The Church Guide September 2013 Cover

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God has placed many spiritual laws into existence, just as we have many natural laws (such as gravity). It is impossible to please God without faith, this is a spiritual reality. Faith is the substance of things hoped for but not seen. Faith means trusting in God and His Word. To trust in God we must truly know Him. We have to spend time in His presence; fellowshipping with Him by the Holy Spirit. We also must renew our minds and study His Word. Faith is not about our believing with our mind. Faith is believing with our heart (spirit). We have to submit our intellect to the authority of the Word of God and then ask the Holy Spirit to increase our ability to believe beyond our circumstances. Our spirit must be so united with the Lord that we know deep inside our inner most being that God's promises are yes and amen. Many times people believe for healing with their heads but do not allow the Holy Spirit his rightful place to lead and direct their paths. God will require many of us to go after root issues in our past that has produced the sickness or disease. We may be required to go to certain conferences or read specific books, only the Holy Spirit can lead each of us into our way of escape. God is the God of the individual and He has a specific way of escape from every trap of the enemy. Many believers try to choose the way of escape that they want to take (like an instant miracle). However, the Holy Spirit has a plan that must be followed in order to actually walk into our victory. To the believer that is mature God will have greater requirements for them to enter into their Bible promise. We can not compare ourselves to one another only the Holy Spirit has the action plan for victory in each individual's life. The spiritual laws are too numerous for us to try and walk out without the leading of the Holy Spirit. God is looking for a people who will be lead by His Spirit. Trying to make the Bible work in our trial will never accomplish the objective that God has for us: He wants a people who know Him. To find the healing that the Bible promises and that Jesus took stripes on His back to secure for us, we must be obedient to the Holy Spirit. He may require that we face a fear head-on, thus someone may have to go through medical treatment that they are afraid to tackle. God's grace can take you through medical treatment. You may have judged someone or made a personal vow concerning someone's decision to have or not have medical treatment and thereby opening a way for satan to have authority to bring the same situation to you. God is the God of the individual and He has a specific way of escape from every trap of the enemy. Many believers try to choose the way of escape that they want to take (like an instant miracle). However, the Holy Spirit has a plan that must be followed in order to actually walk into our victory. To the believer that is mature God will have greater requirements for them to enter into their Bible promise. We can not compare ourselves to one another only the Holy Spirit has the action plan for victory in each individual's life. The spiritual laws are too numerous for us to try and walk out without the leading of the Holy Spirit. God is looking for a people who will be lead by His Spirit. Trying to make the Bible work in our trial will never accomplish the objective that God has for us: He wants a people who know Him. To find the healing that the Bible promises and that Jesus took stripes on His back to secure for us, we must be obedient to the Holy Spirit. He may require that we face a fear head-on, thus someone may have to go through medical treatment that they are afraid to tackle. God's grace can take you through medical treatment. You may have judged someone or made a personal vow concerning someone’s decision to have or not have medical treatment and thereby opening a way for satan to have authority to bring the same situation to you. One thing that you can know for certain, is that God's Word is true. Jesus is the healer and the Holy Spirit knows your exact path to deliverance and healing. Allow your opinions and judgements to be laid at the cross and follow the Lord. The Lord is faithful even when we don't understand due to our wrong thinking. The Lord wants us to cry out for understanding and wisdom. He is willing to teach us the deeper truths of His Word and helps us to walk in His ways. It is wonderful to know as believers that death has lost its sting. We go directly into the arms of Jesus when we leave our earthly tents. Every question is answered and every tear is wiped away. Let's live our lives with the intention of growing in our knowledge of this wonderful Jesus. Our God is faithful. To further study this topic, read: Isaiah 53:5-6, 1Cornitian 10:13, Romans 8:14, Luke 8:46, Luke 9:2, and Matthew chapters 6 and 7. Cyndi Foster is the Pastor of Beauty For Ashes Church in Newport News. You can hear Cyndi on 91.5 FM at noon, Monday-Friday, and on 89.1 FM at 2 pm, Monday-Friday. Email Pastor Foster your questions to btyfashes@aol.com.
