Authority of the believer by Pastor Don Moore

Friday, June 26, 2009

Authority of the Believer – by Pastor Don Pastor Don said when the Bible was originally written there were no chapters or verses, so sometimes the chapters and verses are cut at the wrong place and it affects the meaning of a passage. Galatians 5:16  I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Sometimes we struggle with the flesh and that is because we are not in the Spirit. Pastor Don gave the example of a person addicted to cocaine sitting around and saying, “I am not going to take cocaine…I am not going to take cocaine…”  What happens is saying that it keeps our mind focused on cocaine.  What we need to do is go get busy for the Lord and do something else. That is called the Law of Substitution – don’t fight with the devil in our mind or flesh for there he will beat you.  Go and do something holy, something spiritual, fight him in the Spirit.  When the lust of flesh is on you, the only way to win the war of temptation is to not fight it, but to substitute something holy in it’s place. We also win by not getting on the wrong battlefield.  Don’t put yourself in the way of temptation that you’ve lost before. Galatians 5:17-18 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.   But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. When you fight with temptation under the law, you feel condemnation, but with the Spirit it is conviction. Galatians 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, The works of the flesh are EVIDENT – blatant, and they are the things that hurt us. Galatians 5:20-21 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. What is the Kingdom of God?   Righteousness, peace, joy. Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Notice that this is in a certain order.  Righteousness means right behavior, right standing, right thinking, right doing – if you are not in right standing with God your peace leaves you, and if you have no peace, you have no joy in the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:22-23  The fruit of the Spirit.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Without love you do not have faith because the Bible tells us that faith worketh by love. Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. If we are acting in love it is harder to get us to take offense, we are able to be happy in circumstances that are difficult, we have joy, become peace makers and then we manifest longsuffering.  Everyone suffers, but we do not all give up hope before it is done.  We are all wanting to get a different cross to carry.  The truth is that real records come from longsuffering, not from gaining easy victories.  Longsuffering is a trial  you go through that you don’t give up.  Usually we are longsuffering toward another person.  We can’t change another person, but we can change ourselves.  If happiness is based on the external, you will be unhappy a long time. Pastor Don told us we begin to gain this by dealing with our inner child.  If our  inner child is whining we will have a hard time feeling happy.  We have to start out by finding out what our inner child needs.  Sometimes, once we know its expectations, then we decide if we put it in a cage or if our inner child needs to be healed. I asked when do you decide if your inner child needs to be put in a cage or to be healed.  Pastor Don answered, if our inner child of the past is destroying our present and future, and it is habitually raging and insatiable in it’s desires and deception, it needs to be caged.  If it is overrunning our life and ruining our present it needs to be caged, for we are no longer that child and the things that conditioned it are no longer in existence.  Yes, we acknowledge those things – Pastor Don is not talking about repressing and ignoring issues, but how much  freedom do we want to give to our inner child of the past to run our present lives? Do we really believe 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. If our inner child of the past is preventing 2 Corinthians 5:17 to become a reality, then it needs to be caged.  We want to find out the truth and then change the perspective of the inner child’s world. If we do not get our inner child under control it can rise up and run our lives, often to our detriment.  We may know we have lived in a dysfunctional family, but our inner child does not know this.  The kind of family that portrayed on Leave it to Beaver does not exist. Pastor Don told us there is safety in slavery. You can get bound in one thing and then you get bound into other things when you are free of the first thing.  We can’t step into the new when we are dragging the old around. In medieval days, if you murdered someone, they chained the body to the person who murdered it.  The body would decay and disease in the carcass would end up killing the murderer. When we do not control the inner child of our past we are dragging the dead carcass with us. When we have that inner child of the past with the unresolved issues being dragged around with us we begin to have criterion that we expect other people to meet – these are unreasonable criterion.  Often you want to have someone pay you back for the hurt you received.  