Come Out From Your Hiding Place

Alright guys!Theres an amazing word in this post tonight but before you read anymore I'd like you to just stop and say your own quick prayer to God asking for understanding and an open heart free of distractions.Lets pray also that he gives us strength to apply what he's given us in our daily lives...
    Alright we'll jump right in.Yesterday we visited Gratefulness and just how vital it can be in resisting temptation. I like to think of yesterdays message as a little on the "Defensive" side of things, today we're going to talk about the offensive...God has not only made us great defenders he's also made us great attackers...It's very important to know when to be on the defensive and when to be on the attack.I'm sure you understand I dont mean attack in a sense of physicality or violence in any way. However when we as christians proactively attack areas where the enemy is trying to keep our lights from shining mountains can be moved in our spiritual walks with christ. In about 30 seconds of scrolling someones twitter you can usually identify their weakness.Its usually what they talk about the most. In most cases those that have an abundance of certain things seldom annoy you with conversation about it.Lets take money for example...Those that truly have it dont feel the need to continually boast. Those that boast are merely attempting to cover what they feel is a flaw in their lives by standing in a hole in their lives screaming to the world "hey dont look over here there's no hole". If someone can figure this out in less than a minute of viewing your public post, how easy do you think it is for the devil who has access to your private thoughts...things you dont even share publicly..THATS why it is important actively attack things before they even enter our mind.Here are just a few ways we can do that

• IDENTIFY YOUR WEAKNESS (DEFINE YOURSELF)

                          I cant stress how vital it is for one to reflect and Identify their own weakness. When you allow people to define you, you allow them to control you.Take for example the serpent. The enemy used his one character trait of being crafty and defined him as being a deceiver. I understand past experiences create holes in your life..thats actually totally normal.Just dont allow someone or something else to stand in that hole for you..Its only temporary.However if you are 100% honest with yourself in identify your EVERY weakness and defining your OWN self..we serve a God who can PERMANENTLY protect us and fill those holes! Men, rather than Letting money or women DEFINE you be honest with yourself and with God. "God,Financially I'm not where i want to be but i trust you to get me there.God i dont have the woman i want but i know that if i follow your word and trust you you'll bring her to me." Women, instead of letting others opinions of you define you or seeking out whats good in another woman and attempting to duplicate that seek Gods plan for YOU individually and attempt to line up with his will.When we identify our own selves and we know God is already working on our weaknesses there is nothing that the devil can walk in and "hip us to".

• STRIVE TO LIVE A LIFE THAT PLEASES GOD

               I learned something not to long ago that actually help me efficiently fight off the enemies attacks."If you cant do it in front of your grandmother dont do it." Its kinda funny but its extremely true. Its a small statement that simply reminds us of the respect and gratefulness we have for our grandmothers.Its not easy to do anything in front of them because they are PHYSICALLY there with us. We must be reminded that in that same way God is with us. Also when we strive to live a life that pleases God the Voice of the Holy Spirit is much louder. It can be explained like this:When you are extremely close to God the holy spirit is right there in your ear his lips touch your ears when he says no and you obey his voice remains there, however when you hear him say no and disobey imagine yourself taking 5 steps back.He says no again and you disobey and have to take another 5 steps back.Eventually your miles away from the voice and it seems like hes not talking but he's still attempting to guide you.The word says he'll never leave you nor forsake you which is true but disobedience can have you farther back than you ever thought you could be.Obedience leads to favor and understanding what it is God wants us to do. Pleasing God is a sure way to ATTACK the enemy

• Chew.Swallow.Digest...The word of God

                  The bible is the most powerful handbook we have as christians. Inside is EVERY situation we will face,how they handled it (good or bad) and how God wants us to handle it.It allows us to read on stories and hear Gods responses to the actions of those that were in the story...Its really a sort of cheat sheet. Not only does he give us ten specific commandments but he also gives others punishments and praises we can learn from.Sorta like not doing what your big bro or sis got in trouble for...or doing what you saw them get praise for...Its important that you pray for understanding before reading your bible..if you have one of those thee thou art shall bibles maybe you should try a teen version or college version..a bible is TRULY the BEST INVESTMENT YOU CAN EVER MAKE IN YOURSELF. I associate the christian walk with God a lot like the process of eating food. Chew.Swallow.Digest.Lets take an apple, you must first make a conscious decision to put it in your mouth and chew.spiritually i associate this with just "believing" in God...the devil also believes in God thats not enough, just like as your chewing an apple you can spit it out.Next is swallowing..thats the action..you must read,pray,study,exercise faith,tithe,trust god,etc. then theres the digesting...thats where that apple we chewed and swallowed will be broken down and then sent throughout our bodies for nourishment.for example there are sugars in apples that are needed to help us get through the day,and there are fibers in apples that help our digestive system.Spiritually when we digest the word we can use different stories,chapters,parables etc. as a tool to help us get through temptation,loneliness,emptiness,depression,divorce, etc. So digest the word...and attack the Devil

