Call To Discernment!

16 As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and us, crying out, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation." 18 And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out that very hour.” Acts 16:16-18

Oh how we need to long for the discernment of our Lord and Savior through the power of the Holy Spirit! I was riding in the car with a believer one day and they so happened to have a cd of an objectional band. As we were driving down the road, he is telling me about this song they wrote about God and seemed to be trying to see what I thought about it in the hopes that I would be like “yeah, great words, they have to be Spirit inspired!”. They appeared to say the right things, so what could possibly be wrong anyway? Earlier, in this mans life, someone had told them it was demonic and he didn’t really understand why. What came to me next was such a beautiful revelation from the Lord in use to respond to this curious man. Follow me real quick….the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 11:14, “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light”, I think a lot of us know this verse but what does it look like all fleshed out? Voila! Acts 16:16-18 to the rescue! The story in Acts is very intriguing, you have a woman following Paul saying all of the right things yet being so off target because of the foundation by which they are based. That foundation was shown to be demonic and Paul without the Spirit, would never have been able to discern it otherwise. The principle I pull out of it is this, the reason Paul cast it out of her instead of leaving it alone was for people not to think that mixing fortune telling (and or anything else worldly) and the gospel of Christ was an o.k. thing. I brought up this story in Acts because it appears the heart behind what is said is what tags it spiritually whether to the good (heart humble before the Lord in repentance) or to the bad, and only the Holy Spirit can discern that for us .

Another story to illustrate this point of "spiritual tagging" was when David played his harp for King Saul. The reference is 1 Samuel 16:23, it reads, 23And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him. So we see that just music, not even words to it, was able to suppress a demonic spirit temporarily. The main point I am making is this, that what the heart of a person looks like, is what will determine the spiritual tempo of what they put their hands to. Now a good heart will be one of genuine contrite repentance to the Lord and when they say good things they will truly be penetrating truths, but when someone out of a corrupt heart says the same thing, the same power is just not there. That is why scripture is so obsessed about us producing good fruit and opening the doors to Jesus (See devotional entitled "He's Knocking"), it is not only a by product of the Spirit within, but also it is growth attained through appropriating discipleship.
We must watch what we allow into our lives as Christians, if we do not we will open doors to the enemy and deceit will begin to creep in. Is there anything in your life that you have been defending and you shouldn’t based upon its fruits? Whether it be a musician or band, a movie star, a boyfriend or girlfriend, that is bearing absolutely no fruit whatsoever but is still saying all the right things? "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.” Matthew 7:22 and 23. Basically, what I feel they are saying is, "LORD! Didn't we do and say all the right things??" And Jesus sadly says depart from me you WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS. They were practicing lawlessness, therefore, their deeds were not done in what the Bible calls active faith. You see it goes merely beyond just believing, the demons believe and tremble, it is us partnering with God through acts of righteousness THROUGH FAITH that make it a live active faith! See if I put my faith in those acts alone, they are dead works and cannot save the soul. Only with heart-filled, appropriated obedience to Jesus can my faith be made alive.
1 Corinthians 10:12 “Wherefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall

The enemy is very clever, he is not called a deceiver for nothing and the only way to outwit him is to call upon the Lord in prayer. Deceit suggests a very clever lie, and not only that but a lie bought into. I think it is so important for the church of God to find their discernment roots again, and the only way we can receive that is humbling ourselves in prayer, aligning ourselves to His heart once again (See an understanding heart). In 1 John he says to test the spirits, why? Because even Satan can appear as an angel of light. If I base all of my decision making based upon what appears to look good, I could get myself into a spiritual predicament scripturally speaking. With much love, your brother in Christ Jesus, Chris Goff

