Modern demonic possession

 Demon possession is rampant in the land! As sin increase in the land so does the power of Satan. Matter of fact the increase of sexual sin is evidence of the increase of demonic power and activities in the land. Before Christ came the first time, Satan was displaying his cruel power through increase possession of human beings. Satan and his devils took direct controlled of the bodies of human beings, made in the image of God. The people at the time recognized these activities as demonic possession and Christ Himself declared that many of these illnesses were direct demonic possession and cast the devils out of those brought to Him. 

We are now unaware of demon possession for the most part in the western world 🌎 because of the glare of modern science. Modern science is solely focused on material explanations for everything and thus by definition become blinded 🙈 to spiritual realities. So now many forms of demon possession are simply explained away as mental health issues and the person suffering given many pills to cope with the problem. These natural explanations are more pleasing to the masses because it means that they don't have to change their way of life, they don't have to seek the Lord for healing. Satan always seek to hide his activities less men beware and seek help from the Savior .

But I'm here to tell you today friends that demonic possession is rampant in our land. One thing that give demonic spirits the quickest legal access to our lives is sexual sins. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:18,19 ,"flee sexual immorality. Every other sin a man can commit is outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit...? Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit! It means that spirits can also inhabit our bodies and the devil and his angels are spirits. When we commit sexual sins, we are allowing demonic spirits to come dwell with us in our own bodies and the effects are disastrous. 

As sexual sins increase so do demonic control of people's minds. Even if you have sex with your fiancee the night before your wedding, you give demonic spirits a legal right to enter into your marriage and unless you repent to God, demonic spirits will rule in your marriage. Look at our society, people are having sex with anybody, and they are shocked when they are struggling with all types of mental issues. People are under demonic control, Satan is controlling the minds of many people and bringing sorrows to their minds but instead of repenting to God, many would rather go to science to be put on a pill so they can continue living their sinful lifestyles.  Demon possession is rampant 

Look at the LGBTQ movement and how rapid it is spreading! You can see that some demonic spirits are behind them. And guess what ? Mental health issues are rampant in the LGBTQ community and why ? Because these people are under demonic possession. What are about transgenderism 🤔? Clearly these people are under demonic possession. A man thinking he is a woman and a woman thinking she is a man is nothing more than demonic possession. You cannot expect to take part of sexual sins and expect the devil not to be the one controlling your mind and ruling over you. Sexual sins leads to demon possession and is the result of demonic attacks

And because sexual sins are as rampant in the church as it is in the world, the church is paralyzed! Demons are ruling and controlling many people in our churches. So the same issues the world has, we have in the church. It is no wonder then people don't want to come to church or hear the truth of God, the demons who controlled them won't allow them to come or if they come blind them to the truth so that the will not see the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Modern demon possession doesn't send the victims foaming at the mouth and rolling on the ground, modern demon possession reveal itself in many mental health issues and rampant sexual sins .

A young woman who exposed herself naked on social media or who wear crazy revealing clothes in the streets is under a demonic spell. Her body which is supposed to be the temple of the Holy Spirit and hidden is being exposed to the world, her shame being exposed to the world. So friends, if you are struggling with all sorts of mental issues, the first question to ask yourself is am I living in harmony with God or am living a life of sin and wickedness. If you are living a life of sin and wickedness then it is very likely you are under some form of demonic possession. No wonder so much chaos is in our lives, for satan comes to kill, steal and destroy .

So how do we escape and help others from demon possession? We must first make sure we ourselves are not living a life of sin. We must daily pray "search me oh Lord and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. "  We must ask the Lord to free us from every sin, so that the Devil will have no hold over our lives. Then we must pray for our friends or family who are living sinful lives and are clearly under demonic control. For "it is only through prayer and fasting we will be able to cast the devils out of their lives ." Friends, modern demon possession is real, powerful,rampant but if you come to Jesus, He is mightier than all the demonic host, He will set you free. Come to Jesus and find freedom 🙏🏾

Matthew 10:1

And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

Sex is an act of worship

In many ancient cultures sexual immorality was associated with worship of the gods. Temple prostitution was rampant. Yes you heard right, temple prostitution. Oh you didn't know that sex was a part of worship ? When you have sexual intercourse with your spouse you are honoring God, you are glorifying His name because you are fulfilling a purpose of creation. Sex was created by God and is one of His many blessings to the human race.

 Sex give us the power to procreate, but God put constraints on our use of it.  God decreed that only in marriage we should enjoy the blessings of sexual intimacy

God also gave us sex as a mean to populate the earth with godly offspring (Malachi 2:15). Children are a heritage of the Lord. In the sexual acts, husband and wife become physically vulnerable to each other which is an expression of love. Love doesn't abuse one another, love protects, love guard. Sex is such a precious gift 🎁 that a man is supposed to receive it from a woman only after he has vowed before the Lord and society 🤵🏾👰🏽 that he will love her, protect her , be faithful and take care of her until death do us apart. The sexual organs are hidden for a reason, they are not meant to be seen by anyone but those who have vowed before the Lord to love each other in sickness and in health.

But like everything else God created, Satan seeks to corrupt it and destroy it. Satan understands that sex is an act of worship and he understands that it is only when one is having sex with a spouse of the opposite sex that God is honored. So Satan has been corrupting sex from soon after the fall of man in the garden of Eden.  He introduced polygamy early one when Lamech, a grandson of Cain, the murdered took two wives. One man having multiple wives destroys love in the heart.  Two wives created an atmosphere of jealousy, rivalry, hatred and began to reduce women to less than human. Most people in the Bible who had two wives had a difficult time.

