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Sermon 144 – It all depends what you call it

01 Feb

I’m only helping

I was addressing a young woman who couldn’t believe that she was doing anything wrong. Her defense was … I’m only trying to help. But what if the help is contaminated with selfishness? Her defense challenged the authority of my query about her underlying motive, and actually confirmed my suspicions. Holy Spirit would not have retaliated against my inquiry.

You see, selfishness always calls it something else other than what it really is. Everything we do is either the love of God or it’s selfish. 1 Corinthians 13 states that you can give all your money to the poor, and even your body to be burned, but it will profit nothing if it isn’t for God.

You call it helping. I call it showing-off.

You say “I’m just helping”, but more often than not, it’s a lie. What you’re really doing is showing-off how capable you are, or how clever you are. Your inner spirit is saying … “don’t tell me what to do. Look at me, I already know without you telling me”. This is really having a spirit of self-authority, which means your spirit disrespects authority. When someone questions, either verbally or silently, the correction of an authority, they reveal what spirit they are of. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. The façade image has to be broken if you want to be truly honest about your heart.

You call it helping, but it’s really trying to gain points of favor

I once asked a young man … why are you so willing to help? His reply was more honest than I was expecting. He said … so that when I’m having trouble, you’ll be obligated to help me. This is selfish help. God calls it holding a debt over the person you’ve helped. That’s sin, not love. It gains no heavenly credits.

You call it helping, but it’s really so the person will be obligated to like you or help you back.

You call it charity. I call it control and obligation to get others to do what you want.

You call it helping, but it’s really trying to gain position due to hatred-envy of your more favoured sibling.

You call it helping, but it’s really to make yourself feel worthwhile and look good in the eyes of others.

It’s hard to pin contaminated help. Helping is a tricky way of promoting your pride because no one can say you’re doing something wrong. But, you can smell contaminated help … eventually, it smells ‘off’.

You call it used and then dumped

I call it … asked to leave because you wouldn’t do what you were told

You call it independent thinking

I call it … challenging the thinking of the authority, so you can live in your own self-authority. I call it … no one’s going to tell you what to do.

You call it friendship. I call it servitude.

When you expect a friend to act a certain way towards you so you feel good and valued, that’s not friendship, it’s servitude. On many occasions I’ve asked people … what’s a friend? The common reply is … someone who will listen to me, support me, and be kind to me. Sounds right, but it’s all a lie.  God says ‘friendship’ is serving God, not keeping people happy (John 15:14). I’ve discovered that selfishness gathers friends for its own self-value and wants, because that same person that demands friendship will invariably TELL that friend how they’re supposed to behave towards them, expect them to be loyal to them first, and TELL their friend off if they are not being nice to them. That’s usury. There’s no freedom to have a differing opinion, share another friend, or say any truth that might offend their feelings.

You call it sorry. I call it selfish

I queried a young man as to why he felt so sorry for a woman who was having a mood because she was told she was wrong? His response was … so that when I have a mood, others will have to be sorry for me. This is contaminated sorry. It’s not love; it’s fake and selfish.

You call it protecting. I call it possessive, manipulation and control

I once queried a young Christian man as to why he was so protective of his family. He informed me that his domineering father had demanded of him to protect his mother. He complied because it gave him value in his father’s eyes and made him feel good. It fed his self-value. The value of protection became inherent is his spiritual DNA. His own family loved his protection, but they also feared his control. His protection looked good on the outside, but it was contaminated and used to manipulate the family to do exactly what suited his agenda. There was no freedom of opinion or choice. It was all a sham to protect and promote his own personal image. Protection made him feel ‘the man’ and it won his family’s support and value.

I’m good

You can’t correct ‘good’, or ‘help’, or ‘protection’; they look good. But, if they’re contaminated, they’re evil. If I find myself challenging a person’s ‘good’, I’m actually challenging the demonic spirit. It’s easy to forget that Satan comes in sheep’s clothing.

Many times I’ve challenged the evil in people’s spirit, but they invariably discredit my correction by justifying their goodness. All they’re really doing is preserving their image by trying to manipulate me to focus on their goodness, and hide the spirit that dwells within them. From God’s perspective, it’s what’s behind the image that’s important. If I’m correcting, I’m addressing the evil spirit behind the human façade. If you protect your image all you’re doing is reinforcing your pride, hiding the evil in you, and running away from God.

Good and help is not of God until your image has been smashed.

Keys to the Kingdom (Matthew 16:19)

The one key that unlocks the door to the kingdom of heaven, is “the DEATH of IMAGE”. That is, how I look in the eyes of other people. Until you give up the preservation and promotion of your image, you can’t be saved. King Saul talked himself into thinking he was great (1 Samuel 15:17). The fruit of that decision was envy and hatred of David because people sang his praises more than Saul’s. The consequence was hell.

‘Self’ rises up daily, so ‘death-to-self’ needs to be a daily exercise (Luke 9:23-26). You can’t do this in your own strength and you can’t do it without being treated unfairly, and like Christ, you learn to take it for His will.

The Ten Commandments are simply designed to expose my image

Image is another word for idol. Promoting or protecting IMAGE is a contravention of God’s second commandment … ‘do not make a graven image’. It may not be graven in stone or wood, but it’s engraved in your spirit. Protecting or promoting my image is the same as worshiping myself. The reason people lie and pretend to be good is simply to protect their image. It’s either image or it’s God. You can’t have both. Image is seeking the world’s favor. You can’t serve God and the world. Most Christians live in the middle, but that’s really just keeping the world happy so you don’t look bad in the eyes of the world, or get persecuted by the world.

James 4:4 … friend of the world, enemy of God.

Devaluing the Ten Commandments is a satanic plot to con humans to lower their resistance to sin and thus promote their image so they miss out on heaven with God

Satan tricked Eve with the temptation to be her own god (Genesis 3), and the same scam is still working today. It’s a clever GRACE scam, but it’s idol worship without even knowing it. It separates you from God because it’s wilful sin (1 John 3:4). Be as good as you like, it won’t save you. In fact, it conversely promotes evil (Proverbs 28:4 … they that forsake the law, praise the wicked), and that’s why the world is rising up and Christianity is decaying under the world’s intimidation.

The fruit of devaluing God and His commandments is a chaotic world, climate disasters, wars, disease, and a fake church that silently condones the world’s behaviour and undisturbingly watches sin being legalised. The world calls homosexuality, ‘love’. I call it ‘hate’ God. The world’s argument is … if God is irrelevant, then His laws are irrelevant, and thus I can do what pleases my flesh without any conscience. Plus, if a man is allowed to have sexual relations with a woman, who says it’s wrong for a man to have sexual relations with another man as long as they’re both consenting. The world defiantly says … I will do what I like and no God is going to tell me what I can and can’t do!

