Let me share with you a vision I see: there is a man that has taken a shell (bullet) and is packing powder into it. He has encapsulated that power in the shell, but it cannot fire by itself. So he gets a gun. He puts that little capsule into the gun. But the gun must be triggered in order for the power to come forth! I see the spirit of man, the soul of man, and the body of man, and all the glory of the Godhead invested in his spirit. But it has to have a way to come out. The way by which it comes out is the soul. However, the soul must be cleansed! So, the man takes his rod, rods out the gun and cleans the barrel. He makes it as clean as possible in order to push forth that power without any hindrance. The same way, God calls upon us to cleanse our soul. He calls upon us to turn our soul into a barrel that can take the bullet, which is the glory of God, the power of God.
We have the power. We really do have the power! The power of the Almighty God is in our spirit and it needs to be released. But the soul is so clogged up with earthly garbage! I am sure you know what I mean when I say earthly garbage. We all have garbage at home and we take it from the house, put it aside in a special container, in a special place, so that it can be thrown into the garbage truck. The garbage truck will come and take care of it. We don’t keep it in the house. But, unfortunately, some of us keep garbage in our souls! May God help us to see what garbage is. A lot of things that bother us are nothing but garbage and they clog up the soul. Yet, out of the soul must come the expression of God for the soul is created to be the temple of the living God.
We know that Yahweh is God for He is the only God. There is no other God. Yet, we don’t act like that is the fact. Some of us don’t live like God is really God because His Word does not mean much to us. We don’t pay much attention to it, we don’t live by it, and we don’t allow it to direct our lives. In effect, we are saying, “You are not God.”
There is something peculiar I have found about God. In my young Christian life I thought I had to say things like, “In the name of Jesus,” or, “This God,” or, “The Father,” in order to acknowledge God. But then, I found out something else. Jesus said to me one time, “If you do so and so, you have rejected me.” I had no intention to reject Him; I had no desire to reject Him; I had no will to reject Him. But I rejected Him anyway. I want to tell you, brethren, some of us are rejecting God without even knowing it. You are saying in yourselves, “God, I love You; God, I want you; God, I will walk with You; God, I will do Your will.” But all the time, you are doing something else which is the opposite of what God is saying that you should do. You are rejecting God without rejecting Him verbally. YOU ARE REJECTING GOD BY YOUR ACTIONS WHICH HE COUNTS LOUDER THAN YOUR WORDS.
There is a certain principle that we have to adopt into our lives. As soon as we wake up, we have to clean our gun. Have you ever seen the army? When you are in the army, you have to keep your gun clean. And so, the first thing you do in the morning is clean your gun. You have to make sure that your barrel has no sediment in it. Let me tell you what a dirty gun can do.
I always liked to go hunting. One day I went out to hunt doves. But I forgot what I was doing. This was pretty much the same as usual. Every time I would go hunting I would forget that I was hunting and instead I would start admiring the animals. I would admire the doves; I would admire the deer; I would admire this and that; and by the time I finished admiring, I would forget to shoot them.
So this one particular day I was out hunting and admiring the doves. When I came back to myself, I felt ashamed. I said, “Man, it’s time to go home. Evening is coming. I must get one to go.” You know, no hunter likes to go back home empty-handed. I made up my mind that I was going to shoot this time. I saw a dove pitch in a clearing and so I began to creep on my belly with my gun. I was sneaking up on that bird. Finally, I had him in sight. I made my aim. I fired, but the gun just went, “Pssshhh.” A big puff of smoke and dirt came out of it! The bird just looked at me and took off.
What do you suppose happened? You can see that I was not a very good hunter. I guess I never learned how to crawl with a gun, because while I was crawling, I got the muzzle full of dirt, and when I fired it all that was there was dirt.
That was a good lesson. I believe you understand that if your gun has dirt in it, you are not going to shoot anything. This is the reason why we cannot shoot the enemy! THE HINDRANCE IS IN THE SOUL! God Almighty is telling us that the power of the Living God is in us and we should respect it. And it is not difficult, it is done by believing. It was by faith that Abraham pleased God. Somebody may say, “Poor me, I wasn’t a good boy and therefore, poor me. Oh God, please have mercy on me! Help me, Lord God, that I can do so and so.” God has already had mercy on you and helped you! Now, He is calling you to consciousness to understand that, in spite of everything, in spite of what shape the world is in, in spite of what the people are saying, you have the power. In the name of Jesus, you have the power to overcome, you have the power to do whatever you have to do. The power is there so get the garbage out and you will see it move. Release the power of deliverance from your spirit to your soul.