What are we supposed to do?

Luke 4:18 “ The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

 When Jesus announces this, He is affirming the essence of His ministry and the ministry He has passed on to His church.  Everyone one of us has an anointing from the Lord.  Our anointings are all different, but we are all anointed.  We are all to preach the gospel to the poor.  It doesn’t matter if you are a preacher or not.  We are all called to preach the gospel.  More people are won to the Lord in a one on one situation, more than anything else.

 We are called to heal the broken hearted.  There is a multitude of people in and out of church that are dealing with broken hearts for one reason or another.  We are to proclaim liberty to the captives.  People are held captive to all types of things, but it is the truth that will set them free.  We are to proclaim Jesus, and if the Son makes you free you shall be free indeed.  We are to open the eyes of the blind.  We are to declare healing in Jesus name, not only are physical eyes opened but also spiritual eyes are opened through Jesus.

We are to set at liberty those who are oppressed.  The enemy has kept people oppressed and depressed for far to long.  It I time to rise up and take our anointing and declare Jesus and see people set free.

Luke 4:19 AMP 19To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound.

 It is time for the free favors of God to profusely abound on our lives and others.

Photo Cortesy Mjutabor

If you can believe, all things are possible.

Mark 9:23-24  Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”  24  Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
 I recently heard someone say that we should repent of unbelief.  I don’t know if I really ever considered that before, but after thinking about it, I have to agree.  I think we can become like this father.  He obviously had been through a lot. He had heard of that Jesus healed and brings his boy to Jesus for healing.  The disciples couldn’t help him and finally Jesus arrives on the scene.  Jesus rebuked the disciples for their unbelief and then asks the boy’s father is he believes.  The boys father replies, “I believe but help my unbelief.”

I think often times, we are that way.  We believe, but really don’t believe.  In other words, we believe in our heads but not our hearts.  Sometimes we can go through things that can beat us down and even though we believe, we really don’t believe.  That is why I would have to agree. We need to repent of unbelief and truly believe God.

 Because, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Mark 9:23

Photo Courtesy Ivan Charnetski

A healthy diet

I have a lot of friends and family who have been focusing on eating healthy and watching their diets in this New Year,which got me to thinking about our spiritual diets.  We all know the verse in Matt.4:4.  Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'   And we all know that we need to feed our spirits the Word of God.  Smith Wigglesworth said, “We feed our bodies 3 meals a day and our spirits one cold snack a week.”, so we need to be people who feed on the Word of God daily.

There are a couple of other things I want to remind you of if we want a healthy diet for our spirits.  We have to watch what we look at.  I know that may not be popular in the day that we are living, b ut David said it this way. Psalm 101:3  I will set before my eyes no vile thing. The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not cling to me. 

And we have to be careful of what we say.  Once again, David gives us good advice in Psalm 141:3.  Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips.

If we will do these things we are feeding our spirits a healthy diet.

Photo Courtesy Guilu

that I may know Him

Phil. 3:10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

I said in the last blog that Paul’s desire to know Christ is challenging to all of us.  I feel that in my life I have just barely scratched the surface in knowing Christ.

In this verse, we all probably want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection.  Everywhere you look people talk about the power of Christ, and yes He is all-powerful.  Nothing can withstand the power of Christ.  There is no problem in our lives that the power of Christ can’t fix.

But what about “the fellowship of His sufferings”?  I couldn’t tell you the last time I ever heard a sermon on suffering.  It certainly isn’t a crowd pleaser or a sermon you will use to build a church.  You are not going to hear about suffering on TV, but people in the bible who had more faith and revelation than most people talk about suffering.

Face it, if you want to know Christ according to Paul and the bible; you are going to come to know Christ through suffering as well.  So how bad do you want to know Him?

