It seems to me that most believers these days do NOT adequately appreciate, understand or pursue with aggression and "violence" the POWER that's potentially at their ready disposal in the form of the Word of God. You may even be tired of hearing about it in this newsletter and wish I would go on to something new. But what so many believers don't realize is that we've scarcely scratched the surface of what we need to know about this subject. It's one of the most important topics in the entire Kingdom of God and yet we have a tendency, inadvertent though it might be, to do our best to short cut our access to the power. Many of us AVOID the Word as much as possible because there's work involved, when we should be chasing after it.

 

I have said to you as clearly as I can that the Word contains its own RESIDENT power. You tap into that POWER by understanding the Word and once you do understand, it can change your circumstances simply by you knowing how to speak out your agreement with what the Holy Spirit has ALREADY said. What is the greatest HINDRANCE that keeps you from overcoming opposing factors in every area of your life, from achieving all your goals: spirit, soul and body? Is it not Satan who opposes you and opposes God at every opportunity? Surely you've figured out by now that it's not God that's holding you back. God loves you and wants you to succeed and He's given you the Word so that you can overcome the enemy who stands in your way.

 

When Jesus was tempted by the enemy in the wilderness, did he not use the Word to make him flee (Matthew 4:3-11)? Did He not speak just three little verses and make the devil "hightail" it out of there? He overcame the devil by simply speaking the Word of God. Had He not done that, He couldn't have entered into His ministry and I'm pretty sure that many believers are failing to reach their potential in life simply because they're not RESISTING the enemy with the Word. In the Book of Ephesians, Chapter 6, verses 10 through 18 we've been given THE ARMOR OF GOD for the exact purpose of RESISTING the devil. Part of that ARMOR is the WORD. We've been given the Word of God which is the SWORD OF THE SPIRIT that we can use to RESIST the enemy just like Jesus did. The question is: would you be a success in life if Satan were no longer standing in your path opposing you continually? If the answer is YES, then why are so many believers acting like they're powerless, OLD Covenant folks by failing to RESIST and OVERCOME the enemy?

 

Examples of Confusion

 

Ii seems to me that one of the main hindrances for connecting the Body of Christ to the POWER of the Word is that many of us seem to be confused about which Covenant we live under. Do we live under the Old Covenant or the New Covenant? Of course, you're going to SAY the NEW one but a lot of times our actions and speaking take us back to the Old Covenant even while we're trying to talk TO Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant.

 

If the New Covenant says He has ALREADY forgiven ALL sins for ALL times for ALL people (Hebrews 9:12), why do so many of us continually ask God to forgive us for our new sins?? Why do so many preachers continue to focus on our sins in their teachings when the New Covenant says we're not to be sin conscious (Hebrews 10:2) and that we should focus on love, faith, grace, thanksgiving and loving one another? Why are there quite a number of Christians who criticize the rest of us for not observing a true Sabbath when the Bible says Jesus has become our Sabbath (Hebrews 4:9-10)? Why do SO many Christians insist on saying that we're still supposed to live by the Ten Commandments when the New Covenant says they were a "ministry of death" (2 Corinthians 3:7) and that the Old Covenant has become obsolete ((Hebrews 8:13) and set aside (Hebrews 7:16)? Why are so many church folks focused on doing good deeds because they're trying to please God when the New Covenant says that the ONLY way to please Him is by FAITH (Hebrews 11:6)? Why do so many Christians say they're sick when the New Covenant says that we have ALREADY ben healed (1 Peter 2:24)? Why do so many Christians say that natural disasters are sent by God as judgments on particular areas when the New Covenant say He's no longer holding us accountable for our sins (2 Corinthians 5:19)?

 

There's a lot more confusion around the Body of Christ than just these few example but hopefully you get the general idea. We live now under a New Covenant that's BETTER than the old one (Hebrews 8:6). It's stronger than the old one and we have POWER AND AUTHORITY under the new one that people didn't have under the Old Covenant. Instead of having to depend on our own ability to obey commandments and regulations (which we're unable to do), we can be grateful to Jesus for fulfilling the LAW on our behalf and depend on our FAITH to connect us to His GRACE and EMPOWERMENT.

 

How This Hinders the Power of the Word

 

There are a couple of simple points to be made here tonight. The first is that in order to overcome the enemy, we RESIST him by quoting the WORD to him the way Jesus did. If we quote concepts to him from the Old Covenant, we're going to have to really know the Old Testament well like Jesus did to pull out the right scriptures that have any power. And we're going to have to be free of all sin so those scriptures will work. The Truth is, the devil would rather hear you quote the Old Testament than the New One because he knows he's EASILY defeated by New Testament scripture and that you don't have much of a chance against him in the Old Covenant. Friend, most of the true POWER in the Scripture for Believers to overcome the enemy is in the NEW Covenant, not the old one. And, what we do by mixing and confusing the two covenants is to dilute the unlimited POWER that has been granted to us under the NEW Covenant.

