by Joseph | Oct 17, 2008 | Preparation, Sharing
Shared By: Jeff Rowland
Romans chapter 14 is in my opinion the most pivotal chapter in the Word of God concerning relationships between believers. This chapter also gives the streamline and basic fundamental principles of Kingdom living for the people of God.
We are living in ages of social dilemma’s that shape the political landscape of our nation. Every issue that we look at, points to the rules of conduct for our leaders and our citizens. For the believer, the kingdom of God has certain guidelines and principles that are to guide our lives concerning relationships with others, ourselves and our King. Paul in this chapter approaches those principles in verse 17. He says, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” This indicates it is not the matter of our liberty or lack of liberty in certain areas that allows us the joy of the kingdom.
The three elements of kingdom living emphasized by Paul are; righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. These three elements can only be received as a gift from the King; they cannot be earned through performance. They are matters of the heart and spirit, not of the will and flesh.
This leads us to the present condition of the church. Most churches spend the majority of their time trying to discover what is right and wrong. As a result of this we accumulate a list of sins, as well as patterns of behavior that leads to sin. If we focused on the heart of God and the word of God then I believe we would accomplish much more.
Jesus declared in the Gospel of John 3:18, “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” The key thought is to believe. Faith unlocks the door to salvation and the grace of God. With that said consider what Paul said in Romans 14:23 “for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”
This is not a profound thought but a reminder of some things. When we establish a list of sins like; adultery, lying, stealing, envy, jealousy, and taking God’s name in vain, we need to remember that the sin has already occurred before the actions ever manifest.
The sin according to Paul is the lack of faith. From a lack of faith any known action of sin can manifest in anyone given the right situation. Therefore any believer is vulnerable to any known act of sin if we walk in a lack of faith. This brings up the question, how many people are walking in sin and never even realize it until the action manifests?
Satan knows what situation or circumstance to surround us with at the time when we are walking in a lack of faith to bring about any given action of sin. Be careful when you say you would never commit a certain action.
Now based on this what do we do? Paul says in verse 23 “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” At its most basic root, faith is total dependence on God. Whatever makes us independent will lead to a lack of faith and leave us vulnerable to manifest whatever action of sin the situations of life will call for. Therefore we need to understand some basic principles.
1. Your strength can become your weakness.
It is important that we understand that the enemy wants to do damage to that part of you that does his kingdom of darkness the most damage. Satan targets our strength more than our weakness. It is our strength that does him the most damage. The spiritual gift that you operate in is the area that you could become weak in.
We have the tendency to forget that it is the Spirit of God that enables us not we ourselves. The preacher can become independent of God in his preaching and begin to think that it is his ability rather than God ability that enables him to declare the Word of God with power. Don’t forget that it is God that enables us to do all things.
2. Your weakness will become your strength.
Paul describes this principle in 2 Corinthians 12 in his conversation with the Lord. With regard to Paul’s thorn in the flesh, God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” In our weakness, we then begin to trust God. Our weakness then is transformed into our weakness.
The perception of the church is that our weakness must never be seen or talked about when in fact after our weakness is manifest and then taken to the Father, we at that point have the choice to trust the Father more deeply and are transformed into His strength.
3. Prolonged circumstance will cause you to become independent of God.
David said in Ps. 13, “How long will hide your face from me O Lord.” When we are faced with a circumstance of trouble over a prolonged period of time we begin to attempt to work things out for ourselves instead of waiting on God. When we engage our will to work things out on our own we are walking independently from God.
Conclusion: Instead of looking so intently on the manifestations of sin we should be looking at the root cause, which is a lack of faith. Trusting the Father will keep us walking in the Spirit and we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
by Joseph | Oct 16, 2008 | Preparation, Sharing
A lot of people know that I have been working on preparation for quite a while. I am often asked to share what I am doing (currently) to prepare.
To help me stay focused (and not feel overwhelmed), I keep a working list that I continually update with items I feel are very important in the preparation journey. Of course, I also try to regularly post to this blog – as it enables me to share some insights I have from my journey, and what I feel is impressed upon my heart.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article on the progress of some of my family’s efforts to get ready for events that we believe are coming. Every day we work on our list – and involve every member of our family in the process.
Before I share an update on our progress, I found it quite interesting that today on CNN – Glenn Beck published an article that is right in line with this whole notion of preparation. from my perspective, his comments and insights are right on target as he mentions the need to prepare – and not panic. If you are interested, you can View the article here.
Anyway, let me get to my preparation. Let me encourage you to start your own list of things you want to work on to prepare. It will help you stay focused, and feel less stressed about the events that are unfolding.
These are in no particular priority order, and this is not at all my comprehensive list. I have some other items that I’ve prepared – but will not disclose those for security reasons:
- My family has developed a fully-stocked heirloom vegetable seed (and seed potatoes) bank. We’re going to be getting some flowers as well.