John Chapter 6

John Chapter 6


As my wife and I were praying the other day, I began praying that God would give some revelation, some deep truth that night. Not 20 seconds pass until John chapter 6 comes to mind. So we stop and read this chapter aloud and here is what God gave. In the beginning of the chapter it reads “1Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. 3Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. 4The Jewish Passover Feast was near. 5When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" 6He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" 8Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 9"Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"
Note the Word says in verse 5 He asked Philip “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” and then in vs. 6 it says “He asked this only to test him, for HE ALREADY HAD IN MIND WHAT HE WAS GOING TO DO”. So we have two disciples, one very skeptical and not knowing what to do, and another disciple responding with action to Jesus’ question. One is looking at a problem and saying, “its too big, too great, 8 months wages wouldn’t even do it Jesus“, while another disciple went out to look for something, and in this case found a child who had 5 loaves and 2 fish. Neither one of them could have been prepared for what Jesus was about to do, but the illustration here is when one steps out in faith and relies on Jesus for the rest, there is nothing that we cannot do through Him! 12When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." 13So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. Wow! Through one mans faith look at what Jesus accomplished. Jesus was teaching them huge principles in faith or else the Word would not have read “He asked this only to test them”.
We see a few things illustrated here, the first I think is the benefits of faith. Faith without action is dead right? We have a beautiful illustration of that truth here with Jesus disciples. The other is the dangers of skepticism. The problem with the skeptical heart is that it blocks both the good and the bad. Vehement skepticism produces no good thing and is one of the greatest forms of pride because it essentially says “I know and you (or whoever else) doesn’t, it is the opposite of faith. “God resists the proud but gives grace unto the humble”, do we see how all of these principles come together? I used to be one of the worlds worst skeptics (very proud in knowledge and could tend to foster a judgemental attitude), and I payed for it with the gift of arrogance, and lack of revelation. I am not saying we throw our intellect out of the window, but this attitude behind skepticism has to end if you or I ever want to receive from the Lord. Now I believe in asking things in a humble manner to the Lord when something is brought to my attention in His Word. Do not just pass it off immediately because you feel you know. Pray over it, seek the Lord’s face on the issue and He will answer you!
Isn’t it wonderful that you and I do not have to have all of the answers? All we have to do is live a life in obedience to Jesus and He we take care of the rest. Notice that after Jesus fed them all to their fill, they had to get 12 BASKETS TO FILL WHAT WAS LEFT! What Jesus wants to do through us we cannot comprehend, but we will see it if we are but humble and obedient. Never take the attitude that says "What can I do? This is much too great of a task!" If the whole body of Christ did that, nothing would ever get accomplished.

An Understanding Heart

“Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten (humble) thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.” Daniel 10:12

We find a couple spiritual laws in this wonderful verse in Daniel, “setting our hearts to understand”, and “chasten (which is a humbling thing to do) yourself before God”. Wow! If we abide by these laws we will be heard of the Lord! Isn’t that wonderful? I think this is the key difference between why it seems some people really receive from the Lord and why some others walk around in confusion. Psalm 37:7a states “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him”. I have found the last verse as being very helpful in my walk with the Lord. When we set ourselves to understand we are quieting ourselves before Him, actively showing Him (remember faith without action is dead) how bad we need to hear from Him and desire to speak with Him. In another devotion ( http://cgodevo.blogspot.com/2009/07/be-afflicted-and-mourn-and-weep-let.html ), I mentioned “acts conducive towards repentance” and this is one of references used to illustrate that. Notice the angel of the Lord said to Daniel “and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard”. Now we must note that if one puts the faith in these “works” alone for salvation, then they are dead works, but we see something different in how these “chastening acts” moved the hand of God in Daniel’s case. It is because Daniel did them through faith, desiring God’s heart and God knew that. This reminds us of how God looks at the heart and not the outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7). Let’s take a quick look at what “setting his heart to understand” looked like. Daniel 10:2- “In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for^E)"> three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I^F)"> anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks.” We see He was turning his laughter into mourning and his joy to gloom (sounds oh so familiar to James) and he was praying, fasting and went as far as not even bathing. This sounds odd to some but I feel it is important to show God daily that we want to understand. This “Daniel principle” is mentioned in the New Testament as well, where Jesus says in Mark 8:34 “And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” He who comes after me must SET HIS HEART TO UNDERSTAND, by denying himself and taking up his cross and follow Him. Jesus undertook the cross which was His specific mission, for the sins of the world, and we need to “take up our cross” fulfill our earthly responsibility to Him daily and follow Him! I promise if you do this, you will receive insight from the Lord as you never have before, because God is no respecter of persons what He did for Daniel he will do for you! Acts 10:34 & 35 read, “Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” This verse is in reference to Cornelius’ conversion in Acts 10, Cornelius was the first of the gentiles to receive Jesus as Savior, the Word says about Cornelius in Acts 10:2 “A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.” So in conclusion, when you go before the Lord in prayer do not rush. When you rush you are showing no reverence. If you have a DVD to watch or a game to play or even a show on T.V. to watch, you settle in your heart and say “even if I do not get to it that is ok, I am doing a much greater thing no matter what my flesh says to do, I WILL WALK IN THE SPIRIT!”. And eventually, as the old song goes “The things of Earth, grow strangely dim in the light and glory of His grace.” If you do this it will happen, God promises.

