SDCCM Blog

I believe this to be one of the most powerful Scriptures in the Bible. It goes right to the heart of “religious” matters. Religion is filled with words, but the real evidence of true religion is how those words are used. Around the world, religious words are spoken to kill and destroy people or put them into bondage to systems. This is true of every religion of the world.

The problem actually began in the Garden at the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” It was there that the Serpent initiated the religions of the world when he asked Eve, “Hath God said.” Religion, at its core, is a rejection of God’s commands to obey His Word. It is man trying to get to God on man’s terms rather than God’s established Word. Everything changed in that moment, when Adam and Eve submitted to the Serpent rather than the Word of God.

Words were used to affect the enemy’s plan. Instead of Adam and Eve listening to God’s Word and obeying, Eve chose to listen to the Serpent and Adam chose to listen to Eve. When God came in the cool of the day calling for Adam, He found both Adam and Eve hiding and then blaming. Adam blamed God for the woman God had given to him. Eve blamed the Serpent who beguiled her. Before God, the Serpent had nothing to say. From that moment on, mankind has tried to get back to God, but on man’s terms. It is called “religious systems.” The only way back to God is through the law of sacrifice, the innocent dying for the guilty. God sent His own Son to pay for man’s redemption.

The Son said to the Father, “not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). In order to receive God’s provision of salvation through Christ, we must confess with our mouth “Jesus as Lord, and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead” (Romans 10:9). As James implies, deception comes from saying too much. Bridle your tongue, listen to God’s Word and obey it, then experience more of God’s view of religion: His glorious liberty is given to those who will trust in Him.

Father, forgive me for speaking more than listening to Your Word. Protect my heart from deception by helping me to bridle my tongue. Holy Spirit, make me an instrument of Your grace, always living in truth and demonstrating pure religion.

This is an interesting scripture. James connects liberty with listening. Our relationship with the Holy Spirit should be more about His speaking to us than our speaking to Him. He has a great deal to say to us in helping to bring our life into the liberty Christ has provided for every believer.

“Anyone who is a hearer of the word and not a doer forgets what kind of person he was” (James 1:23-24). An aspect of our liberty is located in remembering what kind of person I had been. As I read God’s Word, I am always reminded of the true lost condition I was in. Many believers hear the Word, but stop and camp on who they were in their fallen nature. The liberty James is addressing comes not only from hearing, but also by doing God’s Word. The “perfect law of liberty” is located in what Christ has done for us and our response by receiving what He has done. The forgetful hearer is limited in hearing the Holy Spirit. Remembering what I was without Christ should lead to what I am in Christ and the doing of His will.

“It was for freedom that Christ set you free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). What a tremendous declaration of God’s purpose in Christ. Our freedom! Consider a few things He has accomplished: our freedom to obey the Holy Spirit as He reveals God’s Truth to our hearts, our freedom to love others, especially those not so lovely, and our freedom to retain God’s Word, and by His power allow the Word to change us into His likeness and image perfect in me.

Outside of Christ, this liberty does not exist. The only law we need, is the “law of Christ.” Paul gives us clarity as to what that law is, “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 KJV). It is that simple, beloved, learning to bear the burdens of others. This is what the Lord had in mind when He said to His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, so love one another” (John 13:34).

Father, I thank You for the perfect law of liberty. My great desire is for the Holy Spirit to daily empower me to look into “the perfect law” and fulfill its liberty by hearing and doing all You have commanded me to do.

God’s love is manifested through the prophets as they give revelation of the plans which God wants His people to know. “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile” (Jeremiah 29:11-14).

God desires that His people have such a relationship with Him, so that He can reveal His will to them. He wants them to voice God’s will so that others will know. “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). He reveals His desire that all of His people would “prophesy” in 1 Corinthians 14:31 when Paul says “For you can all prophesy one by one.” Paul goes on to reveal that prophecy has purpose; that it is “for learning and the exhorting” of God’s people. Prophecy is not the natural man trying to figure out God’s will, but the Spirit of God making known His will to the spirit of a person. What one believes the Spirit of God has revealed to them is subject to others hearing God as well. No spirit of prophecy is “private,” but is to be confirmed by what others are hearing God say. “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets; for God is not a God of confusion but peace as in all the churches of saints” (1 Corinthians 14:32-33).

God’s love is revealed in the Son. God so loved the world that He gave His very best – He wants our very best as well. Our best is not our efforts, but His Son revealed in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. His love is revealed in the “Gift of His Holy Spirit.” The Spirit only produces Christ’s life, not our opinions or wants.

In the Spirit, God gave a helper: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever” (John 14:16). Through the Spirit He does not leave us as orphans (John 14:18)

Father, I thank You for the spirit of prophecy. I pray for You to stir up the prophetic gift in my life. You want me to convey Your will and Your love. I choose to give You my very best, my utmost for Your highest. I am dependent for all I have from the Helper which You have given.

Judges 13:25 – The Spirit of the Lord began to stir him.

In Judges, chapter thirteen through chapter sixteen, we find the life story of Samson. Samson’s life began in a supernatural way. His mom was barren. The angel of the Lord visited her and told her that she would bare a son who would deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines. The angel of the Lord appeared a second time to both Monoah and his wife declaring again that the child would be a Nazirite from birth.

