WORSHIPPING YOUR VICTORY

Elijah had just won a great victory over the prophets of Baal. He had turned the hearts of the Israelites back to God. He was about to rest when report came that Jezebel had sworn to kill him within 24 hours. One thing to note here is that you are prone to the enemy’s attack after a major victory. He knows at such a time you will feel relaxed. “Wherefore take unto you the whole amour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13).

Having done all, you are to stand. Christians must never rest on their oars. After winning souls to Christ, stand. When you have just had your baby, stand. After your promotion, stand. The more things are changing for the better in your life, the more you should stand. InJudges 8:22-27, after Gideon had a great victory, Satan moved to the second round. He suggested to the people to ask Gideon to become their leader. Gideon refused. In round three, Satan suggested that he should make a unique golden ephod and place it in his city, in commemoration of his victory over Midianites. Gideon fell for this. He immediately asked for gold from the people and they gave him. With this, he made the golden ephod and placed it in the city of Ophrah. It became a monumental masterpiece, a tourist attraction which the Israelites soon turned into an object of worship. His victory had become an idol, luring Israelites from the living God.

God gives you victory to turn people’s heart to Him and for Him to receive the glory. But when you celebrate the victory to the point of idolizing it, you rob God of His glory, turn people’s heart to idolize the victory instead of serving God, and end up defeated by Satan. Believers must be very careful. There is a snare concealed in the call to celebrate your victory. If care is not taken, you will fall into it. Celebrate your victory within limits. The best way to celebrate that victory, success and blessing is by going before God in humility. By giving Him 100% credit for the victory. By thanking Him and praising Hiss name. By testifying to the victory, giving God the credit. And having done all, stand in prayer and watchfulness. 

Prayer

 FATHER, we pray that unless Your Plan is for some of Your saints to remain single, You will send the perfect marriage partner for them. Please send them the right husband or wife at the perfect time, and give them a clear leading from You as to who it is! We pray that Your sons and daughters will be submissive enough to hear Your Voice when it comes time to make a marriage decision, and that they will make that decision based on what You are saying and not just fleshly desire! We pray that single Christians will TRUST You with all their heart and lean not on their own understanding, but acknowledge You in all their ways so that You will direct their path (PROV 3:5-6)! May they have a wonderful and blessed mate for life! In JESUS Name - Amen!!!  

Keep It Simple

At this time Aramean raiders had invaded the land of Israel, and among their captives was a young girl who had been given to Naaman's wife as a maid. One day the girl said to her mistress, "I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy." 2 Kings 5:2-3

Simple requests require simple answers. Simple directions require simple adherence. Still, we like to complicate the simple, adding unnecessary baggage to straightforward problems.  


A young girl, taken captive out of Israel, had been made a slave to an influential man with leprosy. This girl, out of remarkable compassion, offered a simple solution to Naaman's problem: She suggested that he go and ask the prophet of her people to heal him. What an astoundingly simple solution to Naaman's suffering! However, between Naaman, his king, and the king of Israel, the simplicity of these directions became quickly muddled. 


Piled high with silver, gold, clothing, and a neatly written note, Naaman approached the king of Israel with his request. Simple directions had turned into a very complicated bribe that was misinterpreted by the king of Israel as a threat of war.

Fortunately, Elisha settled the king down and offered Naaman some surprising directions for his healing: Wash seven times in the river Jordan. The directions were simple and straightforward, but somehow Naaman managed to be insulted, "So Naaman turned and went away in a rage" (v. 12). 


In the end, all ended well, but it is worthwhile to examine the causes of all the barriers to healthy communication. Doubt and fear led Naaman to believe he had to earn his healing even though the slave girl simply directed him to ask. Suspicion and insecurity caused the king of Israel to distrust Naaman's request of healing. He was suspicious of Naaman and doubted God's power in Elisha. Pride caused Naaman to insist on his own terms even though he desperately needed healing.

We certainly can complicate our lives by adding a pinch of doubt and fear, a touch of suspicion and insecurity, and topping it all off with pride. God asks us to follow him, obey him, and love him. The directions are really very simple. The challenge is to keep perspective, remember the directions, and keep it simple. With God's help, we can do it.

