Surrendered Balance

Offense May Come

“…Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to me…” Matthew 16:23

This morning I woke up with old offenses flooding my mind. That’s just like Satan and his cohorts to try to capture our thoughts and direct our mind’s focus first thing. These were old things that I thought I had rid myself of but when they showed up I found myself rethinking this.

As I was blocking and stopping these thoughts at the gate of mind I realized that I have let go of old offenses. However, that doesn’t stop the devil from sending replays back to our minds just to try us - as in seeing if we will take the bait. He is a conniver.  If we are not discerning and alert then he will be able to do one of two things - cause us to believe that we never truly let go of and forgave past offenses, (this leads to deception about grace and faith and condemnation) or if that doesn’t work he will try to get us to let the old thoughts back so that if possible they can take root through meditation (this leads to new levels of bitterness and unforgiveness).  

I am not offended anymore because by faith I have forgiven those that offended, hurt, and mistreated me. But that does not mean that old thoughts won’t come. Jesus said, “Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come…” Matthew 18:7.  An offense, by Biblical definition, is “an occasion to stumble or fall”.

Just because an offense comes does not mean I have to entertain it in my mind or allow it to get into my heart and take root. I know that it is an occasion afforded me by the enemy of my salvation to fall away from truth and grace and stumble because of the trap of unforgiveness.

Beloved, if you know you have forgiven someone or something but old thoughts randomly come back, don’t even entertain them, but rather stop them at the gate. Don’t allow them any time or space in your mind.

It’s interesting that these would come right before I started reading the Bait of Satan. That is this month’s book for the book club I just joined. However, I had not read it yet because I was finishing another read. I started this morning at this incident.

Copyright © Hermina Krista Pettiford 2012

Been so long...

Been so long sinced I blogged...

I was finishing up a course of study for a certificate in Health Information Technology that was very taxing, then came to crunch time in December.  As of yesterday I was done. It took 6 months. I already have a degree in IT so this will help me better serve my company's new endeavor to implement Electronic Health Records. Well, that's my work life.

My persoanl life - I love to write for the Lord. However, God is giving me a paradigm shift,  as He leads I will follow. Something different, something new... but still filled with the Word of God and fresh food for your spirit, I'm sure.

 

Joy is Strength,

Krisy P.

Waiting as a Form of Worship

   My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.  Selah  
         
Surely men of low degree are a vapor, men of high degree are a lie; if they are weighed on the scales, they are altogether lighter than vapor. Do not trust in oppression, nor vainly hope in robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them.
         
God has spoken once, wwice I have heard this: that power belongs to God. Also to You, O Lord, belongs mercy; for You render to each one according to his work

Psalm 62:5-12

Signing Off for the Season

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine
eye. Psalm 37:8

Thanksgiving has already past and Christmas is coming upon us, the holidays are here, and so
soon will be there New Year! As this year comes to a close I am signing off my blog to listen and hear what the Lord has to say. In the spirit of surrendered I must get my spirit rightly aligned with the Lord for what He would have me do in the New Year and the new season ahead. Many wait until the New Year to take time away to reflection and reposition but God has instructed me to do it now.

Things have shifted in the Spirit and the shift in the natural realm is soon to follow. We must all make sure we are walking in obedience to God’s will. So take time to listen and hear God speak to you about the plans His has for you. He may be calling you to give some things up or to do some things differently. He may call you to do something new. Whatever He ask of you, it’s to get to you to the best out of you and to give you His best for you. Be willing to give all for the call.

Many of you will be busy going to and fro this holiday season but I pray you take the time to celebrate Christ and remember that the BEST GIFT was already given when God gave His Son, JESUS CHRIST. So remember, no matter what you get or give this Christmas no one can’t out give God. Whatever give, give it in the name of the Lord and whatever you receive, receive it in the name of the Lord with a grateful heart. Wherever you go and whomever you find yourself among let the light and the joy of Christ shine through you as bright as the lights on your Christmas tree.

Until next year,

Krista

Choose Life

I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life… that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days. Deuteronomy 30:19-20

Each day that we wake up we must make a choice to serve God and stay in the race He’s set before
us. However, at times it seems easier to walk away from the will and call of God than to serve Him because He asks for all – total surrender and yieldedness to Him. He asks us to choose Him over all things and people with unfeigned loyalty, trust, and confidence. This is faith.