Satan then introduced temple prostitution in many pagan religions. Sex was a very serious and sacred thing in the past. If a woman had sex before marriage and lost her virginity, she was considered used goods and would find it difficult for a man to marry her. In Deuteronomy 22:20- 21 it says "if however, this accusation is true ,and no proof of the young woman's virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house, and there the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house : so shalt thou put away evil away from you ."

Did you hear what the Bible say friends ? Having sex before marriage makes us prostitutes and the sentence according to the Word of God is death. In writing this, I looked up two different Bible translations. The first one says the young lady who wasn't a virgin before marriage was "promiscuous" in her father's house. But the King James said "she played the whore in her father's house."  This is powerful friends, having sex with a boyfriend before marriage is seen as prostitution by God and a great evil 😮.  So, Satan in order to corrupt the human race early on, introduce sex before marriage in many pagan religions. Temple prostitution was rampant in the past because the people were more " religious ."  

From an article in the Christian post titled :Girls raped, face life of sexual exploitation after dedication to Hindu goddess

"The woman, who was raised in the south Indian state of Karnataka, recounted how girls, called Devadasis, are required to live a life dedicated to Hinduism and are prohibited from marrying. At puberty or even earlier, they are forced to have sex with an older man in exchange for monetary compensation or gifts."

Isn't this the same thing happening in our society, women are sleeping with many "boyfriends" and are not getting married. They may not do it for gifts but they are for " love". Bible calls it harloty 

Friends, remember sex is an act of worship. When you have sex the way God appointed in marriage with the opposite sex you are participating in an act of worship, you are glorifying God.  But when you have sex with your boyfriend/girlfriend, a random person, one night stand ,even your fiancee you are being a "whore" according to the scriptures and the sentence is death unless you repent. LGBTQ activities are also punishable by death unless they repent. When you have unauthorized sex you are not only sinning against God but are worshipping the Devil with your body, you are being a spiritual temple prostitute and I'm speaking here for both men and women. 

It is no surprise then mental illness is on the increase. As we worship devils with our immoral sexual acts, devils posses our minds. Friends, let us repent. Sexual sins are destroying the church and society at large. Let us repent and seek the Lord. Let us ask the Lord for the strength to present our bodies as living sacrifices to Him and to do what is good and acceptable in His sight. Sex is an act of worship, let us pray God for the strength to only have sex in the way that glorifies Him, only in the marriage between a man and a woman.
Lord help us to be pure and glorify you with our bodies 🙏🏾

Hebrews 13:4

Let marriage be had in honour among all, and let the bed be undefiled: for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/indian-girls-dedicated-to-hindu-goddess-endure-rape-prostitution.html

Do you love God ?

 The question is not whether God loves us, the cross clearly reveals the love of God for us. In no other religion on the planet do we find a god dying for his creatures. The gods of the nations requires sacrifices from their servants but they will not sacrifice themselves for their sakes. It is only in Jesus we see the true God revealed. The Lord Jesus who is one with God left heaven, left His glory with the Father and came down to us. He humbled Himself as a man and went through untold sufferings at our hands. Imagine that ! The Creator of the universe, the God of all the earth being spat on, mocked, beaten, having His beard pulled, His back ripped open and bleeding, nailed to a cruel cross.

The Lord Jesus Christ went through infinite humiliation and untold sufferings to make a way for me and you. Why did He do all this? Couldn't He wipe out the whole human race and created another race of beings from scratch? I mean wouldn't you do that if you had His power? Jesus did all that, went through all the sufferings we can putting on Him because of love. God is love, love suffers long and God loves us to death. And we know that God loves us not just because of what He says but by what He has done. Love is not just words, love is demonstrated by actions. God so love the world that He gave all He had, His only begotten Son to save us

So the question is not whether God loves us, but do you love Him? As human beings we are very deceptive. We deceive others constantly and we even deceive ourselves. We will claim to be things we are not and deny what we are. We claim to love what we hate and claim to hate what we like. We love sin and hate God. This is the natural condition of man. We love the evil and hate the good. We are selfish by nature and a selfish person doesn't love others, a selfish person doesn't understand what love means, what it means to love. A selfish person has what is called self centered love, meaning I only love you for what I can get from you. A selfish person doesn't love God, cannot love God unless the Holy Spirit does a work of transformation in the heart .

God hates sin, we love sin. God loves righteousness, we hate righteousness. Do you love God? Do you spend time with God daily in prayer ? Do you ask the Lord to cleans you of all unrighteousness? Do you ask the Lord to save you at all cost ? Do you ask the Lord to give you a new heart ? Do you ask the Lord to remove selfishness from your hearts ? Do you ask the Lord to help you love the good and hate the evil ? Do you ask the Lord to help you to hate sin and to love righteousness? Do you ask the Lord to remove all evil traits of character from you and to clothe you with Christ's beauty of character?

See friends, loving God is not just saying words, but actions. Can you imagine being in an abusive relationship with someone who is constantly beating you, spitting on you and cheating on you and yet claiming to love you? This is what we do when we commit sin. Sin is abusive to God. Sin is what put Jesus on the cross. Every time we willingly commit sin, it's equivalent to spitting on Christ's face , pulling His beard, beating His back open, piercing His hands with the nails of your evil deeds, putting a crown of thorn of your lust upon His head, and piercing His side with the spear of your pride. When we willingly sin we crucify the Son of God afresh and put Him to open shame.

