What’s Real?
You Have The Power!
Preachers make a lot of money these days telling you to equip yourself for a victorious life. After all, we are anointed. We’re covered in the blood. God want’s us to be successful in life… Really?
People pour into civic centers around the world to hear Joyce Myres, Mike Merdock, Joel Olston, and many others; to hear what ends up being a temporary ‘feely good feeling’. This feeling soon goes away when you turn your minds gaze back to reality. Why would the Scriptures tell us to denounce worldly thought, and set our sites on heavenly things, and then give us the power to reinforce worldly values, goods and services? In the last segment in this series, I asked you what you wanted. I can’t stress enough the importance of the answer to this.
Television evangelist want you to have victory over your light bill. Your car payments, house payments, school supplies…and yet Jesus says to look to the lilies of the fields, and the birds of the air. Why does He say this, and not “Pray for power over [things] in life”. Is your life the [things] you have, or not have, and want? Well… it sort of is. But do WE need ‘power over’ those things? The birds have what we want, and never even think about it. The problem is in the thinking.
“If thine eye be single, the whole body is full of light. If not, then how great is the darkness?” It is so great that you will not notice what goes into your ears, or what comes out of your mouth. Example: “There is only one God”. Many preachers will say this, and the very next words out of their mouth will be, “and you shall worship no other God’s but Him”. It doesn’t matter if either statement is true or not. What does matter is that the two thoughts occupying the same mind at the same time, make the information obscure. Together, they don’t make a bit of since if there is only one. Then, YOU say it too.
If what you say doesn’t make since to you, then do you think it does to God? What you say is a direct reflection of what you think, and as the Scriptures tell us…”A double minded man is unstable in ALL his ways”.
This series is about faith. Jesus says, “If you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,’be plucked up and cast into the sea’, and it would obey you”. What’s real? Let’s get real. I don’t see many people talking to mountains. Why did Jesus say that? I personally have never had the need or want to move one. I personally like them right where they are. Do you? In reality, do you want to move one?
Look at these two verses. “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven; for where your treasure is, there will the heart be also“. And, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh“. We talked about belief in the first part of this series not being wishful thinking. Let’s talk about thinking. Jesus sometimes said, “Why reason you among yourselves?” The Bible tells us, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he“. When the Bible uses the word ‘heart’, it sometimes refers to a part of your thinking. The Bible also uses the word ‘mind’. What’s the difference? When Jesus asked why people were reasoning among themselves, He was talking about your reasoning mind.
The reasoning mind is where you sort things out before they are ‘known‘. Things that are known don’t have to be sorted out, or reasoned. You know you are reading this now, and tomorrow you will still know it. This will never change, outside of non-use of the knowledge (which we will discuss later); unused knowledge get’s shelved, and almost forgotten on the back-burner of your mind.
There are a lot of factors involved in faith. For now, I want to stress these two thinking ‘formats’ going on at the same time. If, as Jesus says, you are reasoning in your mind; then He is saying that you are in the ‘mode‘ of processing information. This happens RIGHT AFTER you HEAR something. You are ‘chewing on it’. If your reasoning mind approves, it is passed on to the ‘heart’. The original ‘sin’ came from a tree of ‘knowledge’. The knowledge had to be presented [heard], processed [eaten, or chewed on], and then digested,[stored as knowledge]. There was another tree there also.
Your knowledge is stored in your ‘heart’. [Things you know, that have already been processed] Look at this verse: “My people perish for lack of knowledge,” [the other tree]. There’s no shortage of information out there, so how come we have this lack of knowledge? It has to do with your belief, or faith, and as yet has not been told to you in the form of truth.
Your life follows what your heart believes to be true. You act on knowledge , and things you know [and not ponder] and this knowledge is stored in your heart. Put these verses together: ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want“…”God will grant you the desires of your heart“, and…”Ye have not because ye ask not, and ye ask not because ye ask amiss“. Is Jesus saying we’re not asking? No, He is saying that asking amiss is the same as not asking. What’s amiss? It goes back to what you want. Jesus also said that if you ask of your Father, that He will not give you a snake. Could we be asking for snakes, and not know we are? Sure we can, and do. If you don’t think a light bill can be a snake, then remember the light bill is the result of Eve listening to a snake.
