False Spiritual Warfare Teachings: How the Church Becomes Pagan

False Spiritual Warfare Teachings: How the Church Becomes Pagan 

by Bob DeWaay

A pagan is anyone who lacks special revelation from God. And had God not spoken in the manner described in Hebrews 1:1, 2, everyone in the world would be a pagan. This is to say that each of us would have to guess about the nature of the spiritual world we live in and develop techniques in order to contact or manipulate our world. We would wonder how we could manipulate the "gods" to better our situation. We would create a class of shamans with special abilities to contact and manipulate the spirits. That is what every pagan culture looks like.

Sadly, that is what the church looks like when teachers of the warfare worldview proceed as though they were pagans with no special revelation (i.e., Scripture) to guide them. They are trafficking in forbidden information—and that is pagan (we will show how later). Since the pagan temptation is all around us, we must be discerning about its many inroads into the church. We have discussed many of these in past CIC issues: In this issue we will explore spiritual warfare teachings and show the alarming manner in which they introduce Christians to a pagan worldview.

The Bible is our "firewall" against paganism. When we believe and practice scripture alone, we are sure to develop a Christian worldview—if we interpret the Bible according to the meaning of its Spirit-inspired authors. Scripture "alone" implies that using extra-Biblical sources for spiritual information is forbidden. It also implies that God has revealed everything we need to know and that it is sinful to think or act otherwise. God has limited our access to spiritual information for our own good. He wants us to think like true Christians; not like pagans.

The Warfare Worldview

 

Dr. Greg Boyd describes the warfare worldview as that being held by pagans, but simultaneously claims it to be the view the Biblical authors held. I find his perspective amazing. He discusses the view of a particular pagan society: "The Shuar Indians of eastern Ecuador believe that there are two levels of reality: the ‘ordinary' physical world, which we experience with our senses, and the ‘real' one, which is experienced occasionally, and mostly in dreams or in shamanic journeys."¹ In this view the "real" world is the world of the spirits which is not that accessible. But it is considered the cause of things in the "unreal" physical world. Boyd explains, "This invisible society of spirits is behind everything that occurs in the physical world—though one has to see past ‘the lie' to discern this society." ²

Pagan societies, whatever their terminology, create a class of shamans, as mentioned above. Boyd explains how that works for the Shuar:

The primary business of shamans (medicine men) within the Shuar culture, as in many other primitive cultures, is to engage in warfare with these spirits on behalf of the members of his tribe. There is no "natural" evil here; there are only victims of supernatural evil. The shaman's business, therefore, is to enter into the "real" nonordinary world and fight against such supernatural attacks.³

Spiritual warfare is the business of shamans. Boyd accurately describes the pagan "warfare worldview."

What shocks me is that he claims it is the Biblical worldview. Boyd writes, "This central thesis of this work is that this warfare worldview is in one form or another the basic worldview of biblical authors, both in the Old Testament and even more so in the New."⁴ He offers this definition: "Stated most broadly, this worldview is that perspective on reality which centers on the conviction that the good and evil, fortunate or unfortunate, aspects of life are to be interpreted largely as the result of good and evil, friendly or hostile, spirits warring against each other and against us."⁵ This means that our welfare is in the hands of wicked spirits and if we cannot come up with a means of dealing with those spirits we shall become victims. 

My disagreement with Boyd is not about the existence of spirits, principalities or powers, nor of Satan or of other spirit beings—or even that the Bible does portray a world influenced by such beings. My disagreement has to do with his conclusion that God is not fully in charge of His own universe. Boyd wishes to absolve God from any possible association with evil by limiting His providential rule of the universe.

The providential view claims that though God allows evil, He nevertheless remains fully in control of His own universe and brings history forward according to His good purposes. Those of us who believe it take passages like this to be literal: "also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will" (Ephesians 1:11). There are many other passages that assert that God providentially rules His own universe. The Bible says that He draws the boundaries of the nations (Acts 17:26), ordains the human authorities (Romans 13:1), determines what Satan is allowed to do (Job 1:7-12), that through Christ he created the "ages" (Hebrews 1:2) and "upholds all things by the word of His power" (Hebrews 1:3). The Psalmist wrote: "Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations; You established the earth, and it stands. They stand this day according to Your ordinances, For all things are Your servants." (Psalm 119:90, 91).⁶

The warfare worldview is Boyd's way of rejecting the providential worldview that I claim to be Biblical. He labels the view I defend the "providential blueprint worldview."⁷ I cite Boyd because his is the most scholarly articulation of the warfare worldview—and he admits it is pagan. But other spiritual warfare teachers take this even further by seeking information and technology from the world of the spirits ostensibly to use for the purpose of warfare.

Victims of a Spiritual Legal System

 

The problem for those who adapt the pagan, warfare worldview is that they are dealing with an unseen world and they are doing it using an illegal tool chest. The spirits have been doing their wicked dealings in that realm for many millennia and they know their way around it. Pagans fear these beings because they know that the spirits exist, and they know spirits can bring much harm. That is why pagans develop a class of shamans whose job it is to understand the unseen world. Shamans claim pragmatic results. But how do they know that the shamans themselves are not being used by spirits? Pagans believe that good and bad spirits exist, and that the good ones can be used to their benefit—a "benefit" determined on the basis of a pragmatic outcome.

For example, Jose Silva taught people how to contact spirit guides by using his Silva Mind Control program. When Christians asked how he knew these spirits are "good" ones, he answered "They solve problems."⁸ (Of course he never considered that the spirits might solve temporal problems to keep people listening to them and not the gospel.) Deception is the spirits stock in trade. The shamans are as deceived by them as their clients are. And both are on a path to hell.

Nevertheless, those who adopt the warfare worldview are convinced they must find a means to do battle in the spirit world. Christians who claim such abilities assert that learning the "legal system" or "rules of engagement" of the spirit world is the key to having success in that realm. Since God is not sovereignly in charge of His own universe in that worldview, they instead suppose that God has set up a legal system that the spirits have to follow. Humans who learn the secrets of that legal system (they reason) have some hope of using it to control the spirits.

Famous exorcist Bob Larson explains, "Curses are exacting, legal arrangements of the spirit world. Just like human contracts contain fine print and carefully crafted language, satanic curses are often filled with minutia that required detailed voiding."⁹ Do we know the details of this "legal" system? No! God has not taught us the details of such a system. This is how the warfare worldview takes us away from sola scriptura into the pagan world of the shamans. A special class of people is created (in this case deliverance counselors) who perform for the church what the shaman does for the pagans. Think of the burden these people have: if they miss something in the "fine print," this error could derail the process. Bob Larson admits, "In some cases, I've discovered that leaving out one phrase or one word can make all the difference. Satan will exploit the smallest thing to keep the curse in effect." ¹⁰ Fine print is problematic in legal documents in the real world, but how hopeless is it in a world that we cannot even see and in which there is no documentation?

C. Peter Wagner agrees with the idea of legalities in the spirit world:

One of the more curious aspects of my pilgrimage into the field of spiritual warfare during the past few years has been the discovery that those who had been talking about it did not agree among themselves about the nature of strongholds. They agreed that strongholds provide the forces of darkness as a legal basis for doing their evil deeds both in individual people on the ground level and in cities or nations on the strategic level. Almost all of them, however, had their own opinions about the nature or identity of these strongholds.¹¹

Of course they cannot agree because they cannot know! They are dealing in the realm of spiritual information that God has not revealed. Unless God speaks, we are left to guess at the causes, effects and workings of the spiritual world. This "disagreement" by those lacking special revelation is the basis for the arguments, such as what occurred between Job and his friends as they vainly sought for answers. Until God spoke, each had to guess as to the cause and nature of his afflictions—and they guessed wrong. These things are in the realm of "secret things" that belong only to God (Deuteronomy 29:29 which we will turn to later). To try to understand unrevealed, spiritual, legal systems is to put us back into the realm of the pagans who have been doing the same for millennia. The "Christian" curse breaker is hardly different than the pagan one.

Watchman Nee, an early innovator in this "Christian paganism," also asserted an unrevealed, spiritual legal system that if not discovered, will give evil spirits access to Christians:

For each and every thing God has created there is a law. . . . Hence evil spirits also operate according to definite laws, one of which is that certain causes will produce certain effects. Now should anyone fulfill the conditions for the working of evil spirits (whether he fulfills them willingly, such as the witch, the medium or the sorcerer—or unwillingly, such as the Christian), then he has definitely given ground to them to work on him.¹²

One thing these teachers have in common is that they deny that Christians have escaped from the wicked powers of the universe.¹³ The means of escape that they propose are knowledge and techniques that the Bible does not reveal.

These teachers often select phrases in the Bible and extrapolate them to create a system whose inner workings must be discovered through some extrabiblical means. For example, Nee uses the term "place" from Ephesians 4:27 to prove the existence of this legal system and the need to learn it.¹⁴ Nee says, "It pays no heed to whether one is a Christian or not; once the conditions are met, the evil spirits do not fail to act."¹⁵ One of these conditions that Nee has in mind is "passivity of the will."¹⁶ According to this thinking, any person who lacks strong willpower will become a prey of evil spirits. Any known or unknown sin of activity or omission also turns the spirits loose on the Christian.¹⁷ It is hard to imagine that any Christian who believes this teaching could think himself to be free from curses and spirits. 