Count all things loss

Phil. 3-7-14  But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.  8  Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ  9  and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;  10  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death,  11  if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  12  Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.  13  Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,  14  I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

I love this passage of scripture and have been reading these verses for years.  I have yet to really wrap my mind around them.  Just when I think I might be getting a hold of what Paul was writing about, I realize I really don’t have any idea of the revelation he had, but here are just a few thoughts on these verses.  Paul was willing to count everything a loss in order to “know” Christ.  Paul said he lost all things and counted them rubbish so that he may “gain” Christ. WOW!  I mean really, that was Paul’s attitude, that was his desire.   It was what motivated him.  He wanted to know Christ; and if anybody knew Christ is was Paul.  The word “gain” in the Greek means to win or make profit or gained by investment.  Paul was willing to invest the time and his life into knowing and pursuing Christ.

I want to know Christ as well, but when I read these verses I can’t wrap my mind around Paul's selflessness and really how shallow I am.  I want to know Christ at the level Paul was at and I  have a long way to go.  I find that I have just barely scratched the surface.  I have to be willing to count all things loss and invest the time and my life in to knowing Christ.  How about you?

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Cross at the Devin Castle Ruins, Slovakia

Think about such things

Phil. 4:8  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

This verse came to mind the other day.  We have all kind of things to think about during the day that bombards us and if you watch the news they usually seem to have a negative take on things or a worst-case scenario about everything going on.  But the Word of God tells us how we are supposed to think and what to think about.  I didn’t really come up with a New Years resolution, but one thing I am trying to do more than ever is to think on things that are positive and that lift you up and to think the best about situations and people.

I read where when people think the worst-case scenario about a situation or people that neither one of them ever come about or is true, so why waste the time.  Think about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy.

Lets believe the best about our futures and the people around us.

It has been COLD outside!

Rev.3:15-16  “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I could wish you were cold or hot.  16  So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.  NJKV

I had my mind on the weather as I was preparing to write a blog.   I was thinking about how cold it is and is going to be.  I was looking out at the snow and thinking about how co-workers and friends are saying enough already.  Bring on spring.  Then as the TV meteorologists began talking of the frigid temperatures that were coming our way, I thought of these verses.

Jesus says He wants us cold or hot but not lukewarm.   I don’t know about you, but there are some things I like hot. I like my coffee hot, my food hot and when I take a shower I want it to be hot.  I like certain things cold as well.  I like my coke cold, my milk cold, and my ice cream cold.  But I really cannot think of anything I like lukewarm and apparently Jesus doesn’t care for lukewarm either.

Jesus wants us cold or hot.   I am sure you have heard many sermons on this, but let me give this slant on this verse.  Jesus wants us hot for Him.  In this start of the New Year and with all the resolutions we need to make sure are lives are on fire for Jesus and if our lives are hot after Jesus we will be like a cold refreshing drink to those around us.

Proverbs 25:25 As cold water to a weary soul, So is good news from a far country. NJKV

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take a deep breath....

We have just past through the Christmas season, which usually means a lot of stress for people.  Whether you are out in traffic or wondering how you are going to pay for all the Christmas presents for everyone and also pay the bills.  Stress and anxiety can build up and it seems like one little insignificant thing can set you off.  Sometimes we need to stop and take a deep breath and allow the Holy Spirit to be in control of our life.

I just finished reading the book “Forgotten God” by Francis Chan and was reminded of how much I need the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life and how much I need the fruit of the Holy Spirit developed in my life.
Gal. 5:22-23  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 2 3 gentleness, self-control.  Against such there is no law.  NKJV

So many times I think we focus on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. (1Cor.12:8-10)  and forget we need to develop the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Come Holy Spirit we ask for Your presence to be fully aware in our lives.

Photo Courtesy V. Edmond Mihai

We wish to see Jesus

John 12:20-21  Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast.  21  Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”


As we start this new year, this should be one of our goals.  We need to “see Jesus”.  We need to see Jesus is every area of our lives.  Jesus wants to be involved in every area of our lives, but sometimes we close off areas of our lives, but we need to allow Jesus to be involved in every part.  That is His desire.

The other side of this, is we have a lot of churches and ministries that talk about Jesus, but is the world really seeing Jesus through our churches and ministries?  We can promote all the things we are doing, but are they pointing to Jesus?

Jesus is still the source and answer to any problem we will face.  He is still the only way to heaven and He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Photo Courtesy Ivn3da