When we say prayers, we are speaking God’s will. This is how faith works. Prayers are very powerful, one prayer can change a man’s nature and turn him into a new creature in a matter of seconds. If a man of God will be a model Christian he will need to have a prayer life. Now every believer must be prepared because not every prayer will come to pass! Even when we pray God’s perfect will, there will be times when God can’t confirm His word with signs and wonders!
Mark 6:5 And He could there do no mighty works, except He laid hands upon a few sick folk and healed them. Jesus was the most anointed man to ever walk the earth, He was the Son of God but He could not always perform miracles. The people He wanted to pray for were full of doubt and unbelief, they stopped the word from coming to pass. The failure is not the prayer or the faith, it’s people who don’t believe God nor His power. Jesus never gave up on His calling, He went about teaching and preparing the people to receive the will of God. 1 Timothy 2:1 I desire first of all that prayers of intercession be made for all men. An intercessor is one who stands and meditates between two parties. Intercessors stand between sinners and God, they pray for a reconciliation between men and the Creator. Intercession is not a for sure program, not everyone who is prayed for comes to the knowledge of the truth. Intercessory prayer invites the Holy Spirit to witness to a potential convert. God has a myriad of ways to reach people with the truth but the final decision belongs to the one being prayed for. Not everyone who is prayed for responds to God’s offer of grace and eternal life, not all men want to be saved no matter how much God loves them. Should we stop praying for some of these sinners? God forbid. We don’t know who will respond and who won’t, we are just called to pray for all men. Intercession was made for my family, some of us responded and are saved but others have yet to make a decision. We must continue to pray and not be moved by what we see. The devil loves to discourage us by amplifying the negative parts of everything. We don’t know what our prayers will avail but neither does the devil. If God says to intercede, we intercede ignoring the circumstances. Mark 11:25 When you stand praying, forgive if you have ought (unforgiveness – offense) against any, that your Father which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses. We cannot harbor grudges and hatred in our heart and expect the Father to hear and answer our prayers. Prayers must come from a clean sanctioned heart, this is where holiness comes from. Why can’t we just take God’s Word from the Bible and pray it out and get it answered? If all we had to do is pray a recorded prayer then even the sinner and the heathen could get results. The heathen could manipulate the prayers and do damage to those they hate. When God forgives us we become holy, so we have no excuse to have ought in our hearts. God will not be mocked, no man can manipulate the rules for his personal gain. Somebody is always looking for a loophole to avoid having to play by God’s rules. Some men will always try to satisfy the desires of the flesh and please God at the same time, they only deceive themselves. Prayer keeps us above the evil in this world, it is not something we can compromise and expect God to bless us.
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The world is full of sickness and diseases, when Adam gave his dominion over the devil it just made people sick unto death. But God never abandoned His people, it took Him several thousand years but He got His Word into the world with the help of the prophets. The devil introduced the law of sin and death, but God would offer all men a higher law.
Romans 8:2 The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death come from the devil but the law of life in Christ came from God. Now here is the rub that most men are not aware of, every man has the God given right to choose whatever plan he wants. There are no alternatives, if you don’t choose life you are under the law of sin and death! Most people and Christians don’t know they have a choice, we do not have to tolerate any sickness or disease. God has a healthcare plan for whosoever will believe in Him. God’s health care plan was initiated when Jesus went to the cross. Not only did Jesus die for all our sins but He also bore all our sickness, disease and pains. With Jesus stripes we are healed whether we believe it or not. How do we access His sacrifice? Hebrews 11:3 The worlds were framed (created) by the Word of God, so the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. How does the Word of God create anything, we certainly can’t see it? When a born-again believer speaks God’s Word in faith believing, God will confirm His Word with signs following. If any man saved or not speaks words contrary to God’s Word, the devil has a right to bring it to pass. We have a choice we can have whatever life we choose and our words are the defining factor. The citizens of the world speak whatever they want because when their health is threatened they go to a doctor. They never consider their health plan until the doctor tells them he cannot help them and they are terminal. But with God nothing is impossible if you have the faith to believe Him. All Christians have an advantage the world knows nothing about. Colossians 1:13 God has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. The world is the kingdom of darkness, we live here but we are not connected to it. We live in a kingdom where the devil has no access, it’s just us and our Heavenly Father. There is provision and peace in the Kingdom of God, it is where our needs are met. We have the God given power to use our words to live above the evil in this world. Now the devil is all about tempting us, he always tries to pull us over into his kingdom. The longer you stay in God’s kingdom the more blessed you are, the devil has a difficult time trying to pull us over into his kingdom. The longer you stay in God’s Kingdom the more blessed you are, the devil has a difficult time trying to pull you away. Choose your words carefully, speak only what you want. If you choose to be blessed you will speak in agreement with the Lord. If you are not wise you will speak in agreement with the devil. If you put God in charge of your healthcare your vocabulary will be greatly decreased. Proverbs 4:22 My words are life to all those who find them, and medicine to all your flesh. Man’s medicine is drugs, God medicine is Spirit. He can heal anything, there is no way to overdose and He pays for every man to have His best. Isaiah 55:11 The Word that I speak out of My mouth shall not return unto Me void.
