mountains mentioned in these verses refer to obstacles in our way.
Imagine having that kind of power! God wants us to have power, but He also wants us to have spiritual maturity. He would not allow us to use His power for carnal, personal desires. We are His representatives on earth, and our goal should be to see His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as in heaven.
During our trials and tribulation, during the times of what Paul called “abasing,” we should hold fast our confession of faith in Jesus, wait patiently, and know that He will never fail us.
What we talk about has a lot to do with our level of personal peace. Why? Because Proverbs 18:20 teaches us that we must be satisfied with the consequences of the words we speak. The next verse adds, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it (for death or life).”
We can encourage ourselves with our own conversation, or we can discourage ourselves. We can decrease and even eliminate our peace or increase it. I encourage you to be accountable for your words—they are powerful!
D ON’T B ELIEVE Y OUR F EELINGS
God wants us to enjoy lives of peace. Jesus provided it, and we must aggressively pursue it and hold on to it. Second Corinthians 5:7 says that we walk by faith and not by sight; that means we do not make decisions by what we see or feel. We have to search our hearts, where faith abides, and live from there. The kingdom of God is within us, and we are to follow those inner promptings that lead to righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Feelings can mislead us and steal our faith more than any other single influence. The problem with feelings is that they are ever changing. We can feel one thousand ways about the same thing in thirty days. One minute we may feel like doing a thing, and the next minute we don’t.
Feelings provoke us to say things that are unwise; we talk a lot about how we feel. Do you believe the god of your feelings or the God of the Bible? This is a question we must all ask ourselves. More than anything, people who come to me for help and counsel tell me how they feel. We should be telling each other what the Word of God says, not just how we feel.
Our feelings do not convey truth to us; Satan can use them to deceive and lead us astray. Emotions are unreliable; don’t believe them. Respond with your heart, where the Spirit of God abides, and see if you then have peace. Check with your heart, not your emotions, before making decisions.
For example, I may meet individuals with whom, in the natural,
I would like to form relationships. They may have gifts or talents that I think would benefit my ministry. But the more I am around them, the more uncomfortable I become in my spirit about them.
I can sense strongly if people are phony or their motives are impure. I may not have anything natural to base my knowledge on, but the inner sensing will not go away, and I do not have peace about making alliances with them. I have learned to trust those promptings of the Spirit but to distrust emotional feelings. I may want to do something in my flesh but know in my spirit it is the wrong thing to do.
I remember one woman we hired at the ministry. This woman seemed to have strong gifts of leadership, and some of our key leaders wanted to promote her. I had a sense that something was not right but could find no natural reason for my feelings. We desperately needed good leadership, so I finally relented, even against what I sensed within, and agreed to put the woman in a place of authority.
She seemed to function in that position well for a while, so I assumed I must have been wrong. But after a period of time went by, we began to have complaints of her mistreating other employees. She was always very respectful to me and other people in authority, but to those under her leadership she was a different person.
A phony is a person who pretends to be one thing to one group of
Imagine having that kind of power! God wants us to have power, but He also wants us to have spiritual maturity. He would not allow us to use His power for carnal, personal desires. We are His representatives on earth, and our goal should be to see His kingdom come and His will be done on earth as in heaven.
During our trials and tribulation, during the times of what Paul called “abasing,” we should hold fast our confession of faith in Jesus, wait patiently, and know that He will never fail us.
What we talk about has a lot to do with our level of personal peace. Why? Because Proverbs 18:20 teaches us that we must be satisfied with the consequences of the words we speak. The next verse adds, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and they who indulge in it shall eat the fruit of it (for death or life).”
We can encourage ourselves with our own conversation, or we can discourage ourselves. We can decrease and even eliminate our peace or increase it. I encourage you to be accountable for your words—they are powerful!
D ON’T B ELIEVE Y OUR F EELINGS
God wants us to enjoy lives of peace. Jesus provided it, and we must aggressively pursue it and hold on to it. Second Corinthians 5:7 says that we walk by faith and not by sight; that means we do not make decisions by what we see or feel. We have to search our hearts, where faith abides, and live from there. The kingdom of God is within us, and we are to follow those inner promptings that lead to righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Feelings can mislead us and steal our faith more than any other single influence. The problem with feelings is that they are ever changing. We can feel one thousand ways about the same thing in thirty days. One minute we may feel like doing a thing, and the next minute we don’t.
Feelings provoke us to say things that are unwise; we talk a lot about how we feel. Do you believe the god of your feelings or the God of the Bible? This is a question we must all ask ourselves. More than anything, people who come to me for help and counsel tell me how they feel. We should be telling each other what the Word of God says, not just how we feel.
Our feelings do not convey truth to us; Satan can use them to deceive and lead us astray. Emotions are unreliable; don’t believe them. Respond with your heart, where the Spirit of God abides, and see if you then have peace. Check with your heart, not your emotions, before making decisions.
For example, I may meet individuals with whom, in the natural,
I would like to form relationships. They may have gifts or talents that I think would benefit my ministry. But the more I am around them, the more uncomfortable I become in my spirit about them.
I can sense strongly if people are phony or their motives are impure. I may not have anything natural to base my knowledge on, but the inner sensing will not go away, and I do not have peace about making alliances with them. I have learned to trust those promptings of the Spirit but to distrust emotional feelings. I may want to do something in my flesh but know in my spirit it is the wrong thing to do.
I remember one woman we hired at the ministry. This woman seemed to have strong gifts of leadership, and some of our key leaders wanted to promote her. I had a sense that something was not right but could find no natural reason for my feelings. We desperately needed good leadership, so I finally relented, even against what I sensed within, and agreed to put the woman in a place of authority.
She seemed to function in that position well for a while, so I assumed I must have been wrong. But after a period of time went by, we began to have complaints of her mistreating other employees. She was always very respectful to me and other people in authority, but to those under her leadership she was a different person.
A phony is a person who pretends to be one thing to one group of
Similar Books
Mystery Of The Sea Horse
Lee Falk
The Coal War
Upton Sinclair
Come To Me
LaVerne Thompson
Breaking Point
Lesley Choyce
Wolf Point
Edward Falco
Fallowblade
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Seduce
Missy Johnson
