Living Word Christian Fellowship
“That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving...” Psalm 26:7
Vol. 15, No. 8 August 2006
It has been a whirlwind of experience in recent times. But something is different. I can see God more clearly through everything that is happening. I actually rejoice to see what God is doing among the people. We must come to the place of His perspective in all that we see and experience.
I recently shared in a sermon about “humility.” It is much more than what we have thought. It means “to get God’s perspective.” We can come up to His level of understanding what and why we are experiencing some things in our lives if we truly want to know. And when He begins to reveal it, our attitudes and actions become wholesome and healed.
James 4:10 tells us to “humble yourself in the sight of God and He will lift you up.” How about, “Get God’s perspective and He will lift you up.” It never fails when we see from His viewpoint.
I want to walk in humility more and more. Now I have a better understanding of why this is so much in my heart.
How about you. Do you need to be humbled? God has a few things He wants to show you so you can come into His understanding.
In Christ,
Pr. Steve
Conviction Crisis
Psa. 119:28 “My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.”
When burdens are too heavy, we want to give up. The key is to be saturated with the Word of God.
Psa. 119:25 “My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.”
The writer is telling us everything in life was falling apart. The pressure was so great all he could do was to weep. The burdens were too heavy, so all he could do was to meditate on the Word with the promises of God to bring him hope.
Psa. 119:48-50 “ My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes. (49) Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. (50) This [is] my comfort in my affliction: for thy word hath quickened me.”
We must learn that in the midst of affliction we must constantly meditate on the Word of God. It is this kind of constant meditation that will bring hope. God’s Word will revive you, causing you to come alive spiritually.
Psa. 19:7 (KJV) “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.”
We can go to doctors, we can take medicines, we can ask for prayer; but if we want our spirits, souls, and bodies restored, we must continually mediate on the holy Word of God.
Psa. 49:3 (KJV) “My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.”
In order to receive spiritual reviving, we must see life from God’s perspective.
Psa. 119:130 (KJV) “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.”
To get the Word into your hearts: Hear the Word - Write the Word - Speak the Word
You are hearing the Word now. Write these verses down so later you can meditate on them and speak them forth. To meditate means to “mutter.” We can open our mouths and speak the Word of God continually as we meditate throughout the day and night. If we do this, our faith will grow because faith comes by hearing.
Psa. 116:10 (KJV) “I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted:”
Meditating is speaking the promises over and over. If our ears hear our mouths continually speaking God’s precious promises, our confidence will grow and we will overcome the afflictions. The Lord wants our inner man quiet and calm. As we speak we release great spiritual power – power to the realm where ministering angels can come and fight for us.
Most of us have learned to speak the name of Jesus over and over. Open your mouth and say it…….“Jesus” As we speak in the midst of adversity, we release great spiritual power. But now we are in a place where we need the Word to back us up. He wants His promises which are greater than any problem to be real to us. We can’t understand the great power of these promises with our intellect. We can only begin to comprehend this power if we get the Word inside of our spirit man and bring it forth from our hearts. We should not hope or wish the promises of God are true. We should know the promises are true. Then we will find the conviction of the Lord in times of crisis. (Psalm 112:1-8)
Please don’t compromise this time of your life. Hold tightly to the Word and this too shall pass. Pro. 4:4 says to “hold fast to the Word.”
Psa. 119:165 (KJV) “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.”
Have you ever been knocked off your feet because of something you weren’t ready for?
Psa. 37:31 (KJV) “The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.” (AMP) “nothing will knock us off our feet;”
WE WILL ALWAYS REACT TO A CRISIS SITUATION BASED ON WHAT IS DEEP IN OUR HEARTS. The outer person is not the one who responds to a crisis situation. Remember what Peter says (3:4) “Let the hidden man of the heart not be corrupted, but of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.”
The hidden heart is the real person, and this is what we will be judged for. This truth is what the Lord wants revealed in this hour. This is what reveals our true trust in the Lord no matter what.
What is truth? John 17:17 says, “Your Word is truth.” Psm. 51:6 says, “God desires truth in the inner being.” If we get this truth into our inner man, we will align ourselves with the Holy Spirit who is called “the Spirit of Truth” which means the “truth-giver.” (John 16:13).
It is the Holy Spirit speaking to you throughout the day and night – hear ye Him! John 18:37 says “Everyone who is of the Truth (who is a friend of the Truth, who belongs to the Truth) hears and listens to My Voice.” The more Word you have in you the more you will hear His voice – to bring peace, comfort, quiet, calm, confidence, and assurance. The Holy Spirit is your teacher and He wants to teach you all things (John 14:26).
