Look for Opportunity

“Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about His mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains”
(Colossians 4:3, NLT)

When Paul wrote today’s verse, he was in chains in prison. He had been arrested for preaching the gospel. Everything in his surroundings shouted “limitations,” but instead of looking at his surroundings, Paul kept his eyes on the limitless God. He kept looking for the open door of opportunity that God would have for him next.

No matter what “chains” you may feel like you are in today, remember, we serve a God who’s in the business of setting people free. When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, He fills you with His power. He promises to walk with you all the days of your life.

When doors look closed all around you, when your surroundings look limited, when you feel like you’re in chains, remember, God is still at work in your life. Like Paul, keep your hopes up. Keep expecting. Keep believing. Pray for those opportunities to be opened to you. If you fall, get back up and press forward with even greater determination to accomplish the dream that God has planted in your heart. The prayer of the righteous avails much, so keep praying because He promises to break the chains and open doors of opportunity in your life!

Praise Sends the Enemy Running

“Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God” (Psalms 50:23).

Since praise manifests God’s presence, we also realize that praise repels the presence of the enemy, Satan. An atmosphere which is filled with sincere worship and praise to God by humble and contrite hearts is disgusting to the Devil. He fears the power in the name of Jesus, and flees from the Lord’s habitation in praise.

When the children of Judah found themselves outnumbered by the hostile armies of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, King Jehoshophat and all the people sought the Lord for His help. The Lord assured the people that this would be His battle. He told them to go out against them, and He would do the fighting for them. So what did the children of Judah do? Being the people of “praise” (Judah actually means Praise), and knowing that God manifests His power through praise, they sent their army against their enemies, led by the praisers!

So on they went, ahead of the army declaring, “Praise the Lord, for His mercy endureth forever!” And the scripture says, “...when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten” (2 Chronicles 20:22).

When God’s people begin to praise His name, it sends the enemy running! I challenge you to become a person of praise, and you will experience the release of the power of God!

Bride On Time

Are you ready for the second coming of Christ? Check these scenarios below..

Imagine the state of a newly engaged bride from a worldly angle:

1. She would be spending most of the time thinking about her fiancé, his pics, sms and so on..
2. She is least bothered about the events that is happening around her.. Seems like her would be is the only person alive on the planet Earth!
3. There is a special joy or blush upon her face as the big 'Day' is approaching. Anyone could easily read the wedding date upon her face :)
4. Would be busy handing over the wedding cards, sending invitations, sms, mail etc..
5. Do often visits beauty parlour, gym, dental clinic etc and is extremely conscious about her external appearance. They want to look the best among the crowd on their day! :)
6. Voila! On her day she is the centre of the attraction!! Here comes the bride and the bridegroom!

Let us spiritualize the above situation and apply it with connection to the coming of the Lord: &

1. The Bride of Christ's only desire will be to please her Bridegroom (Jesus) at any cost! There is no limit on prayer and bible study to know about her Bridegroom.
2. The one who waits upon the Lord never minds what the world says about them. Are you a man pleaser or god pleaser? Noah, Abraham, Moses, Daniel are the inspiring examples to lead a godly life in a perverse generation.
3. The true Bride of Christ is inspired by the 'love of Christ' instead of 'terror' when anyone mentions the Lord's coming. You are going to meet him for the first time as Rebekah met Isaac! All these days on earth you just heard about him but haven’t seen him with naked eyes.. If there is fear in your heart, sorry, you are in danger zone. No public sms voting can save you!
4. Is there an urge of sharing the gospel to others? Especially to the unsaved? The gospel is the greatest invitation card that you can hand over to your friends! Remember, it is inviting them for the biggest wedding banquette that no eye has seen or perceived in mind!
5. Is there a frequent preparation or spiritual check taken in your life? Remember, that one that did not have wedding clothes was thrown out from the banquette! God expects you to be on your best clothes and attire! (cloth of salvation, spotless white)
6. Finally, the limelight is upon the people who waited patiently for this day! Angels, nominal christians would be envious to see the beautiful bride (who prepared themselves holy) walking gently with the most handsome guy (fairer than thousands).. Oh! It’s the owners pride and neighbours envy!

Hey reader.. If you miss the heat as a newly engaged bride, Get fast and be ready for this big day.. Time is running short..

"The Bride and the Spirit says COME!"

Keeping Your Deliverence Part3

This is the third part of Keeping Your Deliverence Series . Hope it would help us all.