You can’t REPENT until you let God smash your IMAGE

Gideon smashed the image, then God could use him. Phineas speared the mocking evil that was destroying the Israelites (Numbers 25:8). You can’t escape destruction until you repent of your sin, and you can’t see your sin without letting God smash your image.

There’s a big difference between … I’m sorry for hurting your feelings, or … If I’ve done something wrong, I’m sorry, or … I’m sorry, but you make mistakes too, or … I’ll say sorry if you say sorry, too!

and, … I’m wrong, and I apologise unreservedly, and Lord God, I’m sorry for protecting my image and feelings instead of trusting you. Please forgive me.

The Truth

Why are people trying to be good? The answer is … Fear of looking bad and the pride of looking good. Until you sacrifice the fear and pride of what the world thinks of you, and the need to promote yourself in the eyes of others, and instead, give up your image to the will of God, Jesus will not open the door of heaven to you (Luke 14:33).

 

May God open the eyes of His remnant.

 

Pastor Samuel Abbel

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Posted by on February 1, 2020 in image

 

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Sermon 138 – Don’t build a relationship on the hatred of someone who’s hurt you

14 Jul

Every human being is created with a body, soul and spirit. Our soul and spirit are the elements that allow us to commune with God. The soul consists of the MIND, WILL and EMOTIONS. The most important element of our soul is our ‘WILL’.

Why?

The answer is found in Jesus’ prayer to His Father on the Mount of Olives. What was His prayer? ‘Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done’ (Luke 22:42). Note, there are two parts to this prayer … the first part is a prayer to remove the trouble, the second part is a prayer of ‘will’ and surrender.

Salvation is a decision of our will in the face of distress; in the face of being aware that the decision will cost me distress.

Why does it have to be in the face of distress?

The Bible declares that if you are going to build a tower you should first count the cost (Luke 14:28). In other words, you can make a decision to follow Christ, but that decision isn’t verified unless, or until, circumstances dictate a cost. This is explained in the parable of the sower and the seed (Mark 4).

You see, the problem is, most so-called Christians don’t make a decision of ‘will’, they make a decision of ‘emotion’. That is, most people decide on the basis of their feelings, and usually those feelings are hurt ones. They decide to follow Christ in the hope He will remove the trouble.

You see, whenever you make judgments against someone for offending you or someone else, you effectively initiate retaliation against that person. Once you take the bait of hurt, and retaliate, you are no longer able to have control of your will. Once you lose control of your will you can’t surrender your will to the Father, and your will comes under the power of Satan. Your prayer will be … ‘remove this trouble from me’. If you hold this judgement for some time your heart will begin to harden and you’ll block your salvation. This is proven in 2 Timothy 2:24-26 (KJV).

Once you choose ‘offense’, you unwittingly choose ‘hate’ and automatically lose your ability to surrender your will to His. Your whole focus will be on removing the trouble by striving to win the competition of who is the best. You see, if you continuously allow your hurt emotions to control your judgement, the truth is, your spirit revolves around the lust for IMAGE, not Christ.

Practical observation

I was observing a group of girls in our fellowship. One of the girls decided she was more special and started recruiting a best-friend. The other girl could sense that she was being used and manipulated so she formed a best-friend relationship with someone else. This polite and silent retaliation stirred up more secret hatred in the heart of the first girl so she went about trying to steal the friend from the second girl.

Hypocrisy is judging someone for doing something wrong, then practicing it yourself

Both girls played their parts with seemingly pure goodness. They’d learnt the art of pretense, perfectly. The truth is, God’s not after ‘good’; He’s after ‘will’. If your will isn’t surrendered to Him, then your ‘good’ is not good.

Mood = reacting to wounded emotions

If you allow an offence to hurt your emotions you won’t have power over your will and, sooner or later, spite will flow out of you.

The truth is, if the first girl tries to build her relationships on the foundation of her hurts, it will fail, and If the second girl builds her relationships on the foundation of retaliation and hate, it will fail, too. No wonder most relationships fail; they’re invariably built on spit and spite.

Spitefulness = trying to injure someone

When I finally challenged the original girl about her spitefulness, she couldn’t see that she had done anything wrong. As far as she was concerned, all she was doing was trying to find a friend and the other girl had given her the cold shoulder.

Until you own your sin and repent of it, you can’t free your will. You can decide to not keep doing it, but it’s all a waste of time because your will can’t perform its will whilst your hurt emotions rule your soul. You have to repent to free your will before you can truly see you are wrong. Contrary to the popular belief that ‘I have to see it before I can own it’, the truth is, you won’t see it until you own it, first.

It’s not fair

If you don’t pray the second half of what Christ prayed, you’ll simply be plotting how to escape your hassles on the ground of justified fairness, or if you do decide to pray it, it will be ineffective whilst ever your hurt emotions rule your soul.

The truth is, if you seek fairness in this world without living for the next, then you are not saved. This world is not fair … Jesus was crucified for doing good, Christians are being persecuted for simply loving Christ, people are being unjustly treated and unjustly suffering all over this planet, plus homosexuals demand equal rights, women who hate male authority demand equal rights, aboriginals who worship the serpent god demand equal rights … they’re all into fairness; Jesus wasn’t. Striving for fairness is an argument from Satan to justify that the cup be removed from me. True fairness is only under the Lordship of the Creator judge, Jesus.

Christians are not called to receive fairness; we’re called to serve and suffer for the name of Christ. The reason so few pray the full prayer is simply because we want the cup removed; we want the right to defend injustices against us; we don’t want to suffer for His name.

The healing of the lame man at the gate ‘Beautiful’

In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested for performing this miracle. The religious tribunal demanded by what authority they had done this. They weren’t inspired by the miracle; they were offended with envy. Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit stood his ground and preached Christ crucified.

Why don’t we see miracles in the western world, today?

In the modern Christian church, everyone wants the power of miracles for their own positional image, but to my understanding, God gives the power of His Spirit when you’re facing ‘fire’. Moses didn’t get the power till he faced Pharaoh. Elijah had to face Jezebel. Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego had to face the fiery furnace, for the miracle to be done.

In the same way, Peter and John would have had to weigh up the consequences of healing the lame man. They would have known there would most likely be a reaction against them that would cost them. It’s the cost that confirms where one’s will is placed … under Christ’s, or set doing and seeking what’s best for one’s self.

If you’re here for Christ, people will hate you. If you’re complaining about the hate, then you’re here for image. One has surrendered their will to be hurt by offenses, the other hasn’t. One is saved, the other isn’t.

 

May God open the eyes of His remnant,

 

Pastor Clive Douglas

 
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Posted by on July 14, 2019 in WILL

 

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Sermon 135 – I HURT, I HATE, I WON’T

10 Feb

After 24 years in ministry I’ve concluded that just about every modern Christian has come to Christ because they’re hurting. They’ve come to get God to fix their hurt.

