Important Defenses

Important Defenses

4/27/17

Much controversy has been circulating around considering the construction and reinforcing the borders of this nation.  The sides have been drawn and are defended quite heavily on this issue by all those who care to weigh in.  But in all-around standings, we must consider the protection of this nation and how to make sure that all lives are safe as much as possible.  Our spiritual protection is just as important as our physical and should be protected in like manner and whether we wish to admit it or not, both issues are at hand today.  God wants both our physical and spiritual dominions protected and when we look at it in this manner, it is easy to justify this necessity.

This topic runs deep with parallels in our lives and for the continued protection that we so desperately desire.  I find it difficult to sit back and observe the patterns that emerge each day but at the same time, these patterns do not surprise me, for they represent a graphical truth that all humanity expresses.  To be honest, I would not expect anything different to be showing right at the moment for it is a true reality of what lies within our hearts.  The only issue that is of any eternal concern is that we fail to recognize exactly what is transpiring and that our actions today shall affect our standing both physically and eternally at some point in the future.

One needs to understand a few words of wisdom before we proceed any further.  First of all, this message comes from God and not me, I want to make sure that this truth is set into motion upfront before anything else is written.  Secondly, this message has nothing to do with politics or one side of an issue or another, it will strictly be guided and directed to you the individual reader from God on your behalf of your life.  Protection is the utmost of importance to God and He wants us to remember the reasons why it is important to protect ourselves first, not later.  Again, this is NOT a political topic it is one of pure safety of you.  If anyone tries to play this message from God into a political ploy then shame on you for God gave us brains and He expects us to use them in the only capacity that we can, honorable and true not biased.  

I find it amazing of how many conflicting answers people give concerning the issue of protection, and what intrigues me the most is the ensuing arguments that those answers provide.  While none of us shall ever agree on all issues I truly believe that all should be civil in our disagreements.  Yet, as each issue comes and goes we see tensions between ourselves increase and thus promote further division.  Defense structures are in place for a reason and there is an intimate and specific detail that we must consider before we rush into whether or not we build a wall or not for even the individual protection of a society is just as important as the entire society itself, a detail that we do not even follow with consistency.

Anyone remember the old movie “The Boy In The Bubble”?  It was a movie that gave some details about a young boy who was born without an immune system and basically had to live in total seclusion from all society due to this condition.  I watched this movie with my parents back in the early 80s and it raised many questions in my head concerning how people felt and how they got bugs and how they got over them.  There were all kinds of imaginative thought processes over this movie and how a family would respond to such an event, not to mention all of the differing opinions that the movie brought to light as well.  All of us have had the flu or had a cold and even some of us have other immune system conditions as a long term illness.  But do we understand that our immune system is at work even when our bodily functions are at a perfect level?  And do we understand that we need these immune functions in order for us to not be subject to live inside an enclosed environment?  In other words, our immune systems build a wall starting with our skin and then also being reinforced through tiny molecules running through our vessels and tissues so that our defensive mechanisms stay within normal boundaries. It is for this reason alone that any choice made in our lives must be carefully and specifically rectified before ignoring the overall possibilities.

Over the past few months, God has been showing us some of the detailed events that took place in the Garden of Eden.  Some of these events were well known and yet God expanded our knowledge concerning examples but there were a few of these items that God has completely opened our eyes about and through this new content has brought about a better understanding of how things transpired in the Garden.  God makes it clear in Genesis Chapter 2 that Adam has a job to do and that his job is to dress and to keep the Garden of Eden in order.  The Garden of Eden was Adam’s dominion, the one that God gave Adam to live in and to ensure all things were kept in order, thus serve as the defender of his dominion the one who would be the defense from anything that sought to do harm.  Harm over what?  You know that question had to be asked by Adam and one that God must have explained to him over the course of time before the fall of man occurred.  While we have previously discussed borders and boundaries, there is a specific detail that God wants us to know through this message, so while some of the material may be a repeat the read and knowledge is valuable to our lives.

Adam and Eve had the choice to keep God’s Law continuous or to break its protection by doing what they deemed to be adequate in their own eyes.  It was totally up to Adam and Eve for this decision and when they made the decision to listen to another who convinced them that no godly defense was needed, their world soon came crashing down around them for God’s protection had been breached by disobedience.  This is a prime example of why it is so important for us to maintain and to recognize the boundaries and defensive mechanisms of our lives for when Adam and Eve chose not to keep up the dominion that they had, they lost it and were never allowed to have it back or even return to its presence again.  Here lies the truth about having defined boundaries and fortified borders around and in our lives for without them or if we do not believe in them, we are defenseless and shall believe anything that is told to us by anyone operating within our reach.

We must also remember an important detail about the dominion that God gave Adam and Eve to dress and to keep, their dominion was alive.  From the command that God gave Adam, it meant that the Garden of Eden would not keep itself that it had to have someone over it to maintain its presence in the fashion that its life gave and in order for the Garden to provide what it was meant to give it had to have someone over it.  Therefore, its life was in the hands of Adam and Eve for when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden angels and a flaming sword was put in their respective places; besides a few further references the Garden of Eden was never mentioned again nor was it ever saw either, a significant detail about how important it is to keep up defenses for just our own lives but for other life as well, a matter to really contemplate about when one looks at it on this level.

Back when I was a kid, I became a bit confused when at times my parents wanted me to be around certain kids when they were not feeling well.  When I was living in Hope, Arkansas I remember that one of my friends had a bunch of red dots on his skin and when his mother approached my mother about the situation it seemed to be all ok.  I also remember that within a few days I too had those little red dots on my arms, chest, and legs and I was not feeling the best either.  But, when another one of my friends became sick with the flu, my mother kept me away from him poured cough medicine down me and checked on how I was feeling every few hours.  A tad confusing to a kid but with whatever method my parents took I knew that they were doing the best for me and only wanted the best for my life.  Boy, you should have heard me when it was mentioned that it was time for me to get a shot, we will leave this subject right there.  That trend from my parents about knowing what is best continues today and I am so lucky that they are still with us and continue to provide valuable guidance and wisdom to me and to my family. 

I know that not every person reading this message will agree with what my parents did back then, and that is ok but in my life what they did turn out to be the best defense system for my life, for I do not know how things would have turned out for me if they had not loved me enough to make sure that I was protected on every level as possible.  Mom and dad could have counted on my healthy condition to be the warranting pattern and not had I received the inoculations but what if I received something else of a greater magnitude, what if I did not?  All of these questions plus much more do loom large in a parent’s heart but it at this point where the nervous parent should trust the physician and their recommendations as guidance.  Do we follow such healthy guidelines today or are we mandated in some certain areas to complete this type of task without question?  A sign of variance that is not considered to be a stable environment if one wishes to push it to this limit – which we all need to do.

So, what do this matter and subject have to do with our eternal placement?  The choices that we make will in all roads lead to where we will spend eternity.  If we do not or refuse to put into place defenses around our boundaries we will be subject to the invaders, any invaders, who wish to harm our lives.  If we have a system in place that requires certain procedures to be followed before such individuals are allowed to freely enter this country the chances of us or others becoming victims of their wrath are slimmer than if none existed.  The same concept can be placed on an individual level, a national level or spiritual level and each level will be directly involved in the other guaranteed.  I do not care what you have been told before about humanity and how good people may seem to be, in truth all humans have an evil nature to them for it is a condition that we all have, the Bible states that all are born into sin and sin is disobedience which means not doing something that is good or right.  ALL are born into sin, with no one being exempt from such a condition which means that no one is exempted from this border, boundary or defensive positioning.

