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First and foremost… your feelings have nothing to do
with it! Your “feelings” that you have depended on for past judgment calls, heavily relied upon for understanding
situations and have become very comfortable with, became obsolete the day you made your salvation confession (I'll talk about
your "spiritual" senses - that make your "physical" senses obsolete - in a moment)! So you have no doubt
about your salvation confession let’s look at a few scriptures with the desire of showing you just how easy God made
the process to become born again. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth (speak it) the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe
in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” Romans 10:9 Now a very simple example of
this confession is found in the book of Acts. The apostle Philip is witnessing to an official of the Queen of the Ethiopians
about the remission of sins (Acts 8:33) and the official wishes to become baptized (born again). “And Philip said, If
thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Now some have questioned whether they made the confession with “all thine heart”. God has taken that into consideration.
You had a Helper with your salvation confession! “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit
of God calleth Jesus accursed: and [that] no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.” 1 Corinthians
12:3 You see, the Holy Spirit made sure that when your salvation confession was made, that everything was done in proper order
otherwise, there would be confusion. God is not the author of confusion, only the devil - your enemy. So the enemy wants you
to use those old feelings and emotions to analyze your salvation! Those old "pre-Jesus" rules don’t apply
to you anymore! First, you believed unto righteousness (salvation) with your heart (Romans 10:10), NOT your mind! You also
now have the ability to walk by faith and not be driven by what you see, hear or feel emotionally (2 Corinthians 5:7). This
emotion of “doubt” is all part of a very strategic plan by the enemy to keep you from pursuing all the great things
that come with salvation. If you are stuck on the first base of your salvation you won’t experience all the great promises
of God and even more importantly share with someone else your victorious life! This is a case where you made the confession
for Jesus Christ as Lord and it is time for you to explore the package deal! With your salvation came all the great promises
of God clearly illustrated in Deuteronomy 28:2-13. You are no longer under the “curse of death” but have been
provided with a gift by grace that will change your life from the day you made your confession to FOREVER! The devil will
work overtime to throw his arsenal your way to convince you otherwise. Once you made your confession, you are intended to
move forward with all the power of heaven! Inside of you - at this very moment - you have the living Spirit of God with all
of God’s attributes ready to go to work! With that written, I am going to share with you a salvation confession that
absolutely guarantees (I said GUARANTEES, no “ifs”, “ands”, or “doubts” about it) a salvation
experience that I hope you will share with many. Have the person simply say, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son
of God. I believe that He died for my sins. I believe that He was raised from the dead and now sits at the right hand of the
Father.” Encourage those that make this confession to find a faith based bible believing church that they can call home.
Also, for you and those that you have helped to be “found” as a result of your faith, encourage the study of the
Word of God! The harvest is still plenty and the laborers are still few. Your ministry is part of your salvation. Share the
Word of God. Ask Him to reveal the mysteries in His Word. Anything that contradicts your salvation experience (which is the
promises of God), cast the thought, the circumstance down! Don’t receive the contradiction to God’s Word as real.
You are playing by a different set of rules! You are a vessel of gold that contains an unlimited resource to change the very
dynamics of existence! You have been given an authority and power to call things that are not as though they are! Expect the
manifestation of God in all situations! What was once “unexpected” will now be a very real expectation for you!
Share with us your victories by e-mailing to victory@championshipfaith.com
Now let's get an understanding of those spiritual senses and how those can be developed!
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Have
you ever heard a Believer say, "I don't want to pray for patience because you know what comes before patience... TRIBULATION!"
This comment usually comes from a misunderstanding of the scripture Romans 5:3 which states:
“And not
only [so], but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience”
Believe this - you
have a patience that has the very character of God! WHAT?!?!?!? You don't think so? Well I'm about to convince you of that
in a second, but first I would like to explain the real meaning of the word "tribulation" for exactly what it is...
a word that describes an adversity that you have complete and total authority and power over!