The hurt is pretty-much always some mis-treatment or mis-understanding from a parent. More often than not, the general hurt is the child’s perception, right or wrong, of the father liking a sibling more than themselves.

Once a person takes on the hurt, their spirit will automatically hate the person who hurt them. Everyone will admit they’ve been hurt, but few will admit they hate. Everyone knows hate is wrong so we cover our hate with niceness and politeness, and helps, and call it love. Eventually their fruit verifies their hate. In God’s eyes we’re lying to ourselves.

Everyone I’ve counselled has come to Christ and practiced the love of God on a base of HATE. How can that possibly work and invariably it doesn’t, it’s all built on secret hate. In truth, their love is fake; it’s just a pretense. You can prove it’s fake by their fruit. Sooner or later, their real fruit will ooze out behind the nice façade.

POWER = control over others

It’s not really hurt or hate that’s the real problem. Hurt and hate are just excuses to justify my right for self-power. Satan wants power. Women want power over men. Men demand their power. Humanity is just a competition for power. Everybody lusts for power so no one will tell them what they can or can’t do. Power means you serve me, not me serve you. Power means I control my environment so you serve my wants for ME = no hassles for ME.

Techniques of Evil Power

The lie … if I remain calm and you lose it, I win. The truth … Jesus picked up a whip and went for it in the temple.

The lie … if you hurt me, then I have the right to hurt you. The truth … resist not evil.

The lie … I know, I’m right you’re wrong, so I have the right to intimidate you with fear. Truth … there is no fear in love.

The lie … I’m hurting, you’re responsible to make me happy. Truth … I’m just moody.

BOSS

Everyone under the origin of Satan wants to be their own boss. By hating the hurt from authority, you can justify your want. The problem is, once you set that precedent based on hate, you block God being the boss. I’ve challenged fake Christians about their fake love and in some occasions had the person state … “ok, you’re the boss”. Once somebody declares that, they confirm they’re into ‘position’. You see, a pastor isn’t the boss, he’s a servant, and servants can never be the boss, but a fake Christian evaluates everything through the eyes of who’s the boss, because they envy the boss, because they want to be the boss so they can tell everyone what to do instead of being told. They hate being told what to do. If you won’t be a servant as He instructs, then you won’t be told by God what to do = defiance.

Genesis 3

This all started in the Garden. Satan conned Eve to get smarter by eating the forbidden fruit. She knew it was wrong but what the heck. She shared it with Adam to make sure he was involved in the crime. When God came visiting, they hid. Instead of taking the blame for their actions, they BLAMED the one that made them do it. Adam even blamed God that it was His fault for making the woman.

Multiple times I’ve been thanked for helping people and then been blamed for pointing out that they were not obeying God’s laws. Hate always turns a blind eye to the help it was given and always ends up showing its appreciation with blame.

Selfish humanity always blames God and mother nature when things go wrong; they never blame their own sin, and they certainly never place the blame at Satan’s feet; they always have a go at Jesus first. Hate always lays the blame at Jesus’ feet.

You can’t blame authority and then say you are under authority. Blame is the evidence of your contradiction.

Satanic plot

Satan hates God’s authority. He can’t change that, but what he can change is man’s authority. If he can get a man or woman to hate authority and lift up their own sceptre, then he can control them, and make a mockery of God’s creation and thus question God’s right to rule. That’s exactly what happened in the Garden.

In every single case of hurt-hatred, as in the Garden, Satan uses the woman to defame the man. When the man takes the bait and tries to defend his authority his hatred of authority back-fires against him and he becomes hated by his children. And, so the hatred just keeps flowing. Hate attracts hate.

You HURT me. I HATE you. You WON’T TELL me what I can and can’t do

Once you allow your hurt to turn to hate, you immediately defy the law of God. You’ve just broken the 5th commandment of God to respect your parents. Once you break the law, the consequence is sin and death. Satan’s now got you. You’re his. You can cover your hate with as much good works and niceness as you like but it’s just fake love and false salvation. Jesus came to save the BAD. Fake GOOD covers the BAD, and thus your good blocks your salvation.

You see, HATE YOU simply means, I LOVE ME. That’s ANTI-CHRIST! So, love built on hate is the love of you, not the love of God. That’s Satan, not Holy Spirit.

Human love = love ME = hate anyone that loves someone else more than ME.

God love = love God = hate ME (Luke 14:26) = regard your neighbour more important than you.

Everyone gets married on the presumption that it’s your role to make me happy. How selfish we are! Marrying Jesus is exactly the opposite … it’s how can I serve Jesus for His happiness? Marriage isn’t to make you happy; it’s to address your will through the clash of two wills.

The LOVE of God

What’s the difference between a genuine Christian and a fake Christian when it comes to hurt?

  1. A fake Christian hates the person who hurt them. A genuine Christian hates the evil behind the person. There’s a massive difference between hating the evil and hating the person who’s done the evil. Hating the person will increase the love of yourself; hating the evil will increase your love of God, and it’s impossible to find this love unless you willing cop the hate for Him.

Unlike the 1st Adam, a genuine Christian will feel the hurt and recognise Satan behind the hurt and leave the person to God. They don’t take the bait, they take the blame. That’s dying to self and trusting God. That’s the pathway set by the 2nd Adam. This is impossible for anyone, fake Christian or non-Christian, who retains hate against an authority. Hate will always blame and retaliate, love will cop the hurt and trust the Creator and stay free from Satan.

  1. A genuine Christian knows that God has called us to be hated (Matthew 10:22). A fake Christian can’t hack that; they reserve the right to hate back.

A fake Christian will take the hurter on and resist them. A true Christian will take the hate on by copping it and Christ will be his strength.

  1. A fake Christian uses the hurt as an excuse to hate, but the real agenda is so they can be the BOSS of themselves. A genuine Christian is a servant, not a boss.

Love is not doing good deeds or being nice (1 Corinthians 13). Love is doing what God wants, not what you or others want = dying to self. Good deeds are only good if they flow from love. Good doesn’t cut it; only love does.

The FRUIT of hating an authority is always …

  1. ELEVATION … I’m special, I’m important
  2. ENVY … I hate you because you like them more than me (James 3:14,15).
  3. STUBBORNNESS … You’re not going to tell me that I’m wrong. I’ll wait till you understand my point of view.
  4. BLAME … If you’ve got a problem with me, then it’s your fault; and, if I’ve got a problem with you, then it’s your fault. You won’t listen to ME. You don’t understand ME.
  5. TELL … You can correct me, but don’t TELL me what to do; I’ll TELL you whether you’re right or wrong. I’m the BOSS of my life, not you. You won’t tell me I’m stupid!
  6. FEAR … eg. being left out, being put-down, being found-out
  7. LIE … to protect not being exposed as a fraud.
  8. MOOD … hate is always offended at correction or any suggestion they may be wrong (Hebrews 12:8). Moodiness is a craft to manipulate you to do my will.