The recent Zimmerman trial divided many Americans by their views on race, guns, and self-defense. The unparalleled massacre of innocent children at Sandy Hook, divided many Americans on gun control laws and the right to bear arms. And recently, few issues in American society have provoked such polarized and heated responses as the same-sex marriage issue. When you combine all of these headlines, you quickly discover that Babylon, a system that tries to convince people that they can make it without God ... is crumbling. Didn't we pledge, "One n a t i o n , u n d e r G o d , indivisible with liberty and justice for all?" Christians are not exempt from the propensity to react emotionally. This is not surprising since our places of worship remain some of the most segregated institutions during service times. Why the perplexity? Haven't we read, "God created man from the dust of the ground" and housed that "man" in a body? So then, we are all created by God with just different shades of dirt. Proverbs 29:18 (NLT) says, "When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild." Racial tension is a sign of people not knowing who they are in God and therefore run wild with jealousy, comparisons, anger and hatred. We are all one in God created to fulfill a divine purpose before we leave planet earth. Americans have a constitutional right to bear arms. Guns have no volition or willpower to choose. A gun is not evil. It cannot shoot by itself. It did not ponder and finally decide to shoot 26 people at Sandy Hook. A gun is just an instrument. However, when it gets in the hands of troubled people, it does some pretty sick stuff. Many argue that no person is aware of how they will respond in times of pressure. Today, times are tough and hard to bear. What does it take to make a person snap? You do not want to get to this point. A man of understanding (one who knows God) has a Dr. Belinda G. Moss Soteria Christian Center International calm and cool spirit. And should you meet the one who is under pressure, Psalms 91:7 says,” Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you.” Furthermore, because bad things can happen to good people, when you are “under God” even in death there is no sting. You simply change locations. Finally, regarding the sanctity of the "traditional" family, Malachi 4:6 promises a return of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. Why is this priority for God? It is because societal ills and dysfunctions have coincided with the breakdown of the family unit. For example, statistics on human criminality overwhelmingly indicate that broken homes are a major influence on those who become lawless. Broken homes are major contributors to drug use, illegal sexual activity, inability to secure gainful employment, jail sentences, and almost every other societal ill imaginable, including immorality. A family unit's glue is love — first the love between husband and wife, and the love among family members. Without love, family cannot exist. It is no wonder marriage and relationship alternatives are sought when there is no vision for the traditional family unit. Therefore, instead of attacking these alternative lifestyles, why not solidify the family unit as defined by God and present an enviable example that is undeniable. Without a vision, the people perish. Here is a vision: let us return to God; it is the only system that guarantees total life prosperity. (You can find additional information on grief from my book: “How to Grieve and let go with Dignity” at www.pandbsuccess.org.) Your advertising support does so much more than promote your church, school or business ... it encourages and inspires others! Senior Pastors Rodica and Tim Lambert Finding Your Way Out of the Wilderness When God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, they had to go through the wilderness to get to the Promised Land He had for them. It was an eleven-day journey, but they spent 40 long, painful years wandering in the wilderness before any of them entered the land. And in the end, many of them died in the wilderness. We tend to shake our heads and think, “What was their problem? How could they miss it?” But the reality is, many Christians today are wandering in their own wilderness, rather than living the abundant life Jesus died to give them. Identifying the Real Root of the Problem The Israelites' slavery in Egypt is the equivalent of our slavery to sin. God sent Moses to deliver them from bondage, and He sent Jesus Christ to set us free. And just as the Israelites had to take a journey to possess their Promised Land, we have to take a journey to possess the promises of God for our lives. Now the Israelites thought their enemies—such as the Canaanites and Amorites—were the problem that was keeping them from the Promised Land. However, it was actually their thinking that kept them in the wilderness for so long, because God was on their side. And if God is for you, who can be against you? (See Romans 8:31.) Well, we have our own brand of “ites”: sickness-ites, poverty-ites, grouchy neighbor-ites, frustrating husband- or wife-ites… And we tend to think these “enemies” are our problem. But the truth is, God is on our side, and our problem is really in our thinking. See, it's impossible to be happy and think sadness and depression. It's impossible to be free from the bondage of sin if you think you are still in bondage to sin. For example, thinking things like, “I'll never get over what happened to me,” “I can't forgive them,” and “I can't overcome that; it's too hard!” keeps us from victory over sin. The good news is, if we will learn to think the way God thinks, we can possess the freedom to have and enjoy life in Christ. Your Journey Through the Wilderness of Your Soul When you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, your sins are forgiven and you become a new creature in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). You are born again! Romans 6:2 (AMP) says, “…How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?” Jesus took our sins to the cross so we could be dead to sin and alive to righteousness. There's a part of you—the born-again part, your spirit—that's dead to sin. That's why it bothers you now when you sin. The “wilderness” part of you—your soul—is your unrenewed mind, out-of-control emotions, and stubborn will. The journey you take through the wilderness is learning how to let the Holy Spirit invade your soul (mind, will and emotions) and get into every part of your life: your relationships, entertainment choices, profession, finances… Romans 6:11 says, “Consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus” (AMP). I love this, because the word “consider” represents a process in the mind. So this verse is essentially saying, “Now think you're dead to sin; believe you're dead to sin.” With the help of the Holy Spirit, you can control your thoughts and renew your mind with God's Word. Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what's been on your mind so you can think about what you've been thinking about. As you pray for the Holy Spirit to make you aware of thoughts that come into your mind that don't line up with God's Word, you'll begin to realize when those thoughts come and you can renew your mind with the Word. I'm not saying it will always be easy to do this, but God will give you the ability to do what you need to do if you will lean on Him. No matter what has happened to you in the past or what is going on in your life right now, it has no power to keep you from having an amazingly good future if you will walk by faith in God. God loves you! He wants you to live with victory over sin so you can possess His promises for your life today! For more on this topic, order Joyce's Battlefield of the Mind Action Plan. Joyce Meyer is a New York Times bestselling author and founder of Joyce Meyer Ministries, Inc. She has authored nearly 100 books, including Battlefield of the Mind and Making Good Habits, Breaking Bad Habits (Hachette). She hosts the Enjoying Everyday Life radio and TV programs, which air on hundreds of stations worldwide. For more information, visit www.joycemeyer.org.
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The Church Guide September 2013 Cover

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