Why do the positions of so many today not surprise me when they voluntarily forfeit their defensive mechanisms in the name of “freedom”?  Because it is the common will of today’s societies to want to be absolutely in control of their lives and in order for that to be accomplished no boundaries are allowed for there is so much love to go around.  Plus, and this is the most important reason as to why people do not want boundaries or defined borders is that if these wonderful people believe in the Bible they believe it on their terms alone but for the majority of them they do not consider the Bible to be credible enough to warrant a sincere thought about which places them in line with the enemy of our lives both physical and spiritual and by this definition of belief and the truth that all are born into sin concurs with what the Word of God says about yours and my eternal positioning. 

As Adam and Eve found out, an untidy and undressed dominion is subject to fall from your grasp at any moment.  As my life has progressed over the last forty nine years, I have learned that if I do not take up the defense for my family, they shall be taken away from me.  The truth of these two events also applies to God and to our spiritual lives, for if we do not adequately and purely defend God and His Word, our eternal positioning shall be with Satan and his defeated life.  Why would we want to listen to and place our trust in a belief of non defense to the king of losers?  Hello!!!  Our enemy is eternally defeated because God adequately defended His Dominion when Lucifer decided to try and do things on his own.  It is our goal to be like God and while we fall short our hearts are the one that should desire to be more like Him and not the world.

God asks us to take a hard look at our lives and to see where our defenses are.  Are they in good shape, do they need repair and reinforcing or are they even there?  If a nation has shoddy defenses and a good army their status shall be overrun after a while, the same is true when you have good defenses but a lousy army, but God did not and does not intend for His children to be subjected to those types of conditions.  So why do we enthrall ourselves in such madness?  God wants His children to live in peace and prosperity at all times, ALL of His children, not just a few.  Living in God’s Laws fortifies our lives both spiritually and physically and provides us with the best defenses possible to withstand the attacks from our enemy.  God asks us if we will allow Him to be our definition of our defensive system, both inside and out.  If we do allow him this title in our lives then He is faithful and just to protect us according to His Covenant that is in place for us but if we do not then we shall soon witness a great destructive force that will not only eat at us from within but physically change our land until it is no longer recognizable to any eye.

Our inner immune system builds a wall of protection that we need in order to survive, just as our national borders need a defined border of recognition which is respected not mocked.  Remember all wars have begun when an enemy, declared or undeclared, has crossed a boundary in force and when this occurs whose fault is it when the invaded country falls?  It is not the invading country or enemy but the country that was inadequately prepared to defend itself when it came time, a horrific example to enforce the options of choice into play but a necessary one to remind us that we all need to ensure the proper border defense instead of building up personal walls in retaliation to those being proposed.  If we automatically limit our inner defense mechanisms how will we be strong enough to protect our surroundings when the time calls for endurance?

Church, it is our responsibility to build up the inner immune (spiritual) system through the living words of the Bible.  We are the examples that need to be in touch with God at all times and not messengers from the world.  God does not care about Republicans, Baptists, Democrats, Catholics or any other descriptive word or phrase that we tend to hide behind cheaply relate with, He ONLY cares about your heart and how it needs to recognize its Creator for if we do not then He will lose a child for eternity.  Our lives need a good defensive mechanism in order to survive and so does our heart.  God has given us a brain to take care of the physical and has given us a spirit to take care of our eternal.  It is our wakening up to the fact that we need both aspects protected that is of the utmost importance and this life-saving formula shall not occur unless we have God first in our lives.  If we approach God’s Word with shoddy tactics and “bits and pieces” belief we are sunk.  Allow God to restore our hearts so that we shall understand the importance of defenses, for as the old saying goes the best defense I a great offense and vice versa.

DLB

Just As I Am 2

Just As I Am 2

4/25/17

A couple of years ago God shared with us a message about the words to a song that has been a foundation in my life.  But now God comes to us again with an extension of those words and a direct meaning to his calling for us to repent and to return to His Way.  This is a straight forward message and one that God wants us to take to heart and to listen, for our ways that we have chosen have followed a certain path and it is this path that He wants to be changed.  God loves us and wishes not for us to be in a wilderness either spiritually or physically but right at the moment that is exactly where we are located.  Let’s change our path and our hearts so that we may not spend “40 years” wandering in circles waiting for our Promised Land.

A while ago, I took some time to look back at some of the messages that God has shared with us in the writings that He has given me.  I went all the way back to the beginning of my writings and a common theme soon jumped out at me, it was obvious that for the majority of my life I refused to write or to develop this skill.  Almost every aspect of my words and sentence structure were utterly confusing, at best choppy and most of the sentences were so grossly fragmented that their meaning was difficult to comprehend.  Even today, I am not considered to be a professional writer by any means but I can tell a difference in my writings today from that time ago almost six years now.  I cannot contribute this growth to anything or to anyone besides God and it is this truth that God wants us to understand about our belief that it is ok that we stay in the same place after we turn our hearts to Him and how wrong that belief is to our eternal existence.

The words that I stared at on my remembrance tour were jumping off the page and screaming to me to be fixed, so I resigned myself to begin a project that would take some time but what I believed to be necessary in order to make things look better for those who might migrate back to that writing time.  As I have stated from time to time I did not like to write when I was younger and when I look at those first articles of mine I can easily see that the statement I just made was 100% accurate.  When my eyes saw my efforts back then, I quickly began to rewrite one of my first messages to reflect a manner to which I believed would be fitting for my current writing style.  It was then that god asked me “what are you doing?”  My response was great, a human and selfish one and it was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying.

“I am making your messages better” was my statement and as soon as I finished those words God spoke and said to me that those were His words and that they served as an example of how growth in Him works.  I felt like I had been cut down to an inch high for it was then that God showed me that what He wanted me to write about was how His restoration process worked and that I was not the same person, in writing and in life that I was when I first obeyed what He wanted me to do.  His words revealed to me that the world shall drive you down to a point of destruction and then hang you there until you give up and succumb to its grip. But God works in a manner in which a process of restoration begins but in order for us to receive it we must understand that it is a growth process and not one that occurs and is completed overnight.  And it is this process that we need to understand about the world, God’s processes and our restoration in His manner.  It also describes just how God works in this process and once again the children of Israel provide us with an excellent example of this glorious process, both of how God operates and how we sometimes miss out on what He is doing in our lives as well.  Oh, and those words that I tried to fix were left just as they were written and they now serve as a foundation for my growth in God and what He is doing in my life today.

Back in 2015, God shared with us about a wonderful song that many churches sing at certain times of the service when God is calling people to return to Him.  While this song is a great hymn that all should hide within their heart it serves as the foundation for our lives and not stabilize our hearts in a specific staying spot, thus restating that God accepts us as we are but does not expect us to remain in that condition of worldly existence.  It is this point that many people who attend church these days live under – staying in that same spot – and honestly, believe that they are safe from the world and are doing what is expected of them from God.  It is this personal deception that is eternally dangerous and needs to be eradicated completely from our hearts and beliefs.

We must never forget that it is our enemy who designed deception and it is through this act that he is defined as the father of lies.  A good description of deception is one that glorifies you instead of God, in other words, anything that lifts our standards of life and lowers God’s is deception.  The Bible gives us a perfect example of this process and it is one that has been taught about many times over the centuries and it deals with the children of Israel and their time in the wilderness.  Through this example we will learn that while God does accept us as in our ugliness when we come to Him but we will also learn that He cannot allow us to remain in this condition and that He offers cleaning on every level so that we may seek His eternal life spotless and blameless before Him, totally separated from the world.

