Spiritcode

THE HEALING OF THE SOUL AND ITS HELPER PARTS

THE HEALING OF THE SOUL AND ITS HELPER PARTS

Why does the soul need to be healed/saved soterion?

We have discussed the fall of Adam and Eve and how the serpent convinced them that they could eat from the fruit of the tree of knowledge and they would not die. He sowed the suspicion in them that God forbade them to eat of the tree because he did not want them to become like himself and come into his own likeness by knowing good and evil. The lie of the serpent was that God was withholding something from them that would make them become like God. In their naivety they believed that lie and disobeyed God perceiving that they had been forsaken by God, and they immediately felt separated from God and felt guilt and fear and shame. 

They had created in their once blameless and innocent souls a mindset of separation and isolation from God. Their souls were filled with fear and guilt and shame for the first time. They acted out from this newfound ‘otherness’ and become defensive and self-protective. They covered the shame of their nakedness, and they felt exposed and vulnerable. Father God called out Adam’s disobedience and covering up - and Adam put the blame on Eve for offering him the fruit of the tree in the first place. When God called out Eve, she blamed the devil for beguiling her. Their separation mindset had ‘orphaned’ their spirit from God. The enormous cosmic consequence of feeling deprived and forsaken by God set in place a mindset of separation from God for all of humanity.

Adam and Eve had just created in the soul of humanity two alien parts in their now damaged souls that had never existed before. The first new part was covering up their sin – and the word for sin used by Paul in Romans 5:10 for sin entering the world through Adam is harmartia and that word for sin appears 173 times in the Bible. It means missing the mark. They were the first of the rest of humanity to miss that mark, except for one man Jesus. They had misread the nature of their God – not thinking or believing that they were loved and not able to trust him for their lives. The second new part of their damaged souls was the blame game – the woman You gave me – even God was blamed! 
The human soul was now on its journey of creating countless self-interested defensive and self-protective strategies that would become activated in every person to be born in the earth. The relationship between the human spirit and the soul became conflicted and disordered concerning what was right and wrong and good and evil - the conscience was damaged. And once the relationship between the human soul and God was damaged the relationships between the souls of people towards one another were also damaged. The once Godly responses of sacrificial love and trust and agreement became a burden and a struggle – it now became ‘what about me?’
Jesus was the only human being who did not create one self-protective or defensive or self-promoting part in his soul. Only he could remedy this disaster, so we have just seen the horrible dilemma for the souls of mankind for the rest of time, and we have just seen the magnificent answer for the salvation and healing of the soul of mankind. Jesus would one day become the saviour of the soul - from age to age for all of humanity.

I will be calling these self-created soul parts like covering up and the blame game, and other dfence mechanisms ‘helper parts’. Today we will just identify some common helper parts and next time we will look at the process of their formation and identify more specific parts of our soul and see how they become ingrained and lead to us missing the mark of finding God’s will in many issues of our lives. We will find that these helper parts turn out to be what I will call ‘unhelpful’ helper parts. We all start forming these helper parts in our soul at an early age as we acquire and cultivate the separation mindset that darkness has engineered and weaponised in the soul of mankind. These unhelpful helper parts cause so much unnecessary suffering in our lives - and regretfully in the lives of those in our world that we care for.

But just one more spoiler alert – some good news – great news - Jesus told his disciples at the last supper that he would not leave us as orphans but that he would send us ‘Another Helper’ - the Holy Spirit, who would lead us into all truth. He said that the holy Spirit would take the things that Jesus would be saying to us and reveal them to us.  (John 14:16-18).

I will be using the terminology of parts in this course to describe how just as we have three major parts in our being, the spirit and the soul and the body, each of those three parts are also made up of parts. We have just discussed the helper parts of our soul, and we saw in the earlier teaching that our spirit is made of two parts, the mind and the heart (Hebrews 4:12) and we also observe that our body is made up of many many parts. The Bible was describing our parts thousands of years ago in the Old Testament, where David in the Psalms speaks of his outer and inner body parts as well as his inner spirit and soul parts. For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Psalm 139:13.
David also knew God’s heart towards his spirit and soul. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden parts You will make me to know wisdom. (Psalm 51:6).

We are actually all familiar with the concept of our differing inner parts that would appear to be in conflict with each other. For instance, our spirit and soul is made up of our mind and our heart and if we were deciding whether or not to purchase something like a car, we could find that our heart could be saying yes - that’s for me! But our mind could oppose that desire and say ‘What about paying the mortgage?’ We live with this subconscious polarity and find ourself saying ‘what part of me made me say (or do) that?

When the mind and the heart of our spirit go through hurtful or harmful experiences at an early age our immature and often innocent spiritual self creates defence mechanisms and self-protective or self-advantage mechanisms to cope with the emotional or mental distress. Our immature self then sends an insufficient version of who our true spiritual self is (our genesis self’ – James 1:23) into our soul as a tangible part of our reality of who we are and how we behave. I would call that a shadow self that gets bonded in our soul and that shapes an untrue version of the spiritual self that God created us to be. Unfortunately, what we see in real life relationship is that peoples’ soul parts are responding and reacting to other peoples’ soul parts.

But the next good news spoiler alert is that the Bible tells us that our spirit knows every distorted or disordered part of us that has been created in our soul, and even in our body through harm or trauma or mishap.
For what man knows the things (ta – the parts that make up the whole -everything) of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? (1Corinthians 2:11). 
The Bible also says in the Old Testament, The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD,
searching all his innermost parts. (Proverbs 20:27).

In this course we are going to find that the mind and heart of our uniquely and individually designed spirit made in the image of God hold the blueprint of the logos designed Word of God that created us for his designated will and purpose (genesis self).
We do not have to lived trapped or stuck in a disordered soul but we can receive an understanding of who we really are and understand why and how we devised our unhelpful helper parts in the first place. The Holy Spirit is yearning to give us the understanding of what Jesus has to say about our orphaned spirit and how we can replace the unhelpful helper with the true Helper of the Holy Spirit. This becomes a journey into freedom. 
At last we can begin to take responsibility for the soul we have formed and see it sanctified and set free. We can actually become participators in the salvation and healing of our souls with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and identify and replace the unhelpful helpers with the Divine Helper and begin to do the Father’s will for our lives. We can begin to live a life of purpose and meaning designed for us before the foundation of the world. To be continued. 

Paul OSullivan – pauloss@me.com

THE SALVATION OF OUR SPIRIT SOUL AND BODY

THE SALVATION OF THE BODY AND SOUL AND SPIRIT 

In these teachings I am attempting to lay down the Scriptural foundation and the way of putting into practice the course that is now available and which I have called ‘The Salvation of the Soul – and the Lifegiving Spirit’. As you will see on the Youtube and read in the course booklet, the course is based on the Scripture in 1 Peter 1:9 Reaching the goal of our faith the salvation/healing (soterion) of the soul, and another foundational Scripture is 1Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam (Jesus) became a life-giving spirit’.
The healing and salvation of the soul involves the interaction of our spirit and soul and body that are designed by God to work in harmony with one another and in alignment with God’s will and purpose for our lives (1Thessalonians 5:23). Ephesians 1:4-5 makes it clear that God’s pathway of our soul being saved takes us on to his predestination purpose for us, which is for our whole being to become the expression of his life-giving Spirit into our world around us.
We have observed the difference between salvation in the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament the choice was for Israel to obey the Law and Commandments and be protected from their enemies and materially blessed. In the New Testament the goal of our faith was salvation for the soul and the blessings were spiritual rather than material blessings (Ephesians 1:4). 
Today I will be discussing the fact that each of these three parts of us, our spirit and our soul and our body goes through a different stage and mode of salvation. My headline summary would go like this; ‘Our spirit has been saved, our soul is being saved, and our body will be saved at the return of the Lord’.

The Bible calls our physical body a mortal body (Romans 8:11). That means it is limited by earthly constraints and has been appointed to die (Hebrews 9:27). The Bible calls our body the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Corinthians 6) and as God’s vessels of his life we embody the inner workings of truth and faith into our world in the will of God (Romans 12:1). This is why Paul encourages us to keep our body in check - he says ‘I discipline my body and bring it into subjection’ (1Corinthians 9:27)

The reason that the body is so temporary in this earthly life is because unlike our innermost being of soul and spirit it is subjected to all of the forces of this world. Our outer bodies receive information from the outer world through the five bodily senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. This sense information gets expressed in our soul The soul will respond positively or react negatively to our bodily experiences. David in the psalms commented on this interactive process of our body and soul and he gave glory to God that his body was so fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139.14). 