While Nee is concerned with personal sin and spirits, Wagner is interested in territorial spirits that afflict large groups of people:

One of the reasons evil spirits succeed in returning is that strongholds on which they had based their legal rights to control that area and its people have not been thoroughly removed. We know a great deal more about this than we did previously, largely through our understanding that a crucial part of much strategic-level spiritual warfare should be through identificational repentance. Through accurate and sensitive spiritual mapping we can identify strongholds rooted in unremitted sins of past generations and we now understand the ways and means of dealing with those sins of the past in our own generation.¹⁸

Notice that Wagner claims spirits have "legal rights" conferred upon them by human actions in past generations. This is in keeping with the warfare worldview asserting that people are in bad situations because demons and other spirit beings have gained legal access to them by the actions of humans—some of whom no longer are alive—in a hidden cause/effect. But notice also that we consistently end up with the need for secret information. How else can we do "spiritual mapping." The Bible provides no such map and doesn't describe how to build a system of spiritual guidance.
For instance, a demon commended Bob Larson for his knowledge of the secret rules of the spirit world.

Demon: "Who taught you the rules?"
Larson: "What do you mean by that?"
Demon: "The spiritual rules that determine what we can and can't do. Someone from our side must have taught you."¹⁹

This underscores a major problem with the warfare worldview. The hidden "rules of engagement" for spiritual battles are seen as the key to victory; even if this were true the evil spirits live in this reality and we have to fish around with various means, guessing to gain even a partial, possibly wrong knowledge of them. In fact, we are forced to become like pagans and create a class of shamans who are better than most at gaining secret information. The church becomes dependent on unrevealed, forbidden, spiritual knowledge and the class of people that reveals it. Once that happens, the church has been paganized.

Gaining Secret, Spiritual Information

 

I find it truly shocking that highly educated Christians fail to see the implications of their own teachings. For example, C. Peter Wagner devotes an entire chapter (the second) of his book to allege that extrabiblical spiritual knowledge is available and valid. He uses the same tactic that others have used, claiming that the "logos" word is the Bible and "rhema" words are direct sources of spiritual revelation.²⁰ Having opened the door to extrabiblical knowledge of the spirit world, he follows it to amazing places:

In it [chapter 2] I suggest that it may be possible to receive selected, but valid, information from the world of darkness itself. I am careful to stress strongly that discernment is needed while attempting to do this because evil spirits are by nature deceivers and they must be treated as hostile witnesses. Nevertheless, certain people such as shamans, witch doctors, practitioners of Eastern religions, New Age gurus or professors of the occult on university faculties are examples of the kind of people who may have much more extensive knowledge of the spirit world than most Christian have. Some of the information they furnish is accurate.²¹

He tells us to use discernment when gaining information from the world of darkness. But discernment is impossible when going into an unseen world. The discernment the Bible gives us is objective and concerns the confession of Jesus Christ (1John 4:1-5). These shamans are disqualified on that ground. Wagner encourages Christians to seek truth from the very people God condemns in Deuteronomy 18.

Even if some of this information is accurate, it is nevertheless forbidden in the strongest terms possible. God forbids us access to secret knowledge for our own spiritual good, not because some of it might be inaccurate. It is forbidden because it is destructive—regardless of whether or not it is true!

There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and because of these detestable things the Lord your God will drive them out before you. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)

This issue of accuracy is not mentioned; these are "detestable" persons and practices. Yet it is through these forbidden practices that pagans gain their spiritual information. Wagner has opened the floodgate for paganism to swamp the church. 

The only One with exhaustive knowledge of the spirit world who could provide a spiritual "map" for us is God Himself. Why would we assume that He purposely withheld the knowledge we would need in order to evangelize cities, free people from Satan, remove curses, and bring forth His kingdom on earth only to have us glean it from shamans? God has given us exactly what we nee—the clear revelation we find in scripture. The rest belongs to Him: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29). The rejection of sola scriptura is the reason these pagan teachings penetrate so deeply into the evangelical movement and the practices appeal to people who are not satisfied with what God has chosen to reveal.
Wagner makes the mistake of assuming that because the spirit world where shamans practice their trade is real, the information gleaned from it might be accurate and useful:

[S]ome non-Christians, whether animist shamans, gurus, lamas, philosophers or whatever, may be able to communicate to us some information about the reality of the spirit world in which they have gained considerable expertise. These non-Christian sources, of course, must be evaluated with much prayerful scrutiny and caution. Still, we must keep in mind that the spirit world to which they are dedicated is a real world, not the figment of their "heathen" imaginations. Therefore, some things about it can be accurately known.²²

But the issues are neither the reality of the spirit world nor whether information about it may be accurate. Even we ourselves would concede that some shamans have effective processes that work for their clients. But the world of the occult is forbidden to the Christian. Prescribing "prayerful scrutiny" of a type of knowledge that is categorically forbidden in the Bible is absurd. The result of such a process would be "Christian" paganism—an oxymoron. 

Wagner points out that when the words of demons are recorded in the New Testament, "they speak the truth!"²³ In his mind, that (which Wagner cannot know to be the case) makes seeking such information valid. Larson does too:

Someone should be designated to keep a log of the information received while interrogating the demons. As the internal structure of the victim's demonic system is revealed, list the spirits according to their ranking, cite their right and occasion of entry, and note their legal ground for remaining.²⁴

This approach errs by asserting that simply because some demons spoke in Jesus' presence, therefore it is a good thing for them to speak and that we should seek to speak to them in order to glean information. The gospels objective was to show that Jesus was who He claimed to be (God Incarnate), and that all things, including the spirit world, are under His authority. In addition, Jesus often told the demons to be silent. He was not gleaning information about the world of the spirits.

Spiritual Technology

 

My claim is that God has limited us to what He has chosen to reveal to us concerning the reality of the spiritual world (i.e., in the Scripture). He gives us the freedom to use our five senses and rational minds to engage the world of general revelation so we can survive as humans created in His image. But He blocks access to unrevealed spiritual information for our own good. He does not want His people to be like the pagans.

We see this in the Garden of Eden. God gave Adam and Eve access to all the trees of the garden except one. Adam was given the authority to name the animals. Eating from the trees, tilling the ground, and naming animals are valid uses of general revelation. They had special revelation as well: "You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:17). The Serpent claimed that there was other knowledge that would be beneficial that God withheld from them. He was right that God withheld it, but he lied by implying it would be beneficial. 

God has the right to withhold knowledge at His discretion. Their subsequent rebellion plunged them and their descendants into bondage to sin and death. So God allowed knowledge gleaned through ordinary means and spiritual knowledge given directly to them by God. But the "knowledge" obtained through forbidden means (listening to the serpent and disobeying God's commands) is destructive and, if followed, leads to judgment. In the section of Deuteronomy where divination is forbidden it says this: "When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations" (Deuteronomy 18:9). It is never God's will that His covenant people gain their spirituality from pagans or pagan practices! But today that is precisely where many people in the church are looking. Paul speaks this same message in 1 Corinthians 12:2, "You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the mute idols, however you were led."

Wagner suggests that we can gain direct access to unrevealed spiritual information from both Christian and non-Christian sources:

It is important also to recognize that spiritual insight, which receives information directly from the spirit world, is not an exclusive faculty of those who have been born again. Spiritual discernment certainly constitutes at least some dimension of the image of God in which all human beings, Christian or non-Christian, have been created. If this is correct, then human beings, whether Indo-Europeans, Melanesians, Amerindians, or whatever they may be, can and often do possess valid information about the spirit world.²⁵

These ideas expressed by Wagner are patently unbiblical. God speaks with certainty, through His ordained spokespersons, words which must be obeyed. The knowledge God gives to His people is mediated through specific humans, chosen by God and identifiable by God's people. The essence of occultism is seeking direct, unmediated knowledge of the spirit world that God has not chosen to reveal. The only difference between us and the pagans is that we have God's Word (special revelation) spoken to us by chosen men who spoke with and touched "God come in the flesh" (1John 1:1). To depart from sola scriptura by thinking that God gave all humans special faculties for gaining spiritual information is to reject Christian theism and embrace paganism. Wagner is right about one thing—there is not much difference between Christians and non-Christians directly accessing the spirit world for information. In fact there is a word that describes both categories: deceived. 

Wagner goes further and prescribes developing and testing new, spiritual technology:

In this book, I am not claiming biblical proof of strategic-level spiritual warfare, spiritual mapping or identificational repentance. I will, however, claim that we do have sufficient biblical evidence to warrant at the least a working hypothesis we can field test, evaluate, modify and refine; At the most a significant, relatively new spiritual technology God has given us . . . If this is the case, refusing to use it on the part of some might be to run the risk of unfaithfulness to the Master.²⁶

Here we find grave category errors. How does one "field test" unbiblical spiritual "technology?" The world of the spirits does not lend itself to such testing. In general revelation, technology can be developed and tested because of our ability to create a system of controls, to demonstrate repeatability, and to objectively test output. But how can one do this with unseen spirits who have sinister intentions and wills of their own; who also are unseen to us and are likely to manipulate the output to their advantage and our disadvantage? 

Furthermore, the "testing" process is impossible to evaluate. Some have tried to use crime statistics to prove their spiritual warfare "worked." But having no control over the variables, they have no valid data. Crime goes up and down in various cities for various reasons, far too numerous to control. Groups going on "prayer walks" performing rites of "identificational repentance" cannot watch future crime statistics to see if their experiment "worked." In their minds they are living a pagan worldview that uses the "real" spirit world to control the less "real" visible world. But the visible world is filled with its own complex system of causes and effects; e.g. as economic conditions, family conditions, police policies, court systems, and political decisions. If the crime rate goes down after someone conducts a spiritual "experiment" does he take the credit? And if it goes up does he blame these other factors? The entire approach is fatally flawed.