This series is about increasing faith. Meditation is a third aspect of the ‘mind’. You meditate on things constantly, all the time, aware or not. What you meditate on determines what you believe. Meditation is not the same as reasoning, or knowledge.
When God first learned of Adams transgression, He didn’t first ‘blame‘ Adam, nor did He fault Adam for doing something wrong, as many “believe”. I stress in this segment what you say, for now [with your mouth]. Remember, “out of the “abundance” of the heart, the mouth speaketh“. What were God’s words to Adam. Never mind what you think was going on. Never mind what you think Adam did. What did God say,. with His mouth? What were His (this is important) ""FIRST"" words?,(out loud?) He said, “Who told you that?" THEN He asked, “Did you eat of the tree that I commanded ye not to eat?” Here’s another verse, “Take heed how you hear”, and another, “Faith commeth by hearing...”
Some of this may seem off-base to some of you. I assure you it is not. In the last segment I wanted you to think about what you want. Do you know yet? Can you write it down and look at it? All my writings have only one purpose. To get you to change your focus to Jesus. God will not empower you do do anything, as some preachers will say. He will, however, empower you to act on His behalf. There was a famous prophet that one day defeated an army of thousands, and the very next day he ran from one woman [Jezebel]. Must have been some woman.
Do you know what God wants? What’s real? Real is that no matter how many lectures you listen to, and 'feely good feelings' you get, the light bill is still a problem. The light bill is real. You and your children’s health and welfare are very real things. Here’s something else that’s real, and it is yet a fourth aspect of thought. Confusion.
The Scriptures tell us that we have an enemy, and that he is the author of confusion. An author composed a message for Eve, and delivered it. Confusion is when the reasoning mind sends thought to the heart as knowledge (or belief). If you indeed take heed how you hear, you will notice this knowledge “feels” incomplete. It feels "almost". It is actually wishful thinking, or hope. ‘Believe’ it or not, you know all this is true, but you don’t know if includes you, so you ‘hope’. I know it’s true “but”… Every good lie has truth in it.
Here’s a couple more verses before we end for now. “...having a ‘form’ of Godliness, but denying the power thereof”…and, ” Many have done many wonderful works in my name, even cast out devils, but in that day I will tell them, ‘depart from me, because I never knew you‘”. Confusion is a “form” of knowledge. Wishful thinking is a “form” of faith. Belief is different than anything else. Belief is what your heart has acts on as knowledge. “As a man thinketh, so IS he“. It’s what makes us WHAT we are. It determines WHAT we say with our mouths. It determines WHAT we believe. In the end, it determines WHAT we are, and WHAT we have. If you look around you now; what’s real? If you’re reading this, then you must THINK that you LACK something. This is real, so guess what? You do.
I have knowledge about eternal life. We talked about you knowing you are reading this, and that is now a valid belief. This is real, valid knowledge. It will not change. It will not need reasoning. It is not confusing. You know you are reading this. I know I will live forever, just like I know I wrote this. Just as Adam received from an author words of death, I also gained this knowledge from God. I didn’t reason this into being in my mind. You can’t just decide to know that you will live forever. You can’t just decide to know your light bill will be paid. You can’t ”just believe“ these things into happening. God has to tell you they will, or cause you to know they will, or you will not know it. Period. This is different than wishful thinking.
I know I will live forever. I want you to know some things, and get rid of some false beliefs. Some things early on may seem off topic. The light bill, moving mountains, and eternal life all have one thing in common. They have an obstruction. I’ll close with this. Jesus said “to him that overcommeth, I will let him eat of the tree of life, and he will live forever.“
So it seems we have something to overcome. I want you to take some time to meditate on what you want, and this time I want you to pray and ask God what you want, and what He wants. You may think you know what you want, and some of you may have already figured out Psalms 23; that the Lord will grant you the desires of your heart.
To meditate is to hold something foremost in your mind for a period of time. It’s not letting the focus of your mind wander. If you meditate on living forever, and ‘pretend’ you will, or even ‘know’ you will; none of your current thoughts will make since. My main task is to make all this real. I want you to “back away” from your life, and look at it. From your earliest memory until now, get out of your life, put it all on the table in front of you, and look at it.
As is, it has an end that is fast approaching. This is real. So is the light bill.