When we love someone we will seek to protect their affection, their sensitivity. When I love God I will seek to protect His affections, I will seek to protect His sensitivity. God hates sin, sin hurts Him and if I love God I will daily pray Lord help me to love you more today than I did yesterday, help me to crucify the sins that crucified you. When I love God I will say Lord remove from me the impatient spirit, the angry spirit, the spirit of covetousness that makes me so ugly. Lord help me to be patient, meek and content. When I love God I will say Lord do whatever it takes to purify me of my sins and fill me with your love. When I love God I will pray Lord I love you, help me to keep your commandments .

John 15:15

If ye love me, keep my commandments.

Spiritualism: when love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God

 Spiritualism according to the online dictionary is "a system of belief or religious practice based on supposed communication with the spirits of the dead, especially through medium." If you are a Bible student, you know that " the dead know nothing." Ecclesiastes 9:5. But you will also know that demonic spirits can impersonate the dead. Satan can take other forms to speak to us. The first recorded act of spiritualism happened in the garden of eden, when the Devil used the serpent 🐍 as a medium to speak to Eve and entice her into sin. Spiritualism is effective because those who do not take heed to the Word of God will fall easy prey to it. Satan can take the form of their departed loved ones.

Satan can take the forms of departed loved one and speak to us if God allows it. Those who believe the dead are in heaven will fall easy prey to such deception. Again, the dead are not in heaven, they are in the grave awaiting the resurrection. Satan has been using all sorts of mediums to deceive humanity but in these last days he is using a more subtle and more deadly form of spiritualism. In these last days, Satan is using " love" as the mean to deceive both the religious and the worldling. Love as a deception ? Yes! Isn't the whole homosexual movement based on " love?" And yet homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord and the practicing homosexual will perish unless he repents.  But I'm not speaking about the deceptive homosexual love here, I am speaking about "the love of God. " Satan will use the "love of God " as a mean to deceive many.

“Even in its present form, so far from being more worthy of toleration than formerly, it is really a more dangerous, because a more subtle, deception. While it formerly denounced Christ and the Bible, it now professes to accept both. But the Bible is interpreted in a manner that is pleasing to the unrenewed heart, while its solemn and vital truths are made of no effect. Love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God, but it is degraded to a weak sentimentalism, making little distinction between good and evil. God’s justice, His denunciations of sin, the requirements of His holy law, are all kept out of sight.”

Great controversy chapter 34- can our dead speak to us 

"Love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God." Satan is a very clever being and he will use everything in order to deceive. Nowadays he is using the love of God to deceive the masses. Many churches and preachers are only preaching about the love of God. They don't want to preach about His judgment, hatred of sin and the coming destruction of unrepentant sinners. They believe that sinners will be attracted to the gospel by preaching only God's love for them but they misunderstand one crucial thing. Sinners have a different definition of love than God has. Sinners are selfish by nature and to them love is a feeling. Sinners believe God's love is license to sin. 

When preachers only talk about the love of God to sinners, they are doing more harm than good, they are in fact participating in spiritualism. When you tell sinners God's love only, they take it as license to sin. Sinners in church believe God will save them in their sins. Sinners believe that Jesus is so loving, He will ignore the evil traits of their characters and faults and bring them to heaven with Him. Multitudes are deceived by Satan's modern form of spiritualism, the sole focus on God's love at the neglect of His judgment. People forget that God's love is revealed in all His acts, including His judgment against sin. It is because God is love He destroys sin and unrepentant sinners.

Spiritualism is rampant in the land because preachers are more concerned about growing membership and followers than preaching the Word of God.  They fear that if they preach the Word of God in truth people will leave their churches and with people gone their tithes and offerings will go down. So they preach a love of God which is nothing but a weak sentimentalism to lull sinners in their path of death. They don't want to hurt the self esteem of sinners. These preachers think they know better than God who tells us to preach the whole counsel of God, judgment and mercy, truth and grace.  Judgment warn the sinner he is in danger and mercy tell Him God is willing to save him at all cost. Truth tell the sinner of his sin and grace tell of a God who love him despite his sin and is willing to clean him up. Many preachers are more afraid of people than God, so they preach a message of love that appeals to the selfishness of the masses. The Bible call these types of preachers hirelings who care not for the sheeps.

Truth is God is love, merciful, compassionate, but He is also just and will destroy all sinners who cling to their sins and refuse to repent. The love of God is not license to sin, but invitation to repent from sin. The love of God reveals that no matter how far we have fallen into sin, God is willing to forgive us, accept us and create in us a new heart, but we must repent. God is love but He hates sin and will pour out His wrath against sin without mercy against unrepentant sinners. The cross of Jesus revealed both the love of God and His justice. God loves us so much that He would rather die than see us perish, the cross.God hates sin so much that He destroy His own Son on the cross.

Christ died, He suffered the wrath of God so me and you don't have to. But we must repent and flee from sin. The belief that God's love is His chief attribute is spiritualism, a Satanic lie meant to deceive and ensnare souls. Friends, let us preach God's love,  but not at the neglect of His justice. God is love, God is merciful, but God is also just and will by no mean clear the guilty. If you are living in sin, you must fear, fear for judgment is coming, but if you repent and cling to Jesus then rejoice for life everlasting is your gift. Let us flee from spiritualism and preach the whole gospel whether people like it or not, whether people want to hear it or not.