Predestination

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Romans 8:29

Isn’t God wonderful? He knew who would receive Him from the foundations of the world! I wanted to discuss this issue of predestination because I think some people believe God essentially said “I picked and you had no choice in the matter.” I believe if that were the case Paul would have left out the beginning part “For whom He foreknew”, it could have merely read “He predestined” without any hint as to His foreknowledge. Ok so now we ask ourselves, “What was the point in even mentioning foreknowing us if He chose anyways?” I believe this word, ‘foreknew’, is pivotal in understanding the meaning. This is my personal take on this. I believe God from the beginning of time saw who would respond to His choice of them and who wouldn’t. It is clear in scripture we have a choice whether to respond to His choosing of us or not. Here is an interesting questionnaire I came up with once, please answer it honestly.

1) Do you believe God is forcing you to obey Him? (my answer is no)

2) So you choose to obey Him correct? (my answer is yes)

3) We all agree that it was His choice of me I was responding to correct? (yes)

4) So could it be that God, knowing someone would respond to Him, still chose not to choose that person if He went to them? (I answered no as it was a violation of the verse it is not His will that any perish but that all come to eternal life, and the author of Hebrews says it is impossible for God to lie)

I have talked with a certain individual that has backslidden and now believes that the reason he has is because GOD WILLED IT! We see that predestination is a concept we are made aware of but not the arbiters of. What I mean is, I think people look too deep into it and tank in their faith (whether by becoming complacent or struggling so much with a sin they stop fighting and fall back) because they instantly see it as a done deal whether your going to heaven or going to hell. The last time I checked in scripture, we are supposed to test ourselves and live in the present. Faith without action is dead. We need to live life in obedience to God (in the present day-by-day) to prove our genuine faith and remember that as long as you have a breath in your body there is hope for forgiveness of your sins. Scenario: the Holy Spirit convicts someone and they go to their death bed without a response to Him, in my mind God saw that they wouldn’t respond and they were not predestined for glory right? He did not choose for that person to be lost or He wouldn’t have even dealt with them right? If you say no you are saying that it is His will that some perish. This is how God is able to raise up leaders whether good or bad. God’s will is going to be accomplished and He has it all set what moves He is going to make, because He is the Master chess player. The foreknowledge works both ways. In the people who respond to God to salvation it is to their benefit, in the corrupt leaders way it is still going to bring God glory, but not in the way they are going to like. If God saw before the foundation of the world that an evil leader would respond to Him, God would not set him up for destruction but for life. The evil leaders position still needs filled, but it wouldn’t be by that guy. I hope this makes sense. I love God and His word, and when I believe that certain views on this almost make God out to be brutal and He is not. God is LOVE! Let’s use scripture to interpret scripture. To conclude, it’s not God’s will that any should perish but that all come to eternal life, again, if this is the case, He is not choosing people to go down the road of destruction!

Rhema Resistance

“Submit therefore to God, Resist the devil and he will flee from you” James 4:7

Resist! Depending on the context this word can mean one of two things. 1) Resisting as to avoid the issue all together or, 2) Opposing, standing up against. For example in the sentence “I must resist this sin!” that could suggest I need to avoid the issue and get it off of my mind, which in many cases, can be a good thing. Or in another example, the sentence “When on the battlefield, and the enemy is encroaching, fight him!! RESIST him!!” Maybe I am alone in this boat but I used to think for years that the above mentioned verse simply meant to avoid and ignore the devil’s temptations (which is a good thought). This, however, still at times left me defeated to certain sins in my life. No confrontation involved whatsoever, no fight, just avoidance. When you look up the word “resist” in Strong’s concordance it says to “stand against, oppose”. WOW! Literally fight him with the Word of God, our offensive weapon in our spiritual armor. When I feel tempted I am now in the habit of coming against the enemy with authority like Jesus did in the wilderness. I believe that story is what should come to mind when one reads this verse in James. Jesus combated the devil with the Word of God in order to resist him, so why should we be any different? I have seen a noticeable difference in my personal battle with sin when I started rebuking him in that area. Submit therefore to God!! Purpose in your heart to walk in the Spirit, and then your words to the enemy will be tagged with power and he will flee from you. Are you getting whipped around too much by sin? The Bible portrays us as warriors, are you using all of your weaponry?