I’ve observed this fruit in every single case of a fake Christian.

Dysfunctional Family … man vs. woman boss

Ever since the Garden, every woman is under the influence of Satan for the purpose of defaming the man. If the man resists the woman through hurt-hate-blame she will take him to hell. If he humbles himself by turning to the Lord, he can save the woman from hell. It’s the man’s responsibility to humble himself by trusting the Lord’s will. Society is failing simply because men won’t humble themselves to the Lord. Most men either resist a woman’s control, or withdraw for peace and harmony and surrender their authority to the woman’s control, never realising that they actually surrendered to Satan’s control.

The transferal of hate

  1. Intimidating fathers will drive boys to hate their father and thus to seek comfort and understanding from their mothers.
  2. Wives that hate men will drive their sons against their father by stirring the father to retaliate against the wife’s disrespect and the sons will automatically support the mother and hate the father.
  3. Boys hate BOSSY mothers and run the risk of loving men instead of a woman, and girls will hate intimidating fathers and fathers that favour other siblings over them and run the risk of loving women instead of a man.

The objective of Satan is to make sure that women hate men and men hate men, and men hate women and woman hate woman, and thus to make everyone their own boss, and thus dismantle the God-given authority of man over woman (Genesis 3:16) and thus destroy God’s plan. Just have a look at both modern Western and Eastern society and you’ll see that Satan is winning.

The family only changes when the father lets go his hate and submits to the will of the Father.

I have observed either the hatred of women or the hatred of men in every single case of a fake Christian.

The real issue

Humanity doesn’t like to be TOLD; it likes to TELL. Everybody is vying for a higher position so I can TELL you what to do instead of you TELLING me.

Consequently, the real issue is WILL. My will vs. your will and ultimately, God’s will. Everybody is willing to give up their will where they’re willing. That counts for little. What God wants is what you won’t give up. Humanity uses the hurt as an excuse to retain one’s will, then protects its will by blaming, mocking and intimidation, education, money and popularity all for the purpose of being its own BOSS, so your hurt can’t touch me. It then runs to its DRUG to appease its hurt. Humanity loves its sin.

As a consequence, I’ve discovered that the modern church is saltless and selfish, seeking prosperity rather than death. Its love is fake, simply covering its evil with good works, social fun and emotional worship.

Stubbornness is just self-worship

The truth is, if you choose to focus on the injustice of the hurt instead of focusing on God and trust His plan, you’re simply using the hurt to hide the fact that YOU are the centre of You and that you are too stubborn to bend your will. God calls stubbornness, “idolatry” (1 Samuel 15:23), the worship of yourself … “No one’s going to TELL me what I can and can’t do!” If you’ve ever said those words in your heart, then you’re into idolatry … the worship of yourself. There’s no way you’re a Christian until you repent.

Repent

Repent = I give up my hate; I acknowledge that I’m the one who’s evil; I give up my will to Christ. I’m willing to be hurt for Christ’s sake. I’m willing to take the blame for Christ’s sake.

“Not my will but thine be done”

Like Christian in Pilgrims Progress, you can walk along the Christian walk from the wicker gate to the cross, but you can never cross-over to the celestial city until you lay your hate at the cross, until you sacrifice the drug that’s sustaining your hate, and fully surrender your will to His. There has to be PAIN for GAIN. The cross is painful. The cross is fearful. There’s no POSITION at the cross.

If you were sucked in by the half-truth that you are saved by inviting Jesus into your heart, then know that you’ve been conned. True salvation is on the other side of your greatest fear. By faith, that fear has to be sacrificed to the will of God, before you are saved. Jesus faced this dilemma. Abraham faced this dilemma, and Jesus said you cannot be His disciple until you pick up your cross and follow Him (Luke 9:23). He also stated that as they hated Him, they will also hate you (Luke 10:22-25).

Copping the blame, right or wrong, is a sign of Christ. Blaming someone else is a sign of Satan.

If you’re going to serve Christ, then like Christ, you have to cop the blame. If you decline to cop the blame then you are not saved, no matter how good you declare yourself to be. It’s not based on fairness, it’s based on God’s love that keeps you free from Satan.

When the prodigal son came to his senses and returned, he didn’t say to his father “you’re the boss”; he said “I have sinned against heaven and you and am not worthy to be called your servant.” To be a nothing for Christ was his whole objective; not to negotiate to get back the boss position of sonship.

The DRUG

What’s the drug you run to, to pacify your hurt or pain when it all gets too much?

Many Christians I have counselled confirmed that they run to things like … surfing, animals, women, money, helps, drugs, alcohol, business, pornography.

In every person’s heart who’s taken the bait of hating authority, there will be a drug that you use to pacify your hurt, and protect your hate, camouflage your fears and elevate your position over others. At the cross, you’ll have to give it up. The drug is your idol. If the sacrifice is not painful or fearful, then you haven’t picked the right drug. You can’t love God and keep your drug of self-glorification.

The IRONY

Adam wouldn’t take the blame. Eve wouldn’t take the blame. Satan wouldn’t take the blame. So, Jesus took the blame, and God exalted Him above every creature in heaven, on earth and under the earth (Philippians 2:7-11).

When you finally submit to the will of God and stop defending your own, the irony is, love knows it has the freedom to hate, the freedom to retaliate, the freedom to run, the freedom to fight back, and the power of position through Christ (Ecclesiastes 3). Love never loses, only hate loses.

Solution

Stop trying to be important, by letting others be important. Transfer your trust from yourself to the Creator and cop the hate. Sacrifice what you won’t, and sacrifice your drug.

“Ah Lord God, Thou hast made the heavens and the earth by Your great power. Nothing is too hard for Thee.”  Jeremiah 32:17

 

Pastor Frank Whistler

 

 
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Posted by on February 10, 2019 in Authority, Blame

 

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Sermon 120 – Newton’s 3rd Law

17 Mar

Newton’s 3rd Law of physics states that … for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s not a premise or a theory; it’s law. That means, it’s not a possibility or a maybe; it’s a fact of the physical realm we live in. It happens in every instance of action, 100% of the time. Hit a tree at fast speed and your body will hit the windscreen with the same force unless you’re wearing a seat-belt.

What people fail to understand is that the laws of the physical realm are simply a reflection of the spiritual realm. In the spiritual realm the same law applies. You see it’s application in the physical realm so you can open your spiritual eyes and appreciate how the spiritual realm operates.

The Word of God states in Matthew 7:1 & 2 … judge not that you be not judged, for with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. The Bible calls it sowing and reaping, but it’s simply the law of equal and opposite reaction.

Sow disrespect, you’ll get disrespected. Sow control over people, you’ll get controlled by a demon, and you won’t know it’s happening. Sow judgment and you’ll fall to the same thing you judged. Sow envy and you’ll reap hatred.