 

A second point to be made is that confusing the two Covenants really messes up our prayer life. Whenever we occasionally attend corporate prayer meetings where people are encouraged to pray out loud, there's inevitably a high percentage of those prayers that seem to me to be unscriptural because they're trying to communicate with God as if the person praying is living under the Old Covenant. The Bible says that God is not even going to hear prayers that are not in accordance with His will (1 John 5:14-15). It's not me saying that: it's your Bible. So, how can we expect our prayers to be answered if they're lifted up under a covenant that Jesus ALREADY fulfilled? Things that are being asked for have ALREADY been made available under GRACE. Nowadays under the New Covenant we're supposed to bring our petitions to Him in FAITH agreeing with New Covenant TRUTH so that the Holy Spirit and His/our attending angels who only respond to the Word (Hebrews 1:14 with Psalm 103:20) can help us connect to the GRACE that's ALREADY available. If we can't even pray right, then all that POWER that's locked up in the WORD can't be released and folks continue to walk in weakness and insufficiency praying all the while for God to do things that He's ALREADY done.

 

The Solution

 

In sum, there's a problem of powerlessness in the Body of Christ. The power is available but many Christians don't understand very well how to connect to it. There's also a strong TRADITION for how to pray that's wrong, out dated and essentially unscriptural and can only be corrected by Christians studying the New Testament on their own to find out how they should be praying. TRADITION can strip all the POWER out of the Word of God, not because I say so but because Jesus said so (Mark 7:13). I am only quoting scriptures to you tonight and yet I know that some folks are so committed to TRADITIONAL ways of doing things they will reject what I'm saying here and some may unsubscribe to this newsletter because their TRADITIONS are stronger to them than the Word of God.

 

There's also an issue of not understanding the ministry of the Holy Spirit. If you're asking God to put certain kinds of GRACE in your life to empower you and you're able to speak it to Him in a way that He will hear, HE WILL DO IT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. We have whole denominations in the Body of Christ who never even talk about the Holy Spirit in general and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit specifically (1 Corinthians 7:1-10) which He makes available to us precisely for the purpose of empowerment. Among other things, how can we expect to have REVIVAL in this land if we're continually lifting up confused requests to Him that mix up the covenants and ignore the connection between REVIVAL and the Holy Spirit? Have you ever heard of a Revival or an Awakening that wasn't "aggressively" attended by the Holy Spirit? If you want to have a revival, figure out a way to get the Holy Spirit stirred up and it will happen. Just so you know, the Holy Spirit MOVES IN RESPONSE TO THE WORD and that goes all the way back to Creation.

 

The purpose of writing these articles is to call attention to the need for change in the Body of Christ. We're too complacent and we haven't made a big enough effort to study and understand the WORD. Go after the WORD aggressively, even violently (Matthew 11:12) because it's something of great POTENTIAL value. Decide to go after the WORD and watch your life change!

 

Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on May 17. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), compelling you to PROSPER in every area of life!

 

Sinners' Prayer

 

If you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you need to and you can do it today just by saying out loud the following simple prayer:

 

Jesus I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.

 

If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God has already come into your life and you are a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.

 

And, when you get a chance have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer today and believing what you said:

 

Romans 10:9

2 Corinthians 5:17

Ephesians 2:8

 

Prayer Requests

 

If you have a Prayer Request, please connect to the Link below and follow the promptings. The PLN staff members pray over Prayer Requests every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM eastern time. Agree with us for God to answer your petition.

 

http://www.creditcounseling.net/prayer-request.aspx

 

Donations

 

If you've been edified by Prosperous Life Newsletter, you may want to consider making a SEED FAITH offering to support the Ministry (Galatians 6:6-7). God has instructed us to simply provide folks with an opportunity to sow seed into good ground so in due season you'll be eligible to reap a harvest and the rest is up to you as the Spirit leads. For your information PLN is a nonprofit gift to the Body of Christ so your financial offerings will usually be tax deductible (consult your tax advisor). Just go to the secure Shopping Cart on the Cornerstone web site by connecting through the following link. We appreciate your support and generosity.

 

http://www.creditcounseling.net/shop/item.aspx?itemid=1

 

About Prosperous Life Newsletter

 

PLN is an outreach ministry of Make A Way Ministries and has been published continuously since January 1998. It's an e-publication about life in the Kingdom of God and is sent ONLY to our email list of MINISTRY MEMBERS. If you're reading this and aren't yet on our growing email list, please let us know and we'll be so very happy to add you to the list.

 

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