Every word that God speaks will come to pass, but does that apply to us? Every word we speak does not always come to pass and in some cases that can be a good thing! I used to repeat a phrase I thought was cool, “well I’ll be damned”, I am so glad that phrase never came to pass. According to Dakes Annotated Reference Bible, Isaiah was giving a prophetic word that would come to pass when the Son of God begins His earthly reign. God promised Israel He would deliver them from Egypt and lead them to a plan flowing with milk and honey. But Israel murmured against God and Moses, they tempted the Lord their God and they died in the wilderness. God’s word returned to Him void but it was not His fault, His people made His word of no effect Mark 7:13 You make the Word of God of no effect through your tradition which you delivered: and many such like things you do. Neither God nor His Word fails, people make it ineffective by their lack of faith. God says what He means and means what He says, but He gave man the power to choose his destiny. Acts 17:30 At the times of their ignorance God winked at: but now commands all men to repent. Based on this Scripture are all men going to repent? No! Only those who want to be saved. Not everyone responds to the Word of God, it does not always effect all men. I always take the Word of God when I pray. Does every prayer I say come to pass? No! Either I did not have the faith or it wasn’t God’s will. Mark 4:14 The sower sows the Word(of God). The sower sows the word in four different places of men’s hearts, in the first three places the word returned void! In the first one the devil stole the word, in the second one got no harvest because they were offended and in the third place the cares of the world choked out the word and it bore no fruit. God’s Word returned to Him void but through no fault of His own. The last place where the sower sowed the word was in good ground where it was accepted and did not return void. Isaiah 1:19 If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. When the Lord called Kenneth Copeland to do daily television he hated it but he did it anyway, but it was not a blessing to him. Kenneth did not understand what became of all his blessings until the Lord corrected him. He changed his attitude and fell in love with the daily broadcast and God restored all his blessings. When the Lord called me into the office of teacher I was obedient but not willing. I acted like a rebellious teenager until God corrected me. I fell in love with the teaching position and it has become a great source of blessing. God promises to bless His people to the land of promise, when they rebelled against Him He let them die in the wilderness. Israel disqualified themselves from God’s promise, He had to wait forty years for a new generation to be born in order to fulfill His Promise. I know I was not God’s first choice to restore the supernatural power of God back to the local church, and if I am not obedient and willing He will find someone else. Meditation was not initiated by hippies and the new age people. When they meditate their goal is to become one with nature and all the creatures from the spirit realm. Meditation is a Biblical exercise offered to all of God‘s people. Jesus told the Samaritans they worship but they don‘t know who they worship. The same goes for the new age people, they think in the way of the world but they don‘t know who they are making contact with!