The Greek word for
tribulation means: distress or suffering resulting from oppression or persecution and also a trying experience. Have you ever
felt distress when you discovered that you were the topic of conversation and the conversation wasn’t too complimentary,
actually probably not complimentary at all? Well if you have, use that experience as an example of a “persecution”.
How about this, have you ever struggled to pay those monthly bills? If you have, there's an example of a “trying experience”.
Of course this does not describe the multitude of situations that could be described as a tribultion and there are, needless
to say different levels of tribulation "intensity" based on the trial itself. Typically as a Born Again Believer,
I don't even have to know you personally to know how you will respond - with prayer. Right? This brings me to my next point
– when you pray in the midst of the attack you are using patience - and probably didn’t realize it!
So what is patience? By definition it is to bear pains or trials calmly or without complaint or to be steadfast despite
opposition, difficulty, or adversity but it also means to manifest (develop) forbearance under provocation or strain. Patience
by definition appears to have a few different levels of progress. We seem to understand and identify with the first definition
above that suggests a very calm approach to the most difficult situations. But most do not identify with what I call the growing
stage of already existing patience. Myself, I prefer the “manifest forbearance” part of that definition. When
you pray during your “tribulation” you are manifesting forbearance. Here’s how - forbearance or your ability
to withstand is demonstrated by your response to a situation and your ability to survive through it! Your “prayer response”
is an act of forbearance (this is how you are "forbear"ing).
“Being steadfast despite opposition”,
etc. first requires you to recognize opposition to your forbearance as a fighting of “doubt”. Understand the tribulation
is custom designed by the enemy to attack what the devil considers to be your weakest points. “Doubt” is all part
of that attack, not a product of a lack of patience. Your constant prayer attacks doubt! Prayer fights back against not just
the situation but also the doubt that is piggybacking on the attack! As your faith develops, your confidence will grow to
a point that you DO handle the most adverse situations with a calm that can only be from above!
This is where the
“worketh patience” comes in to focus. The word “worketh” simply means as you develop your prayer life,
your confidence in how God addresses your situations grows. You will develop a type of patience that comes from an absolute
knowledge that God ALWAYS has your situation in hand and under control and the outcome will always be a manifestation of a
victory that will cause you to take notice and break into praise!
…And this is why I know you have patience:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance:
against such there is no law
Galatians 5:22-23
Please understand this – the Holy Spirit is dwelling
inside of you (1 Corinthians 3:16) and has brought along all of the attributes described in the above scripture. Now just
as when you move into a house you start to decorate (the house takes on your “likes” and shows your tastes), the
Holy Spirit is doing the same to you. He is on the inside shedding light on those areas that He does not like and replacing
the attributes in you that are contrary to Him with His own (Titus 3:5)! WOW and WOW!
The enemy, on the other
hand, is working overtime to convince you that you do not have the fruits of the Spirit.
Know this: you do have
patience and every time that you are challenged or attacked, when you respond to that with prayer, you are demonstrating patience!
Your challenge, your trying experience is developing (worketh) a more refined patience that will take you through the most
adverse situations NEVER doubting the eventual victorious outcome!
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You may not be where you want to be but you are much further along then where you once were without Jesus!
Believe it!
All of what you may be noticing now and have a deep desire to change is due to the fact that the Holy
Spirit is shedding light on the once dark places. That is not to say you liked those habits or flaws before, but now the level
of intensity to change is considerably greater!
Here’s why:
Not by works of righteousness which
we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Titus
3:5
The word regeneration is used to describe a restoration to a pristine, very perfect state. Your salvation confession
activated the wash cycle. This washing rinsed off any hold that the world had on you along with any natural laws. Now the
renewing process was started by the Holy Ghost. In other words you were prepared by the regeneration for the renewing that
the Holy Ghost is doing for you. Now this doesn’t answer the question (I’ll get to the answer in a moment) of
why we as believers continue with the same mistakes, but it does give you the knowledge that a way has been made for the change.
