Broke-Boils-Betrayal...OH MY!

A lot of Christians have used their life's misfortune to compare themselves with Job in the Old Testament. We all know the story. Lost his finances, his family, got disturbingly ill, his friends weren't by his side and the cherry on top...his wife was faithless.

I used to use this same terminology "I guess I'm just like Job" as soon as things started turning down hill in my life. When I got sick, when I lost a child, when we didn't have work.Like others I wanted a reason...a comfortable reason as to why I was going through what I was going through and the best way for us to be comfortable is to put it all on God.

Let's look at this story of Job from a Christian perspective. The reason I say Christian is because this signifies AFTER CHRIST.

For starters we often put bad things on God. However James 1:18 says God tempts no man. In the story of Job we see that this is correct. God didn't tempt Job. This attack was directly from the Satan himself. And if you remember John 10:10 gives Satan's job description to steal, kill, and destroy. Satan was on his job which is why he came and landblasted Job. God didn't make Job sick, kill his family, or take away his finances. Satan was and will always be the source of poverty, disease, confusion, division.

Satan was doing the attack. When we accept it, we are calling Satan's work God's. Christ said I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly. He came so that the quality of our living would be in abundance. Sickness and being broke doesn't sound abundant to me.

Satan is our enemy. Remember that Job's story takes place in the Old Testament BEFORE Christ come and died. This means Job had no knowledge or ability to rebuke Satan and his work. As a Christian, a New Testament believer, one who is alive AFTER Christ's death, has been given more than enough of the authority of Christ. We have been given the ability/power to rebuke, cast, cease, bind, and destroy the work of the enemy. Luke 10:19. To say that we should suffer under such attacks disannuls the Word/Work of Christ and makes it of none effect.

Christians have to get over their own traditional beliefs and read the Work of Christ to get to know their new and true Identity. If you were meant to be Job and allow Satan to have his way in your life...what point was there in Christ's death and the entire New Testament? To discover our identity in Him we must turn to those books of the bible in which he taught and look at examples of what it means to follow HIM.

So in summary here's why we shouldn't accept Job's experience as our own:

• Anything attacking your finances, health, family, or marriage is not under the finished work of Christ but under Satan's job description given in John 10:10
• As a product of the finished work of Christ we (followers of Christ) have authority over Satan and his work Acts 10:38, Matt 12:25, 1Peter 2:24, Colossians 1:13, Isaiah 53:4 Luke 10:19, James 5:16, Acts 1:8, 1 Cor 6:17, Luke 17:21, Luke 6:10,
• Job (Old Testament Believer) accepted it because he didn't have what we have and that is Christ's sacrifice to give us power (New Testament Believer)
• We are to be renewed into the image of Christ. Colossians 3:10 He is the pattern of our living.

Job's story is not a mirror for anyone alive after Christ....the only reflection we are to see in ourselves is Jesus Christ. Job walked in what he knew at the time and that was just to take it, but CHRIST in His finished work walked in authority and passed it down to us. This is part of that GOOD NEWS GOSPEL. We ought to be excited that we are no longer helpless, but we ought to use the spiritual weapons of warfare (Ephesians 6:10-20)  to fight the enemy back and not accept defeat in our family, health or finances. 

Note: I believe and know that Job's story serves a significant purpose in other aspects.This blog does not address that purpose because I didn't want it to be TOO long. :)

Too Sick to Be Healed or Not Sick Enough

I used to think that Christ only wanted to heal the major things. Well, I should say the things that we/man considers to be major. We have categories of severity...what is critical, what is small or minute. Because we have this scale of big and small in our minds, we tend to think that healing goes according to our degrees. If it is something small we think this is too small to be healed. As if we aren't sick enough to be healed. "It'll go away eventually" "I'll take medication for this" "I'm not going to waste God's power/ability on this"

For big sicknesses like diabetes, cancer, arthritis, we think "This is too difficult for the power of God because the doctor's don't even know what to do" "I'll take medicine for it because I'm not sure if God will heal me of it" "The doctor said it should be okay if I do... so no need for God" Either way there are thoughts of doubt based on the degrees of severity we have placed in our minds. When we are TOO sick to be healed we tend to rely on the doctors and not on God. Doctors can only give a temporary patch toward the symptoms but very seldom do you hear of someone being completley healed with out reprecussions by a doctor. In the medical field when those things do happen they refer to them as "miracles." Doctors has their place, and they do help, however God IS Life. Not just eternal life, but in the quality of Life.

So where ever there is sickness whether it be a runny nose or a tumor the Life that he provides completely wipes it out. God's power is like a cleanser...like Pine sol. (Bare with me here) All Pine sol can do is clean. It's automatic that if you use pine sol for a spot on the floor or use it for an entire bathroom where ever pine sol touches it cleans regardless of how much is used. The power of pine sol in one drop is the same for a full bucket. God's power no matter where it is applied doesn't decrease. It's not diluted and he doesn't have to portion out a certain amount of power for your situation. The strength and magnitude of His power is always the same. He doesn't have to muster up strength to heal breast cancer any more than he would for a headache. The potency of His power is consistent for everyone and everything.Where ever there is a spot of sickness, death, or disease Life (Christ) will produce health/healing.