The key element that the Bible encourages is … humility

God gives grace to the humble. He resists the proud. God loves a contrite spirit. He hates pride because it’s from hell. Humility comes from heaven. Pride is a characteristic of Satan. Humility is a characteristic of Christ.  If you choose pride, God will resist your pride with an equal and opposite reaction … a haughty spirit precedes a fall. If you choose humility, Satan will resist it with an equal and opposite reaction, but the difference is God will be your strength, and the reward will be eternal.

Humility?

To understand humility, you need to understand pride. To walk humbly you need to block pride. Pride is triggered in two ways, and always via feelings. One way is by getting puffed up via good feelings eg. when you get a compliment or complete a task well. A voice says to you that you’re pretty good or clever or capable. The other way is via bad feelings eg. when someone says or does something to hurt your feelings. A voice says to you that it’s not fair or nice. Consequently, you can have puffed-up pride, but even more commonly, you can have hurt pride.

Humility is not an outward appearance; it’s an inner attitude of God’s strength to desist from sucking-up to your hurt pride or puffed-up pride. It’s learnt from recognising that your hurt feelings or good feelings are a satanic trap to get you to be proud so that Satan can apply the law of equal reaction against you.

There’s no way you can avoid good or bad feelings. It’s part of being human. You can pretend to block your feelings with coolness or macho-ness, but they’re still there; they’re just covered over.

Humility doesn’t mean you block your feelings with coolness. It means you feel it and go to God with your hurt and trust His solution, accepting that hurt is part of the solution to learning faith and trust.

Repentance and Forgiveness don’t happen until you give up your feelings

You can’t repent and hold onto hurt feelings, and you can’t forgive and hold onto hurt feelings. You have to give up your feelings and die to what you want before you can repent or forgive.

It’s not fair, I want good feelings

Most people say sorry or forgive so they can get their good feelings back. Their motive is selfish, so it never works. No one likes bad feelings and no one likes looking bad in the eyes of others. So we let the feelings of embarrassment dictate our spirit’s decision and end up suffering the reactions of our action.

Really, underneath all our feelings is just the human desire to be valued and favoured … to be special above others. In other words, we all like feeling superior and hate feeling inferior and we make our judgments based on this motivation. Sadly, that’s the pathway to hell, and God challenges this path with circumstances of life that are designed to re-evaluate the natural law.

Satan uses feelings to trap you in the natural law. Focussing on the feelings of unfairness or superior-ness [superiority is really motivated by past hurts and envy] traps you in the judgment of the person who has hurt you and results in an equal and opposite reaction that Satan can manipulate to make you act like the person you hate.

God’s unpopular pathway to heaven

Jesus made Himself of no reputation and took on Himself the form of a servant. He humbled Himself to the Father’s will and became obedient unto death … Philippians 2:7,8

If you take the pathway least travelled and seek to walk humbly, you’ll cop an equal and opposite reaction from Satan, and God will save you for his eternal kingdom.

If you take the broad way, you’ll still cop an equal and opposite reaction from Satan, and you’ll end up in eternal hell.

No matter what you do you won’t avoid an equal and opposite reaction, but you can choose where you want to end up.

How do you stop your pride?

If you want to stop your pride so you walk the walk of Christ, you have to address your feelings. Pride enters through your feelings. It therefore, must exit through your feelings. You can’t just decide to stop your pride. You first must give up your hurt feelings or your superior feelings. You need to feel yourself do this. Just as you feel the hurt, you must feel the letting go of the hurt. It requires a decision of the mind, but ultimately, it’s actually a decision of the heart.

The mind calculates that the pain feelings or good feelings are part of the walk with Christ and despite the feelings, gives an instruction to one’s heart (spirit) to trust the Lord through the feelings. The heart then lets go the feelings and you feel it go. It doesn’t necessarily resolve the feelings straight away, but an inner confidence of faith is restored that Christ is in control of the situation.

The thief on the cross

The thief on the cross felt his anger and reacted with disrespect and arrogance towards Jesus and demanded He fix his problem. The other thief felt his sin and humbled himself. Humility isn’t based on goodness or badness; it’s feeling your sin and giving up the resistance to defend it.

The problem … you get what you practice

The Word of God declares in 2 Timothy 3, that in the last days people will be incontinent, that is they will not be able to control their feelings because they have allowed themselves to be disrespectful, envious of those that are good, trucebreakers, self-lovers, heady and high-minded, having a form of godliness but never able to come to the truth.

If you practice disrespect, manipulation, defiance, envy, compromise and bending of God’s laws, sexual evil, and don’t keep your word, there’ll be a point of incontinence where you won’t be able to return to self-control even if you want to.

If you don’t control your prideful emotions then you will lose control of your emotions and become incontinent. If you allow your selfish emotions to rule, then you will get an equal and opposite reaction of destruction that will separate you from God.

You need to wear a seatbelt if you don’t want the injury

Macho-ness doesn’t wear a seatbelt; it thinks it’ll never get hurt. Coolness doesn’t wear a seatbelt; it thinks it won’t feel the pain. Fear puts on the seatbelt but fails to buckle it up. It wants the freedom to choose. It looks like it’s wearing the seatbelt so it doesn’t get caught by the police and doesn’t get into trouble.

The seatbelt in the spiritual kingdom is … death. If you’re dead, the feelings are irrelevant. Death is not simple; it requires faith. It has to be learnt; it’s not automatic. It’s daily, not a once for all. It’s learnt through good and bad feelings and by observing the reactions when you fail to stop your actions. You learn it through your failures and your observations. It can only be done after you’ve surrendered to the will of the Father … John 5:30, but, even though the seatbelt restricts your freedoms and wants, the seatbelt means you won’t go through the windscreen; God is in control.

If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his hurt feelings and pain daily and follow Me. For whoever will save his life will lose it but whoever will lose his life for My sake, the same will save it …  Luke 9:23,24

 

Pastor Frank Chisholm

 

 

 
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Posted by on March 17, 2018 in Humility, Pride

 

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Sermon 118 – I’m Sorry

17 Feb

Proverbs 20:6 … most men will proclaim their own goodness, but a faithful man is hard to find.

In Australia, the deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, has been exposed for adultery. He’s been challenged about promoting the woman, with whom he’s had an affair, into a higher job position. His family is struggling with being dumped and publicly embarrassed. As a consequence, the Prime Minister has publicly suggested that Mr. Joyce’s behaviour is unacceptable and included a ‘no sex with staff’ in the code of conduct agreement. Mr. Joyce says he’s sorry, but at the same time he’s challenged the Prime Minister’s reaction. As far as he’s concerned it’s his own private business and no one has the right to judge him or tell him what to do. His sorry is mixed with arrogance and blame.

Fake sorry = don’t tell me what to do

Recently, I corrected a young man in our fellowship for his selfish attitude of envy and pride. He said sorry, then went about defending himself with his good deeds and ended up blaming me for the correction. In other words, he was telling me how he should have been corrected. From his perspective I was over-the-top. The truth is, he wouldn’t be put in his place.