The only question that matters is whether or not God has commanded us to perform prayer walks, bind territorial spirits, practice identificational repentance, or any of the other new spiritual technologies that Wagner and others propose with which to control the spirit world. Clearly God has not commanded these or there would be no need to "experiment." Prayer, as understood biblically, is practiced on the grounds of God's commands and promises. We cannot try it and quit if we do not like the outcome. In contrast to this, Wagner claims he does not have Biblical proof for his technologies; but rather he "experiments." As I have shown, these experiments cannot be tested either. The whole process is a fool's mission.

Given this, how can Wagner claim that we risk "unfaithfulness to God" by failing to do what God never told us to do? He has jettisoned sola scriptura and "bound" his readers to processes he admits are taught nowhere in the Bible. Wagner threatens Christians with disobedience and sin if they fail to embrace his unbiblical experiments. This is totally unacceptable and should be forthrightly rejected.

Blessing and Cursing

 

Pagans live under unremitting fear of curses and threats from unseen and malicious spiritual causes and effects. They have techniques for creating curses and others for breaking them. They have practitioners of cursing and curse-breaking. In addition they have the greater fear that the sinister spirit beings have their own processes for handing down afflictions to their human victims. This thinking is the result of having a pagan worldview.

As with other teachings we have examined, there is a "Christian" version of pagan curse breaking. One of these is based on the idea of "generational" curses that are lifted out of Biblical context and used to explain various maladies and difficulties that Christians may experience.²⁷ The faulty logic behind it suggests that since God warned Old Testament Israel that He would "visit the iniquities of the fathers to the third and fourth generation," and that Deuteronomy chapter 28 lists the sort of bad outcomes that would be visited upon Israel for being unfaithful to the covenant, therefore one can examine symptoms and outcomes and assume that he is cursed because of the unknown sins of unknown ancestors.

Logically, this creates a belief system in which everyone would be convinced they must be cursed. Derek Prince, whose book teaches that Christians are under curses they must discover, explains:

Conversely, any one of the four generations preceding us, by having committed these sins, could be the cause of a curse over us in our generation. Each of us has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and sixteen great-great-grandparents. This makes a total of thirty persons, any one of whom might be the cause of a curse over our lives. How many of us would be in a position to guarantee that none of our thirty immediate ancestors was ever involved in any form of idolatry or the occult?²⁸

The answer, of course, is no one. This belief creates a need for a class of people capable of gaining secret information (about which ancestral sin is causing which curse) and devising a process to break the curse. Once again, pagan thinking has come into the church and created the perceived need for a class of shamans and associated shaman training. For them, the contents of the Bible cannot directly provide the necessary information (which sins and curses) and neither can general revelation. So they are back fishing for answers in the sea of the spirits like their pagan ancestors.
What is missed by these teachings and teachers is that in the Bible, blessing and cursing are relational, not symptomatic. A person who is in right, covenant relationship with God is blessed, even if he finds himself in unpleasant circumstances. A person in rebellion to God is cursed even if life is going very well for him. For example, included in the list of persons who "gained approval through their faith" are ones who were mocked, beaten, sawn in two, destitute, afflicted and had other horrible things happen to them (Hebrews 11:35-39). But popular books on the topic of blessing and cursing have Christians looking at the symptoms of their own lives to determine if they are cursed.

Derek Prince lists the following as symptoms of curses: "mental and/or emotional breakdown, repeated or chronic sickness (especially if hereditary), barrenness, a tendency to miscarry . . . breakdown of marriage and family alienation, continuing financial insufficiency, being accident prone, and a history of suicides and unnatural or untimely deaths."²⁹ If any of these things existed in the four generations of your ancestors or in your life, Prince suggests that you are cursed, even if you are a Christian. Obviously everyone would have to consider themselves cursed.
This teaching is clearly unbiblical. For example, Prince claims that people who have "financial insufficiency" are cursed. But here is what Jesus said: "And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God'" (Luke 6:20). Citizens of the kingdom are blessed even if they are poor. 

Prince gets his ideas from applying the curses of Deuteronomy 28 to Christians, suggesting they first determine whether or not they have any of those negative outcomes. If so, they may be under a curse. He says that the presence of one or two of those is not conclusive that a curse is at work. Each person must seek supernatural information in order to determine if they are cursed.³⁰ But that puts us back into the need for extra-biblical revelations which makes us have to again behave like pagans.

There is a logical fallacy going on here as well. It goes like this: If a creature is a normal cat, it has four legs. Fido has four legs; therefore Fido is a cat. But that is a fallacy called "asserting the consequent" in an "if/then" logical formulation. There is more than one possible cause for having four legs. To apply this to curses found in Deuteronomy 28: If Israelites in covenant with God break that covenant and go after other gods, then these curses will come upon them (Deuteronomy 28:16-68). Suzie exhibits several of the symptoms listed in those 52 verses, therefore Suzie us under a curse. That reasoning contains two fallacies: 1) Suzie is not an Israelite under the old covenant; 2) the fallacy of asserting the consequent has been committed. There could be other reasons for her being in one of the many conditions listed in those verses besides being cursed for breaking covenant. 

So objectively examining symptoms is not sufficient for diagnosing curses. That means we cannot know by either special revelation (the words of the Bible) or general revelation (examining physical symptoms) whether or not a curse is in operation. That means we are back to a need for a shaman. Again we have invited paganism into the church and believe that what is clearly revealed in scripture is not sufficient to deliver us from curses. 

Blessing and Cursing from a Biblical Perspective

 

The truth is much simpler than the confusing false teachings that are so prevalent. It goes like this: "Thus says the Lord, ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord'" (Jeremiah 17:5); "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord And whose trust is the Lord" (Jeremiah 17:7). With a Biblical worldview, as we have claimed, blessing and cursing are relational; not symptomatic. That message is very clear in many places, such as the book of Job and the beatitudes. Some people who are blessed by God have negative symptoms from a human perspective, and some people who are cursed because they do not know God are happy and healthy.

Here is another example: "For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them'" (Galatians 3:10). Paul's conclusion is that it is impossible to be anything but cursed if one tries to be justified by works of the Law. One transgression and you are cursed. One cannot be in right relationship with God by works. Here is the alternative:

Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "All the nations will be blessed in you." So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. (Galatians 3:7-9)

Blessing is relational—those who are "sons of Abraham" are blessed because they have the type of justifying faith Abraham had. There is no need to look for symptoms other than for signs of saving faith.

Let us take this even deeper. Consider this passage: "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive" (1Corinthians 15:22). Everyone born is born "in Adam" and therefore under the curse of sin and death. Our relationship with Adam curses us. But everyone in Christ is blessed with the promise of eternal life. We are "in Adam" by natural generation and can only be "in Christ" by supernatural regeneration—being born again. That is why the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only means of escaping the curse. (See Romans 5:12-21 for Paul's teaching on the Adam/Christ analogy.)

Being in a right relationship with God means that one cannot be cursed by any lesser being—be it spiritual or human. Balaam, a famous curse maker, tried to earn money to curse God's blessed people Israel. Here is Balaam's conclusion about that attempt: "God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Behold, I have received a command to bless; When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it" (Numbers 23:19, 20). But Balaam did not give up. He knew that the only way to get Israel cursed was to tempt them with paganism to disobey God's Word and then God would curse them: "But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality" (Revelation 2:14; see Numbers 31:16). If God's people apostatize, they put themselves out of a right relationship with God and that is the only thing that will curse them. Embracing a pagan worldview is a path to apostasy. I believe God will preserve us from that. But we would be utter fools to ignore the warnings against apostasy on the grounds that we deem ourselves secure. 

Believing Like Pagans

 

Pagans are perpetually insecure because they have no way of knowing that they are safe in the hands of their gods. That is, they have no certain, special revelation about God or from God concerning the nature of the spiritual world they live in. To the degree that Christians are influenced by pagan thinking, they also become more insecure. They are never sure when they might be cursed. They are never sure when a demon may invade them. They imagine they need some spiritual technology gleaned from the spirit world in order to insure a successful outcome for their endeavors. They need a "Christian" version of a shaman to mediate between them and the spirit world (usually called "prophets" or "deliverance counselors"). In short, they are like pagans in most respects.

Some adherents, like Greg Boyd, who are more theologically sophisticated, have emotional or philosophical reasons to prefer the pagan worldview. Boyd cannot accept the implications of the doctrine of God's providence and willingly says so. The providential worldview is the Biblical worldview, though Boyd denies it, instead offering paganism as the alternative. The teaching of the Bible clearly claims that God is indeed in charge of His own universe and knows all things. That is what God told Job when Job found himself the victim of what Boyd calls "gratuitous evil."
But exchanging the Biblical doctrine of providence for the pagan belief in the warfare worldview creates the type of insecurities common for pagans. Boyd realizes this: "Whatever else may be said about the classical-philosophical blueprint model of God's providence [Boyd's way of discrediting the doctrine of providence], it does provide the believer with a certain kind of security that the warfare worldview seems to lack—so long as one steers clear of concrete atrocities."³¹ In other words, it may be more comforting to believe that God is providentially ruling over His own universe to bring history forward according to His saving purposes; but it is not emotionally satisfying to think of God allowing evil in His universe for His own good purposes. To think that evil happens outside of God's foreknowledge and providential control seems more satisfying to some (such as Boyd). The implication, of course, is that to avoid being victims of gratuitous evil that God did not foresee and chooses not to control, we must figure out how to battle the spirits and find shelter from their malicious power. If we fail to embrace the shamans and their teaching, the evil spirits may very well get the upper hand and destroy us.

Posted with permission: 
http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue109.htm 


See also: 
Is pleading the blood of Jesus biblical?
Magic Charms Enchant Apostolic-Prophetic Movement

You won't believe my experience with obamacare!

So, how do my fellow American's feel about being blackmailed by their own government now? Fun, huh? We weren't going to sign up just because we don't like being blackmailed, but I caved at the last minute, and you won't believe what happened! Let me preface what happened to me, with what various friends from my area have told me about the insurance they were forced to get through obamacare first though, and you'll see other reasons why we didn't want anything to do with it.

