes, they think we are judgemental and start out to correct us, but there is more to it.  Most that I have talked to also have a very nervous disposition based on fear of being an evil person because they feel they are being judgemental.  They fuss at themselves constantly.

I don't believe this gift is one that you just step out into one day and become an expert at it.  I believe it takes years... if one does not give up.  Don't give up.  


Friday, November 3, 2023

Joyce Meyer: Ministry Difficulties

Joyce Meyer:  DIFFICULTIES IN MINISTRY 

Some Difficult Things I Have Dealt WithIn The Ministry  

NOTE: These things are not listed in any descending degree of difficulty. They are simply things God placed on my heart to share with you. Hopefully, they will encourage you to press on and see the end fulfillment of your dreams and visions.   

Loneliness – “It Can Be Lonely At The Top.”  

Leadership can be and often is lonely.  

We want friends like everyone else; and yet, we cannot allow a spirit of “familiarity” to come upon those God has placed under our leadership.  

Beware of becoming “entangled” in the lives of those who are under your leadership.  

Becoming too “familiar” will cause most people to no longer be able to see you as the leader. They will begin to see that you are human; and although in one way they want you to be so, in another way they are disappointed if you are.  


A “divine connection” that God arranges with a mature believer is what we must learn to seek. I have some very good friends, but they fall into one of two categories:  

Friends in ministry – people doing the same thing I am doing 

It is easy for others to say, “Lighten up and have a little fun,” when they are not the ones who need to prepare for six upcoming seminars.  


Sometimes it seems that everybody you get around wants something, needs something, expects something, has a question, or needs a decision.  

Always remember that birds fly in flocks, but “eagles fly alone.”  


Giant oak trees do not grow in clumps; they are usually by themselves, perhaps on a hill – and they look majestic.  
We don't say, “Oh, look at that beautiful, majestic clump of trees”; but we do admire the, perhaps, lonely but majestic giant oaks. 

https://youtu.be/mzavNg4ELvg?si=96YvG3W3yEH17keI

Monday, October 30, 2023

God’s Frustration

**God’ Frustation**

The other night, in a dream like way, the Lord and I were in a back room discussing the situation concerning my friend, a mega healing preacher, and the healing that she’s seeking for her son. The Lord showed me a problem and danger and the consequences in a behind-the-scenes look at what’s happening to her faith and belief in healing, and the hindrance that is creating havoc in her faith.

My friend was not raised in church, and has not been taught the way most Pentecostals or charismatics are taught about the gift of healing.  She came across a minister of a Megachurch who has the same political agenda as she does and he preaches that the Lord heals today. They struck up a friendship due to political commonalities, and she began listening to his sermons. He preached a really good word message on healing that would have been a huge benefit to her when she found out her son had cancer, but he began making advances towards her via online texting. 

She put him in his place and said that she’s not that type of person, and then she forgave him. They continued on corresponding back-and-forth via text without any further provocative correspondences.  But my friend was now walking in the position of being ‘the head’ of their friendship based on the fact that she had forgiven him. She had the upper hand.  This is not the way the Lord wanted to this too work.

God gave the pastor honor, prestiage, and a position of favor so that he could insert healing and faith into people’s lives because they looked up to him.  God did not give him “human” frailities to declare as excuses to fall short of his responsiblities.

Now, when this pastor talks to her about healing, she has doubts, because actually, she’s got the upper hand on him.  She is the better person because she forgave him and did not destroy his ministry.  To her, he is not a person of authority in her life anymore. God wanted to bring the pastor into her life in a way that she could look up to him and believe him when he told her God wants to heal her son.  He would’ve been a great foundational support for her. But the enemy got in there and blew it.  

Honestly, I do not believe that God sent him to her. The Lord knew that his position as a womanizer would ultimately destroy her ability to have full respect for him.   And now, my friend is mad at God for hurting her son by allowing him to have stage 4 cancer.

We hear a lot of talk about our leaders being human and transparent. We are told to cut them some slack.  What happened to being strong and courageous?  What happened to leaders understanding that they’re held accountable for a higher standard of living? Proclaiming that we are ‘just human’ is cop out and is not gonna wash anymore.  

The Lord told me many years ago that familiarity breeds contempt. It was hard to hear. We are humans and like to be familiar with others. We like to run in packs.  We are told to ‘consider the cost’ and told that it is going to cost a lot. 

So, let’s consider the cost and make a real decision... lives depend on us.