Responsibility vs. Blame

I always find it fascinating how when someone sins they blame the authority for correcting them instead of taking responsibility for their sin and whole-heartedly accepting the correction. As far as they’re concerned, they’re a good person so sorry should see the end of it. Like king Saul, a selfish proud spirit won’t accept they’re wrong, even though they’ll often agree they are. These people will always ultimately look for excuses to defend their selfishness.

God doesn’t accept sorry

God only accepts repentance; He doesn’t accept sorry. God didn’t accept Judas’ sorry, but He did Peter’s. One sorry was an apology because he was exposed and embarrassed & probably blamed Jesus for putting him in that position by making him the treasurer. The other sorry was an acceptance of responsibility with sincere remorse resulting in repentance. One sorry re-evaluates that it’s not as bad as was first portrayed, the other sorry knows it was wrong and humbles itself to the punishment. One is too proud to bend, the other bends and repents.

Judas sorry

Most people say sorry to get out of trouble. They don’t really mean it. Why? The pride of humanity doesn’t like being told it’s wrong. Most people believe they have the right to diagnose and surgically remove anything that’s bad, themselves. They don’t like other people telling them they’re wrong. Their pride can’t handle it.

Blame attached to sorry means you’re not sorry

You can’t say sorry and blame at the same time; it’s a contradiction. Saying sorry with an excuse, is not sorry; it’s selfish. Blame attached to sorry is the same as saying … “sorry for upsetting you but you’re wrong for correcting or punishing me the way you did. I’m willing to be told I’m wrong but I don’t like you telling me I’m wrong (which obviously doesn’t make sense); and you made me do it anyway”.

What the person is really saying is … I think I’m good. You shouldn’t tell me I’m bad! I have the right to decide whether I’ve done wrong, you don’t. In other words, they won’t be told, or they’ll pretend to be, but in their heart, they don’t like being put in their place.

Being put in your place

Being put in your place, is generally read as being put-down, when in fact, it may be a beneficial correction to your pride of position. Pride won’t interpret the difference but rather objects to the correction, in which case it clearly does need to be put in its place.

I’m right because you are wrong

Ask yourself … do you deduce you are right when someone who’s offended you is corrected?

The truth is, only pride makes the deduction … I’m right because you’re wrong, or I’m good because you are corrected. Just because someone is corrected doesn’t necessarily mean that you are right, and someone’s wrongness doesn’t prove you are good. You can’t conclude rightness based on someone else’s wrong. You may both be wrong. In fact, if this is your common deduction, then you, yourself, are full of your own pride.

Humanity makes its deductions based on its feelings

Most people believe that what they feel is the truth. Their deductions are based on how they feel. If you hurt my feelings then you’re not nice and you deserve to pay for it. This is the thinking of the anti-Christ, not Jesus. A genuine Christian makes his deductions by faith. Faith is the engine of his spirit, not feelings. If you’re running on feelings you’d better submit to correction to restore yourself to faith or you’ll eventually derail.

A faithful Christian accepts his feelings (whether it be heaviness, loneliness, failure, hurts, purposeless) as the burden of life that he shares with Christ. The feelings drive him to Christ … cast your cares on Him because he cares for you … as his strength and source.

The world is chasing happy feelings

The human spirit doesn’t like feeling bad, which is why if it gets caught, it says sorry, so it can get back to its good feelings. As far as the world is concerned, if I say sorry, that should be the end of it, and if it isn’t then you’ve got the problem. It’s a convenient way of ignoring one’s own sin and casting the blame onto someone else.

The world wants happy feelings all the time. It chases after it through … success, money, friends, marriage, travel, sex, fun, drugs, alcohol, & super challenges.  The fake church sells happiness so it can take advantage of what the world is looking for, so it can increase its numbers and money and look good to the world so it’s not persecuted.  Thus, the fake church is just like the world.

If you’re chasing happy feelings, then you’re of the world, not of Christ

Christ doesn’t offer happiness; He offers blessedness, and that’s a completely different product …  blessed are you when you are persecuted, merciful, meek, mourn & poor … Matthew 5.

Happiness is transient and temporary; it’s based on luck. It never permanently fulfils; it always has to be chased for more, and it always produces envy against those who seem to have it.

Blessedness is based on faith. It’s a commitment to Christ, based on a relationship of love. It doesn’t seek happy feelings. It simply serves Him and trusts Him whatever the feelings and outcome.

It’s never really a ‘happy’ issue

On the surface humanity says it’s chasing happiness, but that’s just a cover for the real hidden agenda of … I can do what I want; no one’s going to tell me what I can and can’t do. If you don’t want to be told, you’ll chase what you want. Thus, Barnaby Joyce is now exposed for his real agenda and Satan wins and secretly controls another lost spirit.

Freedom strategy

The whole purpose of blame and hurt is to get you to retaliate against a demonic spirit so you come under its power. Satan argues ‘feelings’ through blame and guilt to trap you in His power. It’s the tickling of your feelings that is the temptation. Sin is acting on the temptations.

Conversely, God argues sin. This puts the argument on the spirit level, rather than the feeling level.

A remnant Christian goes to God’s Word for the truth of a person’s attack against them and either repents for being wrong, or righteously refuses to accept the blame and puts the responsibility for the sin back onto the shoulders of the blamer. They still may suffer the feelings of blame but they’re free from the power of the blame; they’ve shared it with the Lord. Elijah stood up to Ahab, David stood up to King Saul, Shadrach stood up to Nebuchadnezzar, and Jesus stood up to the Pharisees.

The remnant needs to learn the righteous path to Godly aggressive humility to stand up against the sinner, rather than being sucked into the satanic trick to react to hurt feelings.

 

Pastor Nick Clarence

 

 

 
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Posted by on February 17, 2018 in Blame, Correction

 

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Sermon 63 – HEARING GOD’S VOICE

28 Oct

You can’t do two things at the same time

Being a doctor I’ve included in my practice the study of applied kinesiology. This is the practical application of muscle nerve function. One thing I’ve noticed from the practical application of these studies is that you can’t effectively do two things at the same time. You can argue that it’s possible to watch TV and to read a book at the same time, but the truth is you have to shift your concentration from one to the other; you can’t do both at exactly the same time. You can argue that you can drive a car and talk on a mobile phone, but the fact is that you are far more likely to have an accident because your attention is split between two brain applications. I challenge you to Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 28, 2013 in Elevation

 

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Sermon 58 – UNDER ATTACK

22 Aug

Right at the beginning of the Word of God is the story of creation, and in Genesis 3 we read of the first interaction between Satan and mankind.

The strategy of Satan in the Garden of Eden is the same strategy he uses today to
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Posted by on August 22, 2013 in Satanic channelling

 

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Sermon 54 – WHY DOESN’T JESUS SHOW HIMSELF?

