Taking A Look Back

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(Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 11)

Taking a look back to where we have been in our journey from the Tabernacle Door into the Holy of Holies will always be profitable.  Seeing where you have been, and knowing where your are heading, is the key to living victoriously in the present!

"If we have been making spiritual adjustments during the previous chapters, then we are well into the journey of our lifetime.  This journey has taken us through Moses' Tabernacle, learning how it relates to our journey toward Christ-likeness and how to appropriate its applicable truths to our spiritual lives.  The Tabernacle, being likened to our hearts, the very place where God now resides, was a tool that we used, not only for discovering where we currently stand on this journey to whole-heartedness on this earth, but also for plotting the journey to our Heavenly home.

But the Tabernacle left us with some questions.  We discovered that we were at crossroads, needing to make a decision as to how we would live our lives.  Knowing where we are at [in the journey] leads us on to a choice as to which direction we will now travel.  The crossroads was an opportunity for us to clearly understand that we must consider our ways so that we might choose the correct spiritual paths for the rest of our lives.  But that chapter left us with yet another question--just how doe we continually choose the right path?

That question forced us to take a better look at our hearts, the Tabernacle of God.  If we were to consider our ways, it would be critical that we take a magnifying glass to what our 'ways' have actually been.  By filling in the cracked and damaged Heart Diagram with those things that keep us separated from intimacy with God, we soon discovered that our 'ways' have been bound up in gods, the sins that we bow down to and worship.  I doubt that your filled-in heart was a pretty picture.  I know that mine horrified me as I realized, with great clarity, just how sinful a place my heart was.  It saddened me, as I am sure yours did you, to see the gods that replaced Jesus on the throne of my heart.

But it was not going to be enough to just identify what was keeping us out of the Holy of Holies.  Something had to be done within our sinful hearts.  God definitely needed to be placed in the center of our hearts, replacing the sin and pridefulness, or we would surely fail in the journey.  Our attempts without God will always end up just exactly like our feeble attempts at New Year's resolutions!  As we returned to the Word, we discovered that God had a plan for us to dispossess the gods of our hearts by taking full vengeance on them.  They had to be dethroned!  It was the answer to yet another unspoken question.

What makes taking full vengeance on our sins and gods so difficult is that we are prone to disobey the commands of God, even when they are clearly spelled out for us.  We learned that there are spiritual consequences for not fully following all that God has commanded us to do.  The only way to be obedient is to understand and practice the discipline of surrender.  We learned that in surrendering to God, the power of the Holy Spirit is released from us, and that He is able to overcome sin and bring victory to our lives through that surrender.  This was what we learned from the Artesian Well.  Our life goal should be to live our lives surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ!"

These 3 Diagrams, of the Tabernacle's spiritual journey, of a sin-filled Heart, and of the power and victory we can experience in the Artesian Well's release of the Spirit by surrender, are to be used for your on-going spiritual growth.  God is calling you to maturity in Christ!

Unite My Heart

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Teach me Your way, O Lord;  I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name."  (Psalm 86:11)

"Isn't that awesome?  God knows that our hearts, even after salvation, are broken and divided.  The apostle Paul obviously knew it as well, for that is the very thing he is trying to convey in Romans 7: 15-21.  He can't seem to understand why, when he wants to do the right things, he continually does the wrong things.  He needed the Lord, just as we do, to unite the pieces of our hearts.  God alone is capable of healing them.  When we finally see our broken hearts being restored by the Spirit of God, we will be able to become all that He intends for us to be--like Him.  This is sanctification.  This is the highway to holiness."

Are you ready to submit your heart to the only one who can transform it? Today, why not stop all of your "trying" to get it done, and surrender your heart, that is divided between flesh and Spirit, to God. Follow in the footsteps of Paul, who learned to say, "I die daily." This is victory!

 

(Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory--Chapter 6)

A Believer's Incomplete Heart

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Think of the story of the rich young man in Matthew 19:16-26.  The young man came to Jesus wanting to know what other good things he might do to obtain eternal life.  Jesus' answer for him was to simply "keep the commandments."  The young man avowed that he had kept these commandments.  What Jesus said in reply is as important for us as it was for the young man.  Jesus said:

"If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." 