1. The unoccupied house

This is the portion that Jesus emphasis very clearly. This is better seen from the previous example, where David’s just had been intervened by Nathan, and the child of David and Bathsheba dies, and David is back to his feet, realizing the depth of the mistake he has been into and writes a song to the Lord. In-fact, if there is well said speech about the sin and failures; it was said by David in the passages quoted below.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

(Psalms 51:7-10 KJV)

They say that an empty mind is devil’s workshop. I believe an empty house is the devil’s war house. Here he schemes and makes plans, here the walls are painted black again, the darkness is let to rule again if this is not occupied. Jesus says about this in the verse above that when the demon that was cast out from you has searched for a place to stay and finds none, it returns to its previous house. The one in which it was driven off. You see, like most of us, who work in cubicles at office, find it hard to occupy another cubicle even for a short while; the demon is addicted to the person as much as the person is addicted to the sin. This is a two way street. It gives and it gets. David says to God in the psalm, “Create in me a clean heart and renew your spirit in me”. He asks God to renew the Holy Spirit’s presence in his life again. 

 

Now the boundaries that you were not able to take care off will be taken care of by this new law abiding Spirit. We often invite the Holy Spirit to our lives to clean us of our sins, and then forget that from then on we have given the house a new owner, the boundaries are going to be stringent. The house is going to be cleaned more often than the previous owner and like we had made sure the previous occupants stay was comfortable till he left, we now have to care that the occupant that we have invited is also comfortable. Most often for us, we see the Holy Spirit as a “Ultra Cleaners” company, that we hire to clean the house so that this can be used for new tenants, and less to that of a warden. 

 

This is the second place we fail to keep the deliverance. Inviting and believing and functioning with God in a house so that it can be cleaned.

The following series in Keeping Your Deliverence would be posted in time . Hope it would help us all.

Keeping Your Deliverence Part2

This is the second part of Keeping Your Deliverence Series . Hope it would help us all.

1. Boundary lines that we moved once

Do not move your neighbor's boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess. Deut: 19:14

We are law abiding citizens of this world and the chance that we move a boundary line from where it is on the official records is very less, but there is a bigger boundary that we do not care even if we reshape it from a square to a circle. This is the first sin. This is most often where our deliverance fails. We have in the course of treating our unwanted guest; have found that there was a sudden urge to provide more room for this guest. Our guest had not only become to act like a family member, but now started to take more crucial decisions and take more time. This guest does this very fast, but its just the matter of time by when he moves the ancient boundaries.

There are two types of boundaries that we draw; one is a physical boundary around our house, around our selves and around our table etc.I remember once when my sister and I had to share a table, we took a tape and marked out boundary lines on the table so that we could have our privacy with our things.The second kind is the not so visible boundary. In-fact the existence of such boundaries is never seen and most often biased on emotion, culture, tradition, believes etc. This is not the boundary where we move back when a person comes into your comfort zone while talking. 

This is the boundary lines that we only know, the one that only we can perceive and can see. No one else however close to us, or know us will not know where are the lines for these boundaries. But this is a spiritual boundary. This is seen by our spirit and other sprits too. When we encroach into the boundaries that we once found it wrong to even consider as an option we are led to a snare, to ensure that we have a back door if incase the demon is cast out. 
Let me make it simple, David had a recreational method of sitting in his balcony in the late afternoons and having tea. He in course of this would have seen a woman who was regular to take bath at these times. David is called a person who knew “God’s Heart”.So his initial boundary would have been, lets say, “Do not Covet”, then he moved his boundary to “Do not Lust” and so on till he had this boundary right in the middle of Uriah’s garden. 

Then observing Bathsheba was not a sin, it was regular entertainment. There is no manner in which a man however rich or great would be tempted to steal another man’s wife without keen observation. David knew exactly into what he was getting into. He must have drove the demon of lust out of him many times till he called Uriah and asked him Uriah to go home as David would have found that as the only manner in which he would forget Bathsheba. But the loyalty of Uriah to Israel was more than his to Bathsheba, and David by then was possessed with the spirits that were enough to destroy David; Lust, Covertness, Murder, Conspiracy, Ego, possibly hatred, anger and even depression that there was no way for him to get out. All began with moving the boundary. 

This is the first step to come out of a cycle. Consider the boundaries that you enlarged. When looking for salvation, think of redrawing the boundaries.

Keeping Your Deliverence

We often proclaim of the deliverance that the Lord has given and very often have a chance to repeat the same testimony. The reason sometimes is not that the testimonial time was cut short, but rather we are burying ourselves in the shame and guilt that the same demons that were driven off in prayers have come back. And as the bible says, this time its not alone, it’s got company. 

 

When an evil spirit leaves a person, it travels through the desert, looking for a place to rest. But when the demon doesn't find a place, it says, "I will go back to the home I left." When it gets there and finds the place empty, clean, and fixed up, it goes off and finds seven other evil spirits even worse than itself. They all come and make their home there, and the person ends up in worse shape than before. That's how it will be with you evil people of today.