You Have The Power!
Preachers make a lot of money these days telling you to equip yourself for a victorious life. After all, we are anointed. We’re covered in the blood. God want’s us to be successful in life… Really?
People pour into civic centers around the world to hear Joyce Myres, Mike Merdock, Joel Olston, and many others; to hear what ends up being a temporary ‘feely good feeling’. This feeling soon goes away when you turn your minds gaze back to reality. Why would the Scriptures tell us to denounce worldly thought, and set our sites on heavenly things, and then give us the power to reinforce worldly values, goods and services? In the last segment in this series, I asked you what you wanted. I can’t stress enough the importance of the answer to this.
Television evangelist want you to have victory over your light bill. Your car payments, house payments, school supplies…and yet Jesus says to look to the lilies of the fields, and the birds of the air. Why does He say this, and not “Pray for power over [things] in life”. Is your life the [things] you have, or not have, and want? Well… it sort of is. But do WE need ‘power over’ those things? The birds have what we want, and never even think about it. The problem is in the thinking.
“If thine eye be single, the whole body is full of light. If not, then how great is the darkness?” It is so great that you will not notice what goes into your ears, or what comes out of your mouth. Example: “There is only one God”. Many preachers will say this, and the very next words out of their mouth will be, “and you shall worship no other God’s but Him”. It doesn’t matter if either statement is true or not. What does matter is that the two thoughts occupying the same mind at the same time, make the information obscure. Together, they don’t make a bit of since if there is only one. Then, YOU say it too.
If what you say doesn’t make since to you, then do you think it does to God? What you say is a direct reflection of what you think, and as the Scriptures tell us…”A double minded man is unstable in ALL his ways”.
This series is about faith. Jesus says, “If you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,’be plucked up and cast into the sea’, and it would obey you”. What’s real? Let’s get real. I don’t see many people talking to mountains. Why did Jesus say that? I personally have never had the need or want to move one. I personally like them right where they are. Do you? In reality, do you want to move one?
Look at these two verses. “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven; for where your treasure is, there will the heart be also“. And, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh“. We talked about belief in the first part of this series not being wishful thinking. Let’s talk about thinking. Jesus sometimes said, “Why reason you among yourselves?” The Bible tells us, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he“. When the Bible uses the word ‘heart’, it sometimes refers to a part of your thinking. The Bible also uses the word ‘mind’. What’s the difference? When Jesus asked why people were reasoning among themselves, He was talking about your reasoning mind.
The reasoning mind is where you sort things out before they are ‘known‘. Things that are known don’t have to be sorted out, or reasoned. You know you are reading this now, and tomorrow you will still know it. This will never change, outside of non-use of the knowledge (which we will discuss later); unused knowledge get’s shelved, and almost forgotten on the back-burner of your mind.
There are a lot of factors involved in faith. For now, I want to stress these two thinking ‘formats’ going on at the same time. If, as Jesus says, you are reasoning in your mind; then He is saying that you are in the ‘mode‘ of processing information. This happens RIGHT AFTER you HEAR something. You are ‘chewing on it’. If your reasoning mind approves, it is passed on to the ‘heart’. The original ‘sin’ came from a tree of ‘knowledge’. The knowledge had to be presented [heard], processed [eaten, or chewed on], and then digested,[stored as knowledge]. There was another tree there also.
Your knowledge is stored in your ‘heart’. [Things you know, that have already been processed] Look at this verse: “My people perish for lack of knowledge,” [the other tree]. There’s no shortage of information out there, so how come we have this lack of knowledge? It has to do with your belief, or faith, and as yet has not been told to you in the form of truth.
Your life follows what your heart believes to be true. You act on knowledge , and things you know [and not ponder] and this knowledge is stored in your heart. Put these verses together: ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want“…”God will grant you the desires of your heart“, and…”Ye have not because ye ask not, and ye ask not because ye ask amiss“. Is Jesus saying we’re not asking? No, He is saying that asking amiss is the same as not asking. What’s amiss? It goes back to what you want. Jesus also said that if you ask of your Father, that He will not give you a snake. Could we be asking for snakes, and not know we are? Sure we can, and do. If you don’t think a light bill can be a snake, then remember the light bill is the result of Eve listening to a snake.