Now, what about the change? Please understand that your pre-Jesus conditioning (conditioning received prior to
your salvation confession) was delivered with not just the intent to create a desire for behavior contrary to what the Father
desires for you, but also has been designed to have a “comfort level”. WHAT comfort level??? So, are you saying,
“but I don’t like this behavior at all! How is it comfortable?” You are comfortable when something is relaxing.
Challenges to the old personality traits and habits are not relaxing. Taking on the pre-Jesus conditioning head-to-head is
the decision that you have to commit to. You see the way has been made for the change: 1. you were released from any hold
the world system has on you; 2. the Holy Spirit is now renewing you on the inside working His way out! So the head-to-head
is not as difficult as what the enemy would have you think. But the decision to effect the change is yours and the “OK,
I want to change” is the first step.
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit
offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Hebrews 9:14
To receive the rest, E-mail me at
carta@championshipfaith.com
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First
things first, we have to understand our make-up and two very important laws of Holy Ghost physics.
The Bible simplifies
the composition of the believer so very well in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 in which spirit, soul and body are distinctively represented
as being very separate. You probably already know this but the soul is your self-consciousness (Psalm 13:2; 42:5, 6, 11),
your spirit is your knowledge base (1 Corinthians 2:11) and your body (flesh). The body responds through the five natural
senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch. Your knowledge base (soul) has been heavily conditioned by these prior to
becoming Born Again. Because of that conditioning it is very easy to depend on those natural senses and the enemy has used
this to develop a conscious that accepts what is real based on those.
Now to the first law of Holy Ghost physics:
(2 Corinthians 5:7) You don’t walk by sight! This is a principle that is typically used when the believer is facing
a challenge and the enemy is attempting to create a hyper-focus on that situation. But there is something deeper being said
here… DON’T DEPEND ON YOUR NATURAL SENSES!!!
That is one of those statements that require an instruction
along with the advice, which brings me to the second law of Holy Ghost physics: (Hebrews 4:12) The Word of God can separate
your body from spirit making it easier to discern your spiritual senses. I AM NOT TALKING METAPHYSICS HERE!!!! I am stating
that the Word of God is capable of doing great things for you without you even knowing that those “great things”
are immediately happening! As you read the Word of God, as you hear the Word of God, and feed (John 4:14) on this supernatural
food you become spiritually stronger. Here’s one documented benefit of developing spiritual senses, the source is Psalm
138:3.
In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, [and] strengthenedst me [with] strength in my soul.
Wow! I know that when I heard God’s voice it sure gave me a boost! The scripture is telling us that when we hear God’s
voice it is energizing! And that is just hearing!
Here are some scriptures to read that refer to the spiritual
senses:
Hearing: I Samuel 3:1-10; 9:15; Matthew 17:5 and 6; Acts 9:4, 7; 10:10-12, 17, 19; Revelation 2:7, 11,
17, 29; 3:13, 22
Sight: II Kings 6:17; Matthew 3:16; 17:3 and 9; John 1:48; Acts 10:10, 17, and 19
Smell:
Philippians 4:187-29; Revelations 18:2 (foul spirit)
Taste: Psalm 34:8; 119:103
Touch: Experience of
feeling a supernatural touch - I Kings 19:5; Acts 12:7. Touching with faith Hebrews 11:1 – The key here is “substance”
which is something very tangible and real. As we develop our faith the Kingdom of God is the reality that controls the natural
and brings forth into the natural from the eternal.
After reading the above verses, you know what just happened?
You developed your spirit man! Remember Holy Ghost rule number two – The Word of God – what you just read –
is sharper than any two edged sword that separates soul ands spirit. Hebrews 4:12 is a statement of fact. The verse doesn’t
have a “maybe” in it! You will start getting sensory input that is completely separate from your natural senses!
Keep reading the Word of God! Feast on the Word! I promise you this – you will come to the point where you will look
for the time to spend in fellowship with the Father by reading all about Him and His Son. Just get started!
More
information is available on the development of the five spiritual senses in the book “God’s Kids”.
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An Encouraging Word Coming Soon
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