Preach the truth in love 

Exodus 34:6,7

6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

The way evil spreads in our society! ( safe sex myth )

 

God is good and His law perfect. The laws of God promote righteousness, peace and happiness. But we have an enemy who hates God, hates us and who make it his priority to destroy our happiness and spread misery, but he must do it in a way to make evil seems good, to make misery seems like joy. He must change our perspective on reality and make us love the evil and hate the good. Satan is a crafty, clever  being and is using is cleverness to promote wickedness masked as goodness.

Once God's law is rejected, then evil becomes the way of life. But in order for evil to have widespread reach it must be presented as good. So how does evil spread in society? Let's look at the "age of consent " for sex and "safe sex." God says that sex is only safe when it is done in marriage between a loving husband and a wife. But wicked men inspired by Satan comes along and deceives society by teaching that "safe sex" is done when one uses condoms. As a result, the law of God is brought to none effect. People feel safe to sin, to live in promiscuity.

The idea behind "safe sex" is that people are going to have sex anyway, so we might as well give them the tool to do it. It's like saying people are going to rebel against God anyway, we might as well give them the weapons to help them in their rebellion. When we help those who are rebelling against God, we become participants in their rebellion and the judgments of God will reach both the doer of evil and the one who help facilitate the evil.

Do condoms make sex safer ? Maybe from diseases and pregnancy but not from the judgments of God. Not from the increase of wickedness, the increase of loneliness, the increase of feeling used, the increase of broken marriages, the increase of sexual intimacy problems. The promotion of "safe sex " is Satan's way of increasing sin, wickedness and misery in the land. "Safe sex" turn our women into harlots and our young men into unfaithful baby daddies. Nothing is safe about a women sleeping with 5, 10 men before marriage or a man doing the same. Disasters in marriage will follow.

Another lie that goes with this is the "age consent." Are they talking about age of consent for marriage? No! They are talking about age of consent for sex. Again God says, sex is only right when done in marriage between loving husband and wife. The Devil promote the deception that as long as one turns 18, or 16 in some places then you have sex with whoever you want as long as it is consensual. So, we have young being taken advantage of by older men, men who are wiser than them and the dispose of them like trash. Young and gullible women are being preyed on and brokenness increase. Remember the #Me too movement?

Have " safe sex ," and "age of consent " make our society more moral, better ? No! "Safe sex" and " age of consent have created a society full of harlots and pimps. A society of fatherless children, single mothers, broken marriages and all manner of mental illnesses and depression. By the time you marry someone nowadays, they probably slept with bus load of people and bring all types of trauma and baggage into the marriage. Before you know you are comparing your spouse with other people and are sexually unsatisfied, then you go and cheat. Safe sex and age of consent sounds good but they are promoting great evils .

Friends, let us escape from the lies of the Devil. The only "safe sex," is done within the will of God.  God created sex and He designed it to be enjoyed, but you will only truly enjoy sex when it is done with someone you love, someone you have committed to before the Lord and before society. Any other sex without the confine appointed by God is not safe. For God will judge you as in evil doer and you will suffer the consequences in this life. Brokenness, emptiness, anxiety and feeling of worthlessness will follow you.  God is able to keep you pure if you so desire and seek His help. God is able to restore you to purity if you have fallen into sexual sins.Let us repent and flee from the evils of our times and find refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ .

There is no peace or safety to the wicked.

Humility: key to a happy relationship

 God hates pride. It was pride that caused Lucifer to rebelled in heaven. It is pride that causes so many problems in our relationships. "Pride is a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in conduct." Proverbs 8:13, "To fear the Lord is to hate evil: I hate pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate. Pride, wherever it is found causes strife, division and chaos.  The very nature of human conflict  is rooted in elements of pride. The problem is we all have a pride problem and this the reason we all have conflicts in relationships

Pride is all about self centeredness. You only think about what is good for yourself, even at the expense of God and others. Another way pride display itself is through low self esteem. Notice it is low "self esteem." Again it is a preoccupation with the self. Its all about me. The Devil doesn't fall in that category but many of us do. This is where you find the suicidal person, the sexually promiscuous and serial dater etc.. But even that person is dealing with pride because they will not hear the Word of the Lord concerning His love for them and how much they are valued in His sight. It can be very difficult to deal with such a person. 

We all fall into one of the two sides of pride. We either have high self esteem or low self esteem. We all are responsible for life being so miserable, for relationships being so hard. So how do we change that? How do we make our relationship happy? The first step to a happy relationship is fix your relationship with God.  We fix our relationship God in one way only, through humility. The Bible says, "God resist the proud but give grace to the humble. " James 4:6. God cannot deal with a proud person, because a proud person will not admit that their ways are wrong and that they need the Lord to transform them. If we humble ourselves before the Lord and say Lord I am a sinner, I have wronged you and my way is not right .God will hear 

After we humble ourselves before the Lord then we ask Him for a humble spirit. A spirit that is not self centered but seek to please God first and the welfare of others. Humility makes our relationships beautiful. When we are humble we no longer seek to protect self at the expense of others, but we will seek to lift others up even at the expense of self. When God humble us, conflict in our relationships will diminish. If your spouse is upset at you, you will not raise your voice in return but will give a soft answer. For the scriptures says a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh Word stirs anger. Proverbs 15:1. 