You see, Jesus could see right into the young man's heart.  He knew that there was something that he was hanging onto, trusting in them more than he trusted in Him.  For this man, it was his money.  What is it for you?

Our completion (perfection, growth in the Lord, maturity) is dependent upon discovering what those things are, [those things] that we rely on "in a pinch."  These are the very things that are preventing us from walking in the Spirit.  Once He helps us to identify them, God will ask us to do the same thing that He required of the the rich young man.  He will ask us to give them up!  And the only way to do that is to "Come, follow [Him]."  The rich young man had a choice to make, and he didn't choose wisely. . . Will you lay down your gods, and follow after the one and only God?  Will you be honest with yourself and say what Isaiah said of himself and the Israelites?  He said this in Isaiah 26: 13: 

"O Lord our God, other masters besides You have ruled us." 

Or will you continue in a lifestyle that leads to the predictable legacy for your children and grandchildren as seen in 2 Kings 17:41 that says:

"So while these nations feared the Lord, they also served their idols; their children likewise and their grandchildren, as their fathers did, so they do to this day."

Will you let God put all the pieces of your heart, that reveal what rules you, into their proper place, by your surrender of them to Him?  If your misaligned pieces of your heart are anything like mine, they do not serve you well in the end.  We have a saying in our home that we should ask ourselves about those idols we tend to default to:  "How's that working out for you?"

(Excerpt from Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory--Chapter 6)

THE RESURRECTED LIFE -- Day 13

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Day 13:  The Paralytic and His Determined Friends  (Luke 5: 17-26)

Three of the four Gospels record the story of the faith of a paralyzed man and his friends who were quite determined to see their crippled friend healed of his paralysis.  The measures they went to were extreme, and the result of their faith brought blessings untold.  Their faith was a witness as well to those who were content to live by the Law of Moses.

“What a blessed day this will be,” the Lord mused to Himself, for he knew power would be going forth from Him today for healing.  “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees will also be present to witness the Father working through Me.”  Quietly He began to teach.  When He noticed some men making a desperate attempt to enter the room, He continued with His lesson, keeping His eye on the situation. 

The room was just too crowded.  No one budged.  Since they could not gain entrance, the men slipped back out the front door.  Moments later there was a commotion over the place where Jesus stood.  Looking up, Jesus drew everyone’s attention to the ceiling above Him.  A hush fell over the room as one tile after another was removed.  Amazement filled their eyes when they saw a man on a stretcher coming through the hole!  With great strength, the four men lowered their friend carefully into the presence of the Lord.  A collective sigh of relief escaped from the onlookers as the stretcher came to rest in the center of the room, right in front of Jesus.

Jesus knew the faith it had taken for these five men to come before Him, and the great compassion displayed toward their friend also revealed their love.  That faith and love resulted in the paralytic’s spiritual healing as well as his physical healing.  Because they acted on their faith, Jesus was able to clearly establish His authority over forgiveness and healing.

How determined are we to come into the presence of the Lord?  How determined are we to see our lost friends spiritually healed by salvation?  To what lengths do we go to be able to grow our relationship with God?  Are we willing to go outside of the norm in order to show our faith to God and others?  Or do we live in our comfort zones that keep us from intimacy and from receiving all that we need to live victoriously?

Are You A Busybody?

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When I was 6 years old, my family got its first pet.  Tippy was her name (because of the white tip on her tail), and she looked very much like this sad-eyed beagle.  I wasn't much of a "dog person," having really preferred to have a cute, adorable, fluffy kitten, but my brothers and dad outnumbered my mom and me.

Every third day it was my job to take Tippy her food and water (a child must learn responsibility at a young age!).  But there was just one problem:  every time I entered the pen, Tippy would jump up on me, eager to have her one meal of the day.  I disliked very much that she did this, and in a quite normal reflex, I would lift the food bowl above my head out of fear.  You can imagine what happened then!  You see, I just didn't know the natural tendencies of a dog.  I had to learn them, and Dad was my teacher.  He also taught me one other thing about dogs--never, EVER, pull their ears.  They really don't like that!  I had completely forgotten about this tidbit of information that I was given as a child, until I read today's passages in my read-through-the Bible plan.  Proverbs 26:17 jumped off the page and took me back to my childhood and this one particular thing I learned from Dad.  Read it and smile with me!