This series is about increasing faith. Meditation is a third aspect of the ‘mind’. You meditate on things constantly, all the time, aware or not. What you meditate on determines what you believe. Meditation is not the same as reasoning, or knowledge.
When God first learned of Adams transgression, He didn’t first ‘blame‘ Adam, nor did He fault Adam for doing something wrong, as many “believe”. I stress in this segment what you say, for now [with your mouth]. Remember, “out of the “abundance” of the heart, the mouth speaketh“. What were God’s words to Adam. Never mind what you think was going on. Never mind what you think Adam did. What did God say,. with His mouth? What were His (this is important) ""FIRST"" words?,(out loud?) He said, “Who told you that?" THEN He asked, “Did you eat of the tree that I commanded ye not to eat?” Here’s another verse, “Take heed how you hear”, and another, “Faith commeth by hearing...”
Some of this may seem off-base to some of you. I assure you it is not. In the last segment I wanted you to think about what you want. Do you know yet? Can you write it down and look at it? All my writings have only one purpose. To get you to change your focus to Jesus. God will not empower you do do anything, as some preachers will say. He will, however, empower you to act on His behalf. There was a famous prophet that one day defeated an army of thousands, and the very next day he ran from one woman [Jezebel]. Must have been some woman.
Do you know what God wants? What’s real? Real is that no matter how many lectures you listen to, and 'feely good feelings' you get, the light bill is still a problem. The light bill is real. You and your children’s health and welfare are very real things. Here’s something else that’s real, and it is yet a fourth aspect of thought. Confusion.
The Scriptures tell us that we have an enemy, and that he is the author of confusion. An author composed a message for Eve, and delivered it. Confusion is when the reasoning mind sends thought to the heart as knowledge (or belief). If you indeed take heed how you hear, you will notice this knowledge “feels” incomplete. It feels "almost". It is actually wishful thinking, or hope. ‘Believe’ it or not, you know all this is true, but you don’t know if includes you, so you ‘hope’. I know it’s true “but”… Every good lie has truth in it.
Here’s a couple more verses before we end for now. “...having a ‘form’ of Godliness, but denying the power thereof”…and, ” Many have done many wonderful works in my name, even cast out devils, but in that day I will tell them, ‘depart from me, because I never knew you‘”. Confusion is a “form” of knowledge. Wishful thinking is a “form” of faith. Belief is different than anything else. Belief is what your heart has acts on as knowledge. “As a man thinketh, so IS he“. It’s what makes us WHAT we are. It determines WHAT we say with our mouths. It determines WHAT we believe. In the end, it determines WHAT we are, and WHAT we have. If you look around you now; what’s real? If you’re reading this, then you must THINK that you LACK something. This is real, so guess what? You do.
I have knowledge about eternal life. We talked about you knowing you are reading this, and that is now a valid belief. This is real, valid knowledge. It will not change. It will not need reasoning. It is not confusing. You know you are reading this. I know I will live forever, just like I know I wrote this. Just as Adam received from an author words of death, I also gained this knowledge from God. I didn’t reason this into being in my mind. You can’t just decide to know that you will live forever. You can’t just decide to know your light bill will be paid. You can’t ”just believe“ these things into happening. God has to tell you they will, or cause you to know they will, or you will not know it. Period. This is different than wishful thinking.
I know I will live forever. I want you to know some things, and get rid of some false beliefs. Some things early on may seem off topic. The light bill, moving mountains, and eternal life all have one thing in common. They have an obstruction. I’ll close with this. Jesus said “to him that overcommeth, I will let him eat of the tree of life, and he will live forever.“
So it seems we have something to overcome. I want you to take some time to meditate on what you want, and this time I want you to pray and ask God what you want, and what He wants. You may think you know what you want, and some of you may have already figured out Psalms 23; that the Lord will grant you the desires of your heart.
To meditate is to hold something foremost in your mind for a period of time. It’s not letting the focus of your mind wander. If you meditate on living forever, and ‘pretend’ you will, or even ‘know’ you will; none of your current thoughts will make since. My main task is to make all this real. I want you to “back away” from your life, and look at it. From your earliest memory until now, get out of your life, put it all on the table in front of you, and look at it.
As is, it has an end that is fast approaching. This is real. So is the light bill.
