Symptoms or Root Causes?

What do you do when God tells you to wait?Years ago, someone sent us a check for several thousand dollars earmarked for radio. We were so excited! We printed pamphlets, visited stations, and knocked on every door we could find, but nothing opened. We were tempted to use the money for classrooms instead, yet deep down we knew it was for radio. So we put it in the bank and waited. Seven years later, a radio station came up for sale at a fraction of its price!The reality is, waiting on the Lord is not uncertainty. It is holding still in confident expectation that God will do exactly what He promised. The same is true in our health, our finances, and our families. Discouragement is the enemy’s favorite tool, but those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength. God’s way is always worth the wait!Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, and they will walk and not become weary.- Isaiah 40:28-31

Have you ever felt helpless in an area where life treated you unfairly?A man with terminal cancer was told he was a victim of the disease and had months to live. Something rose up inside him. He read how Jesus saw a woman bound by infirmity for eighteen years and said this ought not to be. As a son of the Most High God, he knew cancer in his body ought not to be either. Whenever a doctor treated him like a victim, he found another doctor. Years later, he was still alive!The reality is, Satan wants us to have a victim mentality, because a victim always feels helpless. Every assault we take in cracks the protective wall God placed around us. The same is true in our finances, our relationships, and our emotions.But Jesus died so we never have to be victims. We are overcomers!

Have you ever read a horoscope, played with a Ouija board, or gone along with Halloween "just for fun"? This teaching goes through Deuteronomy 18:10–14 and shows that every one of those practices is on God's list, and doing them out of ignorance still opens a door to the enemy. A 2,000-pound bull can be led anywhere by the ring in his nose, and a believer can be pulled where they never meant to go, much like Rachel with the idols she hid in her camel saddle. The root is rebellion (1 Samuel 15:23), and our part is to repent and renounce, get those things out of our homes, and close every door! Listen in, and let God show you anything that has given the enemy a hold, so you can say that the enemy has NOTHING in you.

Have you ever felt so tied to someone that you couldn't turn them loose, even when you knew deep down they weren't good for you? This is witchcraft working through another person, and good intentions are not enough to protect us. I've learned the lesson the hard way. One knock on a neighbor's door to witness, and it cost me eight years of torment until God delivered me, and a controlling friendship that ended in a church split. Good intentions and soulish compassion can leave us under a spell. Both lessons point to the same truth: freedom never comes through the intellect, only through the Spirit and God's Word. Psalm 91:15 promises, "He will call upon Me, and I will answer him." Our part is to repent, break every agreement we've made, renounce the person holding us, and be led by His Holy Spirit at every turn. 

Have you ever quit a sin only to find it slipping back in through another door? This study walks through three levels of repentance: being sorry because we got caught, being sorry because we hurt someone, and the God-kind of repentance that comes only when we see our sin as a sin against our Heavenly Father. That is true brokenness, and Isaiah 61:1 tells us Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted. David was restored the moment he fell on his face, while Nebuchadnezzar ate grass for seven years before he finally broke. The timetable is in our hands, but we can't stop at sorrow. We have to go on and receive the forgiveness that makes us whiter than snow (Psalm 51:7), so listen in and let this message carry you out of guilt and into full restoration!

Do the latest reports about cancer, terrorism and natural disasters send a chill of fear down your spine? This teaching goes straight through Psalm 91, God's covenant of protection for His children, and shows that the secret place is literal, but it is also conditional. Our part comes first, in verses 1 and 2: we choose to dwell in His shelter, and we say out loud, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Like baby chicks running under the mother hen's wings when the hawk's shadow passes overhead, we have to run to Him, and then the enemy would have to go through God to get to us! Listen in, and let Psalm 91 become more than a comfort to you: a covenant you can sink your teeth into.

You are what you think spiritually, emotionally, physically, and in every other way. The thoughts you hold in your mind will eventually become who you are in every area of life. That is why it is so important to watch over your thought life. The Word says to be renewed in the spirit of your mind. We cannot let our thought life run out of control and do nothing about it. We must first make a decision to seek God until we receive answers.  

Rejection is one of the deepest wounds a person can endure, and rejection is the root of many of the other issues we face. Today we will be looking at:1. What is rejection? 2. What part does the mind play in rejection? 3. What are some of the causes of rejection? 4. What are the ways in which rejection manifests?

There is a great difference between soulish love and God's love. Operating in agape love is what causes the spiritual gifts to work as God intends. Many people walk in a soulish or intellectual faith or in a soulish or intellectual love, but according to 1 Corinthians 13, the love we must walk in is the agape kind of love that comes only from God. Otherwise, we become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal, and nothing works as intended. When we choose to walk in agape love, everything begins to flow as the Holy Spirit intends. 

Don't fall into the pit of depression. Psalm 34:19 tells us, "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." The Lord has a plan to deliver us from all the afflictions of the enemy. But first, we must train our senses to know what is coming from God and what is coming from the enemy. When we take in the thoughts of the enemy, even subconsciously, we begin to sink lower and lower. God wants us to walk in the truth of His Word every day. When we do that, we will truly become more than conquerors in Christ.