There are many aspects to the story of the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt.  Their arrival into Egypt was a glorious relief but after a long time in that country, their presence became a concern from the ruling leaders and one that needed to be kept under control for fear of a takeover.  Slavery and pure human trafficking soon appear and the existence of Israel now is being threatened from their own living quarters.  How could a life of luxury and sustenance be turned into a personal knowledge of absolute slavery in a matter of a few centuries?  But if we take a closer look at what took place during that time frame it becomes clear exactly how that option occurs because we are living this exact setting today and just as the children of Israel we do not recognize it one bit.

There is no question that the children of Israel were living a nightmare before their tenure in Egypt was concluded.  The cries that God heard on a continual basis were justified and in a matter of God’s timing would the situation be corrected, in His way, not man’s way.  The pharaoh hit it on the head when he said that if they did not do something quickly the number of Israelites would outnumber the Egyptians and would be able to challenge the Pharaoh for the throne.  This also explains that pharaoh had no concept of who God was and how He would deal with the situation for God sees all and tries His best to avert any true violence at first.  This was displayed through the meetings between Moses and Pharaoh, the battles of spiritual control, the plagues on Egypt, and eventually the agreement to free the children of Israel.  While this process of freedom was a learning lesson for Pharaoh it should have been one as well for the Israelites, but over the next 40 years, we see that they did not learn too much from that process and it cost them valuable time away from the Promised Land.

True and complete excitement must have been in the Israelite camp when they heard the words to pack up themselves and to get ready to leave, for their freedom was now a reality.  I have never been in complete captivity before and I certainly have not been a prisoner of war or been deemed as a slave or the status that it brings but I do know that the issues that I bring into my life subject me to that type of living and through these settings I have learned that they only bring hurt, pain, and agony which I do not need.  The leaving process was not an overnight thing, for Israel had acquired many things during their time in Egypt and it was this aspect of their lives that God had to work on and to get rid of, all unknowingly to the children of Israel.  But they should have known that God was going to clean them as they left that land and I can imagine that this cleanliness process, they thought, was going to be completed as soon as their feet walked out of the country.  But in truth, their leaving the country was the first step in a process of God’s cleaning process and the key to understanding restoration and the process that it had on their (and has on our) lives.

Exodus Chapter 12 gives us the order for the Israelites to be expelled from Egypt, the preparation for their departure and the process of them leaving the land.  In verse 37 of this chapter, it states that the Israelites leave the city of Rameses and go to Succoth, and this verse also gives us an idea of about how many able men left that day when it says that the Israelites included about 600,00 men walked that day.  This is a bunch of folks, folks, a true testament to their growth while they were in Egypt and if looked on through physical eyes a reason to believe that their numbers could grow enough to overthrow a ruling party.  It was also felt that through these numbers that god could use their strength against any opposition to their leaving one which proved feeble when the time came to encounter this opposition in the desert.  Remember the stories of D-Day 1944, when it was the job of the Allies to storm the beaches at Normandy?  It was the job of the Germans to throw them back into the sea, thus declaring the return of captivity of France and mainland Europe to Germany, the same concept of the battle for freedom warfare and slavery is given here on a modern day example.

For every human, it is easy to believe that once you are out of a situation that your problems are solved and over simply because of the relief one feels after they have left the scene.  But it is exactly the time where those who leave are in the gravest danger for we all know that while one party has left and felt better the other party involved is not and seeks out the other side and to find out exactly what they are doing and where they are at specifically.  This type of freedom feels liberating to one while betrayal to the other, a setting that many of our current relationships undergo and more specifically one that our eternal enemy finds insulting, for it means that his kingdom has lost and has been pushed backward and the potential for God’s Kingdom to advance just greatly increased.  So, it is the job of the enemy to ensure that this newly found freedom does not last and that an immediate return to slavery occurs.

The truth that God had work to complete was not hidden from the children of Israel, even from day one when they feet actually left Egyptian soil, for we must remember that when God acts He is a complete God on all sides of the issues and must work accordingly.  But for some reason as soon as their feet left the confines of slavery they forgot that through their own possessions and belongings they were still holding on to Egypt.  It was this part of Egypt that God still had to rid them from and one that was much harder to accept from Israel than the excitement of physically leaving the captivity of Egypt.  We can relate to this setting by knowing that after centuries of captivity and being controlled as slaves, God chose to accept His children just as they were.  God understood and recognized that their status of royalty had been taken away from them and that they were not considered anything more than slave laborers with growing numbers, but even in this type of lifestyle God worked His love into their existence and brought them out of their slavery according to their sincere cries to Him.

Now, marching a million or more people around in a desert or wilderness is quite a task and one that should not be scoffed by anyone either.  And when one studies the landscape of the deserts and wildernesses that the Israelites wandered in for such a long time, one has to contemplate as to why this amount of time was taken for that entire area is not that large, treacherous yes, but not that large especially if one considers the amount of time involved here.  It is this point of being “just as I am’ that God wants us to understand that He wishes for us to drop and to begin to allow Him to infiltrate our hearts and to grow within them.  For if we do not allow this process of His to grow inside, completely inside we will find out real soon that our wilderness walk will take a lot longer than we had at first expected.

God cannot just perform one aspect of a process and then call it good, that is a human attribute and not one that God operates through.  God is a complete God and when He begins a process He first must remove His children from the setting in order for them to have a level playing field.  God understands that the things that we acquire from the world weigh heavy on our lives and if not loosened and let go will eventually bring us to our knees in such a destructive manner that we may never fully recover.  This is a glorious process and one that leaves us feeling free from the situation that we had been in but just as my short and choppy sentences at the beginning of my tenure writing I still needed to grow in stature and continue this growth process by depending on God to fill me with His presence.  This was now the point where the Israelites were in and while it felt good to leave the land of Egypt, their journey had just begun and was going to be difficult for quite some time ahead.

I can guarantee that God had no real intentions of keeping the children of Israel wandering in the desert for forty years.  But I can also guarantee you that if it takes forty years to get the world out of our lives God shall use that time or even longer in order for us to see what He wants from our lives.  It would be difficult to watch a loved one die in the wilderness especially when they left the land of their captivity they were in almost perfect health.  When any loved one, friend, or general acquaintance passes away we all spend a time of reflection in due part of our own mortality, but this point we should also try our best to figure out if we are in right standing with God too, for it could mean that our mourning process and our wilderness travels could be shortened.  In order for us to have this shortened period of travel, we must give up our self-standards and allow God to come into our lives and be the leader and ruler over us, thus taking another step in the restoration process.

We must understand that the wilderness portions of our lives are there for a reason and while this time period hurts it is god’s way of teaching us to depend on Him and not the things of the world.  In Numbers Chapter 20 we have the perfect setting of how humanity lives when they have not figured things out about God and who leads them.  Here we have the children of Israel camped out in a specific part of the wilderness called Kadesh.  It has been almost forty years since they have left Egypt and they are just now reaching the southern part of modern day Israel, far from their destination yet so close at the same time.  We read that Miriam has died and is now buried in the area, there is now land for planting of seeds or to grow the necessary plants for food, and more importantly, there is no water for the people of the livestock.  The situation is desperate and needs immediate attention.