God is Spirit and as such must be known and understood by the spirit of man, but because people neglect their spirit which is how we commune with the Spirit of God, most cannot discern His will and so follow after their own will. But Proverbs 14:12 speaks thusly, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” Only God can show us the paths of life. Proverbs 16:11 declares, “You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Those who are blessed to be shown the path of life is left with the responsibility to choose life or death. The death spoken of here is not only natural but spiritual death. Spiritual death is worst than natural death because spiritual death is life without God or life that neglects God, so that whatever relationship might have been is dead. If a man dies without God he is dead forever. 

The life that is spoken of here is not mere existence but eternal life. Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent, “John 17:3. This has been God’s plan all along – for us to have life through our choosing Him. In choosing Him, no matter what we have to give up or walk away from we have His sure Word of eternal life. Mark 10:29-30 records, “Jesus answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.’”

Beloved, God is calling you to make a choice today, His life over your life, His will over your will, His timing over your timing, His way over your way, His plan over your plan. Jesus said, “…If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests] and take up his cross and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying, also]. For whoever is bent on saving his [temporal] life [his comfort and security here] shall lose it [eternal life]; and whoever loses his life [his comfort and security here] for My sake shall find it [life everlasting]. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life [his blessed life in the kingdom of God]? Or what would a man give as an exchange for his [blessed] life [in the kingdom of God]? Matthew 16:24-26 Amplified version

The Counsel of the Lord

The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations. Psalm 33:11

The counsel of the Lord is the fixed plans and purposes of the Sovereign Lord. The Lord said, “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips,” Psalm 89:34. This means that no matter what happens in the life of a believer, what God has purposed will be established on
earth as it is in heaven.

There are times when what God said and what we see with our natural eyes don’t line up. He says one thing in His written Word or through a rhema /living prophetic Word but our circumstances
doesn’t change, in fact sometimes they get worst, and it appears as if the devil is winning the battle between good and evil. But God knows the end of all things from their very beginnings. He looks and He laughs at His enemies because He knows that His eternal purposes will stand after all of the enemy’s plans fail.

The word “stand” means to endure, abide, continue, dwell, be employed, establish, leave, remain, and to stand by, fast, firm, still, up. Psalm 119:160 says, “Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endures forever.”

However, 0ur enemy the devil spends his time trying to get us to believe and then react to temporary situations as we go through the processes that bring us into the purposes of God, to lead
us off the path God has for us and right into the traps that deception and fear weave.

But Paul said, “…We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal,” 2Corinthinas 4:18. We must learn not to make permanent choices in temporary circumstances because everything but the Word of God, which is His counsel, is subject to change. Whatever seems fixed and unchangeable, if it is not from God, it will not stand against the counsel of God.

Beloved if you will trust in the counsel of the Lord through the lies of the enemy and longevity that
sometimes comes with seeing on earth purposes of God that are already settled in heaven you will make it into the place, the purpose and the plan God has design just for you.

A Kingdom that cannot be Shaken

 …Since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28, 29

The voice of the Lord is described many times as that which shakes. When the Lord speaks from His holy habitation, not through man but directly to man, not in the still small voice of gentle guidance but in the fierceness of His holy array it is as the sound of many waters and that which breaks up the deep.

Psalm 29:3-9 describes the Lord’s voice,

The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders; the LORD is over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars, yes, the LORD splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them also skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the LORD divides the flames of fire. The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the Wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the LORD makes the deer give birth, and strips the forests bare; and in His temple everyone says, “Glory!”

In the book of Exodus when the Lord spoke from Mount Sinai to the children of Israel the earth shook and trembled. The people, including Moses were filled with fear because of the voice and the commandment of the Lord. They could not bear the holy, unadulterated Presence of God so they asked that Moses be the Mediator between them and God. (Exodus 19 and 20) But under the New Covenant Jesus is the Mediator of our faith and has put His Spirit in us so that we can bear to be in this Presence.

The writer of Hebrews says to the New Covenant believer,

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.”^[ And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. Hebrews 12:18-24

Now, after the first shaking the Lord says to us, the New Covenant church, that He will again not only shake earth but heaven also. Why? Because we the church have a placed fixed in heaven where the carnal part of us cannot stand.

