You don’t have true life when you walk in darkness. If you don’t walk with Jesus (in the light of God’s word) in life, you walk in darkness (John 8:12 NKJV). There is a difference between being a Christian and being a disciple. A Christian is born-again; a disciple is someone who abides in the Word (John 8:29-32 NKJV) Many Christians (do not know the truth and) do not live free and are destroyed by a lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6-7).
Some people say that they walk in fellowship with God, but if they do not practice what God tells them to practice (the Word), then they are practicing a lie. The more frequently you say ‘No’ to the things of God, the more often you practice a lie (the less you can discern what’s in the light and what’s in the dark) (1 John 1:5-6 NKJV).
Good works are not what get you to be a disciple. Faith is not about what you do; faith is about what you choose to believe; about living in the Word of God (living out of a place of faith) (Acts 17:28 AMPC). Operating in the gifts of the Spirit, does not make a person a disciple of Jesus.
Leadership triangle: based on Jesus’ life.
Jesus spent 30 years in His private leadership, He spent 3 years in His public leadership, and He spent 3 days in His purpose leadership.
Public leadership becomes something that is born out of a personal walk with God. A pastor in the church must first and foremost before anything be a disciple. (An upside down triangle is unstable and falls over very easily).
1 Corinthians 15:32-33 (AMPC, MSG). We (Ps Sharon and I) have fought the wild beasts in the spirit realm that have surrounded us in our ministry. We fought those wild beasts because it’s about the resurrection life of Christ that is in you. Now (after preaching it for 15 years) we are beginning to see that people are becoming true disciples of this message.
The wild beasts of Ephesus were the beasts that are in the spirit realm, demons, spirits, forces in the darkness that come against the work of God and they’ve come with false teaching, false people with false motives, false ideologies that come in and they use a little bit of what Paul says, but they level it with their own philosophy and their own ideas and they try and take people away from the true Gospel. Thoughts, not induced by mere people’s thoughts; those thoughts that are induced by demons, where people allow those thoughts to come to them.
Ephesians 1:17-21 (WNT). There is an inheritance in God’s people where we together become something much greater than we can become individually. High above any spiritual authority that exists on the earth. Jesus is higher than ancestors. Jesus is higher and His government is more powerful than witchcraft. Ancestors are dead – Jesus is alive.
Ephesians 1:22-23 (AMPC). In other words, we are Jesus on the earth, and all the authority that is given to Jesus, is given to us on the earth. That means while we are walking on the earth, we have the same authority that Jesus has, because we are also seated with Him at the right hand of God.
Ephesians 1:15-19 (MSG). Abiding in the Word means you don’t have to walk in darkness. If you walk in the light, then you know Him personally. We have a choice between a glorious life as a Christian, or a life that is filled with a lack of intelligence, lack of discerning, and lack of knowledge of Him. We can live in darkness and practice a lie, or we can live in truth with intelligence, knowing Him, discerning the things around us, because we live in Him.
Ephesians 1:19, 20 (MSG). Isn’t this the kind of life you want to live? Boundless energy and always walking in His strength. The church is not peripheral to your life. Your life is peripheral to the church. Everything is about the church.
Ephesians 1:20-23 (MSG). God is counting on us to fill everything in this world with His presence (into business, medical profession, education, sales). He needs the people that come to church on a Sunday, to go into the world with His power and His presence.
You never will understand the authority of the believer only with your intellect, you must get the spiritual revelation of it, you must believe it by faith.
Luke 10:19 (KJV) The first word, power, is the Greek word called, exousia = authority.
If you do not believe in this authority, then you will not exercise authority.
(What good is it if you stand with a fully loaded weapon and you don’t pull the trigger?)
When the whole church comes together in unity, we can change things for generations.
The only way you’re going to win in life and stop yourself from being devoured is by submitting your life to the Word. When you are an in the Word Christian, you have intelligence, you have power, you have discernment, you have knowledge, you have endless energy, you have boundless power and you become the light (and darkness cannot overwhelm you).
The Word and the life of God issues a degree of compliance to a standard and must necessarily impose a sentence of alienation from the standard based on non-compliance Compliance conversely offers the reward established by the standard.
Prayer:
You will walk in strength; you will walk in purpose. You will not walk in darkness and in blindness. You will not walk as one of those who have their life destroyed because of a lack of knowledge. You will walk in the freedom and the liberty and the blessing that God has for you, because you walk with those that have understanding, you have walk with those that know the love of God (the height, the depth, the breadth, the length of His great love towards you).
Go about your daily life and speak out of your life. Declare the goodness of God to come towards you. Declare the Spirit and ministering angels of God to go and bring your harvest and go and bring all the things that you need for your life. Declare your victories in Jesus Christ that He has given you through His death and His resurrection. Declare that His grace is working for you. Submit your life to His Word and watch as you speak, “I resist you devil” and he flees from your life, because truly you walk with authority and strength and power in this life. Amen.
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