"Like one who takes a dog by the ears is he who passes by and meddles with strife not belonging to him."

What an incredible and powerful image that came to mind as I read that this morning!  

I had to really think about what this verse was saying.  The one who meddles in the business of another is like the one who would cruelly yank on a dog's ears.  This kind would be considered lacking in compassion, mean at heart, and inhumane.

So what is really meant by the term "meddles".  If we are to understand the gist of this verse, we must understand first what meddling is.  In translating the Hebrew, it was found to mean this--"to alienate and provoke to anger, to run over the top of," and its primitive root is "to cross over."  In other words, to meddle it jump into someone else's strife, in such a way that you "take charge" of their situation by speaking out your opinions on the matter.  And in so doing, you alienate them, and possibly make them quite angry with you.  

As you can see, this is quite different than being asked your opinion and expertise in a mentoring sort of fashion.  On the contrary, to meddle in someone's strife is to speak out from some place of assumed "authority," and to lord over them, not only your superiority, but all of your thoughts on the matter that you assume are correct.  (Certainly more correct than the one with an issue; otherwise, they wouldn't be experiencing strife in their situation, right?)

I think we can cross the bridge and say that if we are meddling in the affairs of others, we are busybodies who will likely offend and make angry those who are suffering in their strife.  They will likely hear our meddlings in a way that will likely cause them to rise up in anger, maybe even viciously.  There response will be akin to how a dog would respond if you pull its ears.

We would be wise to remember this analogy given to the wisest man on the earth.  Solomon was given great wisdom and understanding to both the good and bad nature of man.  Consider carefully each time you come in contact with someone who is having difficulty in their personal lives.  Is God calling you to speak a word of encouragement or exhortation?  If you choose to run ahead of Him, and blurt out all that you are thinking on the matter, you might be received as an "ear-puller" and end up with an "angry dog" lurching at you, ready to attack you for being a busybody meddler.  And who could blame them?  We might just react the same way if we are treated that way.

This challenges me.  Does it you?

Do You Follow Your Heart?

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Should We??

The image is deceptive.  We have heard it forever, haven't we?  As teenagers approaching our college days, not knowing which career path we should choose, our parents likely said to us, "Just follow your heart."  In the dating realm when we are making choices about life partners, we hear the same message, "Just follow your heart."  I have even personally heard attached to that phrase, "It can never disappoint you."  

In the end, following your heart is more about going after, and getting, exactly what you want.  Following your heart is often devoid of wise counsel, let alone the wisdom of God.

We have been told by God in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope."  Twice in one verse God mentions His plans.  I can only speak for myself when I say that all too often, when there is a choice out there for me to make, I am prone to follow my heart.  Yet, nearly every time I do that, I have not given any consideration to what God want, His will for me. 

Following your heart is easy.  It simply requires that you are able to discern what you want for yourself, then go with the "good feeling."  We know how to do that!  But to follow God's heart you must be able to set yourself aside and be willing to go in the direction that God is leading you in.  God's way and our way are often in opposition.  And since our flesh has strong desires, we often mistake that as the very will of God.

Our hearts were not designed to lead us, therefore they are not trustworthy to follow.  Proverbs 23:19 speaks loudly to this.  

"Listen, my son, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way."

Do you see the difference?  God does not say that your heart is to direct you to the right things.  On the contrary, He says that you are to direct your heart!  Why is the heart unreliable to lead us?  Genesis 8:21 gives us insight into that.  "For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth."  Now, if you are thinking, "Yes, but that is from the Old Testament, before the Spirit was given and my heart could be cleansed by Christ's sacrifice," then consider this New Testament verse spoken to converted Christian Jews.  Hebrews 4:12 powerfully aligns itself with the eternal truth of Genesis 8:21 when it declares, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of the soul and spirit of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart . . ."

