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We had three indoor-outdoor cats. Even with flea collars; we managed to get fleas in our carpet.
We had an off white carpet, which we found out later that fleas love light colors. I called and had an exterminator come out. The flea problem continued. We had prayed separately a few times I remember...but not with a lot of faith. The exterminator came out two more times; but to no avail. The fleas continued their multiplication and we all had bites all over our ankles. There were fleas upstairs and downstairs. It was a horrible ordeal; and we believe these fleas were from hell!
To open the front door and the back, and He would tell us when to close them. Four hours later we closed the door and never saw another flea. We laughed at the picture in our minds of God as the General commanding the fleas to march out; and envisioning fleas in single file marching out; of course in full dress with one blowing the
One day I was walking down the steps talking to God about these fleas and Larry at the same time was walking up the stairs. We both heard this at the same time and shouted it out. "God can get rid of the fleas". The Lord said, "I can get rid of the fleas". We called the family together and prayed for God to exterminate the fleas. He answered back; that he would march them out the door.
trumpet. I have witnessed to hundreds of people in prisons with this story. God cares about our everyday lives and the problems we encounter. There is nothing too small in our lives that God doesn't want to handle.
God desires an intimate relationship with us and wants us to consider Him in every part of our lives. We started praying about everything, and saw miracle after miracle. Phil 4:6 says that "We are to be anxious for nothing, and pray about everything with thanksgiving." What a faithful God we serve.
In every service, there comes a crucial point or a crossroad.
The names of the roads are, God’s Way, or Man’s Way. Do not let your gift or the gifts God has given you get in the way of the move of His Spirit! Men are comfortable moving in their gifts which God has given them, but to move with the wind of His Spirit is quite another thing. The wind of God’s Spirit takes you where you have never gone or been before. It soars like an eagle and takes you to high places where it would seem very precarious2 mountain cliffs, crags, and high towers where a fall would be disastrous, and result in great injury or death. So is the wind of the Spirit.
The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit”2 John 3:8.
My wife and I were on a long weekend vacation in South Central Texas and on Sunday morning we headed out for Sunday services to a satellite church of a nationally famous Christian author, speaker, pastor, and teacher.
The church was built around the notoriety of this man and many people were in attendance to hear what he had to say. It is amazing what is happening in many cities all across America today. So much of what we call “church” is centered around a gifted, and talented personality or should I say a TV or Radio celebrity. For the most part these are sincere and gifted people just walking in their “God given” talents and callings2but something has gone wrong. People flock to these places of worship to hear the latest and greatest praise and worship team, and then to hear a 30-40 minute message that makes them feel good for the moment, when in reality within 2-3 days most cannot even remember what the “good message” was all about. Jesus plainly stated in John 12:32 that “if I be lifted up2 I will draw all men unto Me.” But Sunday after Sunday people head for church to hear so and so speak instead of going to church to have an encounter with the Living God! As the service went from “live” to the big screen image of this famous man, he started by praying. Somewhere in his prayer he referred to himself personally as a sinner. My friends from the moment I heard him call himself a sinner I did not hear a single word of his message from that point on. I was to busy writing down the impressions I was getting and the words I heard spoken to my heart. Here is what I received that Sunday morning in South Central Texas.
As the service went from “live” to the big screen image of this famous man, he started by praying. Somewhere in his prayer he referred to himself personally as a sinner. My friends from the moment I heard him call himself a sinner I did not hear a single word of his message from that point on. I was to busy writing down the impressions I was getting and the words I heard spoken to my heart. Here is what I received that Sunday morning in South Central Texas. A sinner? Men call themselves that not because they are humble, but because they live a defeated and powerless Christianity. The promise and power of the New Testament has faded like a distant memory, and the reality of the Bible just is not happening in their lives. They are right in one sense though, sin does have a devastating effect on their ineffective Christianity. So, in order to “cope” with how un-like the Book of Acts their life experience is they call themselves sinners; when all the while Jesus is interceding for them that they would step into what He paid such a great, great price for at the cross. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. God’s new creations are totally capable of raising the dead, healing the sick, casting out devils and in short, to be Him in and on the earth. Didn’t he pray2”Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven?” By His death on the cross He seeded the earth with a numberless multitude of New Creations in Christ! The devil is also seeding the earth with tares (un-repentant sinners). As a result the earth and all creation groans for the revealing of the sons of God to this day.
How many times have we heard someone say, “I’m just a sinner, saved by grace.” This saying is not only unscriptural it is blasphemous. The Bible does not and never will say this!
The Bible does say: “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief”1 Timothy 1:15 The apostle Paul had not forgotten what he had been, nor should any of us, but we must not make the work of the cross of no effect in saying we are still, by nature, sinners. Most Christians tell people that they are “saved”. Saved from what? Sin! Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” 1 Timothy 4:1 says, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in the last days some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits, and doctrines of demons”. Paul also writes in 2 Timothy 3:1”But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying it’s power. And from such people turn away! ...always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The next scripture is possibly one of the most telling descriptions of what is happening to the body of Christ today. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
We have developed a type of sports bar Christianity in America, where people come to be entertained rather than changed.
They seek to be catered to rather than cratered over our powerless lives, and we wonder why the church just doesn’t seem relevant to a dying world desperately in need of the supernatural miracle working truth of the living Word of God.
People come Sunday after Sunday accepting any wind of doctrine that sounds plausible because we are not Bible readers; we are Bible hearers. “Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” Matthew 13:58. Isn’t it time we stop being unbelieving believers? We can be new creations because He gives us the grace (power) to do it! Don’t delay, start today! Read your Bible, believe what it says and believe that you are what He says you are2a new creation in Christ Jesus! “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” James 1:21-25.