Pride is at the heart of bullying and entitlement. Pride is displayed in three different ways: self- reliance, self centeredness and self condemnation. Someone who has high self esteem is a proud person. Its hard to deal with such a person. They may think they are above reproach. No one can correct them, they think they know better than everyone, even God Himself and hence the reason why they keep doing things God condemn. Relationship with such a person becomes difficult. The Devil fell in the first category, he believed he knew better than God and as a result led himself into destruction. A proud person is self reliant, they believe they don't need anybody, they can handle life themselves and hence a proud person sees no need to bring all their burdens to the Lord. 

After we humble ourselves before the Lord then we ask Him for a humble spirit. A spirit that is not self centered but seek to please God first and the welfare of others. Humility makes our relationships beautiful. When we are humble we no longer seek to protect self at the expense of others, but we will seek to lift others up even at the expense of self. When God humble us, conflicts in our relationships will diminish. If your spouse is upset at you, you will not raise your voice in return but will give a soft answer. For the scriptures says a soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh Word stirs anger. Proverbs 15:1.

When humility is in our hearts, we will no more seek to be right but seek to be righteous. Being righteous means taking the blame even when you are right. Jesus did that for us. While we were yet sinners, He took the guilt of our sins upon Himself. When we are humble we will seek to make reconciliation with those who have wronged us. The proud person wait for those who wronged him to come beg for forgiveness , but the humble person search out the person who wronged him and offered pardon and peace. God did that. God didn't wait for Adam and Eve to come look for Him, but He came searching for them, to make peace with them. God came to seek me and you while we were deep in sin against Him .

Jesus is the perfect example of humility in action. He created us and yet He respect our choices. He is wiser than us and yet He listen to our suggestions. He has our best interests in heart and yet He allow us to choose self destructive paths. He creates our hearts and yet He ask for permission to come in. Humility makes us respectful of others. He makes us put them first. Humility cause us to esteem others more than ourselves. God is humble and it is because God is humble that we are allowed to violate His will, transgress His laws, while He begs us to make peace with Him. Can you imagine how beautiful life is with a humble being like God? Who put your welfare first ?

Friends, let us pursue humility. Let us daily humble ourselves in prayer before the Lord and ask the Lord to give us a humble Spirit. When we have a humble spirit, others will love being around us. We will be pleasant, lovely in their eyes. Others won't fear being vulnerable with us for they will know we have their best interest at heart. They will know we love God and we love Him. A humble person will not make excuses for sin, will not make excuses for doing wrong to others and as a result both God and others will love him. Friends, let us then humble ourselves before God, then resist the Devil and He will flee from us . Humility is the key to a happy relationship.

Life is about relationships

 Life is about relationships. At the smallest levels of relationship we have the family unit. A husband and a wife. Father, mother, children. Follow by the  extended family, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles etc.. Then we have the community, the state, the nation, the world community, the human family , the cosmic,universal  family of angels and other unfallen beings .  

At the highest level of relationships we have God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Life is all about relationships, relationships even exist with nature, the animals and the inanimate objects such as the earth, the seas and the fountains of waters .

God is love ❤. Love by definition is all about relationships. God has always been in a relationship. God has always existed in 3, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They have always loved each other from everlasting. God has never been alone. God created all things out of love. God brought created beings into existence to share His love with us, to bring us joy. And as long as all created being abide in His love, joy, peace and harmony will exist.  Since God is love , it means by definition life is about relationships. When we are loved, when we feel loved, we feel alive but when we are not loved, when we are rejected, we feel hopeless and life becomes unbearable.

If God is love and life at it's very core is about relationships, then why so much misery and suffering in our world? Well something happened to the harmony of the universe. Lucifer, the covering cherub wanted to become the center of worship. He didn't like the idea of giving love to God and others, he wanted to give love to himself and for others to love him. He wanted to become the center of attention.

When the Devil said in his heart "he will be like the Most High," (Isaiah 14:12-14), what he really was saying is " I will draw out the affections of the angels from God and I will become the center of their affection." 

The way the Devil destroy the peace and  harmony of heaven was simple. He lied about God, His character and motives, caused 1/3 of the angels to distrust God and truth is where there is no trust, love cannot exist. The Bible called what the Devil did in heaven sin. The Devil destroyed the first link of true love ❤, the relationship between God and His creation. What is sin then ? Sin is doing things that God doesn't like. The more you do things that God doesn't like, the more distant you and Him become and the more broken your relationship with Him. Satan uses sin to separate us from God and to unite us with himself. As you sin against God, you are becoming more united with Satan. 

Relationships are destroyed by persistently doing what is wrong towards the other party. The ten commandments shows us how to love God and our neighbors. The first four commandments tell us how to love God and the last four show us how to love our neighbors. Satan's goal is to destroy our relationships with God first , once Satan destroy my relationship with God through sin, then by default I am united to him. Because Satan is the originator of sin, rebellion and all who practice sin are following his counsel, are his disciples. The smallest sin impact our relationship with God and the smallest sin if persisted in will destroy our relationship with God 

Once our relationship with God are cut off, the world then becomes a scary place. Everyone is out for themselves. It becomes hard to trust one another and as a result, natural affections dies out. Life becomes a burden. Loneliness, violence, treachery, divorce and relationships issues of all types increase and life becomes a living death. Then Satan in order to unite us more closely to himself works to destroy all aspects of human relationships. He attacks the family relationships, he attacks the community, he causes the nations to go to war with one another and hatred, anxiety goes through the roof. As miseries of all types increase, people then blame God.