Most of the people we know don't have a lot of money. They live in NH as we do and live pay check to pay check or are on fixed incomes due to disability. Since we don't have hardly any money at all coming in anymore as Bruce still has been unable to find a job and NH cut everyone's unemployment, we assumed our experience would be similar to theirs.

1. All but one person was forced to pay ridiculous amounts for their insurance - amounts they not only couldn't afford, but were way more then they could afford.

2. Everyone that had insurance beforehand, of course lost their insurance, even though obama promised that we could keep our insurance if we liked it.

3. Most are unable to see their doctors they had before...many which have gone to the same doctor all their lives, but can't any longer. Nor can they use our local hospital any longer, but instead will have to drive long distances if they need to go to one.

4. Quite a few of these folks are on meds that can't be suddenly stopped and if not taken could be life threatening. Of course these meds are also very expensive. Due to obama's insurance though, they've had a great deal of trouble refilling their meds or in some cases getting a new prescription for them since they had to change doctors and the new doctor knew nothing about them. Some went several weeks without their meds due to this. NOT good!!!

5. All but one (again lol) now has to pay a HUGE deductible before they'll get any help at all from their wonderful new obamacare insurance. I'm talking HUGE, like $4000 or $5000 dollars and more! Until that's paid they get 0 help with doctor visits, prescriptions, or anything else. So what good is it?

6. The same folks I spoke about in #5 who have those huge deductibles, for some of them, the ONLY thing the insurance would cover even once that deductible was paid, was hospitalization. No help at all with anything else.

Since I know you guys all have good heads on your shoulders, even though our president doesn't seem to be smart enough to figure this out, I'm sure you can see by the above that these things create very big problems for a great many of the seniors, the elderly, those on disability, or with serious medical problems. (aren't those the ones it was supposed to help though?)

So I'm sure you can see why we weren't all that crazy about signing up for it. But good old obama didn't give anyone much of a choice did he? As a matter of fact it reminds me a great deal of the Mark of the Beast. The antichrist will force folks to take that mark or they won't be able to buy or sell anything. Today, we're forced to have this insurance or we'll have to pay a penalty. So, if you're too poor to pay for insurance, then you'll have to pay the penalty, right? Yeah...makes a lot of sense to me too.... But I can see it's preparing the way for the Mark. People in America are getting more and more used to being told what they must do.

So, I go to the marketplace and of course the site was down. I go back later and am then told that they're too busy but I can leave my email address and they'll let me know when they can help me. So I do. I never got a reply. So I called them the next day, April 1st and explain what happened. First lady tells me "tough, you'll have to pay the penalty". I admit, I got rude... I said, "Oh, so Obama lied when he said if we had problems getting through that we could have an extension and still get it?"She didn't have a comeback for that but simply kept repeating verbatim, an obviously typed out statement that I'd have to pay the penalty. I told her I wanted to speak to a supervisor. She got a little snotty then, but finally did connect me to one.

I told the supervisor the same story and she immediately said, "no problem, I'll sign you up!" Supervisors are great So I spend the next hour with her giving her all the facts and figures and swearing I wasn't lying etc. She puts it all through her little computer and comes back and tells me she has "good news and bad news". The bad news was that I couldn't get any insurance at all unless I paid full price for it. Now, you're all probably thinking that she's going to say it's because we make too much money so they're tables say we can afford to pay, right? Wrong!!!! She said we'd have to pay full price because we didn't make enough money!!!! She quoted the bottom figure for getting help paying for health insurance and then told me that with our income, we'd literally have to make twice as much as we did, plus a couple of dollars, in order to get help.

Well, I couldn't help it. By then I was laughing and couldn't stop! (she started laughing too) When I could get the words out, I finally asked her what the "good news" was. She said that because of the situation, we wouldn't have to pay the penalty. So the bottom line is that we're too poor to get insurance of any kind, but that obama will at least let us off the hook so we won't have to pay the penalty. Isn't that nice of him????

Of course, because of obamacare, we can't see any of the specialist doctors we go to, like Bruce's cardiologist, or our rheumatologist, because the hospitals they work out of no longer will help people who have little or no income. But, at least since we don’t have obama’s insurance yet, we can still see our primary care doctor, who we've both known forever, (yeah, we're that old ) and go to our local hospital. So that's better then nothing, but it's only because they're not effected by obamacare since our hospital isn't part of the obamacare plan in NH.  Next year will be a different story however.  We’ll have to again decide if we’re going to allow ourselves to be blackmailed by our government into getting their health insurance.

So, how did the rest of you fare with obamacare? I sure wish I still lived in America...the way it used to be.....

My whole life was suddenly gone

So many of us have been going through such hard times, that I thought it might help others if I shared my experiences and what the Lord taught me when I first began to go through a very hard time myself after being saved. I hope my experience and more importantly, what the Lord taught me then, will help someone else.

When I was first diagnosed and told I couldn't work anymore, I was devastated. My whole life was suddenly gone. What made it worse for me too was that out of 5 kids, they had all grown up and I only had the last one still at home and she was just about ready to fly on her own. So I was dealing with that empty nest syndrome too.

I quickly discovered that I had defined myself by what I did: being a mom, working every day in health care and being the best in my field, taking karate and going for my black belt, being active at church, etc. The Lord quickly showed me that these things weren't "me". Took me a long time to buy it though. I felt like I was totally useless and might as well be dead. I was no good to anyone, so I thought. I wasn't needed as a "Mom" anymore; I couldn't do my job, in fact, I was more like my patients then like the aide I was, so that part of me was now dead too. I couldn't do karate anymore, which for me had been great fun. I never laughed so much or had such a good time doing anything as I did there, and I was pretty good at it too and now I couldn't do any of it. It felt like all the joy was gone from my life. I still had church, but found that I was either in so much pain that it made concentrating hard, or if I took my medicine, I was nodding off during the sermon which was really embarrassing.

I really wanted to work though, at something...anything! There was just no way we could pay our bills with only one paycheck coming in. My job was not only fulfilling to me, it was necessary as it helped considerably to pay the bills. Without my check, it couldn't be done. (or so I thought anyway) I was scared to death! We didn't have much, but I sure didn't want to lose what little we did have and I most certainly didn't want to have to live on the streets and that's exactly where I thought we were heading.

But, The Lord Himself told me He didn't want me working! I still tried a bunch of times though because I had to have that pay check & I needed to "do" something. Every time I tried to work though, I failed. The doctor was right...I simply wasn't able to work anymore.

Slowly all my so called friends dropped out of my life, so I didn't have anyone to talk to either. Their lives were simply much to busy to bother with me much anymore. Slowly, the Lord spoke to me and I came to realize that who I am in Christ was much more important then who I was in the world. The Lord pointed out to me that no matter how much pain I was in there was still two things I could do and do well: Pray and teach Bible Studies.

So I joined my churches prayer team and the emergency prayer chain. I made lists of people I knew that I could pray for every day and began to do just that. LOL My list was humongous LOL; As I saturated myself in the Bible and prayer I began to feel better about me and about life. Oh I was still depressed, (I'm very stubborn LOL) but it was getting better.

I still kept trying to find a job I could do though, with no success. I was very lonely. Then one day I decided I was just going to go to every place in town that listed a job opening and apply for them regardless of what the job was. And that's exactly what I did. I got hired!!! I couldn't believe it! It was at a garage of all places too LOL So the guy hired me, takes me in his office to discuss pay and exactly what I'd be doing etc. He told me I'd be working at the counter. I asked him if there was a stool or something I could sit on and he said "No". Well, I knew there was just no way I could stand up for even an hour much less for 8 hours straight. Even if I wasn't doing anything else at all, I'd be in the emergency room before my first day was a third of the way over! He was still talking to me about what all my job would entail and now was saying that he'd pay me even more then he'd said in the ad.

But all I could hear in my head was this kind of "dead silence" of disapproval. It wasn't a "mean" silence; in fact it felt kind of sad. I knew it was the Lord. I also knew that I had to make a choice. Right then and there. It couldn't be put off anymore. I was either going to disobey the Lord and take this job (which would probably also be letting down this really nice guy because I knew I really wouldn't be able to do the job no matter how hard I tried to) Or, I was going to obey Him and tell this man that I couldn't take the job after all. (talk about humiliating!) Faced with that choice, now that it was "real and physical" instead of just a thought in my head, it only took a second to choose.

The man was still talking while this all went on in my head, and I suddenly burst into tears. I'm not talking about crying a little bit. I was sobbing like it was the end of the world. (well, to me it was the end of my world). That nice man came over and put his arm around me, handing me some Kleenex and told me "It's going to be OK". I knew something was bothering you, so you just let it all out and then you can tell me about it". Of course, that just made me cry harder Poor guy! When I could talk, I explained to him that I'd been hurt at work and that I really couldn't work anymore but I really wanted to, even though the Lord had told me He didn't want me to either. And that when he'd been talking, I knew that I had to choose whether or not to obey the Lord or to try and do the job anyway, even though I knew there was no way I could stand up that long etc. He just nodded as though there was nothing at all unusual in what I'd said and encouraged me to continue, so I told him that I chosen to obey the Lord. And that the Lord had also shown me that if I'd tried to do the job, I'd only have hurt him (the man I was talking to) because I wouldn't be able to do the job.

I don't remember what all the man said after that, except that he was very kind and obviously seemed to be on familiar terms with the Lord himself. I left there and went home and confessed my sin of continuing to try to work to the Lord. Had a nice long talk with Him then, confessing my fears that we wouldn't be able to pay our bills and that we'd have no place to live etc.