You see, even though you are a believer and are saved and your heart houses the Holy Spirit this very moment, God is looking into your heart and is quite able to discern which parts of your heart are under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and which parts are not.  Though you have been cleansed, you still sin, you still have wrong motives, you still have uncrucified flesh.  And all of that sin resides first and foremost inside your heart, long before it comes out in your actions, words and attitudes.

Do you understand now why it is so dangerous to "follow your heart"?  Your heart cannot be trusted; therefore, it is wise to make decisions based on the counsel of others, the counsel of the Word, and only after much prayer that seeks to know what God desires for you. 

Proverbs 20: 24-25 makes a strong case for not following your heart, but instead, following the steps that God has laid out for you.

"Man's steps are ordained by the Lord; how then can he understand his [own] way [needs, pathways, etc.]?  It is a trap for a man to say rashly, 'It is holy!' [this is what God wants, because it is what I want] and after the vows [making the decision or choice] to make inquiry [ask Him what He thinks or desires]."

How often I have made a decision, determining that what I want is certainly what God wants, only to realize the trap of a poor decision afterwards, when I finally ask God if it is what He wanted for me!  So often I have not been bailed out, but have been disciplined by having to bear the consequences of following my own heart, instead of leading it in the path that God had already ordained for me.  Can you relate? 

Let all believers learn the powerful lesson that following our own hearts is dangerous and most often will lead us on paths that take us away from the safety of God path for us.  And that is not the testimony God desires the lost world to see.

In The Valley of Affliction

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Job was a man who had been truly blessed of God because he walked with God in a way that was considered to be holy.  God Himself called Job blameless, upright, God-fearing, and repentant of evil found in his life.  And then the greatest storm of his life came crashing upon him.  In a very short amount of time all of Job's servants were killed, his animals were slaughtered, his children died together in a cyclone that collapsed the house in which they were celebrating a birthday,,and if that wasn't enough, Job himself was covered with boils from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.  He had clearly been standing under the "anvil tree," and it had dumped all of its "fruit" on this holy man of God.

What followed was an attack on his emotions and spirit.  His wife told him to "curse God and die" (what a woman), and three of his friends told him over and over that his afflictions had come upon him because he had been a prideful, sinful man!  In an instant Job's life on the mountaintop of blessedness took a very sudden turn.  Now he found himself in the valley of affliction, with no end in sight.  The holy man, in his suffering, lost sight of the God he loved and served.  He argued, "tit for tat." with his friends, asserting that he was a blameless man, not being punished for some undisclosed sin.  But that became his sin.  Job never defended God to his three friends.  Instead, he only defended himself.   In doing that, Job began to speak too many words and some of them spewed forth lies about God, lies he was certainly hearing whispered into his ears from Satan's warriors.

After many days of suffering, another man by the name of Elihu spoke up.  From him came words that defended God, words that were setting Job up for his confrontation with God.  Elihu gave great counsel to Job, counsel that is good for us to hear as well.  He challenged Job to:

1. Stop allowing his affliction to cause him to scoff (speak unintelligibly--like a description of how a foreigner would talk)
2. Turn from seeking to die (or in our case, to run away from our affliction)
3. Cease turning to evil (de)vices to bring comfort in his pain
4. Praise and worship God's characteristics and creation
5. Listen for God's voice, for it would be his shelter from the storm
6. Meditate on the GOD of all the wonders on earth
7. Exalt God!
8. Fear God, giving Him his full reverence and respect

In the trials, afflictions, and suffering that will surely come in our lives, this is truth we must face..  God uses our afflictions and trials for good, not to harm us.  While it may not seem good to us, and we might even call it harmful, we would be wise to come to grips with the fact that God's definitions of "good" and "harm" are very different than ours.  After all, His thoughts, His ways, His plans and purposes are exceedingly higher than ours.  And He is God, and we are not!

 If you are going through a very dark valley of affliction, do not believe the lies of the enemy who would discourage you.  He desires for you to come to hate God for what you are experiencing.  Remember, God will is for you to be made into His Son's likeness.  He wants to perfect you.  He wants to bring you to the end of yourself.  In the end, He wants to humble you so that you can be exalted with Him in Heaven.   Is this a difficult medicine to swallow?  Absolutely!  But once you do, it will surely bring spiritual healing to your heart!