15 Jun

Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago and showed Himself to the human race. Our international date system confirms it and every religion recognises that He existed. To Christians, He came as God in the form of man to relate to His creation and die for all of mankind. You could feel Him, walk with Him and talk with Him. But why has He left? Why doesn’t He show Himself now? Why can’t you touch Him and speak face to face with Him as the people could then? Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on June 15, 2013 in Elevation, Faith

 

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Sermon 53 – SELF-STRENGTH MUST BE BROKEN

14 May

If you want to really find Christ, your self-strength must be broken. You can try and control your pride but you will never succeed. It’s not a matter of controlling one’s self because that is just simply using your own strength, you must be broken and remoulded and only God can do that.

What’s the process? Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on May 14, 2013 in Elevation, Humility

 

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Sermon 48 – All I need is LOVE

09 Mar

The Live for Love Christian

To most people, Love = no Rejection

Everybody wants to be loved. They crave it, but most human beings believe love is … you giving me what makes me happy. When you don’t give me what makes me happy, then you’re not loving. From a wounded spirit’s point of view if you say or do anything that doesn’t make me happy then you are not being loving and if you correct me then you are rejecting me. The opposite to your love for ME is your rejection of ME. It’s all about ME!

Whether you understand it or not, everyone marries for position. They say it’s for love because that’s what they recognise is the feeling, but the real hidden reason is elevation of one’s self-worth. Women have relationships for security; for friendship; to feel valued; for spite against another woman; to not be a failure in the eyes of other women; basically for self-value. Men have relationships to show off the beauty they caught; to get into a family that’s higher up the status quo; to have sex. In this generation, everyone’s having relationships for the benefit of their own self value.

The love of self is alive and well

A friend of mine financed a couple into a house because they couldn’t get a bank loan. They said they were grateful but the real thanks he received for his generosity was the wife secretly hated his own son for having rejected her desire to marry him. In the course of time, what he discovered was that the wife really wanted to marry his son because that would have given her an elevated social position over her brother whom she envied, and she held his son in contempt for even considering that she wasn’t good enough for him. Wow!

The real issue to most people is Love vs. Rejection. I want love, I hate rejection.

The woman was desperate to be loved, but the love she was looking for was the love of herself. She expected men to swoon over her and couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t. She didn’t view relationships through the eyes of love; she viewed everything through the window of rejection. That is, if you don’t reject me (ie. make me feel good) then you must love me, and if you do reject me (make me feel bad) you are bad and unkind and selfish. Everything she planned was based on avoiding rejection and this was her secret motivation in every interaction, and whether you can accept this or not, this behaviour pattern is the norm.

There were two key trees in the garden; the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life.

Adam and Eve could eat from the tree of life but they were not permitted to eat from the tree of knowledge. One tree led to life and the other tree led to death. Why didn’t they eat from the tree of life? They didn’t have to, they didn’t need to, or perhaps it just didn’t occur to them, or perhaps they were too comfortable in their Garden, but if they had eaten from this tree they would have seen things differently to how they perceived things after eating from the forbidden tree.

God is love. He created man in His own image, including the ability to love. Everybody wants God to love them; that’s why they come to Him …”I need your love, I want your love”. Satan knows that God has created everyone to be loved, so he has to counterfeit this ‘love’ need if he wants to trap people in his control. So he set up a system where you will find love … in YOURSELF. Under this system, you don’t need God to tell you what’s right or wrong, you can figure it out for yourself, and no one needs to tell you what to do. Perfect, everybody wants that. In fact, you’ll be able to tell everyone else what’s right and wrong. This satanic system is easy; it’s inherent; you don’t have to think about it and you don’t have to give up anything to have it; so people just fall for it.

The Tree of Knowledge is God’s knowledge (v.22) but when you eat from it you become responsible for that knowledge between good and evil, but human beings can’t do 100% good and thus the power of knowledge leads down the path of of your OWN experiential deductions to excuse evil as good.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan sold the idea of love by inviting Eve to love herself by tempting her to eat the fruit that would make her into her own god and feel like god. The trick was that it’s not really love, but rather the love of me; which is really pride.

You can’t eat from the tree of knowledge without becoming your own god and using God’s knowledge to promote you.

It’s not the tree that’s the problem, it’s the human. Human beings inherit God’s knowledge of good and evil mixed with the contamination of their envy and pride. Thus they see good and evil through the eyes of their own sinful rightness. Thus every human being has their own perception of what’s right and wrong and doesn’t like being told they’re not right.

That’s why people don’t understand the love of God; they are only willing to find love from their own tree of their own knowledge and they only trust their own experience. They’ve worked out how to love God from their own tree, and it’s not love at all, it’s pride. When you eat from the tree of your own knowledge, everything you do is to improve your POSITION above people, even using your own false love of God, without you even being aware of it; without you knowing it.

Satan’s sale pitch covers all bases; like in the temptation of Jesus, Satan will even give you back God’s love once you’re committed to this system. Thus Christians walk around thinking they DO love God and He loves them, completely oblivious to the fact that all they are doing is eating from the tree of “I know”, and not from the tree of Life. You can’t survive if you eat from the forbidden tree, unless you give it up.

If you want the love of God you have to suffer the rejection of others, and that fear of being rejected is enough for people to take the easy way out; besides it’s right to love, isn’t it, and under Satan’s system you’re told and convinced you are loving?

You do get knowledge from the tree of knowledge, but it gets polluted by your rulership and you end up with … ‘I know better than you, don’t tell me’.

The tree of knowledge does give you knowledge. It wasn’t forbidden because it was a bad tree, but rather because man was not capable of managing its power. It was created by God [Satan counterfeits, he doesn’t create] for the purpose of testing man’s love and to demonstrate man is not able to compete with God; man does fall to evil, God doesn’t. Before they ate from the forbidden fruit they already knew what was right and wrong, otherwise God could not have advised them to not eat from that particular tree; they knew it was wrong to do so.

Because of Eve’s sin, everyone is born with the inherited knowledge of good and evil but it’s contaminated by the pride of self-love. Therefore, everyone measures good and evil according to their own blurred vision based on what they’ve been taught and what they’ve experienced. No one can see good and evil through God’s eyes until they repent of their self-love and trust His wisdom rather than their own. Consequently, if someone starts dictating to you what’s right and wrong, our own self-love will automatically inwardly retaliate with ‘you won’t tell me I’m wrong; you’re wrong’. No one likes being told what to do and no one likes being told they’re wrong. It simply becomes an argument of who’s right and who’s wrong. Why? Because everyone thinks they’re right and everyone thinks they know. It’s this inherited self-rightness that must be repented off, not the bad we have done. The bad is simply the expression of our self-rightness.

Both a worldly person as well as an unsurrendered Christian will make their judgments based on what they believe is right and wrong, but will be ignorant to the fact that all their knowledge will be drawn from the tree of knowledge which has been contaminated by their own selfish perspectives.