Hebrews 12:26-28 says, “’Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ Now this, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”

Things that are made are created things like humanity and things having to do with our humanity thing, these can be shaken. Things that are not made are eternal such as Christ, which is why the writer of Hebrews speaks of the Kingdom of God as that which cannot be shaken. This is because God’s kingdom is eternal, also anything pertaining to His kingdom cannot be shaken. These are the promises of God, the Word of God, and anything done for God that He directs us to do.

Paul said,

Each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. 1 Corinthians 3:13-15

Beloved, all things will be shaken when God dressed in holy array arises with the voice of fire, which justice and judgment. Whatever is not fixed in Him will be shaken loose from the establishment of God, in earth and heaven. Therefore, fix yourself in Him, and serve Him by grace with reverence and godly fear.

 

Christ, the Head of All

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. Colossians 1:18

 Though the natural body of man was designed by God to function with all its parts in place and to work properly, a body can function without an arm; it can function without a foot, a hand, an eye or an ear. A body can also function without certain organs but a body cannot function or live without a head. Likewise, a head alone without a body is a head without a home. As it is in the natural so it is in the spirit.

 God has designed this order in every institution ordained by Him.  He sits kings or presidents over nations, pastors and bishops over churches, men as the head of the family, and all of these have a head, which is Christ. The reason why the enemy always goes after the head of any God ordained institution and then the members is because if he takes the head the body will not be able to survive. If he cannot get the head he will go after the individual members of the body until the body is dismembered so that the head is without a well functioning body.

However, Colossians 1:15-17 (NIV) says,  “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” When we all submit to Christ who is our head and to the authorities He has placed us under in Him, then the enemy cannot disturb the body or the head.  This is because the enemy has already been defeated in Christ.

 

God endued every institution that sits under the headship of Jesus Christ the authority to stand on the head of enemy in victory. God made this promise in the garden when man gave authority over to the enemy.   “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel,” Genesis 3:15.

God fulfilled this promise through Jesus sacrifice on the cross, “…When He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”           

Jesus gives us this authority when we believe on His name, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” Luke 10:19-20.

  It is important to know and submit to the head of every institution we are a connected to, that has Christ as its head. This is divine alignment and is necessary for the authority to stay available. 

Beloved, don’t take the enemy’s bait to go off on your own, remember every member has a head and every head has the Head, Christ the Head of all. If you stay rightly aligned to Heaven’s throne you will always be able tread on your enemy’s head. 

 

Becoming Faith

“For he endured, as seeing him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27).

As I read the story of Abraham’s faith retold by Paul in the book of Romans, I am encouraged because, like Abraham, there comes a time for all of us to believe in the supernatural power of a God we cannot see to bring to pass something tangible and visible.

I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”…He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. (Romans 4:16-18, 20-21)

Here the Bible says that Abraham became what he already was in God’s presence through faith – being fully persuaded that what God promised, He was also able to do. The word “presence” in verse 17 means--in the face of, or in the sight of. God addressed Abraham by his predestined, prophetic name. At the time God spoke to Abraham his
earthly given name was Abram, but God called him Abraham meaning “father of many nations.” (Genesis 17:5). In God’s sight, Abraham was already a father of many nations.

Abraham believed God and called himself the “father of many nations” when he was yet childless. He did this by faith, not by sight. As he went about his days he did not weaken in faith, but gave glory to God as the One who would perform His own Word.

When we believe what God says about our circumstances, our families, our situations, and our lives, it will surely come to pass, because in His presence it already exists. We must believe not only in the promise, but also, and more importantly, in Whom we cannot see. He brings it into being.

Let the Son Shine!

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2Corinthians 4:6

We, the children of God, son and daughters through Jesus Christ by the hearing of the gospel are to walk as children of light because we have God’s light shining our hearts. The world, on the other hand and our generation are in darkness and growing darker, unable to understand the saving message of the gospel, because of blindness.

The Bible says, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” 2Corinthians 4:3-4

There is a Light that can still illuminate any darkness; His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. It is in the continual brightness of His light shining through us and our prayers that penetrate the darkness, causing the spiritually blind to see and the veil to fall away so that they can see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ our Savior.

The Bible says, we are living epistles – letters or open books through which people will read His message. His message is the love of the Father, the forgiveness and the cleansing of sins, and the newness of life in Him.

Beloved, the Lord has need of you.  When the world see a message in us that they can trust as authentic the darkness is penetrated and His light shines through. Don’t let your light grow dim in this present darkness; allow His message to be seen brilliantly and unmistakably through you.  Let the Son shine!