Seeking Answers

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King Ahaziah was the son of Ahab, and he ruled in the Northern Kingdom called Israel in the days when Israel was divided.  His father Ahab, and the kings that preceded him, walked in evil ways and did not follow after the LORD.  When Ahab died, and his son Ahaziah ruled in his place.  Shortly after taking the throne Ahaziah fell through the lattice of the upper level of the home in which he was staying.  Being severely wounded and failing in his health, Ahaziah wanted to know the answer to just one question:  "Will I recover from this?"  We too have many such questions in our lives, don't we?

God understands that we have questions.  Our questions are designed to bring us to Him!  When the answers seem far off and confusing, we sometimes lose sight of the facts that God is there, He has the answers, and He desires for us to come and tell Him what our questions are.  It is true that while all the previously mentioned facts are factual, we are certainly not guaranteed that God will tell us what He is thinking and planning and doing when it comes to our lives.  But He certainly does want us to turn to Him and ask our questions of Him, talking to Him about all that is on our hearts and in our minds.

You may be asking right now, "Did Ahaziah ask God whether he would recover from his fall and the illness that followed?"  Second Kings 1 tells us that he did not.  King Ahaziah sought instead to get his answers from a false god named Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron.  Does that name sound familar?  Beelzebub is another name for the devil! Elijah the prophet was led to the men who were going to Baal-zebub to ascertain the answer to the question.  An angel of the Lord directed Elijah to say this to these men:

"Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron?" 

These messengers returned (quite quickly, I presume) to their king Ahaziah, and told him what Elijah had said.   Ahaziah did not like the message that Elijah sent back.  So he continued in his plan to find a different answer from Elijah that resulted in the deaths of two of Ahaziah's captains and 100 of his militia.  And eventually his own death.

While reading this story today, I was struck by one single thought.  Am I behaving like Ahaziah, seeking the answers from everywhere from anyone but from God?  How many times have I run to safe places of hiding, to counselors with easy and appealing solutions, to my own thoughts and opinions and guesses as to what the answer might be, and to the false gods such as the internet, friends, and family who might be more prone to "tickle my ears?"  How many times has God looked down from the heavenlies, just waiting for me to turn my face toward His, and witnessed me run away from Him?  

God would have been right, in those moments of idolatry,  to send me a messenger who would say to me the same thing that was said to Ahaziah, "Is it because there is no God who dwells within you, as well as dwelling in Heaven, that you are going to inquire an answer from your own thoughts or your gods?"

God wants His children to trust only in Him.  He is the answer, even if He keeps us guessing for awhile.  Who or what do you run to when you have a question about your life?  Is God your last choice?

Your Divided Heart

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Solomon was not like his father David.  God looked down at David's heart and saw a man who was seeking after His heart.  While Solomon started well, in that at the beginning of his reign he humbled himself before the Lord and asked the Him to bless him with wisdom to rule over Israel, he began to walk in disobedience to the commands of God.

Solomon's sin is easily seen by comparing Deuteronomy 17: 14-20 (God's commandments for the ruling king) and I Kings 11: 1-13.  In the passage of Deuteronomy God precisely states 4 principles that His kings should follow:  Do not multiply horses (trusting in military power), do not multiply wives (looking to them instead of God), and do not greatly increase you silver and gold (trusting therefore in  their material blessing).  

Then God spoke of the desired spiritual walk of the King of Israel.  He was to write himself a copy of the entire Law (so that he might trust in the Lord and His word, hiding it in his heart).  He was to keep God's word with him, read it every day, learn to fear God from it, carefully obeying its commands.  By doing these things the king would keep his heart humble, and therefore not turn away from God and the power of His words.  (Hmmm. . .sounds like what the Spirit suggests to us as well.  But we don't have to write our copy of His word; we just have to pick up one of the many copies laying around our house!)

Solomon knew the commands of God, yet he chose to marry a foreign woman, and then marry 699 more!  Solomon chose the sin of having the love of many women over obedience to the God of his fathers.  And the result had drastic consequences on Solomon's spiritual walk.  They turned his heart away, to follow after their gods.  The heart that once sought the Lord in everything so that he could walk in the ways of God now was torn in two, divided between his wives' gods and the One True God.  Because of his sin Israel would now become a picture of Solomon's heart--it too would be divided.  God's precious land would be divided between the north and the south.  The commands of God were given; Solomon turned away from them; he lived a life of overlooking the sin in his heart; he and all of Israel suffered the consequences of his sin.  Solomon surely did not have the heart of his father.