So what’s the tree of knowledge that leads to death?

It’s when the tree of God’s knowledge gets polluted with ‘I know’ and gets re-designed and re-shaped by us to become the tree of our own self-knowledge. We ignorantly become ‘wise in our own eyes’ (v.6), not wise in God’s eyes. We lose God’s wisdom. It actually evolves into the tree of the love of ME; the tree that promotes ME. If I eat from this tree I will see from my point of view and that will be what I know is right. As my own god I now decide what’s right and what’s wrong, and I make judgments against people based on my rightness. Thus I break the laws of God and pronounce condemnation on myself (James 4:11,12).

People go on a journey of increased knowledge all for the subtle purpose of promoting their prowess over others. In our society, education is a god, and religious rank and piety is a god. Knowledge is power to anyone that eats from the forbidden tree.

You can check what tree you’re eating from

After they had eaten from the tree all they gained was the knowledge that they were naked … so what? Did they gain anything from this new knowledge or did they become bound by it? What they lost was the ability to see righteously. They lost the ability to think clearly, so much so they hid from their true friend, they lied and blamed each other for the sin, and because they couldn’t see that they could have and should have repented they were separated from God. So what did they gain from their new found knowledge? Nothing at all, in fact they lost everything. They already had the true knowledge of God and they foolishly sacrificed it for the feeling of being their own god. They had been conned and they didn’t even know it. Wow!

The Laodicean church doesn’t know it is naked

The bible starts in Genesis with humans choosing to be their own god, becoming wise in their own eyes, and seeing that they were naked. But, the bible ends in Revelation with the lukewarm and financially comfortable Laodicean church ignorant that it is naked. In other words, when you are your own god you can see things from a physical point of view. You may have made yourself prosperous, but you lose your vision from a spiritual perspective. You become blind to God’s perspective and read everything (including the spiritual) from the physical, not the heart. You can see that you are physically naked; you can even agree that you are a sinner, but, like King Saul in 1 Samuel 15, it’s all for the purpose of retaining your position in the eyes of others. When you choose the option of elevated position you lose the ability to see from your spirit and even though you worship the true God it’s all to look good in the eyes of others, and eventually God separates Himself from you.

Blindness hides from the Truth but thinks it has the truth

The consequence of eating from the forbidden tree was to hide from the Truth, Lie, TELL God what’s right, and blame. BLAME is not a characteristic of God. Any time you BLAME someone, you are simply eating from your “I know” tree.

The Beatles wrote a chart stopper when they sung “all I need is love”. They tapped into the cause of the rebellious spirit. They hit the mark in everyone’s soul of the desperate lostness and the absolute craving to be valued by others, and thus started the revolution of rock and roll. The love they were selling was not the love of God but the love of yourself … Satan’s counterfeit love.

Satan sells the feel-good package of “live for love”; love will make you happy and love is right; whereas God’s love is free to everyone that dies for it.

When you eat the fruit of “self-value” you come under the will of satan, and under the curse of God

Whenever we hear a whisper that we should promote ourselves, automatically there’s a temptation to eat from the forbidden tree and a resultant choice as to whether you will neglect the tree of Life. Obviously the tree of life is Jesus … He is the Way the Truth and the Life. It’s this tree and this tree alone that gives you the humility to use God’s knowledge righteously. The whisper is to entice you to eat the fruit that promotes you to be a god; to sit in judgment over everyone else; to feel good about yourself; but ultimately to keep you separated from the tree of Life.

But if you really want to walk in the love of God you have to die to the love of yourself; you have to give up the desire to elevate your position; you have to give up the need for others to like you; you have to genuinely sacrifice the fear of what others think of you; you have to be willing to be rejected.

You can only do this by trust; by waiting on God for His plan for your life; not by telling God what He’s supposed to do and when. Without this sacrifice of self you can’t eat of the tree of life.

How do you trust God?

1. Repent of promoting our own knowledge. Give up every desire to promote yourself.

2. Don’t promote yourself, but rather trust God’s outcome.

Fake love becomes a competition to see who is loved the most.

Recently I spoke with 3 women. They were members of a Christian fellowship and were friends but each one hated the other even though they pretended to love each other, otherwise they would not have been liked by others. As I delved into their hearts it became apparent that they were using love as a weapon against each other. One woman believed the pastor loved her the most above the other woman. Another woman was retaliating in her heart with, so what, my husband loves me more than your husband loves you; whilst the third woman, knowing that her husband didn’t understand love at all, defended her position with, so what, my husband is the elder, he is the most spiritually intelligent.

They were simply eating from the tree of ‘promote me’; the tree of ‘I think I’m pretty good’; the tree of the knowledge of ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’, and they were using every personal positive quality they could get their hands on to fire as arrows against each other. They couldn’t see that they were doing this until it was pointed out to them. When you eat from the tree of I know, you can’t see your sin you can only see the wrong someone’s done towards you; you can only see you’re right and they’re wrong.

Who do you love the most?

Do you love husband, wife, children or friends the most? When it all comes down to it, if you don’t love God the most, you love yourself the most.

You listened to the voice of your wife

In Genesis 3:17, God said to Adam …because you listened to the voice of your wife you will be cursed in your work. Women like to be better than other women; they hate being below another woman; so women devise arrows to shoot at other women to put them down or to put them back in their place, all without anyone ever having to say a word. What God means ‘when a man is enticed by the voice of his wife’ is that his wife is tempting him to eat from his own self-value tree so she can control him to do what she wants under the influence of Satan. If the man is into his own tree of self-value he’ll take the bait because it makes him feel good. He will think everything’s alright but he won’t be able to see what’s going down, simply because, like Adam, he never stopped long enough to see what tree he was eating from. He never stopped long enough to consult God’s opinion. He got conned and the consequence was the curse of work.

Why do women do this? They like to have someone to blame if it all goes wrong, but more importantly, like the 3 women above, they love to use their husband’s arrows to shoot down other women so it will promote themselves above other women.

In 1 John 4, The Bible declares that God is love and that you can know you are in God and God is in you when you practice this love towards your brethren. If you say you love God and yet like shooting arrows at your brother to put him in his place, you’re a liar and the truth is not in you. If you say you walk in His commandments but covet your neighbour’s wife or goods or status, you’re a liar and the truth is not in you. Most Christians are liars and thus not Christian at all. They eat from their own tree and love God on the basis of their own knowledge and can’t imagine why God wouldn’t love them back, but they never eat from the tree of life.

God’s love is only accessed through the death of wanting yourself to be loved. I suggest you repent of eating from the tree of your own knowledge and eat from the tree of Life before you’re put out from the Garden. Take up your cross daily and follow Him and no longer eat from the Tree of “I know”.

Pastor Scot Waynard

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2013 in Elevation, god, Love, Pride

 

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