Thoughts on “Spiritual Warfare” Part 5

God’s grace is on you!

Okay family, in this last installment concerning spiritual warfare and how to wage it effectively, I want to look at fasting. Yes, going without food, not for health purposes which is fine, but for spiritual reasons. Again, this will not be as in-depth as you would like but there is nothing stopping you from doing a study for yourself, is there? If you check your Bible concordance you will find scriptural references on fasts and fasting. Study these out and you’ll see some amazing results were accomplished. The main reason we don’t enjoy fasting is because we enjoy food even more. That may not seem like a real deep revelation but think about it.

Thoughts on “Spiritual Warfare” Part 4

An abundance of grace is yours!

Listen, I’m not stupid. I know this subject has long been a “hot button” issue in the church. And rightly so, the devil hates it and he will fight truth until his final fate befalls him. I don’t mean, or even want, to be divisive but I will not water down the truth to appease man. The entire gospel message is divisive and always has been. You will notice that Jesus had to go outside of the “established religion of the day” to spread the truth. And so has every other person who wanted to see the truth revived since the time Jesus walked the earth. Unfortunately, almost every past revival has eventually turned into a religious denomination. John the baptist’s into the Baptist religion.

Tenth Avenue North

By Your Side

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don’t turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I’m not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I’ll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don’t fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world’s sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

(Chorus 2x)

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I’ll never let you go

(Chorus 2x)

Does God exist? (debate)

A great debate that is coming up on Saturday April 4th at Biola University. William Lane Craig will debate world renown Atheist Christopher Hitchens. This should be spectacular. It is sold out but one can pay to view it as a live stream from your computer. Here is the info:

the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus (debate)

I attended a debate at Northwest Missouri State University on March 18th. The premise; did Jesus rise from the dead? This debate involved William Lane Craig and Richard Carrier. I had really hoped for a good debate. I wanted to leave with something to think about. Something that would require me to research and dig deep to fully understand. I must say I was disappointed. Now, my disappointment was not with Craig rather with Carrier. I have often hoped somebody would give Craig a run for his money.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Thoughts on “Spiritual Warfare” Part 3

Grace, peace and power to you!

In this third installment in this series I want to take a little closer look at praying in the Spirit or praying in tongues as some refer to it. Although there are several references to praying in tongues throughout the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles, Paul gives his most in-depth coverage of this new weapon in the 14th chapter of 1 Corinthians. Why not get a good Bible concordance and look up the word “tongues” or the phrase “pray in the Spirit” and do a study on your own? As a side note; for those of you who have been taught that praying in the Spirit passed away with the original twelve apostles keep in mind that when Paul was instructing the church in this epistle at no time did he indicate this phenomenon was for “apostles only”, nor did he tell them it was a temporary gift to the church just to give it a ‘head start.” And I can guarantee you the whole Corinthian church was not made up of apostles so that’s why they were allowed to speak in tongues. Why do we swallow some of this stuff? Again, where IS that barf bag?

Thoughts on “Spiritual Warfare” Part 2

Grace to you,

When I received this request to address the issue of spiritual warfare one of the specific areas of confusion mentioned was concerning all the “yelling, screaming and crying” that sometimes goes on. The author of the question was wondering why she had never felt compelled to actively participate in that type of thing. I want to address this reverently because there is a danger of throwing the entire meal out because of one hair. I enjoy reading and researching Church history, particularly powerful revivals and what started the fire, and I find only one clear common thread; holy living and hunger to see God at work in the earth. This almost always will lead to fasting and prayer. This almost always leads to the collision of two worlds, heaven and earth, resulting in salvations and undeniable miracles. Some of these revivals were short-lived while some spanned a decade or more.

Thoughts on “Spiritual Warfare” Part 1

Good morning to you!

Recently I received an email request to address the issue of spiritual warfare and, more specifically, “What’s the proper way to do it?” Before I begin let me emphasize that for some reason we humans tend to put spiritual things into “keys” or “steps” or ‘formulas’. Stop it, stop it , stop it! This may be the most important statement I make in this e-pistle; any kind of ’spiritual warfare’ you engage in must be based on your relationship with Jesus Christ and not on your knowledge of Him. This is possibly the biggest mistake we as believers can make. The devil is not threatened by our knowledge, he is however devastated by our relationship/fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Religion doesn’t phase Satan, in fact, he invented it. Religion was the framework to keep us out of real communion with our Savior. The deception lies in that if we “do” the things our religion requires then we must surely be in God’s good graces. (Where is my barf bag?) As we look at spiritual warfare keep in mind that my insights are not necessarily in order of importance. The only thing that’s really important is that you hear His voice and respond in kind. In other words, follow Him.

A Lesson From The Corinthian Church

Happy Monday to you and blessings from the Lord! Yesterday after our church service I was speaking to a lady about how frustrated I was Christmas Eve. Instead of being able to attend Victory Church’s Christmas Eve service, as we had planned, I ended up taking Denise to the emergency room at the Fremont Area Medical Center for what turned out to be a very painful ear infection. My frustration originated from the fact that Jesus told us in plain language that we would “lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (Mark 16:18) For those of you who believe healing passed away with the original twelve apostles I suggest you seriously consider where you are getting your teaching and study the scriptures for yourself.

ESV Bible for your MP3 player

OK this might not be near as cool to you as it is to me but I found this blog someway somehow that shows a way to download the ESV translation of the Bible to your MP3 player. ESV is the best translation in my opinion and having it for free on my ipod without stealing it is amazing to me. I copied the instructions below from

http://twog.wordpress.com/2009/02/12/memorizing-scripture-from-your-ipod/

check out this guys blog while you are at it, it is pretty good.

and now for the plagiarism;