But it is so easy to read this account and think to ourselves, "How could he have been so wickedly disobedient to God?"  The answer lies in our own divided hearts.  We, too, claim to love God, and yet our lives reveal our other "lovers."  We are just as guilty of idolatry as Solomon was.  But the gods we worship are not called Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, or Molech.  Our gods have the names of Adultery and Other Sexual Sin, Materialism, Cheating and Lying, Money, Prestige, Popularity, Gossiping, Self-sufficiency, Self-absorption, and the list is endless.  We like to believe that ours are not nearly as bad as theirs, so we continue to justify our attitudes and behaviors, our words and our thoughts, even though we know that God's commands to us in the Bible are against all of them.  

God is looking for men and women who are seeking His heart, through surrender to Him and obedience to His word.  He is looking for those whose hearts are not torn between this world and the next world.  He still desires for His children to be wholly devoted to Him as David was, not just partially devoted to Him as Solomon was.  Our hearts are in need of mending.  Our hearts are desperate for spiritual healing.  Are you willing to assess your own heart and see the gods that sit on its mantle?  Are you willing to surrender them to the Lord in a repentance that turns away from them, never to return to them?  Are you willing to follow His commands by the power of the Spirit within you?  If you are, and you take action, you are truly saying this:

"Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; UNITE MY HEART to fear Your name."  (Psalm 86:11)

 

Remedy For a Sin-broken Heart

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Solomon had just finished his beautiful, powerful prayer to God as he dedicated the newly built temple.  He concluded with a call to all of Israel to devote themselves, their hearts, to the Lord by walking faithfully in all of His commandments.  By setting the Ark of the Covenant in the new Holy of Holies, God would then be able to say, "My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually."  

Solomon's connection between the Ark of the Covenant where God dwelt then, and our hearts where God dwells now is critically important to us today.  It is in our heart, the core of our being, that the Holy Spirit perpetually dwells.  He is the eyes who watch everything we think, do, and say.  He is the very heart  of God in us.  And what is the "heart of God?"  It is the very life of Christ.  That is what the Holy Spirit represents in the life of the believer.

Though we have the life of Christ living in us, we so often try to do every spiritual thing in our own power.  We use our strengths and our sheer will-power to try and overcome sin.  We want desperately to walk faithfully in the commands God gives us to live by, and fail miserably with each attempt.  We so often life in a sin-confess-try again cycle, and usually never realize that this is simply a dog chasing its tail.  We go round and round and round, but we never really get anywhere.

So what is the secret, then, to having an unbroken heart, a heart healed of its sinful ways that obeys the Lord's commands?  Zechariah the prophet speaks loudly the key to having an unbroken heart.  "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the Lord. (4:6).

The healing of the continual sin in your heart will not come by might ("I am trying hard to handle this.  I failed yesterday, but I will try harder today."), nor will it come from your strength and power  ("I am strong; I can get through this; I did yesterday, so I will today as well.").  The spiritual healing of your heart, the very removal of fleshly gods, idols, and sins,  will happen because of your working at it.  God requires one thing from you to become an obedient child who walks in His pure and righteous ways.  He requires your surrender to the Spirit.  Your transformed heart, changing from broken to unbroken, from sin-stained to holy, is the work of the Spirit.  This work happens from the inside out by the Spirit, not from the outside in by your striving flesh!

In every 12 step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the transforming work begins with these 3 principles:  I can't; You can; go ahead!  Do you hear the surrender of such a prayer?  This should be our constant prayer!  Why not begin right now to apply the truth of Zechariah 4:6.  It will sound a something like this:

"Holy Spirit, you have a job to do in my heart, but You require me to seek Your work in me from a place of humility and surrender.  I am struggling with committing the sin of _______.  I have tried to stop and have failed miserably.  I know that my flesh cannot transform my heart.  Only You can.  So I come to You today, with my flesh crucified and my spirit crying out to You.  'I can't get this done in me!  But I know that You can!  So please go ahead!'  I surrender to Your work in me."

