Ready? Here are six things I want my people to be mindful of. That should not operate within them.
They literally are used by the enemy to put out The Fire burning within you. They “quench” the Spirit.
Because they are so prevalent within the lives of believers, that they aren’t just once dealt with, or here and there, but are “invading” the home of the Spirit within you. You are “being assaulted” by “them”.
This sounds so serious Lord. So, here I go. I’m going to do as you instructed and give the definitions of each of these things, so we ourselves can identify what the Spirit has already identified for us.
Elizabeth my kids are in a warring state of being. But this is not of me. Look at the words that made up your definition. Do any of them sound like the characteristics of Jesus? And yet my children’s lives are full of strife. This should not be.
Tell them to become mindful of strife. Here are but a few scriptures I’d have them mindful of:
The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.
Drive out the mocker (the scoffer), and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.
As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.
If possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
Yes, Lord, I see what we should be doing, and not doing, both…from these scriptures.
Worry is to torment oneself and to suffer disturbing thoughts which produce uneasiness and anxiety.
Worry is taking on anxious thoughts that torment of what could maybe happen or not happen. It is an emotion that can be debilitating and incapacitate oneself.
Elizabeth, usually worries come from a lack of confidence in me your God or in who you are in Christ. They come from believing somehow you are either in control or out of control.
I will let you into a secret. You are never “in control”… Only I am.
So, Lord, can you give me some scriptures, please? So, I get clarification on this?
“He is not afraid of bad news: his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.”
Isn’t “worry” being afraid of bad news?
Oh wow, never saw that one before. If my heart is firm, trusting in you, I need not worry.
What is burden? Isn’t this “worry”?
Yes Lord. And I see that it must be cast on you!
We must hang onto who you are and the promises you made us to overcome worry. I can see that now too.
I Peter 5:7 says to “Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you.”
Care is “worry” too, isn’t it? It’s anxiety.
Yes, it sure is. Guess we’d better start casting all of it on you, Lord.
What have we got to lose, Lord? Oh yeah… worry! (smile) Yes, indeed, I want to lose that.
Worry drains each day of energy and strength. Who needs it?!
It is sent to my people to produce clouded judgment, to cause you not to say yes to something I am telling you to do and may cause you to do something stupid as far as depth of sin you’d delve into for relief.
I will give you a couple: A man who is in fear of money, may go to an extreme behavior to provide for his family, turning to crime. Or fear of not having enough may cause a man and woman to live together outside of my will of marriage so that they don’t lose a pension or source of income that is already theirs. Fears cause people to turn from me to their own solutions. This is greater than worries, which affect mostly the mind and your peace. Fear puts you outside of my will for your life. This is why it is usually an evil spirit in operation attempting to get you out of my will. Fear is the opposite of faith.
Let’s also look at the Word. It is the clarifier, right?
Yes Lord. That’s what you’ve told us.
The most important verse on fear is one you know. Can you tell it?
Yes, Lord, it is “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.”
Yes, and did you note the word, spirit?
Well, I did this time, especially. And, God, clearly it is the opposite of power, love, and a sound mind. (II Timothy 1:7)
Yes, which means it is a spirit that robs you of power, of love, and of your sound mind!
Never really saw it that way before Lord. Thanks for the clarity!
We can take authority over “that spirit” and refuse it place… just as when you yourself said “Get Behind Me, Satan” to that spirit operating out of Peter when you recognized it operating! That spirit was using Peter’s words against you with intent to rob you of your power, your love, and your sound mind, when it was trying to turn you away from your own plan and purpose! Readers, you can read this in Matthew 16:21-23! Look it up! Jesus is our role model! He rebuked that spirit! Probably freaked Peter out! But it also goes to show us all that spirits not of God “use people” as their mouthpieces, just as the Holy Spirit uses our mouths for his mouthpiece. We must be aware and alert. Amen?!
I see God, that you are able to handle all that concerns us.
We don’t have to have a way of escape…you have it.
We don’t have to take out our enemies…you will.
We don’t have to do anything, for you say of us, you shall hold your peace.
It all begins with us fearing not.
It all begins with us standing, albeit still.
It all begins with us realizing we need and we shall see your salvation, or intervention, your solution!
Thank you that you will fight “the real fears”… the ones that aren’t just lies from a spirit. You can intervene in any circumstance. Nothing is impossible for you. Faith in you, will enable us to “hold our peace” as well as “rebuke a spirit”. We will need discernment, for sure.
So Holy Spirit, as our purifier, show us when fear rears its ugly head against us. Give us confidence that God is able to take care of things that would mean impending doom in our minds.
I mean nothing is impossible with God!! What He did in Exodus is proof of that.
He can deliver his own people wherever we are and in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in.
Questioning means “indicating inquiry or investigation of something”, forming and developing answers and insight… trying to understand everything, which causes torment when not able to.
“Questioning what it’s all about” can cause a great deal of stress in my children…stress and pressure that I never intended for them to take on…for they are trying, to the point of striving, to understand all that’s going on, what I’m doing, and where they fit in… to such an extent that they are simply “exhausting themselves” over it.
Oh yes, Lord, now I recall one of the other definitions of strife I looked up was “continuous effort…which exhausts”…just as you just spoke.
Even you, my daughter, have to get rid of all your questionings. You are not ever going to be able to understand unless I am revealing.
