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Posts Tagged ‘Spirit’

Divine Order

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: James 4:7

Divine Order of course is God’s order. This order dictates that a man’s spirit should be under or controlled by “the Spirit of God”; that his soul should be under his spirit and that his body should be controlled by his soul. When one makes a Godly decision, then that person immediately comes under the control of God. In temptation, therefore, resistance is the perfect will of God and the more one resists the stronger one becomes. Let me tell you a story of my personal experience with this premise before I knew the Lord.

In my youth I was prone to violence, but discovered that once I yield to it by striking a blow, etc., I had no power over my actions. One day my brother and I got into a fight and this great power came over me and told me to kill him. I did not want to do it, but I remember being forced to take up a weapon and strike at him. The blow missed and the weapon was imbedded into the wooden post of the porch. The first day I came through the gate and saw the mark on that post, I realized the horror of the deed I would have done against my brother whom I loved so much. I asked God there and then to stop me from ever doing that again. God had created the necessary incentive for me to ask Him. Of course at that time I did not know this to be so. The next occasion that there was a confrontation between us, it was right before the mark on the post and I remembered my asking God to help me. The thought that came through my mind at that moment was directly from God, although at that time I did not know it: “Your body does not belong to devils.” – “No force should control your actions but you yourself.” – “Use your will power to prevent yourself fighting.” I was by this time being hit, but would not lift my hand, and I was determined not to retaliate. Sweat came pouring down and my well-groomed black suit and white shirt were wet like a bucket of water had been poured on my head. I WON.

The scripture said, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) I resisted and he fled. That devil never came back to me, or should I say never overcame me for two long years. After two years he tricked me, and being not sure of me, he was playing for keeps, BUT God again intervened and translated me out of that fight. I was lifted out by a supernatural force and placed down the street. I did not know Jesus as my Saviour, but I praised Him that day and now I thank Him personally that “When I was yet without strength” He reached down His hand and saved me.

Crying to God for help brings a person under Divine Order. It is the perfect will of God that man should take God for his helper and Saviour. Truly, God who knows man’s heart might even put him in a crying-out position in order that His Great Love might be able to reach down and help him. The Father could have sent messengers to the Prodigal Son to alleviate his suffering and to stop him from having to feed with swine, but that would have frustrated His own plan, to have the son come to his senses. The hard grind of the pigsty experience brought him to his senses, therefore that experience, though terrible it was, was not evil but good. When we are in the throes of suffering, it is difficult for us to see God’s goodness in allowing us to go through these things. However, we can rest assured that God is working on our behalf.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, August 1984)

Thought for today: In temptation resistance is the perfect will of God and the more one resists the stronger one becomes.

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Divine Order

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: James 4:7

Divine Order of course is God’s order. This order dictates that a man’s spirit should be under or controlled by “the Spirit of God”; that his soul should be under his spirit and that his body should be controlled by his soul. When one makes a Godly decision, then that person immediately comes under the control of God. In temptation, therefore, resistance is the perfect will of God and the more one resists the stronger one becomes. Let me tell you a story of my personal experience with this premise before I knew the Lord.

In my youth I was prone to violence, but discovered that once I yield to it by striking a blow, etc., I had no power over my actions. One day my brother and I got into a fight and this great power came over me and told me to kill him. I did not want to do it, but I remember being forced to take up a weapon and strike at him. The blow missed and the weapon was imbedded into the wooden post of the porch. The first day I came through the gate and saw the mark on that post, I realized the horror of the deed I would have done against my brother whom I loved so much. I asked God there and then to stop me from ever doing that again. God had created the necessary incentive for me to ask Him. Of course at that time I did not know this to be so. The next occasion that there was a confrontation between us, it was right before the mark on the post and I remembered my asking God to help me. The thought that came through my mind at that moment was directly from God, although at that time I did not know it: “Your body does not belong to devils.” – “No force should control your actions but you yourself.” – “Use your will power to prevent yourself fighting.” I was by this time being hit, but would not lift my hand, and I was determined not to retaliate. Sweat came pouring down and my well-groomed black suit and white shirt were wet like a bucket of water had been poured on my head. I WON.

The scripture said, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) I resisted and he fled. That devil never came back to me, or should I say never overcame me for two long years. After two years he tricked me, and being not sure of me, he was playing for keeps, BUT God again intervened and translated me out of that fight. I was lifted out by a supernatural force and placed down the street. I did not know Jesus as my Saviour, but I praised Him that day and now I thank Him personally that “When I was yet without strength” He reached down His hand and saved me.

Crying to God for help brings a person under Divine Order. It is the perfect will of God that man should take God for his helper and Saviour. Truly, God who knows man’s heart might even put him in a crying-out position in order that His Great Love might be able to reach down and help him. The Father could have sent messengers to the Prodigal Son to alleviate his suffering and to stop him from having to feed with swine, but that would have frustrated His own plan, to have the son come to his senses. The hard grind of the pigsty experience brought him to his senses, therefore that experience, though terrible it was, was not evil but good. When we are in the throes of suffering, it is difficult for us to see God’s goodness in allowing us to go through these things. However, we can rest assured that God is working on our behalf.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, August 1984)

Thought for today: In temptation resistance is the perfect will of God and the more one resists the stronger one becomes.

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Victory over the Beast

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 15:2

Revelation 15:2, “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the VICTORY over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.”