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The Idols Of Our Hearts

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC Israel had seen God execute His judgment on the Egyptian gods by the plagues He sent. Now Israel was being sent into Canaan, their Promised Land, to drive out the wicked Canaanites, their pagan gods, and demonic worship practices. Israel was to go in and utterly demolish every evil thing in order to possess the land God was giving them.  He asks us to do the same thing with every evil thing in our hearts.  (Numbers 33: 4, 50-55)

God will always judge what is wicked.  While we may not always understand how a loving God could orchestrate the annihilation of people, we must grow up in our understanding so that we can discern that God knew the hearts of those He was about to destroy.  He knew that they had already chosen to be anti-God.  He knew the evil of their "worship practices."  And He knew that they would not be converted to a faith in Him.  As a matter of fact, He knew that they would lead His people astray.  Therefore, God, in His infinite wisdom, used His own people Israel to execute His judgment on the people living in the Promised Land.  He did this so that Israel would have a pure nation to dwell in, one that was rid of pagan worship.

In God's direction to His people we clearly see the battle plan:  cross over the Jordan into the land, drive out the people by force, destroy all of their gods and idols, demolish their high places (altars of worship), and take possession of the land.  God certainly did not want any corrupt practices to dwell among His people and lead their hearts astray.  Now can you see where WE are heading?

Inside each of our hearts there camps many gods and idols.  These very gods are not set on a mantle and worshipped.  Instead, they are part of the sin in our lives.  All of us have attitudes that we default to.  We have sins that we practice that are more important to us than God.  Oh, we don't like to say that is true, yet it is.  Many of us can see what the god of our heart is by merely looking at our checkbook, taking note of what we spend our money on.  Many more of us will realize what our god is simply by listening to what pronouns we speak the most:  I, me, my, mine!  The priority of self points to who is really the god of our life! 

If you think God is the only authority in your life then it might be a good thing to consider this list:

Self-sufficiency, self-reliance, self-absorption, selfishness, impatience, hatred, unforgiveness, depression, anxiety, worry, bitterness, self-superiority, argumentative, self-deprecating, gossip, pot-stirring, envy, jealousy, hypocrisy, deceitful, lying, malice, abusive speech, coarse speech, partiality, bigotry . . .  The list is endless!  But we must begin to think in terms that identify these as the very evil practices that they are!  God's Word says they are the evil in our flesh that battles against the Spirit of the Living God in us!

Since God is an unchanging God, then His view of evil practices has not changed either.  If He charged the Israelites to destroy all evil practices so that they could live in purity instead of sin, what do you think our unchanging God will want our battle plan to be?  Of course, He wants us to destroy the very things inside our own hearts that lead us astray and away from Him!

In my forthcoming book (May 1, 2011) God has given me a great way to get these idols and gods into His hands and off of our backs.  It involves first identifying what is really in your heart, and then taking full vengeance on what He reveals to you.  This book, Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, can be purchased right now on Amazon.com, or directly from me (and I will sign your copy!).  Request your signed copy by contacting me at cherylgnagey@gmail.com or at www.cherylgnagey.com.

Take Full Vengeance!

Pin It Originally: How To Add a Pinterest (Pin it) Button to your Blog/Website http://cs-doon.blogspot.com/#ixzz1ryXJUBEC Just before Israel was to enter the Promised Land, God sent them to utterly destroy the Midianites, who had introduced into the camp, through their woman, immorality and idolatry, with severe consequences. Then Israel took matters into their own hands and spared the lives of the Midianite women!  It is so easy to see their error, yet what sins have we allowed to "come into our midst?"  Destroy them!

Looking at the story in its full context we are faced with the diabolical plan of Satan to destroy the nation of Israel.  If it couldn't be done by military force, then the next plan would surely succeed:  destroy them from the inside out!  As Israel was making their way to the Promised Land they encountered the Moabite-Midianite people.  This group was God-less but full of false gods and idols, and they were immoral as well.  As they intermingled with the Israelites, God's chosen people began to "sleep with the enemy" and participate in the worship of their gods.  As a result, God sent a plague on His own people to eradicate the sin from them.  In one day 24,000 perished for their sin.  It appeared that Satan's plan was working.