Our physical bodies will be changed in an instant (saved) into a resurrected supernatural body ‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal (body) must put on immortality ‘(1Corinthians 15:52). Our earthly body exists for one age – a lifetime, whereas our sprit and our soul have an eternal quality that can progress from age to age and from glory to glory. (The word eternity in the Greek is ai??nios– age to age. In fact the word eternity was only first used in the English Bible by Tyndale in 1526 who translated aenios – age to age  into eternity . And he also translated the Old Testament Hebrew word olam as eternity instead of  ‘horizon to horizon’ (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

So our body will be a new body one day. it would be interesting to know what we might look like. ‘Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1John 3:2)(1Corinthians 6:13-14). The supernatural resurrected body of Jesus when he walked the earth for forty days after his resurrection was recognizable. It will be similar with us, but we cannot be specific (it has not yet been revealed what we shall be). Will we look like we are about thirty years old? I have no revelation about this, just speculation. Jesus entered his ministry at around thirty years of age (Luke 3:23), The qualifying for Old Testament priestly ministry was thirty (Numbers 8:24). That was the age of maturity in the Bible. How old did Adam and Eve appear to be when first created? (it has not yet been revealed what we shall be).

So the body will be saved but the Bible says that the soul is being saved (IE a work in progress). “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1Corinthians 1:18, 2 Corinthians 2:15).
This describes the work of the salvation of the soul as an ongoing process of faith. It also shows that perishing (appollymi – wasting, being ruined, destroyed.) is also an ongoing process of wasting our time and our ongoing life instead of choosing to work with the Holy Spirit for the saving of our soul. 

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life ai??nios – age to age life). 
Receiving eternal life does not mean just going to Heaven. It means receiving and believing in the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus living within us and through us and bringing about the salvation of our soul. By doing this we do not ‘perish’ (appolymi) which means to waste our life in not fulfilling God’s purpose and meaning for our ongoing age to age life. 

Then beyond being saved is becoming a life-giving Spirit – and that ‘becoming’ includes our lives being a witness on the earth of the nature and reality of a living God in Heaven. 
Nowhere does the Bible say that the goal of salvation is ‘going to Heaven’. The goal of salvation in both the Old and New Testament has never been stated as going to Heaven. The goal of our lives is actively being a witness on the earth of the nature of a living God in Heaven. Israel tried to do that by obeying the Law and they failed. When they chose to obey, they received outward blessings and victories over the enemy and were saved. When they disobeyed, they lost the battles and the land, and they ceased being saved. Our soul starts being saved by receiving faith in the Spirit of life of Christ Jesus and by working out that salvation on an ongoing daily basis (Philippians 2.12). Going to Heaven is going to heaven – there is an afterlife where every soul will be held accountable by a just and loving God – and onlyGod knows how that plays out. Let him surprise us. 

So far, we’ve seen that our body will be saved in the future, and our soul is in the process of being saved. But as I said at the beginning our spirit was saved two thousand years ago - for everybody. It happened through Christ’s work on the cross at Calvary – 1Timothy 4:10 because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. The Bible calls this work of Jesus reconciliation (Greek – katalasso). But the Bible also uses the word reconciliation to mean something different in Matthew Ch 18 for the healing of offenses and disagreements between one another and that  Greek word dialasso.
The word katalasso describes the supernatural work of the being of God entering into humanity and the being of humanity entering into Divinity. And Peter also writes about us ‘becoming partakers of the divine nature’ (2Peter 1:4)
The Bible says that this work of reconciliation was sealed for humanity by receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Ephesians 1:5). So the work of the cross brings more than just forgiveness – it gives to every human being the opportunity to experience living as a New Creation in this life by faith through the grace of God in the power of the Spirit. God’s very being has now also become both human and Divine forever - through Jesus Christ.
Why did God reconcile us to Himself? 
Because His deepest desire was to unite us with Himself —to live His life within and through us, so we could live our lives within and for Him. It becomes the completion of his circle of love—the very reason He created us in the first place. God didn’t ask our permission. He went behind our backs and did it and he didn’t warn the devil either. He just went ahead and reconciled us to Himself, uniting His divine nature with our human nature through Christ’s death. This was God’s initiative—pure love in action. 
Let’s look at a powerful passage from Paul, who understood reconciliation perhaps better than anyone. In 2 Corinthians 5:14, Paul writes:
“The love of Christ compels us, because we believe this: One died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.”
Christ died for us so we could live for Him by becoming a life-giving Spirit.
Paul continues: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them, and entrusting us with this message.”(2 Corinthians 5:18)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
This is the Good News: Jesus did not come to condemn the world—He’s forgiving it. Our role is to tell people they’re already forgiven and invite them into the process of ongoing salvation of the soul and then onto becoming becoming a life-giving Spirit.
But this truth remains unknown until it’s revealed to our mind and received in our heart by faith. Until then, our minds resist Him, and our hearts remain in unbelief. We must know—and believe—that our spirit is already saved so that we can receive the salvation and sanctification of our soul. As Paul says “If while we were enemies we were reconciled to God (spirit saved), by the death of his Son how much more, now that we’re reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (salvation of the soul)” (Romans 5:10)
So, we’re not just forgiven—we’re called to become something new: life-giving spirits who bring that life into the world around us. In fact our true becoming in this life is as colabourers with God (1Corinthians 3:9). This outworks itself as the most simple of tasks of kindness and mercy and love and goodness – bringing the fragrance and presence of Christ into wherever we are. Amen – to be continued
Paul OSullivan  -  pauloss@icloud.com

 

THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL GOD'S IMAGE AND LIKENESS

THE SALVATION OF THE SOUL GODS IMAGE AND LIKENESS

I am continuing today in the discussion of the salvation and healing of the soul. We have seen that God has created us to function as a spirit and a soul and a body – three parts that are to work in harmony together within each person, and in harmony with the will of God, so that we can fulfill the design and purpose for our lives. We saw that these three different parts of us interact with each another in a predictable and logical way. 
The spirit is the life force of us as a human being, the individual and unique essence of who we are – no two human beings are created spiritually identical – not even identical twins. And each person’s unique spirit reflects a shadow of God’s nature - made in the image of God - So God created man in his own image, in the image(selem) of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27). 
Our human spirit was created with two parts - the mind and the heart. The mind seeks understanding — what’s true or false, right or wrong — and through that process, we form a conscience. The heart, meanwhile, is where our desires, emotions, and beliefs live. What the mind accepts as truth, the heart embraces as faith. But here’s the dilemma - with so many different minds in the world, there are countless versions of what people believe to be true. And with those truths come just as many belief systems that people place their faith in. So, in practice, truth and faith have become relative values, shaped by the culture, religion, or philosophy that a person grows up in. (36,000 Christian denominations). When it comes to our inner spiritual life, the mindset and heart beliefs of our spirit are expressed in our soul, which becomes the expression of who we are and how we are seen in the world. 
I'm just going to stop there because I just said something that I'd like to clarify. I said 36,000 denominations, and which one has the truth and how do we come to the unity of the faith? I'll tell you what it won't be – It won’t be by having exactly the same doctrine on every single verse in the Scripture - it won't be that, but you know what it will be?  It will fulfill Ephesians chapter 4 verse 13 that says ‘until we all come in the unity of the faith’ and there will be the one ‘yes ‘concerning the expression of Jesus as the one who is living through us and we will have a different flavour according to our gifts and our persuasions of certain things - that don’t have to cause arguments! It is more like saying  ‘that's an interesting perspective’ - but what will be unified is the life of Jesus being seen in his people in the unity of the Spirit because the Spirit is expressed through the soul as who we are. And we come into the unity of that expression as being the life of Jesus flowing like a river through us.  So therefore, the soul reflects the conscience and the belief systems and the soul must take responsibility for those choices. 
I know that in the denomination I grew up in I had a conscience about not being allowed to eat meat on Friday, and my friends said I was stupid to have that belief - but I did that as unto the Lord because I thought that's what God wanted. And there are many things like that that people do to honour God, and the Bible says in Romans 14 ‘let each man be fully persuaded in his own mind’.  People do things to honour God and perhaps some only eat vegetables while others will eat meat - and others will see one day as being the only day of the Sabbath while others will see all days alike - let each one be persuaded in their own mind, says Paul (Romans 141-6). And it says, ‘but don't put somebody in jeopardy to their faith by demanding that they believe exactly as you’. You can do a thing but if they don't have faith for that it is nonetheless the Lord who sees where their heart is. 
And Paul said to the people who are able to eat meat offered to idols ‘there's no such thing as an idol’ but he also said but don't flaunt that faith even it's real. So our soul takes responsibility for those choices of faith and love over legalism.
Therefore the soul reflects the conscience and belief systems that we’ve developed ourselves, and so our soul must take responsibility for those choices. Let us go back to the beginning — to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were tempted by darkness in the form of a serpent, and they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were tempted to think and believe that what was ‘good’ meant what was only good for them and not what the absolute good of God was for them. That very choice of Adam and Eve introduced to all of humanity from then on a world of relative values. In other words what is good for me is all that counts. But absolute truth and faith come only from God, who gave us a free will to choose what we believe, and a conscience to guide us toward the good.
The Bible tells the tragic story of how humanity, time and again, chose evil over good - and how that choice damaged the soul and brought harmful consequences to the whole person and to the whole world which was judged at the time of Noah’s flood. So God started over again with humanity but the dilemma remained; How could God remedy this confusion of the meaning of good and evil which causes such great damage to the soul? 
What God did was to choose the nation of Israel out of all the nations in the earth to give them the best remedy available for the disabled conscience of humanity. He called a man named Abraham and told him that through him all families of the earth would be blessed. Abraham’s grandson Jacob took his family of 70 Hebrew people into Egypt because of a famine in all the land. They finally became 2 million slaves to Pharoah over a period of 400 years and became the nation of Israel and God had told Abraham he would take Israel back into the Promised Land of Canaan. God then miraculously delivered Israel from slavery to Pharoah through Moses to whom he gave the Law and the Commandments which reflected his relational nature of love and wisdom and goodness. Obedience to these Laws became the way of Salvation in the Old Testament for Israel and God also instructed them to make blood sacrifices for the forgiveness of their sins. These sacrifices prophetically foretold the final fulfillment in the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to forgive the sins of the world once and forever. 