I had a sore throat the other morning. I drank some tea to alleviate the pain, right after I said a quick prayer "in the name of Jesus, throat be healed now!" I felt a sudden sharp pain as I ended my sentence, and I went to take my next swallow and the pain/soreness was gone. This is a great testimony, but I have had times where I needed to pray several times over because I went through the bouts of thinking a sore throat is too small.

When the answer is the same the problem doesn't matter. Jesus' power is always the answer therefore your problem/family member's problem has no degrees of severity when compared to the power of God. The issue doesn't make the difference. He heals EVERY disease with no distinction. Sickness is not in His category...Life is. Therefore anything under the category of illness MUST be terminated by his Life and Peace.

Stiff Neck

Last week my husband came home with a stiff neck. He strained his neck either from his work out or from sleeping wrong. Either way he couldn't turn his neck to the right and it was painful to even touch. My first remedy? You guessed it! PRAYER!
As soon as he came home, he waisted no time in asking me to pray for him. I gently placed my hand where it was hurting, because he said it hurt to touch, and here we go...prayer #1. After the first prayer he said he didn't really feel a difference. Okay cool then I'll do it again...prayer #2 he was able to touch his neck without it hurting something he couldn't do before without it throbbing. Well that's good but let's get it better...prayer#3 he moved his neck back and forth but with a little hesitation, but that was improvement from the previous state of turning his whole body just to look over his shoulder. We've got this far...let's pray again...prayer#4 after this prayer there was no hesitation he was moving his neck back and forth no strain, no hesitation, no medicine, no tension.

Glory to God He heals the stiff necked! :) :)

Soul Fuel...

Obedience. It's a word that can carry a lot of baggage in our freedom-loving, self-absorbed culture. It's a word that often makes us squirm.

But Jesus calls us to obedience.

Wouldn't it be a beautiful thing if every Christian gave 100% when called to obey the clear and simple commands of Christ: love God, love others, go and make disciples…

But frankly, most of us aren't there.

Christlike Obedience

Still, we're on a journey toward Jesus, hopefully growing step-by-step in learning to obey Him—growing in Christlikeness. It starts at the moment we trust in Jesus and continues for a lifetime.

If we're serious about encouraging this same growing process in our students, I'm convinced that we must learn to make evangelism a priority in our youth ministries. Sharing Jesus' message with others is a clear directive from Him. There's no disputing that John 20:21 and Matthew 28:19 lay it out there plainly enough for all of us. That's why it's so important to challenge your teenagers to take seriously Jesus' command in this area. It's a fundamental necessity for building life-long patterns and choices into teenagers' lives so they will learn to put Jesus first. If we fail to motivate and mobilize our students for deliberate, purposeful evangelism, they will begin to wonder whether they should take obedience to Jesus in any area of life seriously.

After all, teenagers are experts at picking up on hypocrisy.

Letting Simple Obedience Drive Outreach

I've actually found that teenagers are often better than many adults at taking Jesus' command to “go” seriously. For many adults, Jesus' words related to outreach have become so familiar that they've lost their potency and punch.

But teenagers, particularly those who are new in their faith, can be truly stirred by THE Cause of Christ and unleashed with a mission and message that can put adults to shame. Help them see their schools as a mission field. Train them how to explain the gospel clearly. And tap into the enthusiasm of new teen believers and help them reach out urgently to their lost friends.

If we take a long, hard look at Jesus' command to “go and make disciples,” simple obedience should actually be all the motivation any of us needs. But as we've been exploring in this energize Passion Fuels series, God graciously provides us with other motivational fuels that can help stir us to action if there are times when simple obedience isn't enough to hold our focus.

Step Up and Ignite the Passion

So unleash your teenagers for evangelism with this powerfully motivating passion fuel and challenge them to reach their friends with the Good News of the gospel. Here are a few ideas to help you:

• Study and pray through Jesus' commands to spread His message and process through what obedience to that call should look like in your own life. Then take at least one concrete step personally that will push you toward forward progress in following Jesus on this. For help with this, sign up for “evangephobia”—a free webcast on May 17th where we'll dive into how to make evangelism your friend. And invite another youth leader to attend, as well. There's strength in numbers.
• Share what you've learned with your students about obeying Jesus' call to share His message. Make sure they understand that obeying God in this area isn't about earning your way to heaven.
• Build a weekly “Take 5 for THE Cause” time into your youth group meeting time. Set aside a few minutes for teens to share specifically about their own efforts to share their faith with others. By making this a regular feature of your weekly routine, you'll build awareness and students can learn from each other's experiences. To get this ball rolling initially, you may need to provide an advance invitation to a few teenagers to share about spiritual conversations they've had with others.

So stop thinking of obedience as a word to make you squirm. Take a step. Simple obedience to God can be a powerful evangelism passion fuel for many teenagers.