As we can see in Revelation 15:2, those who had gotten the victory over the four areas of satanic influence were seen standing on the “sea of glass having the harps of God.” This means that by their victory over the most powerful weapons of Satan, they had earned for themselves a place in that realm of transparency where nothing is hid, a city of pure golden glass.

Let us look at the first of the four areas of overcoming mentioned above – victory over the beast:

God made man spirit, soul, and body. The spirit in man was devised of God to lead man back to God. The spirit of man therefore is the connecting link between God and man, and the main difference between man and beast. When man began to depart from God the divine order was broken, and in some cases man became body, soul, and spirit. This happens when man is basically led by his feelings and the natural world around him. Instead of the body and the soul being the servant of the spirit, the spirit is entirely excluded and an evil spirit takes the place so that the man does not reason or think human any more, but diabolical. Of this order of persons are some of the scientists of our time and men who worship the intellect and other things rather than God.

I was once invited to a school to speak to the science class where there presided a teacher who invited ministers to his class to prove how stupid they were to believe God. Upon his first sortie he was knocked cold by the scientific evidence of the existence of God. Science wants proof, and since the Ford car by which we traveled to the school was conclusive proof of a Ford factory somewhere, then his very presence there was conclusive and scientific proof of a higher Being Who made such magnificent symmetry.

The soul of FALLEN MAN with its Mind (intellect), Emotion, Will, and Desire is a beast – or, to be exact, four beasts in one. He who is led by his mind is led by a beastlike fallen nature and cannot please God.

In national and world affairs you will notice the flawed reason of those who do not believe in God. In reasoning with them one gets the feeling of speaking to a demon that has no specific basis of right and wrong.

One who has the victory over the beast therefore, is (a) One who first conquers the beast nature within himself, (b) One who does not submit to the beast nature of the world, and (c) One who does not submit to the beast nature of Satan, the adversary and tempter. One who has the victory over that beast nature cannot divorce his wife and marry another because she disagrees with him, and because others are doing it and it is legal. Many of the preachers are setting this example, but regardless of how many miracles they are having and regardless of their financial success, and regardless of how many millions of people are following them, they are not overcomers of the nature of the beast.

This beast nature will be personified one day in a mighty world leader and all those who have not overcome the beast will submit to him and to Satan.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, May 1986)

Thought for today: The overcomers, by their victory over the most powerful weapons of Satan, had earned for themselves a place in the realm of transparency where nothing is hid.

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Faith in the Word of God

Posted in Spiritual Warfare, The Living Word, tagged , , , , , , , on June 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Scripture reading: Acts 13:1-12

For every word that God has given you, there is a word that the devil gives to stop it.  Consider why you do not function according to the Word of God as you ought to.  The reason is that the devil always gives a counter word, which disturbs the faith that you should have in the Word of God. 

The Word that God gives you is spirit and life and that spirit and life must come through you to work power and deliverance out there.  Spirit and life!  Power and deliverance!  Every Word of God is powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, bringing down the kingdoms of the devil and the imaginations of man.  This is the power of the Word of God!  If you allow the other word to counteract you, then you have allowed a barrier to stop the Word of God from going through you.  Therefore, your first weapon is “…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ref. Ephesians 6:17). 

Let me tell you a little story.  Gideon went out to fight the Midianites, because God told him, “You are a mighty man of valor—you can do it” (Judges 6:12).  Gideon did not believe he was any man of valor (his knees were knocking), but God said, “…thou mighty man of valor.”  So he went and called up all his men.  Thirty thousand men came to follow him and yet, he was so afraid.  Remember now, God gives you a word (“Go out and fight!”), but the devil brings fear upon you so that you are so afraid that God has to give you another word just to bolster you. 

We see this when God sent Gideon down to listen to what the Midianites were saying (Judges 7:9-15).  God gave one of the Midianites a dream and Gideon overheard the man telling another man his dream of how this little barley cake rolled down off the hill and smashed their tent.  When he heard that, another man said, “You know who that barley cake is?  It is Gideon.  It is that Gideon!” 

In other words, God had to set a trap to make Gideon believe.  Brethren, if you do not believe God, who are you going to believe?  If you believe God, no power on earth can stop you—because faith creates the spirit of power! 

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  When you feel the faith of God, it lifts you off the floor; it energizes your body and your soul; and you know you have won.  It is the amount of God’s energy and power that you will allow to flow through you.  The Bible says in Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” 

It is saying, “Forgive one another…for Christ’s sake.”  Why does it say,  “…for Christ’s sake?”  It is because Christ cannot move through you if you have unforgiveness in you.  Unforgiveness blocks the flow of the power of Christ. 

In Luke 8, the woman came and grabbed the hem of Jesus’ garment.  He said, “Hey!  Energy came out of Me.”  Yes!  He said, “I feel virtue (“dunamis” in the Greek; power) drawn out of Me.”  Do you understand?  We are talking about the raw power of God.  It can only work through you if your passages are clean.  Without this, you can speak the Word of God from now until next year at this time and not a straw will move!  It says in Acts 19 that the sons of Sceva tried to help a man who needed deliverance.  They said, “In the Name of Jesus I rebuke you.”  It says that the demons jumped on them, tore them, and they fled naked.  Paul said, “I rebuke you in the Name of Jesus,” and it says in Acts 13:11 that the sorcerer Elymas went blind “immediately.”  The deaf heard!  The sick were healed!  Immediately!  It was because Paul had kept his gun clean. 

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, January 1997, pg. 10-13)

Thought for today: Do not listen to the word that the devil brings you. Believe the Word that God has spoken to you so that you can function in God as you ought to.

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