So you can understand just how completely devastating this money issue was to me, let me just say that I had lost everything I own, except for the clothes on my back and the clothes my children were wearing 3 times in my life. And I really do mean "everything". That happened quite a bit in my past, but more recently, about 4 years before I got hurt, I had again lost my home although that time I'd at least managed to keep most of my belongings. Each time it had been due to bad financial decisions and poor work habits on the part of my ex husband. Since the last time about 4 years earlier, since I was saved then, I decided to handle my money God's Way according to His Word. Losing everything each time did teach me that "things" aren't so important, but at the same time, security became very important to me, including "financial security".

So I confessed all of this to the Lord that day and had another good old fashioned cry on His shoulder.

As you can see, I was in pretty bad shape emotionally and felt very stressed out, depressed and confused. God said "don't work" but how were we supposed to pay the bills??? This is when the Lord began to teach me some very important and very basic lessons about just who was really in charge of this world, of me and of my life. First He showed me who I really was and it had nothing to do with being a mother, a wife, a good worker, karate, or anything else in my life. It had to do with Him.

As He showed me who I really was now that I was saved, I began to feel much better. He showed me many scriptures about this and I read them every day, sometimes several times a day, just letting them soak into my mind, my heart and my spirit until they became a part of me.
If you look back on what I said that I was focusing on as the things that defined myself, I'm sure you'll say that's pretty normal. Look at what I discovered though, keeping in mind that everything that's being said here also includes our finances--actually it includes every aspect of our lives:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy I hear people who seem to think that upon becoming a Christian their lives should have suddenly gotten "better", that they shouldn't have to deal with the regular every day problems, and trials like they were before. So their "faith" weakens because they assume that Jesus isn't "doing anything". The false teachers that preach the prosperity gospel and the so called healing ministries that tell people that if you become a Christian that God will heal your body and mind and you won't have health problems anymore, only make this problem worse, because they're not only teaching lies, they're telling people that it's all about them, and it's not. It's about Him. When we become saved, we don't suddenly embark on a life of recreation and ease; a life of just happiness; no, when we sign up to be a Christian, we are signing up to be soldiers in a war! The last time I checked, most soldiers in a war zone, wouldn't consider their lives as lives of recreation and ease! This is also very true of many people who live with pain, like me, or people who deal with chronic depression. (which many people who live with pain battle with as well.) The temptation is to make your life all about you, and as believers, we can not do that! It must be about God and about others! As humans tainted with sin, it's practically beat into us by the world to focus on ourselves. You hear it all the time out in the world: "take care of yourself" "take care of #1" along with the nice sounding line that if you don't take care of yourself, that you can't help others. But with God it doesn't work that way. He never tells us to to take care of ourselves first. He says just the opposite. He says that we are to make Him number 1 in our lives and all others should be number 2, with ourselves coming in last. Often because we are so indoctrinated with the worldview that we should put ourselves first, we just don't stop to think about if that's scriptural or not. I think that this was one of the biggest lessons I had to learn, as it's so much the opposite of what the world teaches, and it pervades everything! Think about it: the biggest thing that pervades worldly thinking has to do with what the world calls "self esteem". That's the basis of where they get that doctrine of "take care of yourself, put yourself first" etc. That core teaching is the core of just about everything else taught in this world and it grabs Christians too without them even knowing it's wrong. They even try to use the bible to teach it. How many people do you know that honestly think that the bible says, "God helps those that help themselves"? The vast majority of people think that's in the bible! But it's not! The bible teaches the opposite of that! God's Word says that we are not to rely on ourselves, but rather that we are to rely on Him!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cindy A Biblical View of Self-Esteem An Explanation of Key Verses Definitions from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary Quote: Self-Esteem: Undo PRIDE in oneself Pride: Overhigh opinion of oneself; conceit Humility: Absence of PRIDE or self-assertion The attached Bible verse explanations detail how God views us and how we should view ourselves. Taken in proper context, the attached Biblical references clearly indicate that there is no Biblical basis for self-esteem, self-love, self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-forgiveness, self-assertion, "proper" self-image, self-actualization, or any of the other selfisms advocated by the worldly system of psychology. The Bible's answer for our emotional "problems": turn from self to Christ (and His all-sufficient Word)..

When you're up to it, have a look at that page (see tabs at top of blog) that these posts are in and check out the scriptures too. It's very eye opening! Biblical Self-Esteem
This then was what the Lord began to teach me, drawing on my past experiences to show me His Truth in action and how it worked. I began to understand not only who I was, but who He was! I'd always thought I knew who He was and had often heard and said myself that "God is in control". Now I realized that I really hadn't believed it at all. I realized that much of what I thought I believed was only head knowledge and not heart knowledge. God is so good to us though because before I could let that start getting to me, He quickly showed me how to make it heart knowledge. I also realized that I was beginning to understand a lot more about sin as well. I mean, we all know about the 10 commandments, and I'd known of the sin of pride and a few of the other self sins as well, such as self righteousness etc. but now I was learning there were many other attitudes that were sinful and that I practiced all of them! Some of the self sins He showed me were: self sufficiencey, pride, being judgmental, self righteousness, self savior (this was a BIG one for me as I was always thinking that I could fix any problem all by myself and that no one could do it better then I could etc.); being self centered instead of God centered; self justification; being self reliant instead of relying on God; self indulgent; self serving; self seeking; ‎self-interest; and self realization which says: I have the right to claim to my life for myself (instead of knowing that my life belongs to God). I'm sure you can see how they all kind of go hand in hand and one often leads to another or morphs into another. Boy did I have a LOT to work on! Again though the Lord quickly reminded me that I was already forgiven and that this was just another step toward growing in Christ; we'd take it one day at a time.

Now, I'm condensing my learning experience for the sake of getting this all across without making it longer then necessary. The Lord didn't show me all of this on one day, or even one week. Especially not the sins. He only showed me one of those at a time and when I'd gotten that one under control, He'd show me another etc. And He always showed me how to deal with the particular sin He'd shown me too. I'm only listing some of them here for you to give you an idea of what He was showing me.
Remember though that He was showing me all of this for two purposes. First to teach me who I was in Him and second to teach me who He was and by doing that, show me that He would take care of my finances, my home, my car, my husband, my children, the cats, and of course of me. He was teaching me to truly know Him and as I began to know Him better, I began to trust Him more. The more I trusted Him, the less anxiety and fear I had. That's putting it all in a nutshell of course and there's much more to it. 

I know I've talked about a lot of this in many of the other studies we've done here over the years so this is kind of showing how it all started; or how I first began to learn about these things. Like anything else we learn, the Lord would first show me the basics of that thing and then work with me on building my knowledge. When He thought I was ready, He would then help me take that head knowledge and turn it into heart knowledge. That's the hard part and I've found that often that's what His tests are all about. Head knowledge doesn't really help us that much, although it's a necessary first step. But when we take that knowledge and turn it into heart knowledge, then, then it makes a big difference in our lives.

Sometimes I don't like the word "test" to describe what the Lord does, but I can't think of anything else to use to explain it. It is very much like a test. The problem with that is that for many people the word "test" has some very negative connotations to them. What I want everyone to know is that the Lord doesn't test us because we've been "bad" or disobedient. When we're being disobedient and won't pay attention to His attempts to get us back where we belong, then He will discipline us, but that is entirely different from when He gives us these tests. Discipline is for when we misbehave or are disobedient. The tests are to increase our faith and as I said, to take our knowledge and turn it into heart knowledge so that it changes our lives and how we relate to this life, other people and even ourselves and of course with Him too.

So tests are not a bad thing; although we often perceive them as such. But then as I recall from when I was in school, I didn't much care for the tests then either lol So it's really no different.

How can you tell if you're being tested or being disciplined? Well, that's really pretty easy. If you're being disciplined, then you haven't been being obedient to God and we generally know when we haven't been. As for tests, I've noticed that with many of the tests I've been through, it's been very obvious, because the test will obviously involve material that I've just been studying with Him about. So, for example, when I was studying about how we're to trust God and rely on Him for everything and that fear and worry are sins; that He is our provider and will take care of us etc and suddenly the bottom falls out in our lives and Bruce is laid off work... Well it didn't take a genius to figure out that it was a test.

Or, when I was studying about love and forgiveness and our relationships with others and suddenly opportunities were present in my life where I needed to forgive; where I needed to love, to humble myself and put others wants and needs ahead of my own. Again, it didn't take much thought to realize that it was a test.

Sometimes God will also test us on things we've studied with Him in the past too, but I've noticed that He always does a quick review at least before He gives the test. And He gives all kinds of different tests, just like our teachers in school used to. It might be a quick pop quiz, or a regular scheduled test, or a dreaded semester exam. It all depends on what He knows you need to grow.

When we took tests in school, the teacher always graded us and we either passed, or failed, and if we passed, we either barely squeezed by, or did average or did really well and passed with flying colors. The bad part of our tests in school was that we often couldn't retake them if we didn't do well, so they affected our grade for the year. With the Lord though, that's not true. You WILL pass the test, no matter how many times He has to give it to you or how long it takes. It's pretty much up to you how long it takes because it's up to you how much you study and apply God's Word to your life. So if you're stuck in a test and you want out, the only way to do it is to study hard and apply what you learn.

How do I know that the Lord will get us through these tests and teach us? Because His Word says so.