The Kingdom of God is within you – it is a kingdom that is firm and stable and cannot be shaken. The Lord wants to identify with every person who belongs to Him that which can be shaken and that which remain firm. The only way to do that is to look upon Him instead of your problem:
2 Cor.13:5 “Do you not realize and know that Jesus Christ is in you?” 1 Cor.3:16 “Do yo not know that the Spirit of God dwells in you.” Col.2:9-10 “The fullness of the godhead is in Christ and you are complete in Him.” What is your problem today? Rom.8:11 “The same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you.”
The Holy Spirit wants to solve it all for you if you are conscious of the fact that His power cannot be exceeded. If He could raise Jesus from the dead, He can raise you to life anew. “He who lives in you is greater than he that lives in the world.” 1 John 4:4
Most of our crisis times come when we are alone. Why? To see if we will turn to the greater one that lives in us.
Heb. 13:5 (AMP) “for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]”
This is the conviction of life that will enable us to get through the days ahead. Take comfort, be encouraged, have confidence and boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear or be alarmed, I will not dread or be terrified.” Heb. 13:6
Isa. 43:1 through Isa. 43:3 (KJV) “Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. 2When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. 3For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.”
-Pr. Steve
. . . My calling as a pastor
Pastor’s Journal 2005
Aug. 1: We ask You, Lord, to validate Your Word to us. We ask to see and recognize the glory that we walk in with You. A generation awaits the dawning of this new day. If they do not see, how will they believe in You? For Your name’s sake, validate the Living Word to Your people.
Aug. 2: “Keep the hope alive.”
Aug. 4: True intimacy is in knowing that I am in Christ, not just that He is in me.
Aug. 7: The battle was on today, but I am truly walking by faith and not by sight or feeling. In obedience to the Word of God spoken, we responded and faith was operating to defeat the enemies of our soul and the affects on the church. It is a faith walk that strengthens us to carry on. We live by the faith of the Son of God who loved us. If we draw back, there is no pleasure in Him.
Aug. 11: “My people hear the word preached and the prophecies come forth and they like it. With their mouths they show love, but with their heart it takes them after their own pursuits.”
Aug. 13: When man gives us answers but the questions still remain within us, that is only a stirring of the soul. When God answers man, the spirit of man is stirred and peace always follows.
Aug. 14: Doing God’s will according to my plans is the temptation of Satan.
Aug. 16: Let us be Jesus conscious instead of need conscious.
Aug. 18: “Whatever the Lord says for today, it is truth. I have given you the greatest of treasures. It is not about money or finances. It is about Me. I am with you, guiding you in My objectives, and every need is met. There is sufficiency for the work.”
Aug. 26: Often times we start out asking the Lord’s direction; but when it comes, we forget Him in all the excitement. We get caught up with doing something and before long He is not Lord of it. I repent Lord, for starting with You and taking over the process.
Aug. 27: “Do not meddle in other people’s lives. Busybodies find out matters that don’t concern them and speak evil because they don’t understand. It brings dissention and mistrust along with speculation.” Help us, O God, to tend to our own business.
Aug. 28: “Raise up the Calebs and teach them how to take the mountains.”
Aug. 30: “Do not live by compulsion. Do not live by impulsiveness, but by conscious choice follow, obey and walk in faith.”
Aug. 31: “I have placed you in the cave for your protection. You are to come out when I say come out and go where I say go and then come back to the cave and wait on Me. This is the ministry for you.”
Wholeness – part 1 of 3
From Articles of Faith – LWCF Membership
XII. DIVINE HEALING
Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement and is the privilege of all believers (Isa.53:4; Matt.8:16-17; I Pet.2:24).
Isa. 53:4 (KJV) “4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
Matt. 8:16 through Matt. 8:17 (KJV) “16When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: 17That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.”
1 Pet. 2:24 (KJV) “24Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
… means to cure, mend (binding and loosing)
3 reasons for not being healed:
· Sin
· No relationship
· No faith
1. Sin
Ex. gluttony or laziness
When we do not take care of our bodies, there are consequences. Pray grace for the sin and mercy for the consequences.
2. No relationship
Judson Cornwall - “People come to church to have their needs met – no needs, no attendance.”
You relationship with church reflects your relationship with God
3. No faith
Live by faith or by sight. Whose report do you believe?
Cyberchondriacs: Hypochondriacs that find and research new sicknesses they find on the internet.