In verse 3 we have the people arguing with Moses about their concerns and they are frustrated enough to even question their presence in this land and wondering why God would not allow them to die as their forefathers did instead out here in the wilderness.  In verse 4 we have the details of what exactly is in their hearts and the proof that even after forty years in the desert they still did not understand what God was doing in their lives, when they ask Moses as to why “he” had brought them out into the desert and live under these “evil” conditions?  For every person who has been associated with or has lived in or around a desert knows that this type of living is not easy and hard work must be continually achieved in order for survival.  Yet, as we read in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy we find that God has over and oversupplied each need that the children of Israel had while wandering these lands.  A true sign that they had nothing and that their dependence should come from God and not mankind, a process of restoration in God’s timing and manner that should have opened their eyes to the situation that they had come from and that they were presently in. 

Yet, even after forty years, it is obvious that this truth about why they were in the desert was still hidden from their eyes.  For as we read in verses 8-11 of this chapter even Moses does not heed the specific Word of God and disobeys His command concerning the rock and the need for water.  God still keeps His promises of survival to the people but through this lack of trusting in God and showing the children of Israel the true nature of God and His provisions, Moses and Aaron would be included in the ones who would not physically see the Promised Land.  We know through the stories in the book of Exodus that Moses understood about having faith in God and we also know that the people of God saw these acts of faith through the miracles that God performed over this amount of time, so why is it so difficult to surrender our entire being over to God and recognize His processes as necessities for our eternal survival?

The truth about the wilderness is that it is a place to allow us to learn that God wants every part of our lives at all times.  It is a great feeling to know that we are no longer subject to the world because we have chosen God to be in our lives, it is even a greater and unexplainable feeling of joy when we recognize this truth but God does not stop there because He must be a complete God for if He was not then Matthew 12:43-45 shall automatically take place and would nullify Jesus and everything that He was sent to do on the earth.  The wilderness is a time that we should recognize our emptiness and not return to the world but allow God to restore our lives according to His Divine policies.  It should be a time of constant reflection on God and how He supplies our needs according to His Word.  The toughness of the wilderness comes as we complete our time with God and not the world.  During this time there is a huge battle for your house, one that eternal implications and as long as you trust God and seek His wisdom and truth the world cannot infiltrate your being again.

This wilderness process can take one of two paths and each path has its own results.  The first path is one that the children of Israel walked and it took them forty years to complete.  They did not recognize what God was doing or wanting to do in their lives but saw it is as a punishment instead.  They elevated themselves by using their chosen status of being God’s children and used it as a defining matter as to question God about why He was allowing this to occur.  They failed to understand that God took them from a slavery lifestyle and once again was in the process of making them great again.  The ONLY way that God could have completed this process was to take them through a wilderness process and it was their choice to understand that process and the reason why or not.

The second path that can be taken in the wilderness is one of complete surrender to God and His ways.  In this choice of paths the stories of the wilderness will have different tones articulating from them for as we look at our past situations we can see where the world has its grip on our lives and as we scan forward we can see where God has taken the world out of our lives and has proceeded to refill that emptiness with His Word; commonly known as restoration.  Just as my first articles reflected a person who knew little about writing, I can look back at my life, not only about writing but about many other issues as well, and see where I was and where I am at today.  It is this process that still frustrates me because of how far and deep I allowed the world into my life, but at the same time I see the work that God has done in my life over this wilderness period and I now can reflect toward others this restoration process that He wishes to give everyone.

After you complete this message from God, take a while to reflect on you wilderness to see if you have kept any portion of your life from God.  Are you in the wilderness still?  If you are, where are you at, just beginning, in the middle of nowhere?  The important part is to understand that God has you right where He wants you and that He has you there for a reason and that reason is to restore you according to His Will for your life.  It is a process that is painful, I know but it is one that needs to be completed for until we allow this to occur by God’s standards we shall never know just how infected the world has become in our lives.  It is this process that while God accepts you just as you are He cannot allow you to go unchanged after you have been set free.  It is a lifelong process of growth that has its rewards every single moment of each day but in order for us to understand this vital truth we must not be like the Israelites and ignore what God is showing and telling us.

Which brings me to the final point of this article and it is this: God is calling for His nation of America to turn back to Him so that we can fully understand that it was He who freed us from our captivity setting and it is He who has brought us into this present wilderness.  Times are tough and answers are few, that is not an arguable position but what and who we declare as our enemy is arguably the underlying question yet we are so blinded by the wilderness conditions that we cannot see who our legitimate enemy is.  It is not our fellow mankind nor is it the atmospheric conditions but it is the one who deceived Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the one who lied to the children of Israel in the deserts, the one who provoked evil spirits to control lands, and the one who thought he had won victory when God’s own Son died on the cross.  But in that time of wilderness, God proved Himself as God by uplifting those who believed in Him and by raising His Son from the dead to establish the path of restoration for everyone who wishes.

It is our duty and responsibility to make sure that the wiles of the devil are told and seen so that all can be witnesses for God and the true Light of the world.  Church open your hearts back to God and shun the world for it is the only way that we can escape from our wilderness.  Yes, we are in a wilderness for when numbers of a youth group outweigh the numbers of those youth entering the ministry we are in a wilderness.  When we would rather sit in a pew in church on Saturday / Sunday mornings and then do absolutely nothing with what is taught we are in a wilderness.  When we allow the world to enter into our lives and then entertain it instead of telling it to flee we are in a wilderness.  So the question now becomes this: which path will you take and will you allow the wilderness to rule your life or will you allow God to guide you through the wilderness through restoration and teach you about Him so that you can tell the world?  In other words, are you saying “just as I am” or are you allowing God to grow you?

DLB

Placement

Placement

4/24/17

Many of us struggle with the fact that sometimes we feel like we do not belong, both in our presence and where we live.  It is commonplace for us to think this but when we do we must keep in mind that God has His purpose for our existence and where He sends us.  It is easy for us to misplace the truth that god defines us and one of the processes through which He completes this definition is through His placement of our lives.  We see this action occur in the Garden and all throughout His Word.  Tough positions will before us but that is all part of our existence and a detail that we must understand as a separation status from the world.  Instead of complaining, we need to take responsibility for this placement and realize that for this placement requires a direction and purpose.

Moving around is tough and this aspect was not uncommon in my life.  Being a minister’s kid requires flexibility in this area because many times we had to pick up our lives, leave our friends and settings, and move to another part of our country.  I have to admit that it was never easy to accomplish this task but I never questioned it for I knew that my parents were listening to God and obeying what He was telling them to do.  As I have stated before, I do not hold anything against my parents for the life I had when I was growing up, in fact, I have to admit that I learned a lot over those years and am applying these lessons to my life today.  Even though one moves around a lot they can still be grounded in God enough that no matter what change one encounters He is enough to stabilize any situation, a truth that this society should keep in mind for the upcoming changes that God is going to allow.

Most of the opportunities I had in my growing up and developing years came in handy even though my words, phrases, and accents always made notice when others engaged me.  This change was sometimes difficult but most settled in and allowed me to participate with them on their playing fields.  Moving is an exposure that some cannot cope with, but through this change, one can understand other aspects of life that show us that each one of us is unique and have a purpose while we are on this earth.  We also must contend that many of these changes occur through the experiences of our lives and sometimes those experiences come in dire circumstances which promote pain and agony.  Just as the first example of people moving in the Bible was under scrutinized circumstances and a result of bad choices and major change, God places us in a specific setting and He expects us to follow through with what He authorizes us to complete, but many times we forget this truth and go on our merry way and do what we wish complicating God’s placement for our lives.  We must recognize that through this misguidings we expose ourselves to the world and we voluntarily place ourselves in a precarious situation for it is not what god originally wanted for our lives, but have no fear God can still work through this setting if we repent and turn back to Him for our guidance.