Samson grew up and the Lord blessed him. The Spirit of the Lord began to stir in Samson. When the Spirit of God begins to stir an individual it means that God is directing that one to fulfill the Lord’s purpose. Samson’s purpose in God was to deliver Israel from the enslavement imposed by the Philistines.

The twelve disciples were men that the Spirit of the Lord began to stir. They did not understand what was happening in their lives, but they followed Jesus and learned to obey Him. Throughout the book of Acts many were stirred to action by the Spirit of God. They not only received the Lord’s forgiveness and His promise of eternal life, but they were stirred to give up their lives for a much higher calling and purpose. They had only known their own natural rationale, but when the Spirit of God came upon them, they began to know God’s will and purpose.

Down through history we have numerous stories of those stirred by the Spirit of God to an uncompromising life of surrender to fulfilling an assignment given to them. We are presently living in historic times as the Spirit of the Lord is stirring the next generation of mighty men and women of God. I say historic because of the number of youth that the Lord is calling.

The same Holy Spirit is anointing today a generation of young people. They are operating in unusual amounts of power. They are appointed and anointed to carry out His purpose in the earth. They are being called from every nation to the kingdom of God. They look like average people, but they have the Spirit of the Lord resting upon them. The Spirit is doing great feats in order to accomplish the Lord’s bidding in the nations.

I have spoken of the young people, but it includes older ones as well that are young in spirit. The Spirit of God is joining the older generation with the younger to form a mighty nation that will be victorious in fulfilling the Lord’s desires. Samson, like many of us, had his failings, but the Lord has promised a “victorious church.”

Father, I pray that Your Spirit would stir me and thrust me forth into the battle. I pray for the power of Your Holy Spirit to rest upon me to fulfill every assignment You have appointed me to fulfill.

The seventh chapter of Judges is a wonderful example of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit as He directs Gideon and his 300 fellow Israelites fighting against Midian. The wisdom of God is certainly greater than the multitude of counselors that try to understand simply by means of their natural reasoning. God’s people must move by faith. “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).

The Lord had Gideon send home thousands of his countrymen because there were too many for God to use. The scripture says that Midian’s army was like the “sand of the sea.” The natural man would have said “the more the better”, but the Spirit of God said, “I only need 300 to defeat the enemy.”

Israel failed to enter the land under Moses leadership when the Lord said, “Now.” They took things into their own hands by sending spies into the land of the Canaanites. The Lord simply said “Go in and take the land that I have given you.” He did not instruct them to send the twelve spies. He allowed them to do it their way, but later had to judge that generation for their “unbelief,” produced by not initially obeying the Lord’s command.

Faith is not driven by the rational, but by the Spirit of God. In the New Testament, the Lord confused the enemy’s plans by sending His only begotten Son with the purpose of Christ Jesus going to the cross and dying for the sins of unregenerate man. “God’s wisdom, which none of the rulers of this age have understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). In the Father’s wisdom, He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His own right hand, a man, raised to rule. In His wisdom, those that receive Christ as Lord and God now have authority over the kingdom of darkness in their personal life. God’s people, united, can triumph over the enemy and send confusion into the enemy’s camp. The Lord’s people can do this again and again by simply obeying the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

Make it your determination not to reject the Lord’s plans, as foolish as they might sound to your rational mind. Confirm His leadings by the Word of God and walk closely with others that trust the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Pray always that your spirit may be sensitive to His directions.

Judges 7:2 – The Lord said to Gideon, The people are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’

What a powerful story of how God delivered His people from the control of Midian. God gave Midian into the hands of His people. The Spirit of God identified one of the largest issues we contend with, “pride.” It is so human for us to take the credit when we are successful, rather than giving God the glory due His holy name. As revealed here in the story of Gideon, God’s wisdom is given to cause His people to be faced with impossible situations by creating a scenario where only God can be glorified.

We should not trust in our own ability or our circumstances in order to have a testimony of success, but in the power of God. Because of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, the Holy Spirit has come to indwell each believer. It is by His indwelling presence that we are assured of good success. Our victory, as with Gideon’s small army, is rooted in God’s great power.

God told Gideon to “release those that were afraid and trembling.” 22,000 men returned home, which left 10,000. God said, “The people are still too many”. God tested the 10,000 by bringing them to the water. There, Gideon separated those who drank by lapping the water with their tongue from those who drank by getting down on their knees. Only 300 lapped the water. Those on their knees were not being diligent to watch for the enemy. Those that lapped were able to look around and watch for the enemy as they quenched their thirst.

The Holy Spirit is the one who supplies power through His gifts. The first gift mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 is the gift of wisdom. God is looking for willing and diligent people to allow Him to work His mighty power through. It is not an issue of “multitudes,” but a willing and watchful people. 32,000 people were too many for God to have success against Midian, but 300 were perfect for the battle because they were vessels through whom God could manifest His glory.

In what ways are you watching and being diligent on behalf of God’s kingdom? Have you come to the water simply to get your thirst satisfied or have you come to drink to be refreshed for the battle?

Pray with me, “Holy Spirit; create in me the spirit of Gideon’s 300 warriors. Cause me to be ready to do Your bidding through watchfulness and diligence. Use me, Lord, to extend Your kingdom reign in the midst of Your enemies.”