- Have a strong supply of nutrient dense URI products (dehydrated whole-food powder) for nutritional needs. The Feast and Barley Pure are a necessity for my family, and the product has a 2 year shelf life. (more…)
by Joseph | Oct 15, 2008 | Preparation, Sharing
Over the years, I have felt emphatically that I was to lead my family to be “in preparation”. When I first heard the call to prepare, I had an intellectual perception that I was going to flee to the mountains, and begin stockpiling food, water and other supplies.
Later, I began to realize that my call to prepare was NOT a call to hoard food, or to live in seclusion and fear. On the contrary, the preparation journey was to make a safe place for sharing – during a time of crisis when people would be prone to fear and panic.
The journey of preparation is certainly not easy. There has been great transition and purging that my family has endured. It would be foolish to assume that all we needed to do was to stockpile groceries and ammo, and then wait on some cataclysmic event to thrust us into our new lifestyle. Unfortunately, that’s what I see happening with many people who are looking at the chaotic times and are beginning to assume something difficult is on the horizon. So, they begin reacting to the most basic human instinct – survival – and fill their closets with food items to keep them alive until they can come out of hiding.
I won’t debate the need to store food items in a pantry. In fact, I strongly encourage everyone to get a 6 to 8 month supply of food and supplies. Not just to have groceries in the cupboard, but perhaps to help sustain you financially during lean months.
For me, it goes far beyond simply having food in the storehouse. The impression I get from some people I speak with is that – if things get really rough, they will simply sit around the house and eat their stock. That’s ridiculous!
Some families, right now, could not sit in the same room for more than an hour. Now, imagine if there was great turmoil, chaos, and fear all around. Do you suppose that family might be able to sit down calmly and sing hymns to pass the time? I doubt it. We’ve complicated our lives to the extent that any quiet, simple family time – is rare. Even Churches have become reckless entertainment hubs where there always has to be something going on to keep the flock active. What happened to “Be Still and Know…?”
Part of the preparation process is being able to find pleasure and joy in simple things. Cluttering our lives with constant motion or activity will make things exponentially more difficult to adjust to when there is global chaos.
Preparation is not just about hoarding food and water. Preparation is not about trying to outsmart fear, and simply plan ahead. God is our refuge and our strength – we can’t manufacture peace by simply working ahead of the looming chaos. We can, however, get ready for the coming events so we are better able to share hope, peace, and life in Christ – especially during times of great distress. There will be a great harvest in that day!
Prepare now by sharing quiet and peaceful times with family, or friends. Avoid the need to constantly be busy.
by Joseph | Oct 9, 2008 | Preparation, Sharing
Unless you have lived on a different planet over the last couple of weeks, you know things seem to be in turmoil. It seems that every person you talk with, are quite concerned with what is going on.
Leaders all over the world are making statements to try to calm their people, as they recognize the panic that threatens to spiral out of control. Leading financial “experts” from leading economies are apparently working behind the scenes to coordinate a global financial rescue effort in an attempt to keep the financial markets from complete meltdown.
This week, the President of Franc – Nicolas Sarkozy – made the statement that he hoped a “New World” would emerge from this chaos.
Scotland’s leading Newspaper published an Article on this “New World Order” citing the new Global co-operation, Nationalization and State intervention – were changing our world.
Even Opec has called an emergency meeting to try to deal with the plunge of oil prices which is putting oil producing economies in turmoil. With the world economy on the brink of a global depression, the need for oil products has diminished significantly.
So what does this all mean? (more…)
by Joseph | Oct 6, 2008 | Preparation, Sharing
Most people remain oblivious of what is going on with the USA. Our moral decline has reached epidemic status, and our churches have turned into entertainment venues – promoting a humanistic “feel good” gospel.
Some people are looking to our Government for answers, and have faith that our elected leaders will have the wisdom and courage to lead us into a new prosperous era. Charismatic leaders are emerging – and we now have people pledging an unholy allegiance to man, rather than calling out to a Holy God.
Pledging allegiance
It is quite disturbing that the church has fallen asleep. While the churches have been busy chasing lavish buildings, and competing for higher attendance, our society has fallen into peril.
Now, as things change rapidly, we will soon see more unrest and chaos. Our economic downfall is but the beginning of difficulties ahead. As the greatest investor in the world Warren Buffett puts it, the credit freeze is “sucking blood” out of the economy. “In my adult lifetime, I don’t think I’ve ever seen people as fearful,” he said.
If you doubt there is chaos looming, I wonder why our US Government is now activating an Army Brigade for duty (the first time in our history an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom) within our borders. Very unsettling.
View This
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
Do you think the Government knows something we don’t?