In Genesis 2:8 we have the example of mankind’s first placement and when the bible states: “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed.”  This is a short and sweet verse that gives a specific detail about where God wanted man to live and one that could have been the only thing mentioned about placement and where God wanted our lives to exist, but of course our enemy wanted other things for us and instead of us resisting him and his tricks we succumbed to the lies and here we have present day settings.  This verse says that God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, a specific place with specific coordinates.  Many will argue about where Eden was and where the evidence for its Garden but that is really of no concern here because once again the subject of placement relies on obedience and the importance of obedience.  Obedience displayed here was not just the physical workings of the Garden of Eden obedience was also the direction to the personal side of Adam and Eve’s dominion as well.  When God creates something He does so with completeness and gives His creations the ability to do the same.

The placement of Adam was a perfect setting and one that God intended for him and his descendants to live in forever.  It was a perfect place to live with no imperfections to speak about and it would serve as the perfect home to Adam.  At the same time, God was introducing him to his new home God also gave instructions to Adam about how he was to make sure that its appearance was kept up and according to the standards God commanded.  God gave Adam the authority to complete this task as well, with the abilities that God created in Adam, nothing was left out to keep this command.  It was the authority that God gave to Adam and Eve that Satan desired to overthrow and one that he would use against them when the time came for him to set into motion his plan for their destruction.  It was this creative process and authority that God gave to mankind that infuriated Satan even further and a detail that Adam and Eve forgot to keep up and dress as God had commanded them.

I cannot foresee God leaving out the details of this portion of their lives by not explaining to them the reason why it was vital for them to maintain order in the Garden.  Adam and Eve had the full capacity to choose and to do what is right in the eyes of God.  If Adam and Eve would have displayed faith in the words of God and truly believed in what God said was true concerning their dominion then it would have been a different display that Satan recognized.  But what Satan noticed was a division between God and Adam and Eve, one large enough to drive a truck through evidently because he used this division as a door to their destruction.  This setting also provides us with a picture of what Satan is really after and that is the destruction of “we” which defines the true nature of the family.  When the unity of the family is destroyed the represented dominion is torn and defeated therefore allowing our enemy to conquer the only sanctity that humans understand.  God intended our lives to be equal with Him being the centerpiece of our existence together, not divided and separated from His presence.

Agreeing with complacency is not a suitable feature to restore equality.  This means that we recognize the family is in disarray and instead of returning to the Creator of such family we rely on self-made institutions for guidance, kind of like having a divorce lawyer as the CEO of a marriage counseling center.  Adam and Eve continued in this separation state until the moment was right for Satan to pounce, driving the wedge deeper and causing a wider gap between the two sides.  When sin enters into a place God cannot be the ruler any longer, the house or dominion is now divided from its original Creator and all hope of equality and restoration has been destroyed.  The enemy’s goal is to steal, kill, and to destroy, there is no playing nice when the being we fight has this position and when we allow his patterns to infiltrate our dominion, he has control, not God.  Satan began this mission of his in the Garden when he was able to dive deep enough into Adam and eve’s world and he promoted and then executed the first divorce ever known to mankind; a similar one that he initiated in heaven when he fell.

Has anyone ever asked why the family unit is always under attack from many different sides, issues, and ways?  Well, this is the answer to all of those questions concerning this matter, it is Satan who is behind these attacks and as long as we place the world before God those attacks shall continue and grow stronger as each day passes.  We cannot find any peaceful placement in our lives unless God is first in every aspect of our hearts.  The concept of family unity was defined in the Garden of Eden and any attempt to display any alternative to such an arrangement is not of God but of our enemy.  God shall allow forwarding addresses to this truth of His but in the end, the mail shall not arrive due to the fact that the house has already been destroyed.  The heart of the house is now diseased and that disease continues its course throughout the rest of the body and shall not stop until it has nowhere else to invade, the complete separation from its Creator.

In Genesis chapter 3 we see a pure and holy dominion being ripped apart before Adam and Eve’s very eyes.  Once a perfect life is now haunted with an element of agony that has not been recognized before, an agony that continues its path in our lives today due to the fact that humans chose our own way instead of God’s Way.  I cannot imagine how Adam and Eve must have felt when the first ping of pain hit their bodies, maybe it is the same way as we feel when our bodies feel it for the first time, the only difference is that they knew perfection on earth and we do not.  It is our fault that we are in the shape that we are in today, not God’s but it is God who is the only one who has the ability to restore this perfection in His eyes and that way is through His Son’s blood.  Perfection is what God creates which is the direct opposite of what our enemy offers.

We know what it means to be living in correct conditions with God and it is our responsibility to wipe all portions of the world from our hearts so that we may offer a clean house to God so that He can decorate it with His Life.  Adam and Eve fiddled with the truth instead of understanding and living in the Truth and it was then that Satan had deceived them enough that he now could mess with their placement.  When we choose to accept sin into our lives we automatically endanger our dominion and our placement in God, there are NO exceptions to this law.  Every descriptive story about humans in the Bible deals with this Truth and just as Adam and eve did so long ago we are doing the exact same procedures by following our own physical eyes and justifying our existence through the world and not God.  The only outcome of this lie is that Satan shall pull back on the rod and reel and our lives are dead as we know it when that hook buries into our hearts.  Then everything that we know that defines us shall be ripped away and destroyed right before our eyes.  A harsh reality but if it happened to Adam and Eve (AND IT DID) it shall happen to us as well. 

This nation was created in a like manner as the Garden of Eden, it is not perfect as such but it is similar in many ways.  God has stated over and over that if we put Him first in our hearts our nation shall never fall and never cease to be prosperous.  Even all of the Deists and Atheists who wrote the Constitution of this nation knew that this nation stood for something higher than any other nation or empire that had ever been presented previously on this earth.  It was because God forged this land and from day one of the first landings in the early 1600s, Satan has been at work doing his best to see to it that this nation falls.  This nation is god’s dominion and He has charged His people to proclaim His values through its lands, but just like Adam and Eve we have placed our dominion on the gambling table as a bargaining chip to the world and we do not have the correct cards in our hands to win this gamble.

We have the opportunity to leave the table intact and to stop playing the gambling game with God’s dominion, but if we do not stop and leave the table we shall lose this land of ours by a power so much stronger than we can ever imagine in order to prevent the complete sinful annihilation of God’s holy creation.  Leaving the table is called restoration and the willingness to allow God to change the state of our affairs and to return them to His deeds and not the world’s deeds.  If we are honest with ourselves we can no longer believe that our nation’s heart, and thus our dominion, stands for anything but worldly concepts.  We are not right in God’s Order nor are we pure in heart according to His Ways.  Right before Eve took of the fruit of the tree of good and evil she could have turned away from that table and stood her ground, but she did not.  We shall face the same disastrous conditions as she did if we do not get up and turn our lives around and back to God.

Adam and Eve lost their placement and never was allowed to return to it again.  Angels and a fiery sword were placed at the gates to keep anyone from entering the Garden again.  I ask you this question if God did this for the Garden of Eden and all of the personal loss of Adam and Eve and since He is a complete and continuous God how can we not believe that unless we change our ways that He shall not do the same today?  Satan desires to laugh at us while our placements are destroyed, he takes great pleasure in hearing the cries of God’s people after they have watched their livelihood go up in flames.  He sees no greater thrill and dances around us when God’s children wander aimlessly in the desert with no home to call their own.  And Satan especially loves it when he waves goodbye to you as your life slips away from this planet to face God knowing that he accomplished his job in ensuring that you knew nothing about God.