(Matthew 12:43-45 CEV)

Some times we are found in this situation. We may have fasted and prayed, or even had many people pray over us for a deliverance from something. We get the healing instantly sometimes, other times, we get in our own quiet times. But most often we are back to the original sin in a fortnight, a week, a day, or even the very next hour. The first thing that happens is we are attacked with greater force. This is where we are crushed and have us come to the conclusion that there is no means of deliverance for us.

This is not a well defined list and the spirits may be more than this, in-fact if we look into the scripture we find that there are even legions of spirit that are in one man.

• A spirit of guilt /self condemnation
• A spirit of confusion
• A spirit of doubt
• A spirit of  self righteousness
• A spirit of depression/ suicide

Wisdom calls out saying that our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities, and this is where we have to emphasize our concern. The reasons for the sinful spirit to come back is obvious, you were a very good land lord. We feed our inner cravings to sin, care it as a child, nurture and nourish it so that it even if kicked out would want to come back to our heart. Some of the immediate concerns that come to my mind are these,

The Purpose Of OUR Gathering

Encourage One Another. Say Encouraging Words Daily

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Encouraging words make a difference.

Have you ever known someone who believed in you, someone who frequently spoke words of encouragement and praise? The kind of person who made you feel you could do it, whatever "it" was? That’s the kind of person God wants us to be. Paul gave a good guideline when he wrote that everything we say should build up the one who is listening.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen (Ephesians 4:29).

I always am encouraged when my wife praises me. The same phenomenon, multiplied by thousands of cheering fans, becomes the home court advantage in sports contests. The book of Proverbs sums up the impact encouraging words can have when it says, "The tongue has the power of life and death" (Proverbs 18:21). Your words have an impact.

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life (Proverbs 10:11).

Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers (Acts 15:32).

We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith (1 Thessalonians 3:2).

Therefore encourage each other with these words (1 Thessalonians 4:18).

Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25).

Follow God's example. Be an encourager!

You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry (Psalm 10:17).

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope (Romans 15:4).

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus (Romans 15:5).

Think positively. Look for things to encourage.

Do you bring sunshine or gloom into the room? If you are a negative person, don't say, "I'm just a worrier. I was born that way." Or, "It’s my nature to be depressed." God is in the personality-changing business. He wants you to "be conformed to the likeness of his Son" (Romans 8:29). You can change. You can become known for your encouraging words.

Life is full of problems, and we need to deal with them. But if we aren't careful, all we see are the problems. There are lots of good things we can focus on. Instead of "catching people being bad," catch them being good. Make your words a fountain of life. Be a positive person. Encourage one another.

Ask God to help you develop a positive thought life. Immerse yourself in his Word. Pray. Over time, you will discover that you can control the way you think, choosing to focus on some thoughts and to reject others. The following verse can be life changing. Write it out and post it where you will see it regularly, on your refrigerator, bathroom mirror or the dashboard of your car.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if any-thing is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Philippians 4:8).

When you wake up in the morning, ask God to help you look for and focus on the positive. Pray for this attitude throughout the day. Choose to meditate on the positive. Bring sunshine into the world.

Speak positively. Be an encourager. Encourage others daily.

When you talk, you make a series of choices about what subjects to discuss, what memories to bring up, and what points to make. There always are negative things you could say, but there also are positive ones. Choose the positive. Choose to specialize in encouraging words, not in critical comments. As Paul wrote, "Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification" (Romans 14:19). The following points give practical ways to be an encourager..

Bring friendly speech into your relationships.

Don't start complaining as soon as you see your spouse, child, employee, neighbor or someone else. Ask about his or her day. Give a compliment. Share stories about your day, insights from Bible study, victories on the job, or other things they may be interested in..

Voice words of encouragement, appreciation, support, and respect.

Acknowledge others' abilities and efforts. If someone feels inadequate, encourage him or her.

Monitor your positive and negative remarks.

Learn to be self-aware and listen to what you say. Be sure you make many more positive comments than negative ones.

Respond to problems with hope and encouragement.

When someone talks about personal difficulties, do not respond with a "gloom and doom" attitude. Listen with compassion and avoid simplistic advice. Say something such as, "I know this is a tough time for you, but it won't last. Let me encourage you: God will see you through, and I'm here to help, too."

[God] comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (2 Corinthians 1:4).

And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

Avoid subtle criticisms.

Watch out for subtle ways you may tear others down, such as pointing out how quickly you can mow the lawn when you know it takes them twice as long.

Discuss problems as a friend.

There are times in every relationship—in a family, on the job, or wherever—when people discuss difficult topics. When you do, speak in a courteous, friendly manner. The way you speak usually is more important than whether your opinions are right or wrong.

Encouraging words will make a difference.