Now, cleansed from their personal immorality and idolatry, Israel is about to cross over into the Promised Land.  But not before they obeyed the command of the Lord to go back and annihilate the people who had led them astray.  God's exact words were, "Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites."  There could have been no misunderstanding of what 'full vengeance' meant.  God wanted the enemy utterly destroyed!  But as so often happens, these military men decided to take matters into their own hands.  It seems as if the voice of Satan must surely have whispered to them, "Did God really want you to destroy all of these beautiful women.  Kill the men.  They can kill you.  But you don't want to kill these women.  Bring them back; make them your wives."

And that is exactly what Israel did.  They disobeyed the voice of both God and Moses.  They followed their own hearts instead of leading them!  They thought they had done a good thing.  As a matter of fact, what they did was the cultural norm of the day.  Imagine their great surprise when Moses openly confronts their sin and demands that they obey what God said!  Any woman of consensual age must be killed for they were the greater enemy!

Looking at the broader application for us, we can't miss the obvious. Those things that seem the least "deadly" are sometimes bought, quite intentionally, into our midst  with absolutely no fear.   It is time to open our eyes to the reality that the "smallest sin" has the potential to be the very thing that destroys our witness and testimony before others.  Any idol (the things we elevate above God on a daily basis) will destroy us quicker than the "global issues" of the world.  God is looking for personal holiness.  He desires our heart to be filled only with Himself.  He calls to us today to take FULL vengeance on everything that draws our hearts away from Him.  What have you allowed into your midst, thinking that it is perfectly safe?  Today should be the beginning of your spiritual battle to destroy the "enemy in the camp."  That is spiritual healing!  That is overcoming victory!

Preparing For Battle

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Balak sought out Balaam to speak curses on Israel.  Balak wanted Israel to be defeated.  Isn't it interesting that he did not seek out his military general to draw up a battle plan to defeat this enormous enemy?  Though Balak was a pagan, he knew that he must defeat Israel spiritually.  How much more prepared would you be today if you would FIRST fight in the spiritual realm with the Sword and prayer?

What enemy do you want defeated in your life?  What sin has hung on far too long, and is now far too large for you to defeat on your own?  Have you been attempting to create your own "military" plan for defeating it?  There is only one way that you will ever defeat sin in your life.  You must be SPIRITUALLY healed!

Every believer keeps hidden in his heart many sins that have yet to be defeated.  If you are looking at yours today, they may appear to be enormous when you look at them all together.  Attempting to "never do/think/say that again" will avail about as much as any New Year's resolution!  Has that ever been successful for you?  Me, either! 

The sin issues of the heart must be attacked spiritually.  It will require your time and effort, but it will not be you, in the end who defeats them.  It will be the Spirit who dwells in your heart who will destroy them.  We have been deceived for a very long time that it is our strength that will over come them.  The enemy likes when we use this battle plan because he knows that we will lose. . . and he will win! 

Zechariah 4: 6 says, "'Not by (your) might nor by (your) power, but by MY SPIRIT,' says the Lord of Hosts."  Do you see that Almighty God is imploring us to STOP TRYING to change our sinful hearts?  His Spirit alone is in charge of that.

So how do you allow the Spirit to fight the spiritual battle raging in you?  Try this:  Let the Lord show you just one of your sins.  Write it on an index card and put it in your bible.  Now here is the part that you can do.  EVERY DAY read the word, with the purpose of knowing your God better.  Then take that card and prayerfully surrender this part of your heart to Him.  Ask the Spirit to now come and do His work in you.  Do this every day.  

This is not a "quick fix."  There is nothing powerful in the card or the plan.  The power is in the Word, in the Spirit, and in the relationship that you will develop with God Himself!  In a month, look inside again, and see if the Spirit has been working!   I think you will be surprised to see His spiritual healing at work in you!

Why not post your results at the bottom of this page!  Others might like to hear your testimony of God's "overcoming" battle plan  that has resulted in healing in your heart.  And don't forget to click "follow" at the top of the page!