God is real and this nation is His.  Church, you are playing a gambling game with Satan while holding the cards that he gave you to play with.  God does not gamble nor does He contend with sin, so why are you?  Clearly, you are not in right standing with God and it is you that is supposed to be changing the world for God, you are no better than the Pharisees and you should be condemned as such.  God is calling you to turn around before it is too late, stop believing in the lies of the world and get up from the table before we lose our dominion.  Our dominion is all about placement and it is strictly up to us as to where our placement shall be, both spiritually and physically.  God is warning us once again and we need to heed these warnings before our dominion is totally destroyed.  Just as our bodies have walls of defense our spiritual lives need to have spiritual defenses that will allow us to keep our placement exactly where it was created to be.

DLB

There Is No 1/2 Bondage

There Is No ½ Bondage

4/21/17

Trying to serve two masters is a hard road to take, and one in truth points towards a single master.  It is physically and spiritually impossible to adhere to two masters but this concept was important enough for us to be reminded throughout the entire Bible.  Bondage is just that, bondage and if one is in bondage then one cannot be truly free.  This means that one side serves and the other side binds, how come it is so difficult to figure this out?  The only way we shall ever know true freedom is to be under God’s Ways and to willingly serve His Kingdom by living in His Word.  God is calling us to drop the world and to return to His Ways so that we may still understand and know His will for our lives.

When I was a kid growing up in a few different places in this country, I often found myself being faced with an unusual shock when people would do certain rituals that I had no clue about.  Some of these rituals were a bit strange to my thinking but many of them were acceptable and easily understood.  When mentioned to my parents, I received a various degree of responses, but no matter what the response was to me they always had a good explanation as to why we either did or did not complete the same rituals as the others.  In some cases when I told my friends that we did or did not partake in those ideas and practices I got some laughs against me and in others, not much was said and everything seemed to be ok.  At that time, I had no idea that the world was after my heart and that through certain activities that people accepted contributed to such deviations against God, and while my little ears sang “Jesus Loves Me” and the concept that Jesus was different from the world, it was not until some years later that things began to make sense to me.

As I got older, I should have been a good little preacher’s kid and buried my heart into God’s Word and to learn more about what my father was teaching his congregation every time the doors opened at church, or while he and the family was eating dinner at a friend’s house, or just buying groceries for his family.  But my heart was not willing enough to break away from what I believed was important and instead followed my wants and moved towards my friends and what they believed and wanted to do.  Not knowing that I was not following through with the lessons I had learned when I was younger because the song “Jesus Loves Me” was still in my head but its truth and the reasons why it was the truth I chose not to pursue, which was exactly what the ruler of the world wanted me to do.  We must keep in mind that Satan has only one job and that is to make sure that you and I are completely separated from God, period, end of story.  And if we take a hard look at this pattern of our enemy, we are actually handing ourselves over to this separation voluntarily and proves that his job is running effectively in the courses of eternal positioning.

I remember doing some things that my parents did not approve of and when I was younger one of the more popular excuses to give was that “everyone is doing it”.  Then they would immediately follow with “well if all of them were jumping off of a high bridge to their deaths would you do that as well?”  Of course, my answer would be “no” but at that very moment and in my mind I did not see why my acceptance with my friends could not overrule the plans that we had made, just to have some fun.  This was not just one isolated incident either for me and if we are truthful with the facts many of us would remember a similar situation from our past.  I also must admit that in today’s society without God the answers to this parental question could be different and if so, really should not come as much of a surprise since this is the society we have chosen to accept.  That is a hard statement but one that holds the truth since we have embraced a death society instead one of true eternal freedom.

At that time it was hard for me to comprehend why the fun things or the accepted things that my friends were doing could be considered dangerous or wrong.  For the majority of my friends, their ways of thinking were almost identical with mine for most of us did not have too many worries about the bad side of the world.  We had no idea that even though we did not wish to seek out danger that the world would provide us with all of it that we wanted if we were in the “right” place at the “right” time.  It was this unknown curiosity that provokes many people into trying new materials in order to feel accepted into the community, group or even country and it through this same reasoning and tincture that our enemy lures us into accepting worldly standards.  And it is through this process in which our enemy had already placed his foothold in the world, so much so that God had to define the true meaning of this world that would eventually lead to everyone having the opportunity to choose Him for eternal life.  What I did not realize was that what I was living and portraying – even though it was fun at the time – was placing me into a state of bondage, even though I was claiming my freedom.  See, freedom in God is totally different than freedom in the world and both kingdoms that are vying for your eternal position know this and shall do everything according to their legal grounds to accomplish this battle.

When one moves towards the world they are in a constant state of increasing bondage.  This reinforces the reason that the entire Bible tries to encourage us to be separate from the world, for the two kingdoms that are vying for your eternity cannot mix in ANY form or shape.  If you wish to place it into a percentage analogy then it goes something like this.  If you are 20% of the world then you are 80% of the Kingdom of God.  Now, this is a dangerous position to be in if you are even at 20% / 80% because that means that the world still has a hold of you and if you do not allow God to completely clean your heart from the world that percentage of 20% shall grow, not will grow, but shall grow.  This is addressed when God says He cannot stand a lukewarm Church and since you are the Church, you can deduct the rest of the concept.  But it is this example that God wants us to understand about bondage and freedom.  The world and its leader has the same concept that God has for you but in a different direction, complete separation is the concept but it is what is to be separate from that matters to our eternity, see the world wants you to be separate from God and God wants you to be separate from the world.  This means that our enemy wants you to be separate from the One being that can give you and still offers complete freedom from all evil.  Freedom and bondage are complete opposites of each other, which means that in truth it is our responsibility to teach that God is the true freedom and Satan is the true slave master.

Galatians 5:1 hits this truth on the head when Paul writes the following: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”  This is a black and white verse that says so much about the definition of relationship versus religion and how these two states of being are directly related to God and to the world.  From the first two words of this verse “Stand fast”, this verse is proclaiming that there is a side that we must take it also states that only one side can be taken for the Greek used here comes from the word “steko” which means “to stand, and more specifically to stand firm.”  These two words alone in combination with the next few “therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” gives us the definition that what He (God) offers is something completely different than what the world offers (slavery, bondage).  This verse alone proves that there cannot be any fence sitters and that any concept of allowance of the world into our hearts is a lie!  This verse also proves that any percentage of the world in our hearts and that it is acceptable to have such a percentage of the world existing in our hearts is a lie as well!

If we are not free, then we are in bondage.  This nation was created so that men and women can worship God in the same manner in which He designed us to live, in complete freedom through His truth.  “therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ made us free” is very specific because the Greek words that are used here are very specific.  The word “liberty” comes from “eleutheria” which means freedom and this word is specific in context.  Next, comes a specific person who is the subject of this freedom and the Greek word for Christ is “Christos” which means Anointed One.  The verb “made us free” is the Greek verb “eleutheroo” which means to make free or exempt from liability.  Free from what and why would Christ do such a thing is the question one should be asking here?  If there is no reason for Paul to have made this statement then Christ’s life was cut short and what Paul was saying about bondage not true.  When slavery was prominent in many lands one would never find a ½ of a slave, a person could not be both free and slave.  This portion of Galatians 5:1 proclaims this truth and gives sole credit to Christ for accomplishing this freedom.