Meditation - to intentionally think of a particular thing. God told His people they would gain understanding of God if they would meditate on Him. Is God and His Word one and the same? Absolutely, Jesus is the Word and the Word became flesh. David said: When I consider your heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars, then I declare, how excellent is Your Name in all the earth. David meditated on all of creation and he realized how great our God is. Some people consider this world and they say “wow“, a big bang created all of this. They didn‘t meditate, they took the word of a naturalist who cannot prove his ill conceived theory of evolution. Joshua 1:8 The Word of God shall not depart out of your mouth; but you shall meditate on it day and night: then you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success. If we will intentionally spend time thinking about God’s Word, then we will know Him at all times on an intimate level. We will know what He thinks about us and we will know what He has in store for us. Meditating on God and His Word turns mysteries into realities, God becomes Lord and friend. Now this comes with a warning. People who don’t meditate and therefore don’t know God very well become jealous of those who have a closer walk with Him. It is human nature for people to become jealous of others who appear to know more than them. I became a Christian because I sought out people who knew a lot more than I did. These people talked as if they went to Heaven and met God face to face. These folks weren’t trying to project themselves as being better than me, they were just confident and wanted to help me meet their Jesus, which I did. 1 Timothy 4:15 Meditate upon these things: give yourself completely to them; that your profiting shall appear in all things. People who meditate are examples to us, that we can have what they have if we are willing to do what they did. The results of meditation will manifest in your life and everyone will see it. Some will admire you, some will hate you and some could care less. Every Christian should have a strong desire to get to know their Savior more intimately and that’s why God gave us the gift of meditation. God said I know the thoughts I have toward you, thoughts of peace. God is a Spirit and we are a spirit, therefore we can hear His thoughts of peace. King David said: My meditation of Him will be sweet and I will be glad in Him. I meditate on my Lord all of the time except at bedtime, if I think about Him then I will never get any sleep because He is so refreshing. Meditation should always begin with prayer and thanksgiving. People who meditate often always know God’s will because He reveals His secrets to those who inquire of Him. When I grew up in my beloved Catholic church, the subject of divorce was taboo. The church frowned strongly on divorce and if two Catholics got divorced they were treated like heathens. They would not be allowed to remarry in the Catholic church. As the church progressed over the years, their stance softened a little. If a divorced Catholic wanted to remarry they had to give the priest three hundred dollars and he would go back into the archives and expunge the divorce out of the records. In those days divorcees were considered the dregs of society and most were shunned. Years later when the Lord called me to the office of pastor, people began to ask me what my “doctrine of divorce“ was! I didn‘t have a doctrine of divorce because I never had to deal with it, but I knew the Lord would lead me.
I was working as a welder at the time and one day I welded two pieces of metal together. I quickly realized my mistake and told my boss of my error. He told me the parts were machined and prepared so I would have to cut them apart and refit them correctly. I was reluctant to cut out my weld with an acetylene torch because the weld was perfect. I carefully cut the two pieces apart but with my best effort, it was a mess. As I looked at the deformed metal the Lord spoke to me: “this is what happens to two people that go through a divorce“. After He spoke that to me I carefully ground out all of the jagged edges and I filled in the pits I had made. Then I put them back the way they were meant to be and you couldn‘t even tell what they went through. Genesis 3:34 So after Adam was unfaithful to God He drove him out of the Garden of Eden. The word drove in the Hebrew language is divorced, God was the first divorcee in the world. Have you ever thought about how God must have felt when He had to divorce his own son for the reason of infidelity? God is very serious about His relationships with the people He created to be His family. I do not discriminate against people who have been through a divorce, they have had enough pain and suffering. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin, in fact in some cases it is not a sin at all. I have counseled with women who were severely abused, I never tell people what to do but I do support them. People who are hurting for any reason need to find a church who loves them enough to help them, no matter what they are dealing with. Psalm 78:57 Israel turned back and was as faithless as their parents. They were undependable as a crooked bow. God was divorced from Adam and his descendants but that was not the end, He wanted His relationship with all of them restored. God considered His divorce from man a temporary set back, He never stopped loving them. For several thousand years His relationship with Israel was rocky at best, they could not maintain any level of commitment for any length of time. Israel would finally come to their senses and He would forgive them time and time again. God would have a people He would be pleased to call His, so He invited the gentiles to call Him God and Lord. God takes backsliding very serious, it’s like a wife departing from her husband. If she will repent He promises to heal them, backsliding in an iniquity. So if you have been divorced, you’re still a child of God and in this church their are no penalties for any of your past life. You are loved and needed. I am so glad you are joined to the rest of us not so perfect people. |
TEXT FOJCHURCH
TO 84576 OFFERING DECLARATION
My heart is God’s garden, He plants the seed of His Word. Now the devil comes immediately, he is after my precious seed. So I must guard my heart, out of it flow the issues of life. Prosperity is always spirit, soul and body, so I will have a goodly harvest. |
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Helena, Mt 59602 |