"THE HORSE IS PREPARED FOR THE DAY OF BATTLE,
BUT DELIVERANCE IS OF THE LORD"
(Proverbs 21:31, NKJV)
As I reflect on this past week happenings, I am utterly amazed in all that God is doing around me. This is a time of preparation spiritually and for churches to be ready for God's harvest no matter how or what it looks like. Can God be bringing about every kind of deliverance from emotional pain, physical problems, social chaos, and even national healing and spiritual deliverance?
If Ephesians chapter six calls Christians at the end of one verse and the beginning of another verse "to stand," we better pay attention (vv.13-14). Ephesians chapter one has a powerful prayer for spiritual discernment and heavenly wisdom. Praying God's Word is a potent weapon against an adversary who tries to continually bushwack us.
Last Wednesday, I had a whole series of crises phone calls. One of our family's 23 year old son was taken to the emergency room and they did not know what was wrong with him? One of our senior ladies had a lid on a ice machine come down and hit her head and sent her to the hospital. The woman who picked up the injured senior lady hit a deer on the way home and that was not even half of what happened that night within a few short hours. Do we see all these things as a kind of "weird coincidences" or do we see something spiritually going on behind the scenes?
Well, there were happy moments this week like my identical twin brother's son's wedding and a family get together this past weekend. I also got to talk to a Bible College student about the spiritual life in regards to the book of Acts and another young brilliant Catholic man who was the Groom's best man where we had a wonderful discussion about the early church fathers and the spiritual life seen from the monastic tradition.
When I returned home, there was also waiting for me a funeral of this 23 year old son who died of staff infection. As I spoke and listened to this grieving family, the Mother said she needed some kind of revelation or sign from God that her son was okay so we prayed for her. The Grandfather told me among many things that God gave him a definition of S-I-N----Satan's Insidious Nature. He told me he looked up 'insidious' in the dictionary since he did not know what it meant and it said "Bushwacked."
My Internet service on the day of the funeral would not work so I called Comcast. The woman asked me if I was a Pastor and she told me she could not believe her first phone call was from a Pastor in Indiana because she was just praying for a sign from God in Louisianna. She also gave me a scripture about Abraham giving up his son and that God will provide and if that meant anything to me? (I was just about to leave and do the funeral for this family who just lost their son).
I saw God's presence moving among these twenty-something generation as they formed their own community of standing together in their grief. I also got a phone call to go to the hospital and minister to an 18 year old man who had begun doing drugs and was having some bad reactions to it all. He surrended his life and bad habits to God and asked if several of us would walk beside him in this life of faith in Jesus he was now holding onto like a life boat.
And so driving back from the hospital, I sensed God leading me to look up Proverbs 21:31. I called two friends of mine. The first one I left a message and the Scripture. The second one told me they just had a loss in the family and asked me to pray for them. After I prayed, he told me about a dream he had the night before of Jesus standing in a stable grooming his horse. He asked me if that meant anything to me?
Today my other friend called me back and asked me "How did I know?" I said, "Know what?" He said that exactly the time I called and left that scripture was the exact time he was right in the middle of a battle in a church board meeting. He said thanks for the prayers and encouragement and I thought "How cool is that?"
Has Satan tried to Bushwack you lately?
BUT DELIVERANCE IS OF THE LORD"
(Proverbs 21:31, NKJV)
As I reflect on this past week happenings, I am utterly amazed in all that God is doing around me. This is a time of preparation spiritually and for churches to be ready for God's harvest no matter how or what it looks like. Can God be bringing about every kind of deliverance from emotional pain, physical problems, social chaos, and even national healing and spiritual deliverance?
If Ephesians chapter six calls Christians at the end of one verse and the beginning of another verse "to stand," we better pay attention (vv.13-14). Ephesians chapter one has a powerful prayer for spiritual discernment and heavenly wisdom. Praying God's Word is a potent weapon against an adversary who tries to continually bushwack us.
Last Wednesday, I had a whole series of crises phone calls. One of our family's 23 year old son was taken to the emergency room and they did not know what was wrong with him? One of our senior ladies had a lid on a ice machine come down and hit her head and sent her to the hospital. The woman who picked up the injured senior lady hit a deer on the way home and that was not even half of what happened that night within a few short hours. Do we see all these things as a kind of "weird coincidences" or do we see something spiritually going on behind the scenes?
Well, there were happy moments this week like my identical twin brother's son's wedding and a family get together this past weekend. I also got to talk to a Bible College student about the spiritual life in regards to the book of Acts and another young brilliant Catholic man who was the Groom's best man where we had a wonderful discussion about the early church fathers and the spiritual life seen from the monastic tradition.
When I returned home, there was also waiting for me a funeral of this 23 year old son who died of staff infection. As I spoke and listened to this grieving family, the Mother said she needed some kind of revelation or sign from God that her son was okay so we prayed for her. The Grandfather told me among many things that God gave him a definition of S-I-N----Satan's Insidious Nature. He told me he looked up 'insidious' in the dictionary since he did not know what it meant and it said "Bushwacked."
My Internet service on the day of the funeral would not work so I called Comcast. The woman asked me if I was a Pastor and she told me she could not believe her first phone call was from a Pastor in Indiana because she was just praying for a sign from God in Louisianna. She also gave me a scripture about Abraham giving up his son and that God will provide and if that meant anything to me? (I was just about to leave and do the funeral for this family who just lost their son).
I saw God's presence moving among these twenty-something generation as they formed their own community of standing together in their grief. I also got a phone call to go to the hospital and minister to an 18 year old man who had begun doing drugs and was having some bad reactions to it all. He surrended his life and bad habits to God and asked if several of us would walk beside him in this life of faith in Jesus he was now holding onto like a life boat.
And so driving back from the hospital, I sensed God leading me to look up Proverbs 21:31. I called two friends of mine. The first one I left a message and the Scripture. The second one told me they just had a loss in the family and asked me to pray for them. After I prayed, he told me about a dream he had the night before of Jesus standing in a stable grooming his horse. He asked me if that meant anything to me?
Today my other friend called me back and asked me "How did I know?" I said, "Know what?" He said that exactly the time I called and left that scripture was the exact time he was right in the middle of a battle in a church board meeting. He said thanks for the prayers and encouragement and I thought "How cool is that?"
Has Satan tried to Bushwack you lately?
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