It is evident that slavery still rules in today’s society but it is more on a spiritual side than physical.  Oh yes, there are still countless of slaves that people physically own today and that physically rule over but more importantly, spiritual slavery is running rampant and even being promoted.  Most societies have lost the fact that this world can only offer slavery, it has also forgotten who runs this world and what his role is in our lives as well.  From the beginning of God’s Word until the very last word God proclaims that the world is not your friend and if you succumb to its grasp you shall become a slave. God also provides a great escape plan that is ours for the choosing and all we have to do is accept Him and His Ways in order for us to receive His plan.  He has given us the plan to read and to study on a daily basis, and the greatest part of this plan is that when we study His Word we will automatically get to know Him better at the same time.

God’s plan for us is to be separated from the world and to live under His protection under the blood that His Son shed for us.  Adam and Eve understood this separation directly but gave it up because of disobedience.  Israel gave this separation up to live as the others in the world did, the Jewish religious leaders gave it up due to their pride within the secular law, and you and I have given it up so that we may increase our lusts of self-pleasure, all in the name of worldly compromise.  This inclusion with the world has infiltrated the Church as well and she is now profession a different God and a different Jesus than what the Bible talks about.  What is more intriguing to me is that the Bible mentions in many passages that there will be false teachings and false witnesses that run around the world and yet we still fall for such lies when the Word of God says that they are coming and are here.  This proves that even the Church does not know the Word of God, its own source of Light.

The last portion of Galatians 5:1 also gives us the consequences if we do not adhere to this truth about Christ when it states: “and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage.”  It is this portion of Scripture that reveals what occurs if someone returns to the ways of bondage, which means one can return to this lifestyle.  The word entangled that is used means to hold up in or to ensnare which is another way of saying being trapped into a certain belief.  It is this word alone that sets the stage for what we can become entrapped with again and that is bondage or slavery.  God in no way possible offers any kind of slavery to the people who choose His Ways but true freedom from the one who can offer only bondage and suffering.  It is imperative that we understand that Satan controls this world and that he has no desire to make you happy and free but can only offer bondage and complete and eternal separation from God, a condition that is more hideous than our minds can imagine.

This type of bondage is described in the Greek as a yoke of slavery which means a person is bound by that setting, a slave to be auctioned off when their master tires of her or him and will not give one extra thought of what it means for their lives.  People who are in yokes are bound to that master for as long as they are in that yoke.  There can be nothing good from this type of living and if one falls for this lie physically and for some reason holds it dear to them then they shall endure this bondage and slavery for eternity.  Church, why are you promoting this type of lie?  How have we become so entangled with our own gratuity that we have allowed the enemy, even invited him in, into our lives with open arms?  Physical slavery is bad enough why are we now promoting eternal slavery?  God and His Ways are the ONLY way that we shall ever be free from this bondage, not through the world.  Open your eyes people and figure out that what you are proclaiming is a lie and will influence others to walk into this same slavery just as many of the tribes did when they volunteered their relatives into physical slavery centuries ago.

There is no partial of ½ slavery that one can exist in it has to be all or nothing.  The trap that Satan will tell you is that it is ok to do just one little bad thing or to sneak in a sin every once-in-a-while but even then you will be ok with God.  It takes a heart of repentance to withstand (stand fast) the wiles of the devil and one that knows God’s Word well enough to recognize when attacks are coming and when the truth is being told or not told.  It is the job of Satan to convince us that it is ok to live separated from God for nothing will occur to us because He is a good God.  One shall not spend half their time in Heaven and the other in Hell; it is a permanent placement on either shore.

Adam and Eve must have believed this lie for if they did not then why was there any idea that they could get away with things and nothing occur?  Disobedience and deception kill!  If any church denomination preaches or teaches that the world is good for their lives, that disobedience shall kill and all they are doing is promoting slavery and leading others into eternal slavery.  Church, turn your hearts back to God and get your eyes off of your comfort and begin to witness once again for God.  Eternal slavery is real and it comes to thousands each day.  Repent Church and prepare the way for the Kingdom of Freedom and stop serving the slavery kingdom.

DLB

Two Leaders In Peril

Two Leaders In Peril

4/20/17

Have you ever received confirmation that humanity has not changed one bit, and then wondered why we have got gotten the memo concerning such ridiculous behavior?  Or do you believe that nothing is wrong with our societies and that only a small percentage of people make things extraordinarily bad?  Leaders in all cases have shown up and proven themselves according to humanitarian settings, but in some circumstances, we see that leaders can fall just as hard as the “common” folk do.  God is good all the time and all He asks for in return is the heart of obedience which follows His Ways, not as a measure of control but one of true redemption and protection.  Obedience is the best way to conquer our enemy and is the only way that we can ensure our hearts stay focused on the true eternal prize.

When God dropped this article topic into my heart I found it very strange with the combination of people that He wishes to talk about.  In all my studies I have not thought about one of these people as being a leader yet the other one almost everyone that would be asked would consider this person to be a great leader and one that stands out in history on many levels.  Being in the military I have been under some very good leaders but also have encountered some people in leadership that could not fight their way out of a wet paper bag with a knife, but whatever the case may be leaders are there to be representatives of the overall command and thus make accurate decisions according to such command.  The examples in this article of good quality and ones that should be remembered quite easily in our minds but it this through their obedience or lack thereof that points to an important concept that no matter what our setting may be we must always keep the commands of God first and foremost in our hearts.  In this way, we shall not make the same mistakes that may cost us our eternal prize and promised gift from God.

For the past few days, God has directed me to the book of Numbers and more specifically to the story of Moses when he was commanded by God to speak to the rock for water.  If you have been reading the messages that God has been giving us over the past few months you will also recognize that I cannot get out of the book of Genesis and even more specifically the first three chapters of that book.  As I was studying the book of Numbers God dropped a person’s name into my heart and gave me the comparison between the two people in this article, like I stated above one is easy to think about and the other has been left as a scapegoat.  We will be talking about Eve and Moses as the two leaders that found it in their hearts to walk into certain trouble that caused them to lose their eternal promises while on earth, a similar setting is about to play out today if we do not figure things out real quick and once again obey God’s Ways.

We will begin in Genesis and how Eve takes focus as a leader and one that ties Moses with her.  Now, we all know that Adam and Eve were created in a perfect manner and had no issues with sin at all until they chose to allow disobedience to infiltrate their hearts.  There have been many sermons, letters, articles, and even book chapters written concerning this living condition of Adam and Eve but every time we hear such a message it is hard for us to imagine why they would not just say “no” to the serpent and have  everything stay the same as it was from the beginning.  Scripture does not specifically state why Eve chose to believe the serpent instead of God but there is a key word here that one must take into consideration and it has to do with a human trait that we all carry, and that is called belief in something.  In truth, Eve had everything that she ever could have imagined which also brings into question the pattern of selfishness when all needs are supplied and furthermore how important it is to remember who has given those supplies in our hearts first.

It becomes clear in Chapter 3 of Genesis that Eve has serious doubts about God’s command of not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when questioned by the serpent she decides to speak only a half truth about the Law of God and then adds another portion to it.  Genesis 3:2-6 details this record of events as Eve gives her interpretation of God’s Law by stating that God said that they could not eat of the tree and that they could not touch it either.  As we have learned previously, it was this portion of what Eve stated that was so grotesque that it set up the process of true disobedience to God in just a matter of a few words from the heart.  It was at this moment that we fully understand that Eve’s belief in the serpent’s words were more valuable to her than what God’s Word to her and her husband and it was through this disbelief in God’s Word that cost her and the rest of humanity their perfect setting and unconditional physical life standard.

