What Did You Hope To Gain From That?

I am not an advocate of guns, but the scene from Face Off really does help tie together some of our topic pieces.  We are continuing to study discerning what is in our midst, as God expects us to do:

 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1

As a boundary for this, we are leaning on these verses from our studies: 

Jeremiah 17:9, 10 The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately sick, who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds."  

As we have discussed many times: everything we exert any emotion, time, energies toward, we are attempting to gain something.  What we do not always do is take pause to get a heart beat....a pulse..on what our hope is...what we hope to gain.

The problem is, if we are disguising our intent we become like that character; it makes for a stronger cover.  This is why God must search our hearts and test our minds.  He must expose things so that we have an opportunity to come to our senses.  At first, He will sit us down for a private screening, just between Him and us. When we continue for too long, we can be certain that in time there will a very public exposure.  

The longer we refuse Him, the deeper the Holy Spirit grieves within us; remember He lives within us and never leaves, even when we ignore His presence. The more the spirit grieves, the more grief we become burdened with. Satan takes this opportunity to fuel our fear and we become tormented by things which are not real.  If we believe the words of Christ, His peace will bring us back to our senses.  This is what Christ meant when He said not to fear because He had over come the world.  

John explained to us in 1 John, when He said we are not of the world, we are of Christ - He (Christ) is our confidence.  It is not that we love God so much, or believe perfectly: it is because He loved us before we ever had opportunity to reject Him and He sent Christ on ahead to be the only appropriate sacrifice for our rejection: 

 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as He is, so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.  

We fear because we do not want to be exposed for what we really intend to gain.  It is our intent to be victorious,  ergo we strive.....and seek out ways to get it.  Overtime, it just becomes habit and those habits become dark layers, veils, curtaining off His glorious light shining our way.  These are not new things we are discussing; but a continuation and a preface to what we will be studying.  I will let Paul close out and set up where we are going: 

Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling  you these things? and you know what restrains him now....so that in his time...he may be revealed.  For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so till he is taken out of the way.  And then the lawless one will be revealed......whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is ...the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan..with all power and signs and false wonders and the deceptions of wickedness for those who perish.....because they did not receive the love of the truth....so as to be saved.
And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, (who are those, the ones) that took pleasure in what God disapproves of.  

So what do we do, since we live around a bunch of delusionionalists? Most of the people close to us should have heard the truth if we are serving well.  We are warned about chasing after a rebellious person and how they will turn to ravage us when we get in their path.  But do not fear....if it be God's will to keep me here we will surely continue on :)

Because He love us!
Kisses,
Candace

© Candace Huffmaster 2014, All Copy Rights Reserved

Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc°

When It is Worse Than Expected

Columbia Pictures

As I was studying the letter Paul wrote to the followers in Corinth, 2 Corinthians, one verse specifically begged me to slow down and explore its depths:

You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections ~ 2 Corinthians 6:12



Paul was speaking from his heart to people he cared a great deal about.  He was appealing to their renewed conscience, asking them to pause and really think beyond what they felt.  Just as Christ did when he said, "if you have ear, hear".

Recently we studied situations where God told His children to stop focusing on the threats, as if they were really going to happen.  He did not say to be passive either. When I first studied this, immediately a movie scene popped to mind. Many of you may not have been old enough to remember the movie "When a Stranger Calls".  It was one of the last psychological thrillers I watched on the big screen.

In my mind was the scene where Carol Kane was receiving a call from Sargent Quinn revealing that they were able to trace the location of the person threatening her was enough to make me question if I ever wanted to even answer a phone when I was alone again.  What made it so terrifying was the fact that when it was traced they found out the call was not coming from outside her locked doors, but from within the very house she was in.  Paul was stating: the threat is not outside, here where I am, it is inside, with you....inside you.

God said we are "His House" and He abides in us.  We are not alone in our house, but God is not the enemy.  His heart is opened wide to us and He implores us to realize exactly what Paul was stating. For us to  be able to fully understand the content, I felt it behooving to study the original Greek words translated into English.  The word restrained was translated from stenochoreo, meaning: to hem in closely - cramp, distress.  And splagehnon was translated to affections; which is defined as: an intestine, bowel, inward affection, pity or sympathy.

I began this study back in April, and today as I was reading my notes, it was not the movie scene which popped to mind:  While on vacation I had a stomach bug which was excruciating, no doubt the experience must still be fresh in my mind.  Immediately upon reviewing this I vividly imagined a severe intestinal virus.  It is something inside of us, even though it came from our environment; then it wreaks havoc on our whole body - hopefully not on those near us.

I believe this is a large enough bit for one day - think and pray about this.  We will move on soon enough.

Have a wonderful weekend; my prayers are that we each realize: in Christ we have a new mind and are able to be transformed now.  Please pray for understanding and the ability to change the way you act to align with  the Holy Spirit indwelling you.  Or to have the Spirit of God come in and make a home with you.

I pray this for all who believe and trust in the Lord,
Kisses,
Candace

© Candace Huffmaster 2014, All Copy Rights Reserved

Kaleidoscope Butterfly, Inc°