Romans 14:4 (NIV) — 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

If this is true, then why are there Christians who are still so worldly? It's hard to speak in generalities, but there are several possible reasons. First, they may not be saved; Second, if they are saved, then they have chosen to be disobedient and remain that way. While God will make His children stand firm, He only does that for those children who are willing to be obedient to Him. Those who choose disobedience are disciplined but if they continue to to disobey Him and ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit, eventually they will have hardened their hearts to the point where they won't be able to hear the Holy Spirit even if they suddenly decided they wanted to. God won't force us to obey Him or to do His Will even after we're saved. What He will do once we are saved, is constantly draw us toward a deeper relationship with Him and a deeper understanding of His Word and knowledge of His Will. It's till up to us however. Even after we're saved, we can turn away from Him. It will not affect our salvation, as we will still be saved, but it will affect whether or not He will be pleased with us or ashamed of us; it will affect our standing in eternity and what we will do during eternity in Heaven. He certainly is not going to have stubborn, spoiled children in charge of anything or doing anything with any importance at all! Some people don't care what they'll be doing in heaven and say it doesn't matter, but our Lord cares about what we'll be doing and has great and wondrous plans for our future there, and a great many gifts (rewards) for us too. If we refuse to listen to Him now and obey Him now though, we will lose all of that and more importantly, He will be ashamed of us, and we will be ashamed of ourselves.

1 John 2:28 (NIV) — 28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.

Hebrews 3:13 (NIV) — 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
2 Timothy 2:15 (NIV) — 15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

Thankfully, if we don't wait too long, we can always turn from being disobedient and decide to obey Him. The reason i say "if we don't wait too long" is because we don't know when our life will be over, we could die in the next moment; and we don't know when the rapture will happen--it could occur at any second; and lastly, we have no way of knowing just how far we've tried his patience and when we will have passed that point of no return. So it's obviously much better for us to be obedient right away and not take any chances. I guess you could look at it like the child who refuses to do any work of their school work. It's not because they're stupid or incapable of doing the work, they could do it, but they just don't want to and they're stubborn, so they don't. (one of my kids tried that!) The school and teachers try all they can to get this child to do what needs doing, but when everything's been tried and nothing else can be done, there comes a point where it's time to give up and leave the child to the consequences of their decision, hoping that eventually those consequences will teach them a lesson and they'll start to cooperate. That's pretty much what Paul is talking about when he says to turn that man over to Satan:

1 Corinthians 5:5 (NIV) — 5 hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

And that's pretty much what happens with those who are saved but refuse to leave their worldly life behind and grow in Christ.

 

 

 

 When we study the Bible, we find that there are some things that are simply basic to everything else. From the very start God has told us that He wants us to love and trust Him completely. We see this all through the old and new testament. As Jesus said, loving God (and trust is implied in that) and others fulfills all the laws of the old testament. We are nothing without that love and trust. Sadly, because of our sin nature, we cannot love and trust God the way we're supposed to. God takes care of that problem by pouring out His love into our hearts when we're saved. We are able to love (and trust) Him, because He first loved us.

Yet now we come to another problem. While God does fill us with His love at salvation, it's up to us to access that love and use it. Often we use it for ourselves and forget about applying it to others as well. Nothing takes God by surprise though and he knew that would happen, which is why He gave us His Word. It is through studying His Word that we grow up to where we can feel and access that love of His and allow it to fill us to overflowing. I've told you all about this favorite quote of mine before, but I want to share it again here for it's so true. When we're saved, "The challenge is to change from living life as a painful test to prove you deserve to be loved, to living it as an unceasing "Yes!", to the truth of your belovedness."
Besides filling us with His love when we're saved, God also gives us His Holy Spirit and we are indwelt by Jesus Himself. Jesus told His disciples that He was sending them and us His Spirit to take His place in their lives because He had to leave. So just as Jesus ordered the lives of His disciples when He was here, just as He protected them, made sure they had enough to eat, enough sleep, etc, taking care of all their earthly needs; and just as He changed them inwardly and empowered them to do His Father's Will when He was here, so the Holy Spirit did all of that for them after Jesus rose into Heaven and so the Holy Spirit does all of that for us now.

There's one big difference between us and the disciples though. When Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the disciples, they were already pretty mature in their faith. They already loved Him and had already learned to trust Him. They were used to following His orders and doing whatever He said no matter how absurd it sounded, because they knew Him so well and knew that regardless of how silly His orders might sound, that He had a good reason for telling them to do whatever it was. So they received the Holy Spirit when they were already mature in their faith.

When we're saved though, we're like little babies. We're just like the disciples were when they first met Jesus. So when we're given the Holy Spirit, we generally don't respond the way the disciples did. The difference could be viewed like this: If someone had come to me 20 years ago and given me a computer, I wouldn't have had a clue how to use it and it wouldn't have done me any good whatsoever unless I first chose to study about how to turn it on and then all that could be done with it. But, if they came and gave me one now that I'm already fairly good at using computers, it would be a totally different story. I'd make great use of that computer and because I'd know that there were yet still more things that it could do, I'd always be alert and ready to learn more about it.

That's how it is with the Holy Spirit. Everyone who is saved has the Holy Spirit within them. However, just having the Holy Spirit within them isn't a whole lot of help because they don't have a clue what the Holy Spirit can do or will do or when or anything else about the subject. The only way the Holy Spirit is going to be able to help them is if they begin to study their bibles and keep studying them. That's our "owner's manual" so to speak. So one of the very first things that the Holy Spirit does for everyone who is saved is give them a desire to study their bibles. That's when Satan, the world and our flesh step in too though and try to prevent that from happening. Satan first wants to prevent us from being saved, but if we do get saved anyway, his next priority is to keep us away from our bibles at all costs. If He can't keep us away entirely, then his next priority is to keep us from studying the Bible--get us to just read it-we'll still get some good out of it that way, but we won't become mature in our faith and that's what Satan wants to prevent.

Now, before someone asks, God obviously uses other methods for those people who are born in areas where there are no bibles, no churches etc. But we don't live in a place like that. We live in a land where there are bibles available everywhere and you can borrow them for free from libraries or take them for free from many churches, and other places. It's far more likely here for people to have several bibles then for them not to have one at all, unless it's by choice. This is what the Lord says about those of us who've been saved:
Luke 12:48 (NIV) — ... From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
We each have a choice when we're saved and every day thereafter. We have to choose to obey God or not to obey Him and His first command is that we study His Word. He wants us to be able to make use of the gifts and the power that is now available to us. Yes, I said "power". Again, think back to the disciples when the Holy Spirit came on them "with power". God hasn't changed my friends. His power is still available to us, we just don't see it much because most people don't know how to get plugged in or even where to put the plug to start with!

That's what I want to share with you. The secret of how to take hold of this power and use it. (It's really not a secret, or at least it shouldn't be) Again, look back at the disciples. The first step as we study is to get to know the Lord, and know Him well. We need His Word to do that now because He's not walking on this earth any longer. The better we know Him, the more we will trust Him. As we learn to know Him better, we'll also learn to be obedient and do whatever He tells us to do, even if it doesn't make any sense to us. Each time we are obedient that way, it causes our faith, our trust and our love to grow yet more and we're more confident in Him.

I know. We can't hear His voice audibly the way the disciples could, but as we study, we can apply what we learn to our daily lives which is exactly what the disciples were doing anyway. We can hear His voice in His Word. So then during the day when we meet up with that clerk who's a real jerk and we just want to smack them, we hear His voice as we remember His Word that we studied. Then, instead of smacking that clerk and giving them a good talking too and letting them know how we feel, we instead suddenly feel God's love filling us for that person, and we smile at them and remain calm, perhaps praying for them in our hearts as we stand there. As time goes by, we learn though things that the Lord lets us see, that confirm we did right at that time. And this too increases our faith and trust in Him.
The bottom line is that the more time we put into studying His Word the way He tells us to, the closer our relationship with Him will become; and the closer we are to Him, the more we'll love Him and the more we love Him the more we'll trust Him and the more our faith will grow. This is why all the many verses in the Bible about worry, anxiety, fear, stress, etc tell us that all those things are sins. They're sins because they show that we are not trusting God, and if we don't trust Him, we're not loving Him, and our relationship with Him isn't very deep. So they can also be seen as sign posts on our walk with Him showing us what we need to work on. These things too are the areas that the Lord often tests us on to help us see how far we've come and what we need to work on next.
John 14:1 (NIV) — “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

 

 

I've already spent way too long writing this so instead of explaining it myself, I'm going to just share with you what this commentary say about this scripture. It's really amazing and I hope it helps you as much as it has me. It's long, but that's because it's so important!

Ephesians 3:14–21 (NIV) — For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
The Petition (Eph. 3:16–19)
There are four requests in Paul’s prayer, but they must not be looked on as isolated, individual petitions. These four requests are more like four parts to a telescope. One request leads into the next one, and so on. He prays that the inner man might have spiritual strength, which will, in turn, lead to a deeper experience with Christ. This deeper experience will enable them to “apprehend” (get hold of) God’s great love, which will result in their being “filled unto all the fullness of God.” So, then, Paul is praying for strength, depth, apprehension, and fullness.

Strength (v. 16). The presence of the Holy Spirit in the life is evidence of salvation (Rom. 8:9); but the power of the Spirit is enablement for Christian living, and it is this power that Paul desires for his readers. “Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you” (Acts 1:8, literal translation). Jesus performed His ministry on earth in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:1, 14; Acts 10:38), and this is the only resource we have for Christian living today. As you read the Book of Acts, you see the importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, for there are some fifty-nine references to the Spirit in the book, or one fourth of the total references found in the New Testament. Someone has said, “If God took the Holy Spirit out of this world, most of what we Christians are doing would go right on—and nobody would know the difference!” Sad, but true.

