Strong Delusion

The church today is in a spiritual disposition that is adverse to the will of God, because many in the church are operating in delusion. According to the scriptures, the word delusion means to believe a lie to be the truth (I Thessalonians 2:11). We need to think about this. When you do not agree with God, you will accept a lie as your god.

For years we have heard that if you tell a lie long enough you will then start to believe it as the truth. This is delusion. A continual rejection of truth will lead to strong delusion. The thing that makes it so detrimental and scary is that one can start out believing the truth, but if that truth opposes the desires of flesh, for whatever reasons, that truth must be dealt with. The mind is capable and will deal with any truth that opposes the desires of the flesh.

A delusion in which a created image is accepted as fact and not fiction. This image or delusion is created in the mind or in the imagination. Have you ever imagined something that was very nice that you would like to do? The difference in that and what we are talking about here is that in a normal mind when you create something inside of your imagination, you know that it is in the imagination. It may be something that you are hoping for, but you know that it is not real.

In a delusional state you actually believe that thing is real despite all the evidence proving it is not real. Many are in a state of delusion, they would rather believe that sin in the saint life will still somehow enter Heaven.

The church must open its eyes and look in the reality of the Word because as loving as our God is He is also a God of wrath and His wrath falls on all ungodliness.

Are you living in your imagination or in reality?

You can walk in truth.

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jackie

The Comforter

God is a God of comfort. He has given us the Comforter. The scripture says that He will comfort us in all our tribulation and trials. God is able to give us peace in the midst of every trial,altercation, confrontation, every battle, in every area of our life that brings pain.

The same comfort that God gives us, we are charged to give it to others. God comforts us with His Word. It is easier to experience sufferings when we understand and when we have a Word that explains the purpose of the suffering.

We are able now to be comforted, knowing that we stand inside God’s purpose in sufferings. But, if we do not understand why we are going through something, it is hard for us to go through in with peace.

When we go through our trials and tribulations, He will comfort us through His Word and Spirit. He wants us to take the same comfort He gave us and comfort others.

We cannot allow ourselves to move outside the Word of God, which will take away the comfort of the Spirit. The comfort of the Word will take the hurt out of offenses.

Right thinking will destroy the hurt. If we change our thoughts, love will flow again. We have to bring our thoughts back to purpose and see the things that offend us as something God is allowing.

Allow yourself to be a vessel that comforts others.

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jackie

Suffering Grace

It was at the cross that Jesus dealt with all our sins, griefs, and sorrows. He calls us to give up all rights to ourselves, take up our cross, and follow. This hard place in which you perhaps find yourself, so painful is the very place in which God is giving you the opportunity to look only to Him, to travail in prayer, and to learn long suffering, gentleness, meekness, to learn the depths of love Christ himself has poured out on all of us….this form of suffering is your opportunity to learn to leave with God what only God can do.

Oswald Chambers, in My Upmost for His Highest, says that ” No normal, healthy saints ever chooses suffering; he simply chooses God’s will, just as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not.”

When you and I pray that God’s will be done in our lives, we must mean it, no matter what it costs us–for truly He will take us at our word.

2 Cor. 1:3-5 says Paise be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.

This passage let us know there is purpose in our sufferings because we learn to depend on Christ and then others can depend on us. There is no value in suffering when we look from the perspective it hurts so badly but there is great value in how we respond to it in light of the scripture.

Suffering can produce great depths of character, mature understanding, warm compassions, and rich spirituality…it makes us more like Jesus.

When I was learning my grace lessons on suffering I had to allow the process of suffering to transform me into the image of Christ then only when I was willing to let go of who I thought I ought to be and the. I became who God wanted me to be.

Don’t wait until lessons are fully learned, seek to know Him and serve Him in the middle of the pain. God definitely uses our sufferings to conform us in His likeness.

I Peter 5:10!says it best And the God of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in Christ after you have suffered a while will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast…

I am truly amazed by Grace!!

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jackie

Grace to Serve

This verse in my bible is well underlined, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not us” (2 Cor. 4:7). This is a promise I have held on to every time I set out to serve God in any way. On my own it would be merely “works”. But as I claim God’s power through His Holy Spirit, I was truly anointed to serve. And it wasn’t hard at all giving God the glory! Somehow He chose to work through me, not because I was worthy, but because I was willing.

I have said yes to God scores of time, knowing full well I was not equipped for the task at hand. Still, I believe that the one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

Every hero or heroine of the Bible does more than he would have thought it possible to do…In a very real sense, not one of us is qualified, but it seems God continually chooses the most unqualified to do His work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident of lack of qualification, then there is no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own or God’s glory with our own.

To serve is to allow ourselves to be channels of Jesus love and grace–content to be the vessel. Allowing Him to use your vessel gives you great joy.
We truly cannot serve very long or effectively in our strength and that is why God sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to enable us to be Christ’s hands to the world.

The other important lesson I learned about serving is to do it from my weakness, not my strength. For those of us who have recognized this grace in our lives, it seems only natural to offer it back to God, asking how He will use it to touch others. Why are we often surprise at the methods He chooses? Because God’s economy is not the same as the world’s economy. God says when you are weak then am I am strong, my grace is suffient.

My most recent grace lesson in servant hood (though I am sure not my last) has to do with the realization that God wants us to be willing more than He wants us to be able. With age and wisdom I have learned that a vital part of serving is discernment to know what I can’t do and then depend or allow on God to do the rest…just being able to allow Him is enough.

Ephesians 3:7 says I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.

I am truly amazed by Grace!

Be Blessed,

Pastor Jackie