You expect people to act certain ways to appease that inner child, and when they don’t, and in most cases can’t, then your inner child causes you to get irrationally angry with them. God cannot promote you or give you power and authority if you are carrying a whining, crying, inner child in you. At one point the disciples were distressed by how a crowd was treating Jesus and they asked Jesus if he wanted them to rain down fire on them like Elisha did in the past.  Jesus told them to leave them alone, asking them, “What spirit are you?” The fruit of goodness is goodness toward other people and to be good to ourselves.  Faithfulness is personal – are you faithful?  If we are faithful we will see gentleness emerge as a fruit. Self control is the ultimate test.  Believing is above the law. Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. We need to live our life knowing that, “I’m not guilty.”  We are Spirit filled and Jesus has paid for all our sins already. We have received free grace. Galatians 5:24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Because you have put it up on the cross does not mean it is dead yet.  We are hurt.  The best thing we can do is give our sins to Jesus, but they may not be dead yet.  The devil will scream at you, trying to get you to claim back your past sins.  You need to say:  I used to be ________, but it’s up on the cross. Galatians 5:25-26 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Galatians 6:1-5 Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load. All sin is sin, if they are overtaken it means that they have fallen and are crushed.  We are to restore them, acknowledging that their sin is sin, but they are to be restored with a spirit of gentleness, in fellowship.  Keep putting it out to them.  Love them.  Let them realize that the decision they made is not so good, don’t leave them too long, for it makes it harder for them to come back. We took a bit of a side journey to see Jesus restoring in gentleness someone who was in sin in gentleness. Mark 16:1 Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint Him. This was after the crucifixion, the Sabbath was passed and they were going to anoint Jesus.  The preparation day was the day before the Holy Day. They years 2012, 2013, and 2014 all have eclipses on Jewish holy days.  God is doing something powerful. Mark 15:42 Now when evening had come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath, The year of the crucifixion was a High Sabbath year, so Jesus was taken off the cross on Thursday. This was prophesied in Psalms and Isaiah, how He would be buried. If you do the math to have three days it would have to be Thursday. Mark 16:2 Very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They came very early in the morning, right in the transition time between night and day – but it was not yet dawn.  First they went by themselves, then brought friends.  This would have been Saturday night/Sunday morning. Mark 16:3 And they said among themselves, “Who will roll away the stone from the door of the tomb for us?” They were not yet believing that He is risen. Mark 16:4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away—for it was very large. The tomb had been sealed with a huge stone and there were guards. Mark 16:5 And entering the tomb, they saw a young man clothed in a long white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. This was an Angel of God, not a man. Mark 16:6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid Him. He is risen!!!! Mark 16:7 But go, tell His disciples—and Peter—that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you. Notice they were told to tell the disciples – AND PETER.  Peter needed to be told especially because he had denied Christ three times, and needed to be encouraged, so the Angel told them to speak to Peter. If you are in sin, restore them in gentleness.  Peter was in sin for denying Christ, and the Angel of God went to restore Peter, called him by name to bring him back. Mark 16:8 So they went out quickly and fled from the tomb, for they trembled and were amazed. And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Mark 16:9 Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons. Mary Magdalene Mark 16:10-11 She went and told those who had been with Him, as they mourned and wept.  And when they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. This passage is here to tell us that, if we believe and are born again, God does not discriminate because the person is a woman, black, had a very sinful past, etc.  You get saved. Jesus appeared to her.  The disciples did not believe her, she had had seven demons cast out of her and was a woman of the night.  Don’t let appearances or a condemning spirit drive you away.  They believed Jesus was dead.  Mary Magdalene’s testimony was as valid as Peter and John’s. Some people might not believe you, and you may have to feed their flesh to get them to come.  We may have to feed the flesh of people with no spiritual roots until they can come to a point to listen to the truth. Listen to their opinions and hear them out without immediately contradicting them, etc. Jesus went to Zacchaeus’s house to dine with him and his friends.  We can make concessions as long as we are not dishonest. We had to stop the study as it was getting late, but what a blessing it is to sit under Pastor Don’s teachings! Heather

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