If Israel obeyed God’s commandments and offered sacrifices faithfully, He would bless them, provide for them, and give them victory over their enemies who followed false gods and lived in darkness. God had also promised them a land through their ancestor Abraham, and He would lead them into it as their Saviour.
But this salvation was only partial—it depended on human nature flawed since Adam and Eve, trying to perfectly obey through sheer human willpower. And when they disobeyed, the blessings stopped, battles were lost, their land was taken, and their souls were weighed down by guilt, shame, and judgment. They had a strange choice – of being saved or not being saved. (And strangely enough we have the same choice of being saved or not being saved – we will discuss that shortly). 

There is one Old Testament man, an anointed king called David, whose heart understood the beauty of God’s Law and Commandments that reflected God’s love and wisdom and goodness. Through his devotion to the spiritual truth of God’s Word he experienced the reordering of his soul and he ushers all of us into the understanding of the world of the soul.
The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul; The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple; The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; Moreover by them Your servant is warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. (Psalm 19:7-11)
But David was still a lesser separate being who depended upon a devoted but insufficient human nature.

However, God had planned a better salvation in the New Testament that would allow humanity to partake of his Divine nature, and let us look at that promise of God – his big idea of sharing his very life with humanity at an appointed time through his Son Jesus. Genesis 1:26. Let us make man in our own image (selem- a shadow of Godness, as I quoted earlier –  all of humanity has this shadow of Godness ). However this verse goes on to say ‘according to our likeness’ (mut – which means an embodied being not just a shadow like selem). In other words, God had already planned from the beginning that there would be a way for humanity to embody the likeness of God. 
And Jesus became the embodied being – in him dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). Jesus did this so that we could have his life and likeness dwell within us, and embody his Divinity. And Paul writes about this in 1Corinthians 15:45 the first man Adam became (ginomai – generated) a living soul - the last Adam (Jesus) became (eis – entered into) being a life-giving Spirit. We too enter into becoming a life-giving Spirit.
God had to let humanity in the Old Testament try to save their own souls - just to prove to us that we cannot do it by existing only in the image or shadow of God, we had to come into his likeness and embody his life-giving Spirit. 

Jesus brought his Divinity into humanity so that humanity could come into his Divinity.
He sowed his life as a seed into the soil of the human heart by dying on the cross and rising from the dead and sending his Holy Spirit of Life for all flesh (all of us) at Pentecost. All flesh means the guy next door. It has been done – it is finished. But who is going to believe it and choose it and receive the ‘salvation of the soul’? As I said earlier Israel had a strange choice – of being saved or not being saved. And strangely enough we have the same choice of being saved or not being saved – we will discuss that shortly. To be continued.
Paul OSullivan – pauloss@icloud.com

 

 

 

THE SALVATION AND HEALING OF THE SOUL

 THE SALVATION AND HEALING OF THE SOUL 

Just as God is a Trinity – as Father and Son and Holy Spirit so we as human beings have three parts – a spirit, a soul and a body, and these three parts of us interact together. The Bible says that God desires for our whole spirit and soul and body be presented blameless at the coming of the Lord. (1Thessalonians 5:23).

Through the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives these three parts of us were designed to work in harmony with one another to achieve what the Apostle Peter calls the goal of our faith – the salvation/healing (soterion) of the soul (psyche) (1Peter 1:9)

The word soul as it is used in modern day language seems to have vague and different meanings for many people. Scientists say that it has no real existence that can be scientifically measured as an entity, and many people simply see the soul as our inner emotional and feeling life – That’s why we have the term ‘soul music’. Plato the Greek philosopher believed that the soul was motivational and appetitive and expressed different inner desires. 
But thousands of years before Plato the Bible was very clear about the soul as being the expression of our spiritual life. The word soul Is used three hundred and fifty times in the Old Testament including many mentions by David in the Psalms, which help us to understand the spiritual meaning of the soul. And the soul is mentioned over one hundred times in the New Testament.

Our soul is actually the manifestation of who we really are as the expression of our inner self at any one time in our life. So what is Peter saying when he says that the goal of our faith is the salvation of our soul? And to answer that question we have to go back and look at how our soul came into being. The startling reality is that God didn’t create our human soul as a fully working independent part of our being, as he did when he created our human spirit and our human body.
We find that Genesis 2.7 says the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man ‘became’ a living soul (nephesh).

That word ‘became’ a living soul intrigued me. It implied a process of something coming into being rather than a conclusive creative act of God. But I could find nothing in the Hebrew word ‘became’ to suggest what the process was. It was only when I discovered the Scripture of Paul in 1Corinthians15:45 that I understood how we become the living soul that we become. The Scripture says The first man Adam became (ginomai) a living soul and the Last Adam (Jesus) became a Life Giving Spirit. That word ginomai means to generate, to bring into being, to cause to be. And this has even more startling implications. 

That means that we are forming or creating our own self – the self that people see, the self that we think we are and whom others think we are. And that means that we are accountable for who we become - in what we think and what we believe and how we behave. And it is our soul that gets judged on the last day- what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to suffer the loss of his soul’ Mark 8.36. That is why the goal of our faith is the salvation/healing of our soul. That is why the Bible in the New Testament says that we are ‘being saved’ (2Corinthians 2:15) It is a process of transformation and sanctification. Sanctification means more than just a status of personal piety – it means being set apart for a life of purpose and meaning according to the design and will of God.

So how does this process of ‘becoming’ operate? We saw in the opening Scripture that our whole spirit and soul and body are to function in harmony together in the will of God for our lives. God created the first man Adam from the dust (adama) of the earth and then he breathed the spirit of human life into him. These two created parts of humanity receive information that gets expressed in our souls. Our body with its five outer senses and other functional parts send material information to the soul which is then expressed by the soul in some form of response of either pain or pleasure or any other reaction.
The spirit, which is made up of the mind and the heart sends inner spiritual information to the soul through the mind and the heart. The mind of the spirit sends truth or untruth to our soul and the soul responds to that information. The mind and heart of a child may be imprinted with helpful or unhelpful ideas and ideologies or be impacted by helpful or harmful emotional treatment. What the mind receives the heart believes and so the heart sends a belief system to the soul that a person will align themselves to for better or for worse. And so the journey of the soul begins as it receives multitudes of packages of information from both our outer and inner world into our souls to be processed into our becoming who we appear to be.

This is a remarkably complex process but not altogether complicated, because God has designed our unique individual human spirit and body from before the foundation of the world. God had said ‘Let us make man in our own image’ (Genesis 1:26. That word ‘image’ is selem in the Hebrew and it means a shadow – so that everyone from Adam and Eve has been created with this shadow of ‘Godness’ about them with different and unique talents and abilities and personalities. Each person was also created with potential gifts of the Holy Spirit which would come into operation according to their faith in Jesus. Their faith in Jesus and the understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives after the Holy Spirit was given at Pentecost empowers a person to release the supernatural power of God’s love and goodness into their world around them.
So how does this soul of ours get saved, and what happened to it for there to be a need for it to be saved in the first place?

