A Call to Allegiance

Our Words

I haven’t written anything on here in a long time. I have written a few things and chosen to not post them, but I may go back and do so if I find them to be of substance. Sometimes I write things to process for myself but not to share, but I really feel convicted concerning our words recently and want to share it.

Our words. The things we say. We have a great power to influence others with our words, either for good or for bad. We can choose to influence others into sin or into a deeper personal relationship with Jesus. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and Life are in the power of the tongue, and those that love it will eat its fruit” (NKJV). That really hits home for me. In our tongue’s power is death and life. When we speak we can speak death, by demeaning and cutting down others, or life, by encouraging and edifying others. Our words are powerful. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but your words will strongly influence people, either towards death or life.

Whats more, we see Jesus say in Matthew 12:33-37 NKJV to the Pharisees:

³³ “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. ³⁴ Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. ³⁵ A good man out of the good treasure of his heartbrings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. ³⁶ But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. ³⁷ For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Jesus says a tree is judged by its fruit, if it puts forth good fruit it is a good tree and vice versa. For me the sentence, “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” is powerful. Our demeaning jokes in passing flow out of our heart. We’re speaking death. Many people may say, “oh just kidding,” but honestly, you’re not kidding. That is the real outflow of our heart. The words you say in passing speak volumes about who you are and what lies deep in your heart. We must not hide bad fruit as a joke, we need to speak life and not death, encourage and not demean. What do your words say about you and who you are?

We need to set our hearts before God and allow Him to make us good trees that bear good fruit, and that will come out in our conversations with others, in our idle words. Whats more, Jesus tells us we will be judged by our words. We will stand before Jesus and have our words recounted to us. Would you be ashamed on that day before Jesus of the words you have used to hurt others, to demean others? We need to repent and turn from our mess and let Jesus heal our hearts, because before Jesus our words will either condemn or justify us. We have limited time, we need to set our hearts to build up and encourage others around us, and be amazed at the fruit we will bear ourself and the fruit that others will bear when we encourage them!

Jesus, forgive me for speaking words that hurt others, idle words in passing that have wounded brothers and sisters. Heal their hearts, and heal mine. I want to be a good tree being found to bear good fruit; turn my heart that out of my mouth would come life and not death. Holy Spirit, show me the places in my heart that are displeasing to you,anything that causes me to speak death, so that I have cut it out with Your help. I want to be one that encourages those around me, out of the overflow of my heart. Amen.

Self-Worth

Our personal worth is a huge part of our identity, and its no different with our Identity in Christ. I think that our Worth in Christ is one place the Devil loves to plant his lies and deceptions. I hear so many christians go around saying “oh, I’m nothing!” or “I’m just a sinner saved by grace!” Yes, both were true. Past tense. Before Jesus, you were nothing, and can do nothing without him. You were not bought with gold or silver, but with royal blood. When you got saved, you were just a sinner, saved by grace. Now your a Saint. We need to start thinking like one.

So many christians go around all day degrading their personal worth, call it humility. Its not. I once heard a man much wiser than me say, “humility is not thinking less of ourself, but thinking of ourself less.” Worth is ascribed to something by how much one is willing to pay for it. Jesus paid His life for you; therefore, you have worth. Your bought by the royal blood of Jesus, your now a co-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17). If you still consider yourself, “just a sinner saved by grace,” grow up! Your called as a Saint, not a sinner!

You once were nothing, now your the son of the King! That makes you royalty! I’m not saying we should be cocky christians or anything like that, we shouldn’t think of ourselves any higher than we ought (Romans 12:3), but we need to recognize our worth. Not because I say so, or anyone else, but because God alone says we have worth, and whats more, we need to believe Him!

God, let our personal identity be found in you alone! We were once nothing and sinners saved by grace, but no longer! Let us walk in the fullness of our royal calling. We have worth because we were bought at such a high price. Amen.

A Testimony

I wanted to share a personal testimony of some physical healings… Two weeks ago I had been suffering from some serious back pain, and while at church I was talking with one of my friends, and he checked and one of my legs was shorter than the other. So he prayed for me and commanded the short leg to grow, and on command it grew! I could feel it. It was nuts.