Joy and Gloom

“Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.” James 4:9

What? How in the world can I turn laughter into mourning and my joy into gloom? That seems impossible right? I believe what James is saying to God’s people here is there is unrepentant sin and there is a capacity within oneself to receive that knowledge from the Holy Spirit without necessarily feeling it (which is what we call conviction). When confronted with that knowledge I can either keep on going like nothing has happened (laughter and joy) or I can see my sin and partner with the Holy Spirit and grieve with Him about what I have done (joy and gloom). James says faith without actions is dead right? So if I punch you in the face and come up laughing about it saying I am sorry, am I really sorry? Or would it settle better with you if I came to you broken and maybe even crying telling you I do not deserve your forgiveness but I am asking anyways. The same goes with what I call “acts conducive towards repentance”. Remember when people in the Old Testament would tear their clothes and lay in sackcloth and ashes? Some of us just pass that off as ‘legalism’ but I think that is a very dangerous judgment call. They were partnering with God about how grieved they were about their personal (and/or corporate) sin. As the old adage goes “actions speak louder than words”. Here is my subjective take on this. A while back when dealing with certain sin in my life, I was scarily cold towards it. Meaning, I knew it was wrong and it actually scared me that I was so cold towards it (meaning I didn’t feel anything bad about it). So what do I begin praying? “Lord, restore my conscience in this area, I desire inside to actually feel about this sin the way you do.” I believe God was showing me how to actively turn my “laughter into mourning and my joy to gloom.” Maybe that’s where some of you are at now, you are stooped in something waist high and you know its wrong because of what scripture says about it but are afraid because you feel nothing towards it. Try an “act conducive towards repentance”, turn your laughter into mourning (humble yourself before the Lord) and your joy to gloom, in other words, “He rejects the prideful but gives grace unto the humble.” You do that and you will begin to be restored, because God is not a liar and He loves you. So remember brothers and sisters, when the Word of God says one thing and you just so happen to feel another, the Word of God trumps our feelings if they are not in harmony with His Word. Pray until your heart is re-aligned with His and you see things how He sees them again. Please do not underestimate the importance of not just knowing something is wrong, but feeling the way God feels towards it as well.

Why Be Humbled?

“But He gives greater grace. Therefore He says: God resists the prideful, but gives grace unto the humble” James 4:6

It appears that pride is the number one quencher of God’s Spirit. Pride fuels sin, pride is behind every sin committed because we are essentially saying to God, we know whats best and it is not what You think is best. Have you ever been in a spot in life where you are refusing to humble yourself before the Lord and are experiencing nothing but chaos? If not and there is chaos in your life evaluate this law! There are spiritual laws that we must fall into and one of them is this “law” of God rejecting our prideful attitude and giving grace unto us when we are humble. True humility is seeing God’s truth as it is and acting on that truth despite what my flesh tells me to do. I love how God gives us glimpses on how He feels and how He sees things. For instance, you give a child a bike for Christmas. The child looks at the bike and says “this is the wrong bike, I hate it”. Maybe I am in my own boat with this but I would feel that the boy is very unappreciative and until he learned to appreciate the bike and repent for his attitude, he would not be receiving anything else from me. I believe it is the same way with God. God must have us repent of sin (which is being humble) before He can begin to grace us again with spiritual gifts. The reason for this (I believe) is because God does not want us to keep going on in deceit. He disciplines those He loves, remember? Therefore because of His great love He will discipline us in the form of withholding at times. Because if He bestowed grace (empowerment to get through) upon us while we were in a state of pride (without repentance), He would be inadvertently commending our prideful actions.

He's Knocking

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any man hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him, and sup with him, and he with Me.” Revelation 3:20

We have all heard how it is possible to “open doors” to Satan, giving him a foothold (Eph 4:27), but I do not believe we think about it a lot in the sense of opening doors to Jesus, because we are saved and the door has already been opened to Him right? I believe this is true in a sense, but there is something to be said about what the Bible calls “grieving the Spirit” which is what this church in Laodicea has done. I think when the Spirit of Christ is grieved, essentially He had to be “knocking” first, agree? So with that said, it appears obedience opens doors to Jesus, just as disobedience opens the doors to the Evil One. The above mentioned scripture is to the Laodiceans in Revelation. The verses previous to this is Jesus saying things like “I discipline those I love, therefore be zealous and repent!”. I think this verse is commonly used in speaking to unbelievers but that is not the context. A verse comes to mind while thinking about this concept. It talks about when one sows to the Spirit they reap eternal life, and when they sow to the flesh they reap corruption (Gal. 6:8). It appears when we grieve the Spirit, we have obviously sinned. With that said, we know that sin requires contrite repentance, thereby opening the door to the Holy Spirit of Christ again and shutting the door to the enemy. What are we doing as a people of God that is conducive to Him actively supping with us? Does anyone have active ways they can name that open the door to Jesus?