To understand that we must go back to the beginning where God created Adam and Eve and see what happened to the soul of man through the assault of satanic darkness upon their human spirit – their innocent but naive hearts and minds.  This sum of all darkness appeared to them in the form of a serpent in the beautiful Paradise of the Garden of Eden. God had created Adam and Eve in His own image and they lived together with him as their Heavenly Father, walking and talking together in their paradise. They had been created with an innocent and blameless spirit and a perfect physical body and had begun to ‘become’ a blameless living soul – and it seemed that nothing could be better than this. Their minds were filled only with God’s truth of who he was and who they were, and their hearts trusted and believed in him for all of their blessing and provision.
There was an obvious point of difference between themselves and God, in that they were created beings – of a lower order than God who was Uncreated being like no other being. God was perfect in all his ways as Father and Son and Holy Spirit and humanity was less than perfect, of a lower order of being. But for a time of blameless innocence they would have felt ‘at one’ with God, just as a baby child feels with its mother and in a place of satisfied agreement that all their needs were being met, and not yet recognizing themselves as separate with a sense of separation. But in each person’s life that point of differentiation occurs as a necessary matter of reality, when one ‘I will crosses another ‘I will’

And this awakening of differentiation for Adam and Eve was brutal as the serpent exploited their innocence and naivety and crushed their innocent spirits. He himself fully understood this point of differentiation and knew himself as a lesser created spiritual being as God - and he hated it. That is the evil sin of covetousness.

Then Satan, this dark spirit being who had realised that point of difference - of being of a lower spiritual order than God, in his deception and pride coveted the status of being as God. He wanted to be in God’s very likeness. How deeply did his covetousness fill him with resentment and hatred for these puny human beings about whom he heard with                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             outrage in his heart the words of God saying about them ‘let us make man in our own image… AND here I would like to complete that verse which adds ‘in our own LIKENESS’ (not just ‘selem’ – image -but ‘mut’ - likeness – a three-dimensional substantial God-like being. To this statement about humanity coming into the likeness of God Satan said ‘No it would not happen, for this is what he coveted with all his heart.
In Isaiah Ch 14 Isaiah speaks about the will of Lucifer as the five ‘I wills’ of Satan.
How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, 
I will be like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, To the lowest depths of the Pit. (Isaiah 14:12)

It would be Jesus as the One who was set for a time yet to come in God’s plan for humanity to fulfill those five ‘I wills’ in the will of the Father. Jesus would come in the three-dimensional substantiated likeness of God as God and man and sow the promises of those five I wills for his beloved humanity.  Jesus would turn those five ‘I wills’ of the selfish Satan into the five humble I wills’ of his five wounds on the cross. The bible says of Jesus For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:9). Jesus would sow his life as a seed into the ground – a seed that would not abide alone but that would bear much fruit – the fruit of his resurrection. He would send the Holy Spirit of the life of God in Christ into a humanity that would bear the fruit of his life within them. This would be their salvation – the salvation of the soul – the healing of the soul that would one day be presented to him blameless. This is what predestination means – destined to be transformed into the likeness of God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

In order to understand what the process is of the goal of our faith as being the saving of our soul we must go back to see the tragedy that happened to the soul of humanity in the Garden of Eden when mankind asserted his ‘I will’ against the Father’s will through the deception of the serpent.  We will then get an understanding of the plan of the healing and the salvation of the soul that is waiting for us to enter into by his loving grace and the gift of his faith through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I will be speaking further about these things – to be continued. Amen.

 

 

THE REVERSAL OF THE WORLD AT PENTECOST

THE REVERSAL OF THE WORLD AT PENTECOST

Acts 1:8 you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Jesus is making a prophecy here about the cosmic reversal of human history, culture, morality and spirituality. He is saying that from this time forth a new era of spiritual activity would begin in the earth whereby every human being who believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus as the risen Christ could live as a New species of being – a new Creation. They would become conscious of the Spirit of the life of Jesus being joined to their natural human spirit – a reversal of natural human existence to Divine spiritual existence. 

He was also reversing the witness of himself as God in the earth. Israel was once that witness. Israel had been the living proof on earth that there was a God in the heavens – God doing miracles of provision for them and giving them the Promised land of Canaan. And for Israel to be that living proof they had to obey his commandments and perform his sacred sacrificial offerings.
But now there was a new witness - a new living proof on the earth that there was a living God in the Heavens. This was to be the lives of sacred power in those who believed in the resurrected Christ that displayed and glorified the nature of a loving forgiving God in the Heavens.
Jesus was also prophesying the reversal of spiritual power in the Heavens that would give believers in Jesus the fulness of spiritual power over the principalities and powers and demonic forces in the nations of the earth and in their own personal lives. 
Pentecost was also a direct reversal of the Tower of Babel. Spiritual corruption had occurred at Babel where the earth was divided into seventy nations (named in Genesis 10), because of their rebellion to God. The language of their one native tongue was divided into various unintelligible languages so that they could not communicate and understand each other. The miraculous ability of the disciples at Pentecost to speak in different tongues (languages) allowed Jews from every nation to hear the gospel in their own tongue, overcoming the chaotic dividing of languages that occurred at Babel. Even the word ‘divided’ in the phrase regarding the "divided tongues of fire" over the heads of the disciples is the same word diamaridzo that describes the division of nations in Deuteronomy 32:8. At Pentecost a new language of the Holy Spirit united humanity unto Christ through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit – We will now read the account of the Day of Pentecost from the Book of Acts. 

Acts 2:2-12 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
The Crowd’s Response
And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?” Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.”
But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: (Joel 2:28–32) ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; I will pour out My Spirit in those days on My young men and on My young women; And they shall prophesy, and the young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 

That entire section of Joel’s prophecy has come to pass for all of humanity and is now actively being taken hold of by faith in those who believe in the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’. This happens when a believer acknowledges that they are empowered by the Holy Spirit of God to be led into all the truth that Jesus has spoken in his Word and is now speaking today into our lives and we are spiritually empowered to fulfil God’s will and the requirements of the Commandments 

In Jewish tradition Pentecost (Shavuot) is also celebrated as the anniversary of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai. This perspective emphasizes the ongoing significance of the law and its continuation in the covenant with God. 
Pentecost is the fulfillment of the promise of a "new covenant" where God would write his law on the hearts of his people. This contrasts with the giving of the law on stone as the Old Covenant. 
In both events God gave His Torah (Law) to His People and in both cases He sealed the covenant that He had made with them. At Sinai He gave the Law written on tablets of stone. At Pentecost, He gave the Law written on tablets of the Heart.

Then comes another part of Joel’s prophecy that has not yet happened historically – but it is seen in the Book of Revelation as part of one of the seven seals which Jesus opens. 
The prophecy finishes by describing the cry in the hearts of people in those last harrowing days - urging them to call upon the name of Jesus and become saved. ‘And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.’ And that will bring an outpouring of God’s grace upon those people who finally realise and yield to the awesome power of the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. (Revelation 6:12)
There is also a further implication to the word ‘divided’ in the phrase the "divided tongues as of fire" on the heads of the disciples in the upper room as the same word diamaridzo in describing the dividing of the nations in Deuteronomy 32. It is that those 70 nations whose tongues were divided at Babel and whose names are listed in Genesis 10, went out to occupy different territories in the earth.  The miracle of speaking in tongues at Pentecost for all the people of the different nations to understand the Gospel message at Pentecost signifies God's intention to reclaim those nations he had previously disinherited due to their rebellion and idolatry at Babel. 
And now the deliberate scattering of these new believers back out to their home nations after Pentecost acted as seeds of the Gospel of the Kingdom being planted among all those nations. Starting in Jerusalem, it extended to Judea, Samaria (representing the apostate northern kingdom of Israel), and even to places with Jewish presence like Ethiopia. The Gospel also reached Philistine cities which were areas outside the original Kingdom of Solomon's control, and Damascus, a location linked to Abraham's early history and Paul’s early history. All this explains the presence of believers wherever Paul later travelled with the New Covenant message. God was reclaiming the territory of the whole earth from the powers of darkness and rebellion into his New Covenant promise for humanity. This became the reversal and reclamation of geographic and spiritual territory of Pentecost. But the reversal and reclamation of territory begins at the personal territory of our own heart – that is the soil of the new territory that God is reclaiming in the earth in these days in which we live.
Taking back the spiritual territory of our own minds and hearts by faith through the indwelling Holy Spirit brings about a maturing of our will into accepting God’s will in all of our circumstances and gives us a new spiritual authority. We rest in a new understanding of the sovereignty of God in our lives as we see both the outward visible reality and the inner unseen reality with clarity and discernment. We realise that no adverse or unexpected circumstances can stop God’s purpose from working in us and through us. We can navigate life’s sufferings of worldly trials and spiritual conflicts with peace and thanksgiving and hope. (1 Thessalonians 5:16–18). 
We can say along with Paul – I AM WHAT I AM by the grace of God, as a vessel of his Divine will. This is what Jesus meant when he spoke about us receiving the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses to Me – our lives as living proof of a living God in Heaven. This the reversal of our new I AM identity at Pentecost. It is no longer about an I AM in reaction to life’s troubles – but an I AM that is co-labouring with God to bless others as we are we are being blessed, and see them redeemed as we have been redeemed, and witness a world being reordered and restored through the power of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
I want to just mention the thought of the reversal of our I Am again. The Holy Spirit convinces our I Am to no longer be content to let us think I am alone and isolated - thinking you’re alone IS not good enough, not for anybody I know including myself.  What is great is that you can be yourself with God - you can be yourself getting to know the ocean of mercy that God allows for you to be yourself as a work in progress - and know his continual forgiveness and encouragement. God is delighted that you're even paying any attention to the fact that you are sharing yourself with him. You might say to him - Is that what you are all about Lord? And if you listen carefully you'll hear God say yes that's what it was all about - I wanted you in my life. And then you might ask ‘Why does that bless you Lord? He will tell you that he couldn’t be more blessed than he is in himself but it is for your sake, and I want you to know and to share how good it is to share life without ever feeling being separated and isolated. I want you to share in Our Father Son and holy Spirit's wonderful relationship. God says I did this for you not out of any pressure or obligation but out of perfect love because perfect love has a certain kind of compulsion of overflowing with a love that has to be shared. I want you to assure yourself and include yourself in that because it's for your sake. As you realise this you too will be compelled to share that love with others in your world.

