A Smack-down

Psalm 24: 7 Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle, 9 Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah.

Psalms 22-24 represents the presentation of the Messiah on the Cross of Crucifixion, His leadership as the Shepherd who leads us His people and of Psalm 24 He talks of the gates of being lifted to let in the King of glory.


Who are the gates? They are people! Hearts are to be turned to God in seeing the suffering of the Messiah for mankind. Hearts are too see His face and understand that God has purpose for mankind. He is everlasting speaking to those who have eternity in their hearts. God placed eternity in us and God surely desires us to be with Him always.
But there are those who choose evil ways, to get the upper hand and to rule over man in every way they possibly can!

Matthew 16: 13-20 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" 14 So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

17 Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. 19 "And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth, will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.

Jesus was not saying the He would build His church on Peter. I mean seriously we are talking about the Cornerstone: Jesus! Jesus was speaking of building the church on the the words that came from heaven revealed to Simon Peter' s heart!
Yet you see a church built on men's own thoughts and purposes and not on God's at all! And if you pay attention to those in leadership of those said churches, you find them finding more ways to wrong than right with God!

This region of Caesarea Philippi was north of Galilee near Mt. Hermon. This was a principle area where idol worship was highly regarded. It was also the area where early people worshiped Pan, the half man, half goat deity. Pan was the cult that was about the "wild". ( we will not go into what they were wild about) Their rituals involved nudity! Yikes!

So when Jesus spoke here in this region ....to Simon Peter and those with him, He also was speaking to that which existed in the forms of idolatry that were against God! And what Simon who spoke revealed to him by God in heaven was that which would prevail. It is those in Jesus Christ who speak the same as Christ Jesus speaks as He did when He spoke of His Father and heaven. 

Again from Psalm 24, the gates who lift their heads and allow the king of Glory are you and me who stand and speak about salvation, the glory of the Lord in Jesus Christ. We speak to declare the life that came to us abundantly through Him. And those who stand at the gate of hell who speak for hell are those who can look like you and me but speak only by lies, human nature, and that which is death. Their hearts are ruled by the devil.

We lift our gates to become those who say this is the way, the truth and the life in Jesus Christ. To walk as He did and prevail by the words given to us from heaven. For all that was presented of His kingdom to us, the greatest is the smack-down of hell that we stand in faith. We understand by daily reading and praying we are connecting with Jesus face to face. And as He opposed the enemy that once for all by the shedding of His blood, so too we have that victory now at our disposal through His sacrifice. Anything that is opposing God & His will is the lie. We regard the truth of God's word and we speak it in warfare of the mind, a warfare against arrogance & those rebellious thoughts, & ideas, those arguments against God. And we know that our God is to be prized.  We are to stand against any un-scriptural idea or personal confused belief that we might hold as true. What you fear, you will find a lie behind it & behind that fear is an idol!

 We are to be intentional to rid anything that is contrary to God & His thoughts. The only truth is that which is given to us by God. May He find us being the faithful stewards in what He left to us to be in charge. 

From Matthew 16:19 "And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth, will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.
We are gathered to Him. He plundered the strong man and we have that victory. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and to speak those words Jesus spoke: Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus ( and He is seated on our hearts). We abide in Him and His words abide in us,  and we speak what is glorifying to the Father. His peace He has left to us; not as the word gives did He give to us. We let not our hearts be troubled, neither will we be afraid. (John 14:25-27)
 Jesus did a smackdown on the devil and we have the victory! We love the Lord, keep His word and the Father loves us. They have made their home with us! (John 14:23-24)

If we truly know God our Father to be the Creator and Jesus the manifested Word, then the Holy Spirit will speak to us what the Father has told Him from that appointment from the Cross on Calvary.  

Many things are on the airwaves, on videos and in news reports, still our faith is to be in God and Him alone. So what about those viruses with those wild names, and those things that seem to capture headline news day and night for months on end?  What if you get a cough? What if you do not get a cough? Still whatever the list of other maladies may be, still we understand of the end-time prophecies for disease and epidemics. God is still here, and has not left us as orphans. He planned His best for us through His Son and I am not missing this great opportunity to be a witness of His great love in this end-time harvest! How about you? Let's have a smack-down!

New teaching at: Voice of Prayer  

Diffusing the Fragrance

https://youtu.be/Gb5ikHtfbrE

Visit my You Tube channel Voice of Prayer for more teaching 

http://bit.ly/1tNyBhV

New teaching at: Life Giving Wells

The Spiritual Recognition

https://youtu.be/TUXIHPJt7z8

Visit Life Giving Wells You Tube Channel for more teaching

http://bit.ly/2wgu1kw

A CONFIRMATION

Voice of Prayer: Picture by R. Twiner

Hebrews 9:27 NKJV 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment,

Paul writes in Colossians 2:11-14: In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the un-circumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Two points we must note here: first, it is God’s sovereign authority and almighty power that is the source from which mankind derives any ability to share in the exercise of the kingdom of God. And the second point, sinful man lost all privilege, he had no claim to the early ruler-ship given to man in the garden of Eden. The power is only restored to those who have received Jesus as Lord of their lives, it is by the grace of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit!