The power of the Spirit is given to us “according to the riches of His glory” (Eph. 3:16). Christ returned to glory and sent the Spirit from heaven to indwell and empower His people. It is not necessary for us to “work something up.” The power has to be sent down. How marvelous that God does not give the Spirit’s power to us “out of His riches” but “according to”—which is a far greater thing. If I am a billionaire and I give you ten dollars, I have given you out of my riches; but if I give you a million dollars, I have given to you according to my riches. The first is a portion; the second is a proportion.

This power is available for “the inner man.”This means the spiritual part of man where God dwells and works. The inner man of the lost sinner is dead (Eph. 2:1), but it becomes alive when Christ is invited in. The inner man can see (Psalm 119:18, hear (Matthew 13:9), taste (Psalm 34:8 ), and feel (Acts 17:27); and he must be “exercised” (1 Timothy 4:7–8 ). He also must be cleansed (Psalm 51:7) and fed (Matthew 4:4 (NIV) — Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” ). The outer man is perishing, but the inner man can be renewed spiritually in spite of outward physical decay (2 Corinthians 4:16–18). It is this inner power that makes him succeed.

What does it mean to have the Holy Spirit empower the inner man? It means that our spiritual faculties are controlled by God, and we are exercising them and growing in the Word (Hebrews 5:12–14 (NIV) — In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. ). It is only when we yield to the Spirit and let Him control the inner man that we succeed in living to the glory of God. This means feeding the inner man the Word of God, praying and worshiping, keeping clean, and exercising the senses by loving obedience.

Depth (v. 17). Paul uses three pictures here to convey this idea of spiritual depth, and the three pictures are hidden in the three verbs: “dwell,” “rooted,” and “grounded.” The verb dwell literally means “to settle down and feel at home.” Certainly Christ was already resident in the hearts of the Ephesians, or else Paul would not have addressed them as “saints” in Ephesians 1:1. What Paul is praying for is a deeper experience between Christ and His people. He yearns for Christ to settle down and feel at home in their hearts—not a surface relationship, but an ever-deepening fellowship.

Abraham’s life is an illustration of this truth. God was going to bless Abraham with a son, so the Lord Himself came down and visited Abraham’s tent, and He brought two angels with Him. They came to the tent, they talked with Abraham, and they even ate a meal with him. They felt very much at home, because Abraham was a man of faith and obedience. But the three guests had another task. They had to investigate the sins of Sodom because God planned to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, a believer, was living in Sodom, and God wanted to warn him to get out before the judgment could fall. But the Lord Himself did not go to Sodom. He sent the two angels (Gen. 18–19). The Lord did not feel at home in Lot’s house the way He felt at home in Abraham’s tent.

The verb rooted moves us into the plant world. The tree must get its roots deep into the soil if it is to have both nourishment and stability; and the Christian must have his spiritual roots deep into the love of God. Psalm 1:1–3 is a perfect description of this word, and Jeremiah 17:5–8 is a good commentary on it. One of the most important questions a Christian can ask himself is, “From what do I draw my nourishment and my stability?” If there is to be power in the Christian life, then there must be depth. The roots must go deeper and deeper into the love of Christ.

Grounded is an architectural term; it refers to the foundations on which we build. In the first two churches I pastored, we were privileged to construct new buildings, and in both projects it seemed we would never get out of the ground. In my second building program, we had to spend several thousand dollars taking soil tests because we were building over an old lake bed. For weeks, the men were laying out and pouring the footings. One day I complained to the architect, and he replied, “Pastor, the most important part of this building is the foundation. If you don’t go deep, you can’t go high.”That sentence has been a sermon to me ever since.

The trials of life test the depth of our experience. If two roommates in college have a falling out, they may seek new roommates, for after all, living with a roommate is a passing experience. But if a husband and wife, who love each other, have a disagreement, the trial only deepens their love as they seek to solve the problems. The storm that blows reveals the strength of the roots. Jesus told the story about the two builders, one of whom did not go deep enough for his foundation (Matt. 7:24–29). Paul prayed that the believers might have a deeper experience with Christ, because only a deep experience could sustain them during the severe trials of life.

Apprehension (vv. 18–19a). The English words “comprehend” and “apprehend” both stem from the Latin word prehendere which means “to grasp.” We say that a monkey has a “prehensile tail.” That is, its tail is able to grasp a tree limb and hold on. Our word comprehend carries the idea of mentally grasping something; while apprehend suggests laying hold of it for yourself. In other words, it is possible to understand something but not really make it your own. Paul’s concern is that we lay hold of the vast expanses of the love of God. He wants us to live in four dimensions. When God gave the land to Abraham, He told him to “walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it” (Gen. 13:17). Abraham had to step out by faith and claim his inheritance. But we today have an inheritance in four dimensions: breadth, length, depth, and height. God’s fourth dimension is love!

But there is a paradox here. Paul wants us to know personally the love of Christ “which passeth knowledge.” There are dimensions, but they cannot be measured. “The love of Christ which passeth knowledge” parallels “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8). We are so rich in Christ that our riches cannot be calculated even with the most sophisticated computer.

Perhaps you saw the cartoon that depicted a man chatting with a boat salesman. In the beautiful showroom were yachts and cabin cruisers that glittered with elegance. In the caption, the salesman is saying to the customer: “Sir, if you have to ask how much they are, they are too expensive for you!”

No Christian ever has to worry about having inadequate spiritual resources to meet the demands of life. If he prays for spiritual strength and spiritual depth, he will be able to apprehend—get his hands on—all the resources of God’s love and grace. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). And what is the result of all of this?
Fullness (v. 19b). It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. This explains why air or water will automatically flow into an empty place. The divine nature abhors a vacuum. God wants us to experience His fullness. “Filled unto all the fullness of God” is the more accurate translation. The means of our fullness is the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18), and the measure of our fullness is God Himself (Eph. 4:11–16). It is tragic when Christians use the wrong measurements in examining their own spiritual lives. We like to measure ourselves by the weakest Christians that we know, and then boast, “Well, I’m better than they are.” Paul tells us that the measure is Christ, and that we cannot boast about anything (nor should we). When we have reached His fullness, then we have reached the limit.

In one sense, the Christian is already “made full in Christ” (Col. 2:9–10, where “complete” means “filled full”). Positionally, we are complete in Him, but practically, we enjoy only the grace that we apprehend by faith. The resources are there. All we need do is accept them and enjoy them. Paul will have more to say about this fullness (Eph. 5:18–21), so we will reserve further comment until we reach that section. The Bible exposition commentary

And that is what we get when we study the Bible--the ability to apprehend all those plentiful resources and power the Lord has given us to live victoriously now. That's also what the Lord's tests are about; teaching us what we have and what we need to work on so we can then access yet more.

 

 

 

 The reason I talked so much about loving God in my last post is because I've never met a Christian yet that said they didn't love God. And yet there are millions of Christians that still lead lives full of fear, anxiety and worry. If they truly loved God, they would also trust Him. If they trusted Him, there would be no worry, fear, stress, etc. Mind you, that was and is also true for me as well.

I've learned in my life with the Lord, that the amount of worry etc in my life, is a very good indicator of just how much I trust Him. And how much I trust Him is a very good indicator of just how well I know Him and how close my relationship with Him really is.

So what do you do if worry and fear is still a big problem for you? You commit to be obedient and begin (or continue) to study His Word and spend time with Him. If you're already studying, then perhaps you should increase the amount of time you spend doing that. The more you study, the closer you'll get to Him so it's up to you how important that is.

For most of us, studying God's Word is something we squeeze into our day wherever we can make it fit. Actually, a great many don't bother studying it at all. They just read it. But even among those who study it, because our lives are so busy, we tend to limit the amount of time we spend doing so.
When I look back to the time before I became disabled when I was studying His Word and going to work, caring for my husband, children and home like most other people, I generally only spent an hour or two at the most in study, at least on week days. I was blessed however that I also got to study and pray at work so if you include that time you could add another couple of hours too, but that's fairly unusual in our world today. The thing is though, we tend to do things based on what their priority is in our lives. For me, getting to know the Lord who saved me was important and I therefore made that time to study. What I discovered as time went on, was that I wanted to spend more time in study and little by little, I made more time for it by giving up other things. My bible was always near by and I grabbed it whenever I had a spare moment. Other people noticed this too. I know that because when I got hurt, one of the first things my husband would do is bring me my bible once he got me settled onto the couch or into bed. I didn't ask for it, but he knew that I'd want it because he'd seen that I'd always had my nose in it.
There's one other thing I'd like to explain. I know I've also said this a million other times, or at least it seems that way lol, but it's so important it's worth saying again and again. When I say "study" I don't mean to use your own intelligence and judgment to study His Word. What I'm talking about is studying with Him. In other words, as you study, you're constantly talking to Him; asking Him questions about what you're studying, commenting on it to Him, etc. and of course following His lead as He answers those questions. Using commentaries is fine, as long as you remember that humans wrote them and they just might be wrong. Use them to give you ideas and more cross references etc, but most importantly, keep talking to the Lord. Two of my favorite commentaries that I've found to be very good and pretty reliable are: The Bible exposition commentary and The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures. Other good resources are Bible dictionaries. When you get to where you're ready to study what the words mean in the original languages, those dictionaries are very good too. But that's one of the things I like about the two commentaries I mentioned as they often will give you information about the words in the original language and what they meant.