               Genesis Chapter 3 V7 says "Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." This is HUGE... It's important that we open our eyes and realize we too are naked,we too are weak in areas, we too have holes in our lives. After God handed out punishment and before he left he "made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." (ch3v21) How many of you are trying to cover wounds inflicted as a result of your mistakes in ways that YOU feel cover you.We serve a God who sees right through those things that we have constructed to cover our shame  but we also serve a God of mercy.One who even after we disobey Constructed a garment for us by the name of Jesus Christ, whose blood covers all of our sins...Repent today for your mistakes, take down your handmade garments, trust God to clothe you in a PERMANENT WAY..I love you and God loves you
       

Dont Forget To Be Grateful

Temptation Pt 1

Genesis Chapters 2&3
Hey Guys! Thanks a lot for joining me again! Whether this is your first time or you've viewed each of my previous post i appreciate you and I truly hope these post are a blessing to you.Lets start with a quick prayer.
    Our father who art in heaven, we come to you now humbling ourselves and our hearts in your presence.God we know that your word says when two or more gather in my name i shall be in the midst.We thank you..for your mercy, for your grace, for forgiveness, for your favor God. I pray that every heart reading this will be humbled and open to accepting your word God in the name of Jesus.AMEN!
Lets get right into it guys! As i began to reflect on temptation and how prevalent it is not only in todays society but in the bible i tried to put myself in the shoes of the one tempted. Now I studied whether that person passed or failed "the test" and through praying and seeking God i tried to come up with why they passed or failed. There was one thing that stuck out to me. GRATEFULNESS. I noticed that those who passed almost every time were grateful for what God had done or just who God was. And vice versa, those who didnt passed I often noticed a lack of Gratefulness..im here today to tell you "Dont Forget To Be Grateful."     Lets Go Waaaaay back to the Garden of Eden! Everyone knows this story so I wont beat a dead horse but what i want to talk about is What they had to be grateful of

• God created Adam from "THE DUST OF THE GROUND" and breathed into him the breath of life.
• God created Eve by putting Adam to sleep, taking out his rib and constructing her FROM THE RIB.
• In Gen ch 2 v16 God said "You are free to eat from ANY TREE IN THE GARDEN"

Sounds like some AMAZING things only God could do right? I believe if they had remembered what God did for them and Been Grateful for that, nothing would have been able to get their mind off God. I'm reminded of the story of Joseph.When tempted by Potiphars wife he turned her down saying my master has put me in charge of everything in this house i could not sin against him or my God in such a way.He was Grateful for the position the King had put him in.
Chapter 3 v1 says "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.."I wanna stop there for just a second. The hebrew word for "crafty" and the Hebrew word for "naked" have nearly the same meaning.We know that in the time of Adam and Eve to be naked was to be shameless.In other words "It wasnt no shame in the serpents game." Most people see the serpent as flat out deceiving and the enemy but did you know that the serpent was one of Gods good creatures.God created the serpent. When v1 explains that he was more crafty than any of the wild animals it merely explains ONE of the characters that GOD had given the serpent.So since we can associate the word crafty in hebrew with naked in hebrew and naked is associated with being shameless I myself like to think someone who is shameless is someone who's strong.I saw a quote that said "The enemy doesnt fight us because we are weak, he fights us because we are strong." this is true...However the enemy attacks at the point of our weakness to make us see less of our strengths and to convince us that the only thing we are is that weakness. If we focus on being grateful for our strengths we might then be reminded of Gods love and his plan for us and this will warrant obedience in the area of our weakness. Obedience in the area of our weakness will produce STRENGTH where we WERE weak.BUT...it all began with being Grateful.
   The serpent was a good creature until "the great deceiver" clothed himself as a serpent insinuated a falsehood and portrayed rebellion as clever. Today i wanna ask you...Who in your life is just a deceiver dressed up as the serpent?Its important that we seek God and ask him to Identify those "deceivers" in our lives and to prohibit them access into our Garden. Its also important that each day we reflect on the things we are grateful to God for. A grateful person will be stronger in the face of temptation..If you roll out of your bed and check twitter,your bank account,txt your gf/bf etc BEFORE thanking God you ought to recondition your mind because the devil will use those things that you put before God to take your focus off of the things that God Has given you..In other words God has promised you the ENTIRE GARDEN and if you forget to be grateful you can become vulnerable to attacks to eat at the ONE WRONG TREE...Dont eat at the wrong tree...tell him thank you today...thanks guys I hope it was a blessing to you and tomorrow we'll be talking about arming up for the war..the bible has given us ammunition to use against the enemy when tempted we just have to seek it and we'll talk about that tomorrow but thanks so much for your time.Be Blessed.and Dont Forget To Be Grateful