BONDED TO GODS JOY

 

BONDED TO GOD’S JOY

We have discussed being bonded to God’s love in our mind and in our heart, and last week I shared about being bonded to his peace in times of adversity. 
God also bonds us to his joy - not just the joy of having everything going right but getting his joy of overcoming things going wrong. We get God’s own joy that he feels when he sees fear and dread and darkness being overcome in our lives. This is God’s shout of triumph that resonates in our spirit and our soul as we triumph over these things by his grace. This is the point where there is an inner turnaround and new joyful motivation is found to continue conquering and to conquer and reinforcing our motivation to take on new challenges.

Knowing God’s love draws us to him, knowing his peace settles us in agreement with him, but knowing God’s joy takes us beyond being drawn to his love and settled in his peace. Knowing God’s joy makes us move forward confidently in his strength as part of his victory over evil in the world. We were not created to cope with these pressures in our own strength, so the only complete answer is the spiritual joy of God. As David said the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Zechariah prophesies of the last days in chapter nine about God blowing the trumpet for battle and being seen over his people. In chapter ten Zecharia says And he will make them as His majestic horse in the battle. (Zechariah 10:3).
A powerful picture of this majestic battle horse is seen in the book of Job Chapter 39:19.

Have you given the horse strength? Have you clothed his neck with thunder? Can you frighten him like a locust? His majestic snorting strikes terror. He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength;
He gallops into the clash of arms. He mocks at fear and is not frightened; Nor does he turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, The glittering spear and javelin. He devours the distance with fierceness and rage; Nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded. 
At the blast of the trumpet he says, ‘Aha!’ and he smells the battle from afar, hearing the thunder of captains and shouting.

We see the same picture of the joy and enthusiasm of the end time Church as Jesus begins riding on a white horse, conquering and to conquer in the book of Revelation Chapter 6.
The background to that is that after the Messenger who speaks to John in Revelation Chapter 3 has given John the letters to the seven churches in that region, he makes this prophetic statement in the next chapter.
Revelation 4:1 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show you things which must be hereafter.
That means that everything that is spoken to John from that point on (90 AD) is prophetic for the future of the world in the purposes of God. In Chapter 5 these future events are revealed as the seven seals that only Jesus is worthy to open and as each seal is opened it continues to come to its fullest expression of worldwide, not just local, end time events until Jesus returns and the New Heavens and new earth come into being. 
The first four seals are referred to as ‘The four horsemen of the apocalypse’. And these four horsemen speak of present and future worldwide events
That first horseman is on a white horse, which speaks of the worldwide Reformation in 1517 of the Church being reformed from dead works into faith and from doing penance into finding repentance at the time of the reformation. 
Reading on in Revelation…
Revelations 6:2 And I looked, and behold, a white horse. He who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.
This is seen as a symbol of God’s joyful and enthusiastic strength in the battle of his people over the forces of evil. We see Jeus here wearing the crown of authority as head over his Church and with a bow in his hand. Judah, you are my bow! Ephraim, you are my arrow! Both of you will be my sword, like the sword of a mighty soldier brandished against my enemies. (Zechariah 9:13). His bow sends us out as his warriors and from the time this battle horse started riding it will continue until is seen as that same white horse at the return of Jesus coming with his saints. 

Revelation 19.11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. 

King David was a man of battle and had to learn the lesson that it was only by trusting in the Lord who was mighty in battle that he would defeat his enemies. That is why David said The joy of the Lord is my strength. David prayed desperately to God about how his enemies had surrounded him - For I am desolate and afflicted. Bring me out of my distresses! Consider my enemies, for they are many. God hears his prayer and then David says Therefore I will offer shouts of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Psalm. 27

This joy became an active principle of strength for David, and it can become an active principle for our lives also. We can reverse the flow of our life from our helplessness to our faith in God’s overcoming strength. It was not God’s original plan for us to be on the defensive when it comes to overcoming darkness, but to be on the attack.  (2 Cor. 10:4, Eph. 6:12). Constant defensive behaviours cause people to become emotionally fatigued and depressed and robbed of their joy. Even our body has a part to play in this reversal. 

When we get emotionally fatigued and depressed and in a downward spiral a hormone called cortisol floods our system causing more stress. But there is another hormone that counters that called dopamine – the joy and enthusiasm hormone which the brain produces and which motivates enthusiasm and achievement - and its even packaged expensively as a recreational drug in the street marketplace. It was once thought that dopamine was produced in the brain because of the motivation for achievement of a goal. It has now been found that it actually gets released not for a goal to be achieved but for a challenge to be met and overcome. It puts us on our front foot to stir ourselves into action and to overcome difficulties and challenges. So even our body helps our spirit and our soul when we enthusiastically praise God as the Captain of the host. It is what causes the battle horse to sniff the battle and say ‘aha’.

We can be transformed from people who avoid life's pressures to those who rejoice and overcome life’s challenges by faith in his strength and not in our own strength. And the Bible says that Jesus will sing and will rejoice over us with joy (Zephania 3)- that is his reaction when he sees us wanting to join with him in what he is doing, sharing his joy and exuberance, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross and despised the shame (Hebrews 12)
The scriptural theme of joy as a source of strength is echoed throughout the Bible, as seen in the life of King David and all through the New Testament. It is God's joy in us that empowers us to face life's battles with unwavering faith, and when we embrace this divine joy, we harness a powerful force that enables us to rise above our struggles and serve others with a heart full of encouragement and compassion.
Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians and Ephesians, underscores the importance of spiritual warfare and the need to be proactive rather than reactive in our battle against darkness. He reminds us that our spiritual weapons are mighty through God for pulling down spiritual strongholds that darkness tries to establish in our minds (2 Cor. 10:4). And he encourages us to stand against the strategies of the devil (Eph. 6:12).
In essence, by trusting in God's joy and strength, we can transform our lives from a state of helplessness to one of victorious faith, always ready to meet challenges head-on and overcome them for the glory of God. This profound truth is a testament to the fact that when we are filled with God's joy, we are equipped to fulfill our divine purpose and extend His love to the world.
Jesus is teaching us here that God’s joy in us is the greatest inspiration to serve and to care for others. God sets this joy before us and knows that when we accept it we get his strength and his endurance to take on the most difficult and challenging tasks. 

 

 

 

BONDED TO GODS PEACE

 

BONDED TO GODS PEACE 

We spoke last week about being bonded to God’s love and we concluded that knowing we are loved by God and believing we are loved by God is the most deep and profound spiritual thing we can do. It was the starting point of what to know as the ultimate truth of who God is and his goodness toward us and the power of God is seen in his ongoing creative acts of love for us - and when we believe in God’s love we receive God’s peace and God’s joy. Today we are discussing God’s peace and the same principle is involved as with being bonded to his love, which is that what we know as truth with our mind we will believe with faith in our heart. 

Isaiah 26:3 You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you (focussed on you) because he trusts in you 

Let us look at what peace means. In the original Greek the word is Eirene from the word eiro which literally means to be joined as one, and in spiritual terms that means being of one spirit with another person. This is what God wants with us, one spirit with him and one spirit with one another, and that means being of the one mind of truth and the one heart of faith as another person. 
Jesus said ‘My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14:7).
There is God’s peace and the worlds’ peace – and they are two very different things.

Worldly peace is not really peace. The quest for worldly peace becomes the quest for worldly power. It comes from confidence in our own power base of influence or wealth without feeling threatened about losing it – and that can be a very unstable reality. A nation can feel peace if they have enough of a financial trading and military power base to overcome another nation in a war, but that is also a very unstable reality, depending on what military alliances they form and how much they trust in them. 