As miseries increase in our lives and around us, many of us blame God because we don't understand that sin, transgression of the law of relationships is the cause. If I don't have a genuine relationship with God, how can I love others ? How can I not be selfish,looking out for myself in a dangerous world ? And if everyone is looking out for themselves, if everyone is selfish then relationships become meaningless, transactional and when relationships become meaningless then taking advantage of others becomes the norm. So what is the solution to our misery? We must seek a true and intimate relationship with God. God is the source of love and only when we abide in His love we learn love 

As our relationship with God strengthens, so will the other relationships of our lives. As we learn what true love is from walking with God, then we will find healing for our souls, we will be able to love others. God is love, God has always been love and love is always about relationships with others. I cannot expect to know what it means to love unless I and God become very intimate. There is a saying ," show me your friends and I will show you who you are." If God is my daily friend, if I talk to God daily, think about Him daily and listen to Him daily through the reading of His Word, then I will become like God, then I will become a loving and lovable Christian. 

Life is about relationships and having a true and genuine relationship with God is the key to a loving, blessed and joyous life. Let us daily strive to draw nearer to Christ.  God is love and by drawing to God, you will abide in His love and will know how to love and be healer of others . 

Repentance: key to a loving relationship

 Have you ever done something wrong to someone and when they ask you why did you do that ? You say, " I only did it because of what you did to me ." I don't know about you, you may be perfect but I have done that.  And if you were to ask the other person why did you do the thing you did to me? They may say they were responding to something you did prior 🤦🏾‍♂️. With behaviors like this it is no wonder  our relationships are so difficult with each other. But this attitude didn't start with me or you. It started with the Devil in heaven.  When the devil rebelled in heaven, he blamed God for his rebellion, refused to repent. Basically saying " if we were not reproved, we wouldn't have rebelled." (Story of redemption)

Then we saw Adam and Eve did the same thing after they sinned. When God asked Adam what happened? What did you do? Adam acknowledged guilt but blamed his wife and God for his guilt. He said "the woman whom you gave me gave me of the fruit and I ate." Basically telling God I am a victim of circumstances, a victim of your gift  ,the woman. Eve said the same thing," the serpent deceived me and I ate ." Basically saying, "God why did you create the serpent 🐍? Why did you allow it to enter Eden." It is the spirit of self justification and it has its origin with the devil. This spirit prevents us from seeing our part in a conflict and it makes us very ugly to be with.

Even in prayer we do things like that. Lord, forgive me for getting mad at my spouse and yell, you know I only got mad because...stop 🚫! Once you start saying because, you are doing the same thing Adam and Eve did. Telling God you only did evil because of someone else. This is not true repentance. Friends, no one is responsible for our own behaviors. Your daddy, your spouse, your friends are not responsible for your behaviors. They may influence you but you make the choices. Matter of fact not even the devil is responsible for the things you do. The devil brings the temptations, but you choose to act. He cannot choose for you .

To repent is to acknowledge that I alone am responsible for what I did. It is to come to the Lord and say Lord I have sinned against you, please have mercy upon me. This is one of the reason the Bible say King David was a man according to God's own heart. When David was reproved for his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, he did not seek to justify himself and say Bathsheba made me sin by taking a bath naked by my house. She should have known better. Had she not been there, I wouldn't have sinned etc.. but when the prophet Nathan said "you are the man," David said I have sinned and the prophet Nathan said the Lord has forgiven you. 

He was forgiven because he acknowledged his guilt. In psalm 51, he said I acknowledge my iniquities. King Saul on the other hand was the opposite, he blamed the people and everyone else for his sins and as a result he never truly repented and God had no choice but to cast him off. Friends, nothing makes us more ugly then when we refuse to acknowledge our fault and seek to blame others. Nothing makes us more beautiful when we have the courage to say yes, I had no right to do what I did, I am wrong and I bear the sole responsibility. When I began to understand that I alone was responsible for my actions, it changed a lot of things. It made me very careful in how I live. 

Knowing that you alone are responsible for your action will change how you approach God and how you live with one another. It empowers you, because you know that God has given you the power of self control. Blaming others for our actions rob us of our humanity, it turns us into slaves. But we are not slaves. Friends, if you want to have beautiful relationships with God, with others, take accountability. Learn what it means to truly repent. Don't blame your  spouse anymore for your cheating habits. Dont blame others for you being angry, bitter and miserable. Take responsibility, say Lord I am a bitter, angry person, have mercy upon me and forgive me. 

When we acknowledge our guilt, God sees us as His children, He sees true humility. When we acknowledge our guilt, others see us as people of integrity, people who despite our past wrong doing can be trusted. Trying to hide our wrongs under the deception of self justification only reveal our wickedness, show that we are not to be trusted. Friends, let us ask God for the courage to truly repent, to not do like Satan, Adam and Eve and blame others for actions, but to be like David and say I have sinned. Learn what true repentance is and your relationships will be very beautiful. Knowing you alone are responsible for your actions will make you go to God to ask Him for wisdom  on how to live right. In the day of judgment, the question will be the same as with Adam, did you do what I told you not to do? We will not be able to blame anyone else. So let us start getting ready today and let us learn to practice true repentance before the Lord and to say Lord, forgive me, I acknowledge my iniquity and the Lord will abundantly pardon us .