With that healing in mind, I was sharing that testimony with some friends just a week ago, and some of them were suffering from similar issues. One had to actually use a heel cup to offset one leg being too short. I prayed for my frist friend, and commanded his short leg to grow, and it grew so fast at first I thought it outgrew the other leg! Then we rechecked, and they were perfect! Wow, praise God!!! But God, wasn’t done healing yet. The same friend had back and knee problems, so I, now joined with others prayed for healing in his knee and back and he saw great improvements in both.

But God still wasn’t done, and because He wasn’t done, I wasn’t either. I prayed for the friend with the heel cup, and had him take his shoes off and have the friend who just got healed join me in praying, and we witnessed his leg grow out too. At the end of the night my friend was praising God because he would never spend another dollar on a heel cup, because God supernaturally healed him!

Last, and in my opinion, the coolest thing of the whole night. Once I finished praying for the two last guys, I looked at another friend and asked him if he needed healing, and he said “YEAH!” and plopped right down in the chair I had been using. (I was having my friends sit in a chair so we could see if one leg was shorter than the other and then commanding the short leg to grow.) I prayed for his knee, and commanded it to be renewed instantly. I told him to get up and test it out because it was brand new, and it was! God gave him a brand new knee, and my friend couldn’t believe it. The whole night he kept testing it just to make sure it was for real.

I love seeing God move and touch and heal people. Its so wild, and awesome. It goes to show, if you know how to pray for the sick and have the expectation for God to move and heal people, He will gladly oblige.

Healing

Healing tends to be a hot topic in the American church. Some people believe there can still be instant healing from things like cancer, etc, others disagree. Some people would have you believe God allows sickness, or even gives it. What amazes me sometimes is how willing we are to twist scripture to fit our theology. It needs to be the other way around, we need to start twisting our theology to our bibles. 

We see throughout a survey of the gospels that every sick person Jesus encountered got healed. Jesus always brought healing, but was never the source of illness. John 5:19 brings an interesting revelation into this thought:

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

So if Jesus healed people, that means God heals people too. So why do some pastors teach God gives sickness? Sounds contrary to the Bible to me. Jesus is perfect theology, if our beliefs are not clearly displayed in the man Christ Jesus, then we have reason to question them.

So if we believe our Bibles, Jesus can heal the sick, but the question is how do we go about following in His footsteps? Well firstly, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit and in tune with His leadings, and secondly, we need to stop praying like wimps. Jesus declared healing, he never got on his face and cried out to the Father for someone to be healed. He would say stuff like “Go, your faith has healed you” or “take up your mat and walk.” 

In our minds those prayers are dangerous. What if I tell the lame man to stand and walk, and he tries and God doesn’t heal him? Thats called fear. If we step out in faith and look for God to move, don’t you know He is faithful and He’s going to move and show His power.

Don’t be disconcerted when you pray for someone, just like Jesus did, and they don’t get healed. It happens, but rather than saying “God doesn’t heal” and quitting, we should continue onwards. Jesus had a 100% healing rate. Everyone who approached him for it got it. That should be our goal too.

a thought

Today, I saw a post by Reinhard Bonnke (check him out) on facebook, he is a huge evangelist and preaches all over the world, and it was quite thought provoking. Here it is:

Is Christianity boring? So is television if we don’t plug in. For the best programs, switch on - it makes quite a difference. So does switching on to God.

For a lot of Americans, especially my generation, we have been raise on watching tv. How boring is it to just stare at a blank screen because the power went out or the tv is unplugged from the wall? Its mind numbingly boring. 

I think sometimes our faith is similar. We get unplugged from the power of the Holy Spirit and stare at the blank screen of our faith and go, “huh, this is so boring. I wish God would do something cool, like in my Bible.” And rather than do the logical thing, and plug the tv back into the wall so we can watch tv, people have built whole theologies around why the tv is blank and why we cant seem to turn the thing on, and they’ve conclude that the power just no longer exists; rather than looking behind the tv and going “oh, thats funny, its been unplugged the whole time…” then plugging it back in, turning it on, and watching some tv.

God’s power, through the Holy Spirit, to heal, to deliver, to save, to raise the dead, are very much available, but we need to plug in to see the fruits of that power. God won’t always work in the way that you anticipate, but I do know this much, He loves a willing heart and a longing to see Him move. To see His power manifest.