For starters though, the very best bible study I've ever seen is the one I've been posting I found a treasure of incalculable worth! My Gift to YOU! and will continue to post until we get to the end or Jesus comes for us and I hope and pray that everyone will make the time to take advantage of it and study with us. This study is good for everyone regardless of where they are in their walk. It's great for the newly saved, wonderful for those ready to begin building on the foundation that's been laid, and fantastic for those who are mature, to take them deeper still into the Word. One of the great things this particular study does, is it teaches you "how to study"! It not only teaches you how to study but does it so subtly that you probably don't even realize you're learning that at first. But, by the time we're done with the whole book, the right way to study will be so ingrained in you , that you'll be doing it on your own by then! So, by the time I'm done posting this book, we'll all be ready to take off and fly on our own; able to find the answers and truth to any scripture anywhere in the bible.
Our whole society is into instant gratification. We want what we want and we want it right now and with the least possible amount of effort on our part. That's not how God works though. God's way takes time because He works on us from the inside out, which is also why when He changes us, we are truly changed and it's not something we're doing through any effort of our own. The thing is, it's not "magic" and it doesn't "just happen" for no apparent reason. God changes us through His Word, so the more we study, the more we will be changed. We pray and pray for God to take away our fears or help us so we won't worry; we pray, "I believe, help my unbelief!" and God wants to help us! But it's like that joke about the guy that prays that God will let him win the lottery and finally God gets frustrated with him and answers saying, "Well at least buy a lottery ticket so I can help you!" God's given us the answer to all those prayers. It's in His Word! All we have to do is pray, ask His help (which most already have) and then open those bibles and start studying!!! That's where people fall down. They don't pick up their bibles and study to get those answers about getting rid of their fear or worry etc. Or if they do, they do it only once in a while for short times not really expecting any help.
NIV Jn 17:17 — 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

God sanctifies us, (makes us holy; changes us) through His Word and it's those who abide (remain; stay in constantly) in His Word that are changed, and through this show that they are really His disciples.
ESV Jn 8:31 — 31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,

This is why we're commanded to crave His Word the way a baby craves it's milk so that we can grow up in our faith and be able to stand firm and strong and live victoriously.
NIV 1 Pe 2:2 — 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation,
It's kind of sad that the Lord has to go to such lengths to convince us to be obedient just so He can help us. I just love what this psalm says about it though:

NIV Ps 119:89–96 — 89 Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. 90 Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. 91 Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. 92 If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. 93 I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life. 94 Save me, for I am yours; I have sought out your precepts. 95 The wicked are waiting to destroy me, but I will ponder your statutes. 96 To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless.

If you trust God’s Word, you will have a solid foundation in a world that offers you no stability. The Word of God is settled; nothing can change it or destroy it (v. 152; Matt. 24:35). God is faithful and His Word can be trusted. The same Word that created the world (v. 90) and runs the world (v. 91) will also govern your life and make it secure.
With the word Bible commentary

It's really all about getting to know the Lord better and better. Making our relationship with Him closer and deeper every day. Learning to know Him so well that we can trust Him no matter what things "look like" in our lives. Then like Paul we can say we've learned to be content no matter our outward circumstances for we know we are in the palm of God's Hand and through Christ we can do all things.

 

 

 

 

The Lord has pointed out that there's something else I need to add to this. It's implied in all that I've already said, but not stated plainly, and it's about that nasty word, obedience.

None of us like to learn obedience. We didn't like it as children and we especially don't like it as adults, at least I didn't. Our natural abhorrence to it is actually a part of our sin nature. We want to be self sufficient, and we don't want anyone telling us what to do. Just exactly like Satan if you think about it. He didn't want to submit himself to God and be obedient. Yep, there's that other nasty word we generally hate to hear: submit. So this next portion will be about submitting ourselves to God and being obedient to Him.

This for me was a very hard lesson as it affects every single area of our lives. The Lord first showed me that in order to have His peace and in order to have His joy, that I had to submit to Him and be obedient. He would throw things at me that to me sounded totally absurd and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why He'd want me to do them! So of course I questioned Him about them. I'd even put off obeying Him because I'd tell myself that I couldn't be sure it was from Him because it was so crazy. What I was really doing was lying to myself, and making excuses because I didn't want to do it. I knew quite well that it was from Him.

That's when my next lesson came. He taught me then that understanding comes after obedience, not before. Totally opposite of what the world would have us believe, isn't it? Yet it's true. The way I look at it now is that God has us operate on a "need to know" basis and we don't need to know the why's until after we've done as we were told. Why? Because if we knew ahead of time, there would be no test of faith involved. Not knowing the why's means that we have to take a step of faith and do as we're told simply because we were told to and for no other reason at all.

We can see this all through the bible. Think back to Abraham for starters. Remember when God told him to sacrifice his son? Abraham didn't question God. He didn't ask "why would you have me do such a thing??? It's crazy!" Instead, he simply determined to obey God and leave the reasons up to Him. Or how about Joseph? When his brothers threw him in the pit and then sold him as a slave, he didn't question God about it either. He simply accepted his circumstances as being something that God had allowed and knew that one way or another God would work it out how He wanted to. He understood that his job wasn't to ask questions, but was to simply listen for the Lord and be obedient to Him in whatever God told him to do.

If you think about it, it's also very much like any good parent would teach their child. I know I taught mine this way. I wanted my children to obey me without questions because if there was ever an emergency, I didn't want to have to waste time explaining why I wanted them to do something. As a young mother, this was brought home to me one day when my 2 year old started to run out into the street. That's when I knew that I had to make my children obey me instantly, without questions. Answers and explanations could come later if necessary. And that's what God wants with us too.

I was blessed in that this part of my education actually began before I was hurt and was something that my boss who was discipling me helped me learn. The way she taught me was pretty shocking too but I think the shock value is what helped me learn so quickly. She asked me what I did when I got up each morning. I told her truthfully that I got up, got dressed, had my coffee and made some to take with me and left for work. That I usually prayed throughout the half hour it took me to drive to work. Then she asked me how I knew I was supposed to go to work that day. Well, because I had a job and if I didn't, I'd get fired! Duh! (or so I thought lol) She then asked me, "what if God didn't want you to go to work one day because He had something else for you do? How would you even know if you hadn't asked Him what He had for you to do that day?" That certainly got me to thinking! So her assignment was that for the rest of the month I was to ask the Lord when I woke up what He wanted me to do that day and I was to specifically ask Him if I was to go to work.

I think that was one of the hardest assignments I ever had! I was still learning at that time about all this "talking to God" and "hearing from Him", so I wasn't all that accustomed to it yet. Of course she was aware of that, and I know now that was part of the reason she gave me the assignment, so that I could become used to it and comfortable with it. Let me tell you though, that month was probably the most uncomfortable month of my life!

I questioned everything I "heard" from the Lord, especially in the morning! If He told me to go to work, I wondered if I wasn't just hearing that because that's what I expected to hear and so I wouldn't be "sure" it was from Him. Maybe it was just my imagination. If He told me to stay home, oh boy did I question that! How could He say such a thing??? But what if Catherine had planned in advance so she wouldn't need me that day but rather then telling me was expecting me to hear it from Him??? (and yes, she would do something like that LOL) It was just plain torture!!!

But oh boy did I learn! Each day when I'd get to work (on the days I went), we'd have coffee and before prayer time she'd ask me what the Lord had said and we'd discuss it. She'd never come right out and tell me if I'd "gotten it right" but sometimes I'd catch a smile of victory and I'd know lol Then during prayer time we'd pray about what He'd said that morning and about my continuing to hear His voice directing me. On the days when I didn't go, I'd call and let her know of course and that was SO HARD! I'd never, ever, missed work before unless I was so sick I literally couldn't stand up or couldn't leave the bathroom! When I called, we'd go through the same routine of discussing it and then praying. Sometimes though I knew I'd gotten it right because she would let me know that she really hadn't needed me that day as she'd already made other plans. Those days were fantastic confirmation and really helped me see that I really was hearing from Him.

Little by little I got to where I became comfortable with hearing from the Lord, until finally it just became second nature. I don't think I even realized what else she'd taught me for a long time, and that was to remember that my life was no longer my own--it belonged to God to do with as He pleased, not as I pleased. And that lesson was just as important as learning to hear from Him and become comfortable doing so.

During that time, she also made sure that I realized that God usually speaks to us through His Word and made sure I was studying every day too. Some people seem to think that you can be obedient to God and not study His Word or even read it regularly, but that's wrong in so many ways! To start with, He commands us to study His Word, so when we don't do that we're being rebellious. You cannot be obedient and rebellious at the same time. Basically what you're doing then is serving two masters: yourself, and God. And we know what Jesus said about that!

NIV Mt 6:24 — 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other...

I don't think that's ever truer then when the masters you're trying to serve are yourself and God. Basically because we spent our entire lives pleasing ourselves and serving ourselves right up till the moment we were saved. It's very hard to give that up, and yet, that's exactly what the Lord says we have to do. We must serve Him alone. This is really our first step toward obedience. Once we're saved we're to give up our lives to the One who purchased them with His Blood.

NIV 1 Co 6:19–20 — 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

For me, learning to give up my life completely to God is something that I'm still learning. The Lord still finds areas of my life or my heart that I've withheld from Him. Usually it's unintentional, things I simply haven't thought about, and I suspect that this is something we all struggle with throughout our lives once we're saved.

All of this though is related: giving our lives over to God so that we're simply servants (slaves) following orders; obedience and submission. It reminds me of Jesus Himself when He was here: because the entire time He was here, He emptied Himself to do the will of the Father.

NIV Heb 5:8 — 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered

You know, I can remember being taught that the sign of a good leader was that they would never ask anyone to do anything that they themselves hadn't already done. And that's so very true of our Lord! He gave up His life so we could have life and now, once we're saved, He asks us to give up our lives for Him. Just as He submitted to the Father and was obedient (even to death on the cross!) so He asks us to submit ourselves and be obedient to Him.

NIV Jn 15:10 — 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

There's so much more I want to explain, but I'm afraid this is already becoming a book so I'll stop for now. (you can all rejoice that I've stopped LOL but think just how much longer this would have been if I hadn't stopped myself from adding a bunch of scriptures for everything I talked about! )