Patricia's Pearls of Wisdom
You see when we have storm's in our life, we don't go through the storm, the storm gets in us. How long are we going to sit in the storm? A month, a year, or year's? Whatever it is that happened to you is in your past. Stop talking about the storm. Get over it! Don't be a carrier of the storm. Let it go.Walk into the calm waters of the Holy Spirit.
People, we often forget that God is a Warrior and His Son Jesus is therefore a Warrior. No one went through more warfare and violence than Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
We are created and called to walk in His authority in a spiritual war that is no short war, but a "long war". We need to start putting our "feet on the neck of the enemy" and stand in God's full armor protection and bind, rebuke, cast-out, and pray deliverance over the slaves of Satan's army.
We need to be a new breed of God's soldiers that will not stand for defeat, but to have total victory over our enemies. We need to call upon angel armies to assist us as we actively engage in warfare. We must decree the Word of God to activate them. We are people of authority, and we are here to rule through Christ Jesus. We are not to be by-standers, we are to engage in battle, in this "Great Awakening" that is taking place today. "The greatest days in church history are not in its past, they are in its future" (Tim Sheets, Angel Armies). We need a army that is empowered and supervised by the Holy Spirit.
Today there is a lot of parallel between Ezekiel 8 and todays church. As in Ezekiel 8, the elders secretly practiced idolatry as we do today in our church's. There is a crisis today in the church it is putting our emphasis on techniques, skills, and entertainment. This happens in the church when there is a loss of men and women of the Spirit.
Like the snakes in Ezekiel 8 the spirit of religion, deception, pride, manna, have entered the church. The snakes slither in unnoticed and deceive with unclean motive. They have penetrated our ministries, as we are no longer servants of God, but servants of the church. The church is worshipping false images that have slithered in and have given territorial rights to our hearts, mind, and spirit. Until the church recognizes this spirit of religion and removes the layers of the world we will remain deceived. This spirit makes us believe that we can grow the church through new programs, internal events, and ministries. The spirit of religion is like a plague that is spreading through the body of Christ with rapid speed. The enemy has convinced us that we need better programs, bigger buildings, bigger budgets, and greater wealth. We have enshrined our institutional structure with the spirit of the world. This is a plague that we measure the success of our church by these standards. It is like shouting from the altar that we are great and powerful not God. Jesus said, "But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you". You see we have it backwards, we build the church and forsake the kingdom. Pastors who lead with this spirit live a prayerless life, they are spiritually barren and have absolutely no anointing. When a pastor leads this way we can understand how the institutionalized church religion can be abusive and controlling. This my friend is the spirit of "pharaoh" They love power and control and cut off the true reign of God. This spirit devours pastors and the people of the church. It destroys them by deceiving them with their country club religion. We become a counterfeit church.
David Orton states that, "If what we are doing is not conceived in the womb of our weakness, we will never give birth to the wonder of His power". We need to humble ourselves and allow the Spirit of God to move upon our images and reduce them to nothing. The church body needs to embrace the humility of the cross. Without this every program, event, skill, financial resource, music will become what we rely on. We are deceiving ourselves. We need to remove our exterior layers of the world so we can see our hearts and when we do this it will bring us to our knees. and allow us to see in total humility what we have become.
Everyday of our lives we should be attempting to reach a Spiritual level of maturity in Christ Jesus that will propel us to be the disciples that He has called us to be. We should rely on God and not mans tactics to become conquerors for the Kingdom of God.
Like the snakes in Ezekiel 8 the spirit of religion, deception, pride, manna, have entered the church. The snakes slither in unnoticed and deceive with unclean motive. They have penetrated our ministries, as we are no longer servants of God, but servants of the church. The church is worshipping false images that have slithered in and have given territorial rights to our hearts, mind, and spirit. Until the church recognizes this spirit of religion and removes the layers of the world we will remain deceived. This spirit makes us believe that we can grow the church through new programs, internal events, and ministries. The spirit of religion is like a plague that is spreading through the body of Christ with rapid speed. The enemy has convinced us that we need better programs, bigger buildings, bigger budgets, and greater wealth. We have enshrined our institutional structure with the spirit of the world. This is a plague that we measure the success of our church by these standards. It is like shouting from the altar that we are great and powerful not God. Jesus said, "But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you". You see we have it backwards, we build the church and forsake the kingdom. Pastors who lead with this spirit live a prayerless life, they are spiritually barren and have absolutely no anointing. When a pastor leads this way we can understand how the institutionalized church religion can be abusive and controlling. This my friend is the spirit of "pharaoh" They love power and control and cut off the true reign of God. This spirit devours pastors and the people of the church. It destroys them by deceiving them with their country club religion. We become a counterfeit church.
David Orton states that, "If what we are doing is not conceived in the womb of our weakness, we will never give birth to the wonder of His power". We need to humble ourselves and allow the Spirit of God to move upon our images and reduce them to nothing. The church body needs to embrace the humility of the cross. Without this every program, event, skill, financial resource, music will become what we rely on. We are deceiving ourselves. We need to remove our exterior layers of the world so we can see our hearts and when we do this it will bring us to our knees. and allow us to see in total humility what we have become.
Everyday of our lives we should be attempting to reach a Spiritual level of maturity in Christ Jesus that will propel us to be the disciples that He has called us to be. We should rely on God and not mans tactics to become conquerors for the Kingdom of God.