God himself has perfect peace and certainly has no fear or anxiety about being threatened by any other power. 
The Bible says that his spiritual peace and oneness is demonstrated in the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit by the perfect spiritual agreement they enjoy with one another in all things. (1John 5:6-7). Jesus wants us to have that peace of spiritual agreement with God.
Jesus does not give us the worldly peace of worldly power, but he gives us his peace, the spiritual power of his love and provision for our lives - and he tells us that his peace overcomes the fear and anxiety in our lives.

That means that we come to agreement with God concerning his overall love and goodness to us even in the times when difficult times come upon us, we will receive his peace. Can we agree that God still loves us and is at work for our overall good to us when difficulties happen? If we say to God that we can no longer agree that he is good or that loves us because of the difficulty we are going through, we may forfeit the peace he wants us to receive from him. I think we all get tempted to think this at those times – why have you forsaken me? But God has said I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5)

We live with the constant challenge of discerning the difference between the peace of the world and the peace of God. If we are anxious about financial lack and difficulty, we learn to not look for the temporary peace of the world that comes through street-smart strategies. We pray to God for our needs to be met and we agree that God still loves us and is at work for our overall good to us when in difficult times. But money does not start falling from Heaven - God gives us wisdom concerning employment opportunities or diligence regarding investment or superannuation or plans for applying for a pension or whatever else is in his order for our lives. God doesn’t solve the worldly problems we get fixated on – He meets needs. 
There is no word for problem in the Bible but the word need (chrea- lack) is found 52 times in the New Testament. A problem is simply an unmet need, and our human nature tends to allow needs to turn into problems, so we have to reverse that and allow problems to turn into needs – and then we bring the needs to God – and that is prayer. (Philippians 4:6). 
Living with needs can be managed in a Godly way that brings hope and trust in God, which often means waiting patiently for God’s timing in things – faith and patience.
God looks after our needs, but we attend to our problems by asking him to meet our need for wisdom or faith or we might humbly look for good advice from someone we trust.

The closest word to problem that is mentioned in the bible was used when Paul said he was perplexed – he didn’t understand why things were not working out the way he wanted them to at the time. But at the same time, he never lost hope. 
2 Corinthians 4:8 But we have this treasure in jars of clay (God’s inner unlimited power in our limited human bodies), to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, (under pressure from all sides) but not crushed; We are perplexed (apore?? - no answer to the problem), but not driven to despair. We are cast down but not forsaken – people put him down and circumstances appeared to overwhelm him but he was not forsaken by God.   

Paul could have pushed back against the pressure with worldly power, and he could have anxiously analysed the perplexity, and he could have complained about being put down by others. But this is Paul’s testimony of turning outer pressure and turmoil into inner peace. Paul learned the lesson of turning what looked like a problem into a need. He shared his need with God and became anchored in God’s power and love and goodness and that gave him God’s peace. He let the quest for the power and peace of the world die so that Gods inner power could come alive in him. He goes on to say so death is at work in us, but life is at work in you… For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. 
Paul was describing what spiritual ministry was all about – death in him and life in others. Paul knew that God was strengthening his inner life while his outer life appeared to be more helpless than ever. He never lost hope because he knew that God had allowed that difficulty to happen and that God knew what he was doing, and he trusted God to bring about his good and perfect will for his life ad for those he was serving.

We too will find that learning to live in perplexity but not in despair becomes a doorway into the peace of God. I can have faith and hope that even though I feel helpless he is the helper. Being in agreement with God about who he is and what he does establishes my peace. 
When Isaiah prophesied You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is focussed on you he goes on to make this amazing prophetic promise about Jesus establishing his peace within us. LORD, You will establish peace for us, for you have indeed done all our works for us. His death and resurrection accomplished everything for the needs of mankind. That means – Jesus, you will give us perfect peace for you have died to the power and the peace of the world so that we can live in the peace and the power of God – your peace – your power. Jesus is our bond of agreement with the Father and the Holy Spirit and we can learn to live in that peace, day by day. Amen.

 

 

BONDED TO GODS LOVE

 

BONDED TO GODS LOVE

As we read the many stories from the gospels, we find that there is one gospel writer, the apostle John, who stands out as the one who was bonded to the love of Jesus from the very beginning. His writings emphasize the love of God more than any other Biblical writings. John wrote the last five books of the Bible, which included his gospel and then his three epistles and then the Book of Revelation. 
In his own gospel he even refers to himself as ‘the disciple that Jesus loved’. He was not being proud in saying this - it was simply a revelation of the love of God through Jesus for all of humanity, and so he qualified for that. And in John’s gospel in the story of the last supper when Jesus said that one of them would betray him all the disciples looked at Jesus and said one after another ’Is it I Lord?’ But John was not feeling self-conscious or guilty as perhaps the others did and so he simply said ‘Who is it Lord?’ I’m reading today from the first epistle of John which is totally about the love of God that bonds us to God and to one another.

1John 3:1. Think about how wonderful is the love that has been lavished upon us by the Father, calling us his very own sons and daughters. But realize that the world does not understand us for who we really are, because it does not understand Jesus for who he really is.
2. So, we are now true sons and daughters of God my beloved, and it is not quite clear to us as to what we shall ultimately be like. All we can know is that when he returns we will be like he is, because we will see him for who he really is.
3. And all those who keep this hope and expectation alive will purify the state of their hearts and minds, just as Jesus did.
7. My dear children don't be deceived by anybody about this; whoever is living a life that shows that they are in harmony with Jesus, is living in the same harmony with the Father as Jesus is.
9. Whoever knows that they are part of God’s very life, as his child, will not oppose God outright, because he is born of the same seed, and the essence of God’s life is his life. So he cannot live in hostile contradiction to him because he is part of him.
10. This is how you are going to be able see the difference between those who really are bonded to God as their Father, and those who are still bonded to darkness, in the same way. Whoever doesn’t live a truthful and upright life or doesn’t show love and care and kindness towards others is not bonded with God.
11. And God has been saying to us from the beginning that we must love one another.

John knew how to avoid being bonded to darkness by not letting his mind and heart live in past regrets, or fear of the future, or hopelessness, or resentment, or hostility to others. John knew how to remain bonded to God in his lovingkindness, his expectation of God’s goodness and the power of his might, living in peace and joy and the love of others.
I believe that John would have begun each day by thinking about the love that God had for him, and that his last thoughts at night would have been about the love that God had for him. He knew this was the essence of God’s nature and so he wrote ‘We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them’. And He would have known and understood completely that God had always been the same – unchanging in his love.

What does God want back from us?
He wants the circle of his love to come from us back round to him. 
Doesn’t he want obedience? 
Yes – but that same apostle John who wrote about God’s love for us said that if we love God, we will keep his commandments – and that doesn’t just mean the Ten Commandments, it means that when we know what he wants us to do we will do it. He said that both in his gospel and in his epistles. Loving God is our will power – rejecting God’s love is our won’t power, so completing the circle of God’s love back to him comes first and everything else comes after that. 
So how do we love a God that we cannot see? 
That is the work of the Holy Spirit that has been given to us by God and who sheds and spreads God’s love into our hearts so that we will believe it and feel it - it all starts with God.
But before we can believe in God’s love for us we need to know it is true  and we can know it as a truth because the word of God tells us that – as we have seen in every line of what has been said today. 
Knowing you are loved by God and believing you are loved by God is the most deep and profound spiritual thing you can do because our spirit is made up of our mind that knows and our heart that believes. What we know as truth with our mind we will believe with faith in our heart. 

Our body even has a part to play in this because even our brain has been created to help us complete that circle of love back to God that causes us to know and believe his love for us and to do the things that show we love him back. We were created with a left brain and a right brain and those two parts work together so that we can make balanced decisions in our life. Our left brain is in charge of organizing and ordering and giving our thoughts structure but our right brain is more spontaneous and random and creative and colourful. It is jumping into what we want to do rather than calculating what we ought to do. That means that the left brain has to reorder the chaos of the right brain and when that balance anchors our soul, we can do very creative and inspiring things with enthusiasm and faith but it’s based on love and truth and order.

That is why it is good to sit quietly and gratefully acknowledge God’s presence with us and focus our minds on his powerful work on our behalf in the world of the unseen. That is what faith is – believing that God is at work in our lives for our good. Paul wrote to us about being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).  
Paul went on to say that It is God working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.(Philippians 2:13). And in the next chapter Paul says that God is able to subdue all thning to himself. It couldn’t be any clearer than that. But if we don’t focus on that and think it and believe it, we are letting the right brain chaos run our lives. 
That process is a picture of what happened in the very beginning of the creation of the universe in Genesis Chapter one. The Bible says that there was darkness on the face of the deep (the Abyss) and that it was without form and void (chaos). The Spirit of God hovered above that disorder and the word of truth – the logos of God, spoke and said ‘let there be light’. And then the mighty creative work of God was put into action. That act of creation was an act of God’s love for us, and that creative love in action is what happens when we sit and contemplate the love of God and give it back to him with a thank you. That is when we become creatively changed into the new creation of his likeness and we can do the creative loving of others. This is what waiting on God and contemplation is all about - nothing more nothing less – it is not a waste of time – it is not passive – it is actively embodying God’s love into the world around us.