Dare2share.org

What is Church?

This is a question that can have several answers depending on perspective. For most Americans church is a building, an organization that resembles a business. Church means pews, choir robes, instruments/band, attire, and lots of people. I went to church for 7 years at home as a child and even I had the idea that church was a building with lots of people. When I was asked what church I went to I was embarrassed to say I went to church at home. Funny how even as a child I had an artificial and, quite honestly, a superficial definition of church.

I was too young to see through my mom's eyes, that church is not in equipment, number, building, or any measurement by man's standards. When we look at the original meaning for church we see the simplicity in which this term was implied in scripture. Church is said to derive from the Latin word circus, circulus, or the Greek kuklos (kuklos) because the congregations were gathered in circles. Ecclesia (ekklesia) which is the Greek word for church, originally meant an assembly called out by the magistrate, or by legitimate authority.

 This simple definition shows that there can be 2 or 3 (Matthew 18:20). Church is discipleship, fellowship, teaching, worship, and evangelism. Whether or not you have a piano, a drum, guitar, microphone or matching uniforms you can always come together to have church in Starbucks, Borders, in the basement, at the park, a nursing home, or anywhere. Christ did not restrict us to a location. How would anything get done if locations and things dictated the work of God? Let's be mindful of what we consider to be church, because those underlying definitions can keep us from realizing the true message and purpose. When you see Christ for who he is and understand your own identity the materialistic idea of church fades quickly. The world exalts music...but let's not forget Christ didn't have a band following him in ministry. Can you do without the church glamour and still present yourself to God?

 I encourage you to have church and enjoy it for it's simplicity. Any family or friends that can come together to study the Word of God is having church regardless of music or location. Making God complex only makes it more difficult for us to serve Him according to His word.

NOTE: The purpose of church can be found in Ephesians 4.

Don't Tell Me I'm Wrong!

Society has trained us to think that everything about ourselves is okay. I agree that physically we  need to be comfortable with who we are, but there is a limit to this "everything is okay" statement. That limit is when we begin to look at our actions. Instead of pointing out wrongs, the world today teaches us that we aren't wrong about anything, and that all of our deeds are acceptable, that there are some deep rooted psychological reasons for what we did/do. This way of thinking allows us to shift the responsibility of our actions on our past, the way we were raised, an accident/incident, being too poor, being too rich, parents, siblings, extended family, the school we went to, the lack of a mentor, the neighborhood etc.

I do understand that the things that we do can be a result of one of the above mentioned factors, but this does not negate right from wrong regardless of thousands of reasons why. I am not belittling any ones reasons, but the reasons don't erase moral standards (right from wrong).

Recently I was about to send a message to a friend saying "live life without regrets" now in my mind that meant make the right choices so you don't have to regret it later. In the time that we live in now, that usually means, you do wrong and just be okay with it. Don't care what people think, be rude, mean, make mistakes, get abortions, hurt those around you and be cool with everything you do. In essence, people are making themselves a little "g" god. They make their own rules and everyone must adhere to the rules in their world. When we only love ourselves and not each other we are bound for a world full of conflict and hate.

The standards for right and wrong are quickly diminishing, because society is too busy being "politically correct". In order to be considered a good friend these days you can't disagree but you must go along with every decision they make, even if morally wrong. I watched a movie where a woman wanted to be inseminated because she so desperately wanted a baby. Her friend told her it was a bad idea. Once he didn't side with her on this decision she was infuriated and claimed him not to be a true friend. Friendship no longer has the endurance it once had. Apparently the rules have changed. You must agree with every action and thought of a friend even if you clearly see where they are wrong. People don't like their conscience being challenged to discern their actions. It's almost painful for someone to consider what their conscience is telling them to do because they so eagerly want to fulfill the lust of their flesh.

People find it easier and easier in their minds to cross boundaries. They blindly follow the trends of media. Little do they know that media (flyers, newspapers, radio, cassette tapes) was used in times past for war. Instead of using a fire arm, torment, or other tactics of violence, governments would use media to change the minds of the people to side with a particular political party.This  method proved to be effective...and is still in use today.

Take into consideration where you are inwardly. Have you been padding down the wrong actions and in your heart you know something's wrong? Have you been justifying wrong actions and evaluating yourself based on your own standards, making yourself your own god? Fulfilling our lusts has temporary pleasure but a lasting effect. Don't follow the path of the majority. Christ has a path that is TRUE. He doesn't trick, decieve, or falsely allure us. We must align ourselves with God's standards not with the world's.

How to Spiritually Capture a City

We are all looking to share the message of the Gospel of Christ as we should be, but sometimes we get stumped on how to spread it to the masses...
Curry Blake has a very effective strategic message on "How to Spiritually Capture a City" if you are an individual,group, or congregation seeking to find ways to share the gospel I'll be delighted to send you this 2 disc message. Inbox me your address or your churches address.

You can discuss this with other friends who share the passion of Christ and plan on spiritually taking over your city!

Facebook Name: Jazzmine Magloire