Jeremiah 3:13

Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD.

A warm heart in a cold world

 

This is a cold world. We live in a time in which the love of many are growing cold. Relationships are becoming meaningless, betrayals are on the increase, loneliness is skyrocketing. How does one keep a warm heart ❤in such a cold world? The solutions of many people is to isolate themselves, to be weary of close friendship, but isolation only make our hearts colder. This coldness of heart play a great role in our mental health epidemic. Without love, life seems cruel and unbearable. Without love the world becomes a dark place, a jungle. Without love, life cease to have meaning. How do I keep a warm heart in such a cold world ?

How does a person keep a warm heart when someone abused them as a child? How does a person keep a warm heart when they had parents who were cold, unloving? How do you keep a warm heart when after your parents got a divorce you rarely see your dad? How do you keep a warm heart when people made fun of how you look as a teenager? How do you keep a warm heart when you were bullied and called names by others ? How do you keep a warm heart when people always take advantage of you? How can you keep a warm heart when your first boyfriend/girlfriend claimed to love you and will marry you but then leave you as soon as they slept with you? 

How can you keep a warm heart when you have had six, seven , ten sexual partners and you are not even 22 years old yet ? When you feel like you are just a piece of meat for them, when you feel like they just get with you for your body and as soon as they get what they want, they dispose you like trash ? How can you keep a warm heart when those who claimed to love you betray you? How can you keep a warm heart when in time of needs you can find no one to depend on ? How can you keep a warm heart when those whom you love forsake you as soon as they don't need you anymore, as soon as they find a new relationship, a new job etc..? 

How can you keep a warm heart when your spouse betray and forsake you, family members abandoned you, children reject you, loved ones ignore you ? How can you keep a warm heart when church brethren you seek to find refuge in reject you because of your past, abandon you because of your mistake and show no patience with you because of your struggle with sin and a character flaw ? How can I find hope in a world without hope, how can I keep a warm heart in world so selfish, so cold, so cruel ?

Friends, think about the things that have wounded you in life, the things that have make your heart so cold and ask how can I keep a warm heart after such a thing ?

Friends, the only way to keep a warm, loving heart ❤ in such a cold, selfish and cruel world is to keep bringing the pain, the wounds, the betrayals to the Lord. Tell God in prayer about the abuse you suffer. Tell God about the betrayals, tell God about the abandonment. Tell God about your kindness being taking for weakness, tell God about your loneliness, tell God about the broken promises, friends open the heart to God and reveal the deep wounds to Him like a patient remove the bandage to expose the wounds to the physician 👨🏾‍⚕️. Let the the Lord examine the wounds and He will provide the cure .

Then pray God for the people who have wronged you, not for their harms, but for their conversion. There is a saying "hurt people hurt people ,". Meaning those who wounded you have themselves been wounded by others. And truth is the human race as a whole has been wounded by the ancient serpent 🐍, the devil himself. We all have deep wounds in our soul and unless we are praying God for healing, the enemy will use our pain to cause us to hurt and mistreat others. So we must not only pray for our own healing,but pray for the healing of those who hurt you. Pray for the power to forgive and love them. Pray for the Lord to make you a healer of others, one who will heal the broken hearted.

How can I keep a warm up in such a cold world ? As you abide in Jesus and He is healing you, make it a priority to minister to others, to bring healing to others. Whatever your talent is, use it for the glory of God and the welfare of others. Send others a text to check up on them, give one a call, invite one to your home, visit the sick, listen to the broken hearted, help one get back to their feet, get involved in serving others. It is in helping others, being loving to others and reaching to others we reveal the love of God to the world. So how can I keep a warm heart in such a cold world ? By seeking healing from God, intercede for others before the Lord and ministering to their needs .

Matthew 24:12,13

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

The third temptation: bow down and worship

 Matthew 4:8,9. The devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. "All this I will give you," he said ," if You will fall down and worship me." We have been studying the temptations Jesus encountered in the wilderness and how they apply to us. Today we are looking at the third and final temptation. In the first two temptations, the Devil presented Himself as an angel of light. He tried to hide his true character but Christ recognized him from the go. The Devil began with " if, "  you are the Son of God. The "if " gave him away. The "if" was an attempt to get Christ to doubt His Father's Word, but Christ prevailed by saying " it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. "

In the second temptation we saw the devil trying to use the scriptures to deceive. If the devil can't get you to doubt the Word of God, he will try to get you to misuse God's Word to sin. We looked into the sin of presumption, excusing sin on the belief that God is love and forgiving. Again we saw Jesus using the shield 🛡 of eternal truth to block the tempter's assault. And now having tried and failed twice, the Devil revealed himself and his true character. Basically saying okay I see you recognize me, now let's cut to the chase. I know you have come to gain the kingdoms of the world but I am willing to offer them to you right now, without a fight, at this very moment. 