A Prayer for Healing

Use the following prayer as your own confession of health and healing. As you do, remember Jeremiah 1:12 says that God watches over His Word to perform it.

Father, in the Name of Jesus, I confess Your Word concerning health and healing. As I do, I believe that Your Word will not return to You void, but it will accomplish what it says.

In the Name of Jesus, I believe that I am healed according to 1 Peter 2:24. Your Word says that Jesus Himself took my infirmities and bore my sicknesses (Matthew 8:17). Therefore, with great boldness and confidence, I stand on the authority of Your Word and declare that I am redeemed from the curse of sickness. I refuse to tolerate its symptoms.

Satan, I speak to you in Jesus' Name and I proclaim that your principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in heavenly places are bound from operating against me in any way. I am loosed from your assignment. I am the property of Almighty God and I give you no place in me. I dwell in the secret place of the Most High God and I abide under the shadow of the Almighty, whose power no foe can withstand.

Now, Father, I believe Your Word says that the angel of the Lord encamps round about me and delivers me from every evil work. No evil shall befall me, no plague or calamity shall come near my dwelling.

I confess that the Word abides in me and it is life and medicine to my flesh. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus operates in me, making me free from the law of sin and death.

I hold fast to my confession of Your Word and I stand immovable, knowing that health and healing are mine now, in Jesus' Name. 

Amen 

What Does the Bible Say about Drugs and Drinking Alcohol?

 What does the Bible say about using drugs and alcohol, other than for diseases and cooking?

In English translations, there is no verse of Scripture that clearly and specifically addresses the use of recreational or hallucinogenic drugs, but we will see that the Greek word pharmakeia does refer to this. There are, however, quite a few verses that speak to the wrong use of alcoholic beverages, which produces a similarly altered mental state. Let us look at a few of them to give us a framework to examine this topic.

Ephesians 5:18 (NKJ) And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation [the Greek word for “dissipation” means “an abandoned, dissolute life; profligacy; prodigality”].

Proverbs 23:21a (NKJ) For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty.

1 Corinthians 5:11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat.

Despite what some Christians teach, there is no prohibition in God’s Word against drinking alcoholic beverages. It is not a sin to drink beer, or even whiskey. There is, however, a clear prohibition against getting drunk. A Christian might then conclude that drinking no alcohol at all would surely eliminate the possibility of abusing it, and choose never to partake. Each of us must choose for ourselves how we relate to “booze,” but we have no biblical basis to think less of our brethren in Christ who enjoy a drink once in a while, but do not get drunk.

Why does God tell us not to get drunk? Because life is a spiritual battle, and we must be self-controlled and alert (1 Thess. 5:6). First, we need to be alert in order to serve God. God wants us constantly tuned into Him, and people have needs at very unexpected times. The servant of God is always “on call,” and must be ready and willing to serve. Second, our enemy, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8 NIV). Satan’s evil spirits usually infiltrate people through their minds, and Scripture is replete with instructions about properly managing our minds by controlling our thoughts and making them godly thoughts. For example:

1 Peter 1:13 (NKJ) Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober [self-controlled], and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will.

1 Thessalonians 5:6-8 (6) So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled [KJV=sober]. (7) For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. (8) But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled [KJV=sober], putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

Proverbs 23:7 (KJV) says that as one thinks, so he is. That is because thoughts are the seeds of our words and deeds. The way we “renew our minds,” and “be sober” is by choosing to think what the Word of God tells us to think. 2 Corinthians 10:5 calls this “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” That is how we steel our minds against our enemy, Satan, who is constantly bombarding us with stimuli designed to hijack our thoughts in an ungodly direction, cause us to act in an ungodly fashion, and eventually open our minds to evil spirit influence.

In Scripture, God uses the word “heart” to refer to the inner core of one’s being, the depths of the mind where either true faith or unbelief resides. He admonishes believers to guard our hearts so that we allow no evil influences to come in, because if they do get in, they may have devastating consequences.

Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

When one is drunk, he is, in reality, out of his mind. He cannot guard his heart, and it is difficult or impossible for him to serve God or God’s people in an effective way. A person who is drunk is not effective in praying for, or ministering to, others. Furthermore, a drunk opens himself up to the possibility of evil spirits entering his mind and causing confusion or harm to himself or others.

The Bible puts using drugs in the same category as getting drunk (Gal. 5:19-21): both are forbidden by God because of what they do to the individual personally, and how they make him unfit to minister to others. However, before we go into the specific verses that mention drugs, we need to understand something about God’s Word. The Bible is written in such a way that people who are seeking God’s will are able to find it. It is impossible for God to write a book that covers every sin—we can sin in ways today that no one in the biblical world would have even conceived of, such as child pornography on the Internet. The Word of God is “instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16 KJV), general instruction that can be applied by wise people. LSD, crystal meth, crack, crank, etc., did not exist in biblical times, so God did not mention them in the Bible. What God does say, in many different ways, is that the Christian is a minister of God to His people, and should be alert and prepared to serve at all times, even if that is just being alone praying for people. Being drunk or high on drugs renders one incapable of being effective for God.

Drugs used to alter one’s mental state and thus “escape reality” do the same thing that excess alcohol does, that is, they render a person “out of control” of his mind. As with alcohol, the individual who is “high” on drugs is in no position to fulfill the command to “be alert and self-controlled.” Many drugs are hallucinogenic, and a hallucination is “a false notion, belief, or impression; illusion; or delusion.” In the Bible, the Greek word for “truth” means “reality.” Satan’s goal is to get people to act upon a false reality.

Scripture does indirectly address the illicit use of drugs, and connects it to drunkenness, as per the following verses, where the Greek word for “witchcraft” is pharmakeia, which includes “the use or the administering of drugs,” “poisoning [by drugs]” (Thayer’s Lexicon), and the variant, pharmakon, in Revelation 9:2 focuses upon “the use of certain potions or drugs” and the casting of spells (Louw Nida Greek Lexicon).This same root word is also translated as “sorcerer” and “sorceries” (see Rev. 9:21, 18:23, 21:8, 22:15). The translation “witchcraft” is used in most English versions because pharmakeia also referred to the witchcraft or sorcery in which drugs were used for potions, spells, etc. Understanding that pharmakeia is related to the use of drugs, notice how it appears, along with drunkenness, in the list of the “works of the flesh” in Galatians.

Galatians 5:19-21 (19) The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; (20) idolatry and witchcraft [pharmakeia]; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions (21) and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Recreational and hallucinogenic drugs were not invented in Haight-Asbury in the 1960s. They have been weapons in Satan’s arsenal for thousands of years, and they have contributed significantly to the destruction of millions of people’s lives, as both Scripture and history confirm.

There are other biblical truths that make it clear that the use of recreational and hallucinogenic drugs is harmful. We are to take care of our bodies so as to be able to serve God for many years, and drugs are physically debilitating. Also, we are to steward the financial resources that God gives us, and using our money to buy such drugs is hardly good stewardship. Beyond that, many drug users turn to crime to support their habit, and those crimes range from stealing from other addicts to murdering innocent people to get their “fix.” Thus, beyond the sin of the drunkenness or drug use itself are the sins of lying, stealing, and murder to which such a lifestyle leads. In short, using drugs robs us of “the life that is truly life.”

Many users say they are looking for peace, joy, and the “high” that such drugs give them. How sad. Anything someone categorizes as something good that a drug does for him is something only God, our heavenly Father, can give us through Jesus Christ. God designed us to enjoy life and be engaged in it, and the so-called benefits of drugs and alcohol are a counterfeit at best. Recreational drug use and getting drunk is selfish and dangerous, and addiction is not an escape from pain, it is pain in the worst way, as countless thousands of ex-addicts sadly testify. In contrast, an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus brings us all those things, and more. Thus we need not despair and grope for artificial means of altering that mental state. We will be so full of joy and peace that anything that alters it would be “a downer.”