We see that it was through disobedience that guided Adam and Eve into their moment of change and through this moment their lives instantly began to be altered in such a way that must have been mind-boggling to them.  How could one seemingly small error close the book on perfection and open another book of pain and humility?  That one error of disobedience must not have been so trivial as they thought but one that was gigantic and on a monumental scale of unimaginable proportions for it to throw every known detail of their lives out of place and into a new position of separation.  Their lives had become so comfortable and relaxed that their ideas of and authority of God’s one law must have dimmed enough that doubts of that Law and what it meant entered and then grew.  It was not until their settings both physical and spiritual changed that they understood exactly how important God’s Law was and how important it is to keep their belief in God and shun all other opinions and statements.

There is a huge and ugly pattern here that we see being defined through Eve’s response and it is one that has continued throughout human history when it comes to obedience and how we view its part in our lives.  All of us have disobeyed rules and regulations at some point in time and it is easy for us to determine these faults of ours, but when mistakes become deliberate it is at this point where our self takes over and we begin to make excuses for such behavior.  In other words, we doubt the authority over our lives and thus commit to our own will, which means in this case Eve elevated herself up and lowered God’s standards at the same time.  It is this deception pattern that is so dangerous to our lives and one that we should avoid and keep watch out for on a continual basis.

How is Eve a leader?  It was Adam and Eve that were living as one in the Garden of Eden when Satan began to prowl for their separation from God.  It was Eve who was present in the state of perfection when the serpent came calling for her to disobey what God had set into motion.  God had explained to them what would occur when and if they disobeyed His command and how important it was to stick to that command on all levels, this includes adding or subtracting to what God said to them.  Trying to impress an enemy or a friend with words that are not true only hurts and complicates the entire setting, and once those words are spoken and believed everyone involved are then subject to the matters at hand and can eligible for the consequences of those words.  Adam and Eve were immediately questioned by God concerning this matter and as soon as their explanation of things was complete, God laid out His judgment on their lives for their disobedience; and you really want to say “don’t judge me, because you are not perfect and you are not God”?  We must keep a truth in mind here, remember when God shared with us about the definition of “we”?

This brings us to the second example that God wishes for us to understand and this one deals with Moses.  Moses is readily recognized as a great biblical leader and is still highly regarded in many religious circles today.  We can learn a lot from this man and there can be no greater lesson than obedience and how not to argue against God about what He has called one to do because God shall always win; remember God has no rivals.  I cannot help but shake my head at Moses in this passage but as I am shaking my head at his actions I must also shake my head at my own life as well for I have to admit I still do some pretty ridiculous things even though I know they are wrong.  We pick up Moses and the children of Israel in the wilderness of Zin and specifically at Kadesh and the entire congregation is upset and thirsty and are demanding water along with other complaints about plants and other food issues as well.

Being in the wilderness for a day or so one might not seem so picky when it comes to a shortage of a few essential items but when an entire nation has been wandering around for almost 40 years, it can become a tad testy when the same situation continues to reoccur.  Moses and Aaron understand this problem and they do exactly what they need to do and which is to pray and to seek God’s counsel on such a matter.  In Numbers 20: 8 God gives Moses specific instructions of how to handle the situation “Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.”  A pretty straight forward and simple command, don’t you think?

So, what does Moses do?  Messes the entire setting up by not obeying the simple command that God tells him to do, for in Numbers 20: 9-11 states that Moses took the rod as God commanded him, which was the only thing that Moses got right about this scene.  Then, Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together and spoke to the congregation, not the rock.  Moses squawks at the people and calls them names then strikes the rock twice completing the disobedient act, yet God provides for the people by allowing the rock to produce water for them and their animals; God proves His faithfulness in the needs of His people. 

But what God needed to occur was for the leaders of His children to obey Him and to show them that they (Moses and Aaron) trust God enough that no matter what the circumstances may be, that through their willingness to obey His Word will somehow filter down into the Israelites hearts as well.  Even during this time period and even though the children of Israel had been in the wilderness for almost 40 years now and they still doubt God’s protection over their lives.  How do we know this?  Numbers 20:5 gives us the facts, remember this is the people asking and talking: “And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.”

To seal the deal as it were, God immediately addresses the situation to Moses and Aaron and makes His position very clear to them concerning their disobedience of His Word in front of the people.  God understood that the people needed to see Moses conduct himself in a leadership manner, God also understood that the people STILL did not fully trust God, and finally Moses understood what the people were thinking and when you put all of these items together we see that Moses decided to reveal the past and do things his own way instead of listening to what God told him at that time.  When people struggle it is vital for all involved for us to listen to what God says for us to do, for sometimes only through our obedience can those who doubt believe. God reiterates this truth to Moses and Aaron in verse twenty when He says that it was His desire for them to obey so that His name can be glorified at hat time, not by physical acts by another.

Through the actions of Moses and Aaron, God makes it clear to them that because they completely disobeyed His command that they would never physically witness the Promised Land.  By simply disobeying what God has commanded Moses and Aaron to do, cost them their chance to see God fulfill His promise to His people.  It might have seemed a small item of disobedience to some, but in the long run, our minds and hearts do not see what God does and through this vision alone His ways are not ours and we should do our best to accomplish this fact at all times.  While it is true that God was faithful to the people by supplying their needs for water, Moses and Aaron were the recipients of the consequences of those actions; just as we are alive today through Adam and Eve it was her that suffered the consequences at that time.

It is this point where our enemy does his best to convince us that even though God tells us to do a simple command, it will still be alright if we do it our way and not according to what He wishes.  This is nothing but elevating our own lives to try and become an equal with God.  We may not even understand why such a simple command from God may be so important to someone else, it is still the process of obeying His Word completely that should matter.  It is for this reason alone that is highly dangerous to take what God’s Word says and to conform it to our likeness and not His.  Whether Eve or Moses understood what God’s simple command meant or not, it was not the circumstance that presented itself but the act of disobedience that cost them their futures. In both settings, God gives His rule to His leaders and then expects His rules to be followed by all means necessary on our parts. There was absolutely no reason for human improvising needed in either setting; therefore, there was no reason for Eve or Moses to disobey God’s commands.

Deception has many ways and means of showing its ugly head to and in our lives.  It is for this reason that we need to ensure that we understand that God is almighty and ever present in ALL ways and we are not.  It is us who need to rise up to His level and in order for us to accomplish this task, we have no choice but to study His Word on every level to make sure we understand exactly what He needs for us to do.  Obedience as an offering equals to none and it is the only way that we can honestly state that we are willing to lose this life so that we may live with Him for eternity.  Peer pressure stinks and it is a guarantee that it shall come into our lives at some point, but it is a must that we are grounded in God’s Word so much that we have no problem in resisting when doubts or hesitations come our way.

Church, you are the leaders to the dying world and it is your (our) responsibility to make sure God’s Light shines brightly for others to see at all times and not just a few hours a week.  The basic definition of sin is disobedience, plain and simple.  Disobedience equals nonbelief, which means non-belief is equal to sin; therefore, disobedience equals sin.  This truth also means that there is no “level” of disobedience only disobedience alone.  Now is not the time for the Church to begin to interpret God’s Word for their own glory, she needs to understand the commands of God and be the focus of His Ways so that He may be glorified in the manner in which He needs to show the world that He loves them.  It is God who has all authority to give us commands and it is our responsibility to fulfill them when He says to do such deeds.

DLB