Do you understand what I’m saying?
Well, the verse on trust that instantly came to mind is:
So, Elizabeth, if you’re leaning not on your own understanding, what are you not doing?
I am not questioning. I see it now Lord.
I am to be “acknowledging you”… not questioning you…or things…or whatever, I may be questioning.
Right!
I’m not going to tell my kids everything.
Did your dad tell you, as his daughter, everything? No! Why? Because it would just weigh you down. Right? Or because it was way over your head to help him with, due to who you were, right?
You weren’t mature enough to handle what he was handling. Am I right?
So, too, my kids have to stop questioning my every move!
Just acknowledge me. Stay near me. Follow me. Just as a daughter, you did your dad.
I see it in its simplicity Lord.
But I can still question you… right?
Well, of course. Question me.
Questionings, on the other hand, is being tormented by what you don’t have information about or aren’t entrusted with. These must leave my kids too.
I guarantee if you stay close to me, I will give you understanding into those things which I want you to understand. Be at peace regarding the rest. Okay?
Satan tempts, “Did God say?” or “Surely God wouldn’t do that”, etc. In fact, I dare say people have doubts just reading this conversation that you are now having with us. Am I right, Lord?
So right. Elizabeth. And this is where the Devil comes in. Doubts attack truth.
If it were a lie, you wouldn’t doubt it. Doubt attacks truth.
Oh yes, I just looked it up and this is what James 1:6b-8 says,
“For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think he shall receive anything from the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”
A doubtful man is unstable in all his ways, is a good interpretation…based on what you just said.
How can the Holy Spirit lead someone full of doubt? He can’t!
You have to believe and not doubt what He says, to respond to how he leads. The most miserable of saints are those tossed back and forth in doubt. They will feel “beat-up”… weary … frustrated… and hopeless. Why? Because it doesn’t work this way. Faith has to grab ahold of what the Spirit tells you. The Word has to be grabbed ahold of too. But doubt causes that grab to be loosened or lost completely, and the fire of my spirit to fizzle out. Doubt is the opposite of faith. When you hesitate to do my will, you miss opportunities I have for you.
So, God, what is the answer to doubt. Can you instruct?
In Matthew 21:21-22, Jesus begins an instruction with “if you have faith and do not doubt”…and ends it with “whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
So, can we assume these principals are the answer?
Yes, Lord. I see them. Faith must replace doubt.
And asking must be done to receive.
Yet believing is right smack dab in the middle of that asking and receiving.
And believing is not doubting.
I believe once again your Word is the clarifier… and I see what you’re saying.
Which leads us to the last thing, and it’s a biggie:
But yet here, I am speaking to my children, and what I, God, want to remove from them with the power of my Spirit, the purifier, is suspicions! I want suspicions to be removed. Why?
So, if your brothers and sisters are new creations in me, why would you be suspicious of them? Why even approach them that way? See me in them. Not just them in me. Some may be immature but don’t entertain suspicions regarding them, please. This hurts me. And it keeps people from the truest fellowship, wherein they can all be real with each other.
God, I am sorry… I know I need to repent of this even myself. I guess I have guised it under the premise that “I’m trying to discern”, but truly it is just pride, and not truly realizing you are at work as much in each brother and sister in Christ as you are in me.
I do not want this description to be in my children. Suspicion is what is contaminating them…first it affects their thoughts, and then their behaviors. My true disciples will not have this mixture. It will be a choice to let The Purifier purify you of suspicions.
Lord, the other scripture that came to my mind was from the Love chapter of I Corinthians 13 where love’s definition says that it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. That would surely not include us being suspicious of one another and our motives. Suspicious meaning we’d believe they are counterfeit, undesirable, defective, bad, etc. Now, I see that suspicions are totally the opposite of love!
Lord, help us to believe in one another. And, in the Christ at work within each of us, so suspicious thinking and false judgments that sometimes accompany that kind of thinking, can be removed from us. Your nature and anointing are in your kids. Help us to see it in each other…help us to see You operating in us…and let love bind us together Lord.
Allow the Spirit to purify us as God’s vessels.
- Become mindful of these six contaminates as the Spirit, the purifier, pure fire, reveals them to you, individually, over the days and weeks ahead. You are going to be purified, simply through your awareness now of these things and cooperating with the Holy Spirit to overcome them.
- Remember again, The Spirit is the purifier and the Word is the clarifier. If you need additional insight into these six contaminates, then go to my Word, and the Spirit will teach you personally.
- Note, we’ve had conversations about how we can put out the Enemy’s fire with our salt and our fire, yet I want you, through this conversation, to recognize that you have an Enemy who desires to put out “your fire” too. Don’t let him! Greater is he who is in you than he that is in the world. Yet you must be alert and aware always…heading the voice of the one within…to keep your own fire burning for the Lord.
- As my disciples were filled with the Spirit (see Acts 2) and this appeared as fire upon them, so too, ask me to fill you afresh with My Spirit. I will purify what is within you… and can rekindle any flame of zeal that you may think has nearly gone out, that I might use you for my eternal purposes.
Thank you, God, for the purifying work of the Holy Spirit. I pray that anyone reading this that doesn’t yet know you, will realize Jesus’ blood purchased their redemption from sin, and that you are able to give them a fresh new start, and place your Spirit within them too, giving them righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which is the Kingdom of God manifested within them.