The devil is willing to offer Christ what He came to get but at what cost 🤔? The devil said "all this I will give you if you will fall down and worship me." The price for achieving your goal is to worship me. How does one worship the devil ? Have you faced such a temptation before? Do people only worship the devil when they practice voodoo, santaria, Obeah, tarot card reading, horoscopes, seances, yoga or other occult practices? No friends,  these are the obvious ones but you worship the devil when you try to get things in life using his principles. What is the major principle of the Devil 🤔? You can sum it up as this," doing evil that good may come."

The Devil believes and teaches that if you want something in life you should get it at all cost. If you can't get it the right way,then break God's law to get it. God forbids dishonest practices such as lying and defrauding, the devil say,"hey lie and cheat your way to success." We worship the Devil when we violate God's law in order to get something. Example: you want a promotion at your job, so you sleep with the boss, bow down and worship. You want that job badly so you lie on your resume, bow down and worship. You want that girlfriend/boyfriend  so you deceive them, bow down and worship. You want money so you rob, steal and kill,bow down and worship. 

You want to run for a political office, so run advertisements bashing and smearing your opponents. You want people to love you at the expense of someone else, so you gossip behind their back, destroying their reputations. Any time we do things that are unrighteous in order to gain an advantage or advance in life we are spiritually worshipping the Devil. We are doing evil, hoping that good will come. And so many of us have troubled consciences because we acquire many things in life at the expense of our souls. The #Me too movement provided many such examples. While we condemned what many of these evil men did, for the men also worshipped the devil by taking advantage of vulnerable women.

A major principle of the devil is taking advantage of someone who is weaker, vulnerable. Many of the women were also guilty of sin. Many of the women traded their integrity for a movie role 🎬, traded their integrity for fame, career,money, they bowed down and worshipped. Later on regrets ate them up and so it is with anybody who use the devil's principles in order to advance in life. When we choose not to wait on God to make the way before us, the devil will come and say I will give you all that your heart desire if you will bow down and worship me. If you lie,steal, kill your way to your goal I will help you succeed and many of us fall for his temptation .

By the onset who had revolted in heaven the kingdoms of this world were offered to Christ, to buy His homage to the principles of evil; but He would not be bought ; He had come to establish a kingdom of righteousness  and He would not abandon His purpose. With the same temptation Satan approaches men and here he has better success than with Christ.  To men he offers the kingdom of this world on the condition that they will acknowledge his supremacy.  He requires that they sacrifice integrity, disregard conscience, indulge selfishness.  Christ bid them seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness:Satan walks by their side and says: Whatever may be true in regard to life eternal, in order to make a success in this world you must serve me. I hold your welfare in my hands. I can give you riches, pleasures, honor, and happiness. Hearken to my counsel. Do not allow yourselves to be carried away with whimsical notions of honesty or self-sacrifice. I will prepare the way before you. Thus multitudes are deceived. They consent to live for the service of self, and Satan is satisfied. While he allures them with the hope of worldly dominion, he gains dominion over the soul. But he offers that which is not his to bestow, and which is soon to be wrested from him. In return he beguiles them of their title to the inheritance of the sons of God.

Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Conflict of the Ages Series)

 Matthew 4:10. "Away from me, Satan !" Jesus declared. "For it is written: you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve." Then the devil left him. Friends, we must be like Jesus. When the devil comes via your own thoughts, a friend, family member, a boss or whoever and say hey you can go ahead by doing this evil thing, tell that wicked person away from me Satan! It is written, I will worship God only and Him alone I will serve. Meaning I will only do what is right in the eyes of God in my life. I will only use the principles of righteousness in this life of mine. Away from me Satan! for I will seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and the Devil will depart from you. May God help us to be faithful. 

The way of healing

 

I was listening to this sermon on audioverse.org, titled the burden of scripture by Steve Conway and the preacher said something very powerful."We cannot have victory over what we refuse to surrender and we cannot surrender what we refuse to acknowledge. " In the sermon he spoke about counseling a young lady who came to him with her fiance for counseling before marriage. And as they were talking, the young lady mentioned that she never knew her father. She said when she got older she found out her father lived near her but he never came to visit.

And the young lady finished the story by telling him she was "cool" with the fact. She pretended that she was at peace with the situation. So the pastor went ahead and repeated the situation to her. He said so you are telling me your father never came to your preschool graduation, he never came when you graduated from high school, never came when you graduated from college and the young lady at the time had a young child with her fiance. So the pastor said , your father even though he stayed near by never came to see his grand daughter and you are telling me you are "cool" with that ? Then suddenly tears started to run down her cheeks and she started crying uncontrollably.

See friends, that young lady was deeply affected by the fact that her father never cared for her. Never show any interest in her life, but she buried it. She was a successful young lady, graduated college and working a good job but its possible that all the success was an effort to hide the pain of being rejected by her own father. And so it is friends, many of us have deep wounds in our lives, are broken but we live in denial. When people ask us how are you doing, we respond by saying all is fine and if we are Christian we say all is "well with my soul," while deep down we are being crushed under the weight of sorrows. 

"We cannot have victory over what we refuse to surrender and we cannot surrender what we refuse to acknowledge." Because we refuse to acknowledge to God that we are broken, we are wounded, we are empty, we are needy, He cannot heal us. And so we go in life pretending to be okay while we are not. This is the reason you can find a Christian being on fire at one moment and the next moment they fall into some gross sin or become apostates. It is because even while they pray they never truly open the heart to God and to acknowledge the real issues that are in their lives. It is only when acknowledged the issues in your life and bring them to God that God can heal you. 

Luke 4:18

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,