Christ made people WHOLE in the New Testament
1. Whole means to strengthen (endurance)
2. Whole means to deliver, save, protect (body, soul, spirit)
3. Whole means to grow (maturity)
4. Whole means to cure, mend (binding and loosing)
5. Whole means to strengthen (endurance)
Matt. 9:10 through Matt. 9:13 (KJV) 10And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. 11And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? 12But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 13But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Christ is not speaking of physical sickness as the analogy may signify. He is speaking of instruction and wisdom, of hearing the Lord’s voice with obedience and of knowing what to do and how to obey it. (to be continued)
-Pr. Chad
Increase Not Supplement
John 3:30 (KJV) “He must increase, but I [must] decrease.”
How each of us measures what we determine to be increase or decrease varies individually, but do we understand the difference between the word “increase” and the word “supplement”? Webster’s definition of the word “supplement” is, “An addition to any thing by which its defects are supplied, and it is made more full and complete.” Webster’s definition of the word “increase” is, “To become greater in bulk or quantity or; to grow.” And according to the (ISBE) as a noun it is usually used of plant life, or of the herds and flocks, to denote the fruitage or the offspring. The point being made is that supplementing, being the form of adding too something, is no substitute for biblical increase. Biblical increase comes from allowing the Word of God, as well as the Spirit of God, to increase in us, bearing the form of new life and new fruit.
Col 2:18-19 (KJV) “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, (19) And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.”
Many people today think that having a good religious view of Christianity is sufficient, so they never really get to any depth of relationship. Without the decrease of our personal opinions of Christianity, along with the gaining of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, we could only hope to cloak our old self nature. Jesus did not give His life on the cross so that we could be white washed on the outside but still dead on the inside, but rather that our whole being could be changed from the inside out.
2Co 5:17 (KJV) “Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
When you remodel something, it does not become new; it becomes different. The transformation is only complete when the old is torn down and the new is built in its place. One crucial element is having the tools both to take down the old and to build the new. When it comes to salvation, Jesus Christ is the only way, truth and life.
Gal 2:20 (KJV) “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
When we live in Christ, we live in the living Christ Who now rules and reigns as King and Lord of all. Therefore it is not only what He has done that we must accept and adhere to, but most importantly, what He wants to do with each of us. If Christ is to increase in us, we must die daily to our earthly desires and stay free from the things that would consume our lives.
-Kurt Thurston
Circumstances
There are times when the Lord speaks, and then there are times when the Lord SPEAKS.
One thing I’m learning recently is the infinite ways in which the Lord chooses to speak. His speaking started with a line from a song by the group Mercy Me; interestingly, the song is called “Bring in the Rain.” The line that struck me was, “Can circumstances possibly / Change who I forever am in You?”
Before even hearing the song, the Lord had spoken to me the word “Rain” one night at work. I thought perhaps he meant “Reign” since He’s been teaching us about warfare, but so much for my thinking. He spoke that He meant what He meant, and not what Webster, Encarta, or Strong’s had to say on the matter.
I chewed on the word “circumstance” for several days as well, but I didn’t seem to be receiving any clarity on the idea until I was impressed to look at it as two words; “circum” and “stance.” At this point, I felt released to consult Webster’s dictionary for some definitions.
“Circum” means “circle, to make a circle, around.” I was reminded of the early explorers who “circumnavigated” the world. “Stance” means “position, [posture, stay, to stand, a way of standing or being placed, intellectual or emotional attitude.]”
Two days later I received an email called “Circumstances.” It was a quote by Hugh Downs; “A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”
So what’s our attitude? Do we think that we are stuck where we are because “my father didn’t tell me he loved me when I was eight,” or because “Mom didn’t put a band-aid on my knee that time when…?” You fill in your own blanks. How many times have we been told that we’re going around the same old mountain, a mountain of circumstance that is blocking the way to truth, freedom, and the life our Lord offers?
Rain wears a mountain down, breaking it into smaller pieces that can be carried away. And how interesting that the run-off from mountains, called “till” fertilizes and enriches the soil below. While it looks like flour in water, it’s good stuff. Isn’t it time to tear down those mountains and enrich our soil for the harvest to come?
What does the Bible say about “Circumstance”? Nothing? Look in Strong’s and it’s not even mentioned. I believe it’s because the Lord isn’t moved by circumstance because it’s not in His plan for our lives. I see Circumstance as a demon standing in the middle of our path, keeping us from what the Lord has chosen for us. As we respond to Circumstances, we find ourselves going around the mountain again and again.
What is in Strong’s is “circumcised” which means, “to cut short, curtail, to destroy, to cut down in pieces.” Are we ready to stop going around the same mountain and cut short what’s been stopping us?
-David Oakley
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