Let us wait on God and contemplate on actively embodying God’s love to us and into the world around us. Waiting on God is not a waste of time – it is not passive – it is active - and doing this takes practice - in consciously sitting in the presence of God and knowing that he is doing the mysterious work. Driving a car takes practice and you dont have to understand how an internal combustion engine works – it’s a bit mysterious to me. But I know I have to turn the ignition on, put the car into gear and then drive from A to B – and that last part takes the most practice – but we learn and get our P plates and our licence. We become part of the car and it becomes part of us – which is like being one with God who is directing our lives in faith. The Bible says that if we get off track we will hear a voice behind us saying ‘this is the way walk ye in it’ (Isaiah x.x). In a car we look at Google maps and hear it say ‘turn right at the next round about then drive 500 Metres then turn left. And if we get that wrong it keeps talking and tells us to go to the next roundabout and come back to the first roundabout  and start from there ‘This is the way - drive ye in it’. That takes faith in  our google maps program. Practice sitting with God and he will direct your path and grow your faith and renew your mind - and truth and love will run your life, not chaos and uncertainty.

A CHILDS FAITH ENTERS THE KINGOM

A CHILDS FAITH ENTERS THE KINGDOM 

I’ve been talking lately about principalities and powers of darkness and the angelic rebellions in the heavens that Jesus overcame for us on the cross. But aligned with that there is the wonderful ministry of the angels who obediently serve God the Father by serving us as his children. God delights to see his children protected and cared for at as early an age as possible. The Bible says that God has assigned angels to help them on this journey of\ the inner life of their souls, as Jesus said to his disciples,
Matthew 18:10 “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.
I don’t yet fully understand how that works but I think a lot happens that we don’t realise is happening. 
Our heavenly Father never ceases to see us as his children, but we may cease to honour and know him as our Father. Growing older is not always growing wiser and the reality of having to become mature and independent is a hugely significant responsibility. Fortunately, God allows us to go through our foolishness and our failures and to relearn and to get back on track, and Jesus had to admonish his disciples on one occasion about having to do some of this relearning. It occurred at the same time that he told his disciples to never despise the little children whom they regarded as a nuisance. The little children were playfully enjoying being around Jesus, but the disciples said that they were getting in the way of them getting the most out the serious things Jesus was teaching them. He then taught them the most important and serious thing that they needed to know and relearn – that they had to become like little children. At that time some parents in the crowd had brought their children to Jesus for him to bless them
Matthew 19:13 Then little children were brought to Him that He might lay His hands on them and pray, but the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for their simplicity and joy and trust express the kingdom of heaven.” And He laid His hands on them...
Luke adds deeper meaning to this story and quotes Jesus saying ‘Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter into it.” (Luke 18:15). 

I want to speak today about a child’s faith that was immortalised in Scripture – the child’s name was Isaac. God had told Abraham and his wife Sarah, who was well past childbearing age that they were going to have a child, and that through that child Abraham would bring blessing upon all the families in the earth (Genesis 18:10). That finally came to pass miraculously, and they were greatly blessed. But then God told Abraham to sacrifice this promised child Isaac on an altar at a place called Mount Moriah. The Bible says that Abraham obeyed God and that his faith was accounted to him as righteous. That means that his faith put the desires of his heart in alignment with the desire of God’s heart.

We are encouraged to learn from the faith of Abraham, who walked up the hill with his son Isaac to offer him to the lord as a blood sacrifice. But something needs to be said about the extraordinary faith and obedience that was shown by the child Isaac who walked up the hill to be sacrificed. As they walked up the hill in the story in Genesis Isaac says to his father ‘look there is the wood and here is the fire but where is the lamb for sacrifice. And Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together. Then they came to the place of which God had told him. And Abraham built an altar there and placed the wood in order; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, upon the wood. And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.
Isaac with a ‘Yes Dad’ in his heart prepared to become that sacrifice on the altar under the knife saying, 

Then an angel enters the picture and calls Abraham to put the knife away – that reflects the words of Jesus about angels always seeing the face of the Father for his children.  And the story goes on in Genesis to say ‘Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in some bushes by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place The-LORD-Will-Provide’ (Jehovah Jireh - Genesis 22).
Isaac as a child had just as much faith and hope in that resurrection as Abraham, and Jesus knew and undertsood that same child-like faith and trust for himself. Isaac as the son of Abraham obeyed his father and Jesus as the Son of God obeyed his Heavenly Father. Jesus understood what Isaac felt when he himself was on the cross committing himself as a sacrifice to his Father for our sakes as his brothers and sisters and knowing he would be resurrected. 

The Bible says about Abraham’s faith for Isaac that Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death"(Hebrews 11:19). This means that Abraham's faith in God's power to bring Isaac back, even if he were to die, was strong enough to fulfill God's promise of blessing all the families of the earth through his son Isaac. This was the first evidence of resurrection life put into action in the Bible. This was not only extraordinary faith and obedience – it was an extraordinary hope - Abraham, hoping against hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations (Romans 4:17).

Abraham faith and Isaac faith is all about the resurrection faith of trusting Father God through the difficulties of life with a ‘hoping against hope’ that our ‘Yes Dad’ in all things brings God’s good will and Heavenly life on earth for our lives. There would have been no resurrection life faith for Abraham to pass on to us if he had not been willing to offer his son Isaac to God on Mount Moriah. And there would have been no resurrection life faith for Isaac to experience if he had not trusted his father, Abraham. There would have been no resurrection life from the dead for Jesus to give to us if he had not offered his life to his Father for our sakes on the cross. And Jesus wanted his disciples to understand what he meant when he said that unless they received the Kingdom of God with that trusting childlike faith, they would not fully enter into the Kingdom in the power of his resurrection. That resurrection only be experienced by us through his death on the cross. Jesus had told them earlier that he was going to be killed and be raised on the third day. The disciples of Jesus did not want him to die on a cross and Peter was speaking for all of them when he admonished Jesus at that time, saying  ‘No Jesus, that is not going to happen to you’, and Jesus said ‘get behind me Satan, you don’t understand the things of God, only the things of man’.

Even though the sacrifices of Abraham and Isaac and Jesus were momentous acts of faith and hope Jesus wanted the disciples to know that no matter what the scale of sacrifice was, their ‘yes Dad’ to God’s will in times of difficulty would always supernaturally bring God’s will in Heaven upon the earth. ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven’ is not just a noble phrase from the Lord’s prayer, it is a true statement of faith and hope from a child of God who expects to see the most difficult of situations turn into an expression of God being glorified, or on display, in their everyday lives. Jesus wants us to experience a life of full spiritual satisfaction as a child of God by seeing ourselves as his brother or sister and being cared for by a loving Father in Heaven. There is a life of childlike faith in most children that trusts that mum and dad are sorting out all of the important things in life for them and fixing everything that gets broken and life works out better when you do what you are told, and life goes on and you presume that you are going to live forever, and most of that thinking changes when we become adults.

When we look at a cross, we see a vertical beam crossed by a Horizontal beam. The vertical beam is the will of God coming from heaven down into the earth, and the horizontal beam is the will of humanity that crosses the will of God. Where the point of crossing occurs is where our will obeys God’s will – that is the place of our ‘yes Dad’. And that point is where the heart of Jesus would have been located when he hung on that cross. That sacrificial act of obedience took his Divinity and humanity into his resurrection glory in Heaven and it included all of us. When we believe in what he has done for us and receive the Spirit of his resurrected life into our hearts we begin to share not only that crossing point of sacrificial obedience with his heart, but we share the resurrection life that lifts us above the earthbound tyranny of the ways of this world. 

Jesus knew what he was talking about to the disciples when he spoke about becoming as little children in order to enter the kingdom life of God here in the earth.
An obedient child of God who has a ‘yes Dad’ to God in their heart will hear their Heavenly Father saying to them. ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, and when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD’, (Jeremiah 29.11) Amen

 

THE SEVENTY NATIONS AND GLOBAL SPIRITUAL WARFARE

THE SEVENTY NATIONS AND GLOBAL SPIRITUAL WARFARE

We are continuing the account of the second phase of the ministry of Jesus, after he said that he was setting his face toward Jerusalem. (Luke 9). Jesus was heading toward the final victory over human sin and corruption by his death on the cross, so he sent seventy disciples to go before him and bring a foretaste of the blessing of the Kingdom of God in his name. 
Luke 10:1 towns and villages he planned to visit later.