Every person who has lived on earth will die at some point in their life. We find from this passage in Colossians 2,  that the apostle explains that a Christian is free from the bondage of death because Christ's death has removed the charges of sin against us. Truth is given here; yet today there are those who think there are many pathways to heaven and to God. It sounds like a pick and choose time of which god you desire to choose for your own privilege. But when we continue to look into the pages of the doctrine given us by grace we find this: that Jesus, in Revelation 1:18, adds another factor in our favor or the favor for the saved one who has confessed Him as Lord of their life!

Revelation 1:18-19  NKJV states this: “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.” Jesus Christ paid the price. 19 Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.

Here both present and future events are recorded.

 That price was the penalty for our sins. At the Cross Satan was the defeated foe. Christ Jesus has the power and has given us authority too! The price paid for us was over the Second Death. Going further we find this in Revelation 20 and verse 14: “Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.  Detail is given to us in  Revelation 21:8 “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

BUT we are to be prepared! As living stones, we are being built up as a spiritual house. That is called the holy priesthood.  1 Peter 2:4-5: NKJV 4 Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Yes, this is confirmation to being prepared for something called the spiritual house that looks like and sounds like a holy priesthood. As His “special people”, we are the chosen generations, a royal priesthood, His own special people; that we may proclaim the praises of Him who called us  out of darkness into His marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

 As the living sacrifices, we deliberately choose to allow the Holy Spirit to change us into the image of Jesus Christ. That is, we allow the doctrine of the kingdom that has come go deep into our hearts and change our thinking where we follow after Jesus. We become obedient to His plan for our futures. Salvation is important to come into His kingdom but the paramount objective is to be leaders in His kingdom.

It is not about how many people we have in a congregation nor is according to how we as the leaders lead many people, but that we stand responsible to learn truth and teach truth. Being created into Jesus Christ’s image teaches us that. Leadership certainly is what God is looking for in you and in me! The most important note here is that we overcome our carnal natures. When we begin to see leadership in our lives leading others to truth then that becomes the norm for us. It comes by living by the spirit man that is led by the Spirit of God.

It is about being faithful as He is faithful.  As we allow more of His truth in, light dispels the darkness. We are to embrace and protect that which is truth.  We should not take part with that which is to unrighteousness.  Many today are becoming discouraged. They somehow choose not to stretch minds when thinking on Christ Jesus and the standard He represents!

 Remaining in Christ Jesus is the real test. Keeping to the teaching of His truth shows where the heart lies! Many will say it is about whether you go to church or if you are staying out of church. But truly not about opinions but where the standard of God’s word is given without any interference in each person’s life. People are to be given the whole truth and not just pieces of it.

Then when truth is given them, then that truth is to be proclaimed. It is not just to be kept by you although that is important, but is about God  who is desiring us who are grown spiritually to lead in the future world that is coming when Christ Jesus becomes the seated king in Jerusalem. If you cannot lead now, how could you possibly lead in the future!  May we not be cold, the frozen chosen and the depleted of life not to recognize that it is God who turns up the heat so that we not fall into a frozen lifestyle and frozen mentality that things will continue just as they have. For Jesus is returning and God’s Word will judge.

A Closing Point: In Revelation 21: 2-9 describes the setting of the Jerusalem come down from heaven. In Revelation 21 and verse 9 tells of the Lamb’s wife. Verses 22-27 gives details that nothing impure will ever enter the city’s gates. It is God’s “shekinah” glory that will be the light, yes, it is His own presence to shine in as the “holy place”. Those who enter, those nations and “the kings’ of the earth” will bring into this place their splendor. These kings stand for the peoples of the earth who are the very servants of Christ Jesus. Offerings will be brought to the throne of God. Those who belong to God will enter here. Their names are written the Lamb’s Book Life. Total loyalty will highlight these people. Truth will be their standard and their character will have the witness that glorifies God.

Confirmation is found among those who follow the process by submitting his all to God to gain the life Jesus came to give us. It is in the here and now one will be confirmed and not later. It is walking holy before God today remembering that it is given that a person will die once and then the judgment.

Which will we be at? Will we be leaders in the holy city of Jerusalem that is coming or will we find a different destination?

New teaching at: Voice of Prayer  

Hope has a Name: His Name is Jesus

https://youtu.be/tDopc41oG8A

You can also visit my You Tube channel Voice of Prayer 

for more teaching at:  http://bit.ly/1tNyBhV

New teaching at: Life Giving Wells

Salvation is a Place

https://youtu.be/WbBaih_UUcs

Also visit Life Giving Wells You Tube Channel for more teaching:

http://bit.ly/2wgu1kw