The Lord now chose seventy other disciples and sent them on ahead in pairs to all the 
The number seventy is significant in this story of the ministry of Jesus. 
Firsly, it represents the principle of delegation of governmental authority, as also seen in the command to Moses to delegate authority to seventy elders to help him in counselling the people of Israel in the wilderness. And the Jewish Sanhedrin was the delegated authority of the ruling council in New Testament times, consisting of 70 elders, following the precedent set in the Old Testament. In this story of the seventy disciples Jesus was not only heading towards Jerusalem to overcome human sin and corruption on the cross but was also heading toward overcoming all the rebellious principalities and powers of darkness that had corrupted the world throughout the ages. 

There were three major acts of spiritual rebellion to be overturned by Jesus when he came to establish his Kingdom.
The first act of spiritual rebellion was by Satan, the angelic prince power who appeared as the serpent that tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God.
The second  spiritual rebellion was by angelic powers just before the flood of Noah in Genesis Chapter 6. And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day Jude 1:6)
The third spiritual rebellion was at the tower of Babel, soon after the flood, where the entire world was divided by God into seventy nations. The people had built a tower that they said would exalt them to Heaven. God divided their languages and sent them out into all the world. Read Genesis Chapter 10 where these seventy nations are named. They all came under the influence of spiritual principalities and powers of idolatry. Many of those nations throughout history had rulers who saw themselves as gods, such as Egypt, and Rome (Caesar is Lord). Canaan and Tarshish (Spain) are mentioned. And in Daniel the prince power of Persia and the prince power of Greece, and Babylon. 

Soon after the tower of Babel God called Abram out of one of those nations, from a place called Ur of the Chaldees (the nation of Babylon), to establish the Holy Nation of Israel. 
The nation of Israel was ruled by the one true God, and Israel went into battle against many of those scattered nations who opposed their entry into the promised land. Israel finally took the physical territory of the land, but they did not necessarily overcome the idolatry and spiritual darkness that remained in those regions. But Jesus was to come out of and through Israel, and overcome all principalities and powers in the heavens and on the earth. 
Jesus was giving these seventy disciples the authority to speak in his name and to confront the territorial powers of darkness that had held power over those Gentile and Jewish places for many generations since the tower of Babel.
Reading on in the story… 
These were his instructions to them: 
Luke 10:2 “Plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out more laborers to help you, for the harvest is so plentiful and the workers so few. Go now, and remember that I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. Don’t take any money with you, or a beggar’s bag, or even an extra pair of shoes. And don’t waste time along the way. This was a disciplined strategic mission.
“Whenever you enter a home, give it your blessing. If it is worthy of the blessing, the blessing will stand; if not, the blessing will return to you.
“When you enter a village, don’t shift around from home to home, but stay in one place, eating and drinking without question whatever is set before you. And don’t hesitate to accept hospitality, for the workman is worthy of his wages!
“If a town welcomes you, follow these two rules:
(1) Eat whatever is set before you.
(2) Heal the sick; and as you heal them, say, ‘The Kingdom of God is very near.’
“But if a town refuses you, go out into its streets and say, ‘We wipe the dust of your town from our feet as a public announcement of your doom. Never forget how close you were to the Kingdom of God!’ Even wicked Sodom will be better off than such a city on the Judgment Day. This demonstrates the strategic confrontation against the ancient spiritual rebellion that still pervaded the territory. 
What horrors await you - cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did for you had been done in the cities of Tyre and Sidon, their people would have sat in deep repentance long ago, clothed in sackcloth and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. Yes, Tyre and Sidon will receive less punishment on the Judgment Day than you. And you people of Capernaum, what shall I say about you? Will you be exalted to heaven? (This echoes the Tower of babel language) No, you shall be brought down to Sheol”
Then he said to the disciples, “Those who welcome you are welcoming me. And those who reject you are rejecting me. And those who reject me are rejecting God who sent me.” When the seventy disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Even the demons obey us when we use your name. ”Yes,” he told them, “I saw Satan falling from heaven as a flash of lightning! And I have given you authority over all the power of the Enemy, and to walk 
among serpents and scorpions and to crush them (symbolic of evil spirits – Revelation 9:10). Nothing shall injure you! However, the important thing is not that demons obey you, but that your names are registered as citizens of heaven.”
Then he was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the worldly wise and for revealing them to those who are as trusting as little children. 

So the sending out of the seventy disciples was a turning point in the final overcoming of the Kingdom of God that was to be accomplished for us at calvary - a complete victory over evil spirits. When Jesus said he had overcome the world he was not just talking about human corruption, but about the corruption of the world by the rebellion of dark and demonic angelic forces throughout the ages.
And Paul tells us that Jesus has overcome all principalities and powers of darkness – Colossians 2:15 He has disarmed principalities and powers, and has made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them... Paul also tells us that we are seated in our Heavenly position with Jesus far above all principalities and powers. (Ephesians 2:6). 

We are living in days when there is much spiritual activity, both of the Holy Spirit and of the powers of darkness that seek to blind peoples’ minds from the light and truth of God. There are Principalities and powers of darkness influencing leadership in the cultures of all the nations of the world at the moment. And there are nations where those powers will not prevail because those who believe in Jesus and his Kingdom choose to live in obedience to God and his Word – and God is fighting for them. On a personal level our offensive weaponry in our direct encounters with the power of darkness is our faith that God is in command of our lives and is fighting for us. We don’t shout at the devil – we have Jesus speaking to us and through us – the one who has overcome darkness for us.
Deuteronomy 3:22 You shall not fear them, for it is the LORD your God who fights for you. 
Our defensive weaponry in our direct encounters with the powers of darkness is the saving and protecting power of God through faith in the abiding presence of God the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us to stand against the powers of darkness by ‘putting on the full armour of God’ 
Ephesians 6:13 Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the times of evil, and having done all, to stand firm. 
We are equipped to overcome personal attacks of darkness upon us that are designed to weaken our trust in God and to get us into emotional conflict with others and into internal conflict within ourselves.
14. So stand firm in this way, with a belt that is buckled with truth…
The buckled belt speaks of alertness and readiness to move forward with the truth that defines who we are and where we stand with God. We are confident that we are OF him and FOR him and that he is FOR us.
…and having the breastplate of an obedient surrendered heart.
This is the alignment of our heart with his heart and surrendered to his will for our lives. Our heart’s desires are then safe from the deceitful enticements of darkness. 
15. And have shoes on that allow you to walk the talk of the wonderful message of a shared life with Jesus. 
We are literally walking in his shoes, standing where he stands and going where he goes. This prevents the enemy from getting us off track with his diversionary tactics.
16. Hold up the shield of faith with complete trust in God. That will stop any flaming missile that the devil hurls at you.
The devil will manufacture the missiles of deceit and malice and aim them at us then fire them through the aggrieved heart of somebody else straight at our heart, where our deepest and most vulnerable feelings reside. Our faith that God knows our heart deflects those missiles and we can trust him to defend us.
17. Wear the crash-helmet of safety that protects your mind from darkness and deception and cut through the lying darkness with your spiritual sword, which is the Word of God.
Our mind is the prime target in spiritual warfare, so we focus and affirm ourselves through his Word and then speak that into our hearts and then into the darkness, and the darkness has to flee. I want to just pass on to you now is how I like to treasure the present moment. I like to wake myself up to the fact that now is now, yesterday was yesterday, 10 minutes ago was 10 minutes ago and the future is in God's hands. Now is the hour, the day, the place that is of salvation - feeling safe - it is now. 
So what do I do with my mind in the present moment - what am I to think. I'll tell you what I think - I think ‘this moment Lord is not mine it's yours, you created this moment and you're the one that is actually reordering the entire universe, and you are reordering my world and my mind at this present moment. I don't want to frustrate that grace and fill it with stuff in my mind that's diversionary or negative or fearful or anxious. I'm going to give this moment to you - it's yours. But when I think that moment is mine I may start to think but this moment going to pass away - what happens when this moment is gone?  Well  what you do you is just say that in this moment I'm going to be looking forward expectantly to see you bringing your future with your good will for my life into my view, and so this moment is just going to have to expand until I see that and say thank you Lord. And I tell you that moment can be a very very long wonderful time! We are in charge of our minds but we practise that over and over again. We don't wait till we're in a crisis and say what was that I’m supposed to do again? No, I continue to get with God and start speaking about what am I doing with this moment now.  

Those 70 disciples were set out with discipline – so make that your priority to overcome evil. We are being sent out as his disciples with discipline and the first thing is an ordered mind - a disciplined mind. Paul wrote to Timothy and he said ‘God hasn't given you the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of an ordered mind’. 
Thank you Lord for giving us the fortress of your presence that we can overcome all darkness be in alignment with you and speak - and the enemy will flee - in Jesus’ name. Amen.