Don’t Eat Drink and Be Merry, and Forget God!

Don’t Eat Drink and Be Merry, and Forget God!                    by Kelly Durant  11-30-14

Luke 12:16-21

16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then

whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

2. In Caracas, Venezuela, I had a frightful experience one time in our apartment on the 4^th floor. We started smelling smoke and we thought maybe someone was burning trash in the neighborhood next door, but it got worse and we decided to open the door and take a look and when we did the entire hallway was full of dark thick smoke! It was so thick, you could not see the stairs, and for sure we were not going to go on the elevator from the 4^th floor! We put wet rags on the bottom of the door and prayed!

I thanked God that at least the kitchen window did not have bars on it so we could jump out but I thought I could throw out my kids one by one if need be! I thought it better to have a broken bone and yet survive, than to die by being burnt up! It turned out to be a car that was on fire and the firemen arrived on time to control it!

Later they said that if the fire in that car in the lower garage would have spread to all the cars then there would have been no chance to save the building! It was a sobering experience and once again we were brought face to face with the reality we could all die at any moment. In life I think everyone experiences many close calls and each time it makes you reevaluate what you value. God has allowed me to be scared and intimidated many times and I get His message; honor me, thank me, and love me for my mercy on you! Any one of us could die at any time!

3. No one talks about it, but many immigrants worldwide die every year, in the ocean on rafts, in the desert dehydrated walking to the border, and from premature stresses and illnesses. The recent past years have been difficult ones for the hundreds of thousands deported every year. Deportations have been the highest ever in the past decade and it is true, some people invite pain on their selves by getting into unplanned danger. My wife and I were involved in the middle of the lives of suffering families in the past and we have seen firsthand the pain of parents and children that had to split up. People deported form any country usually lose all they have worked for, which may include a car and a few thousand dollars worth of furniture which gets left behind for another person nearby who appropriates it. There is so much unseen suffering in our communities that no one talks or hears about, but how are the rest of the people responding?

The majority of the people are living like there is no tomorrow partying and living wild! Stand by the Costco front door sometime and see how many thousands of dollar’s worth of liquor is sold per hour! Go to the beaches and see how many people are eating, drinking, and being merry. In other stores on any given day you can see shoppers with flatbed carts full of cases of beer! And ironically almost no food! One might conclude from the affluence of the clubs and restaurants that life and the night life in this country is crazy and nothing but a big party! But being reminded of reality of all the suffering and death happening daily, one should conclude that life is not as secure as we think!

4. So what do we have in society at large? Few people seeking to live holy lives, attending a church, or living ready to die and face God! Bad behavior, debauchery, and living as if there is no judgment tomorrow is our reality in this life and this goes on despite many warnings!

The scripture today addresses how wrong it is for any of us to think that there is no need for concern of tomorrow and no consequence for our actions! Some people get a little prosperity, a little apartment, a car, or a few electronic toys, and they think they have arrived on top of the mountain! They can now be proud because they are invincible! There is nothing uglier than knowing a person who grew up poor but then later obtained wealth and became cold to the needs of the poor. Comparing ourselves to others in the U.S.A. may make one appear very modest or very rich (depends how your see it), but compared to other countries most all of us here would be considered very rich! The issue illustrated here is more about the attitude of the heart towards God than the prosperity. Prosperity can deceive and badly influence the pride of the heart to over indulge!

What did the scripture say about this man who got a little prosperity and was now rich? He got greedy and wanted even more! When he was advancing, when God was good to Him, what became his attitude? Did he go to the temple and thank God for his prosperity and become generous with the poor? No! He became more and more selfish! He wanted to build bigger barns! And what provoked God’s wrath on his life? What caused God to decide to not only let Him loose everything but cut his life short? His pride in forgetting that it was God who gave Him life and all his blessings in the first place!

5. Read verse 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

He had a heart that only could think about him self, no one else! He wanted to enjoy life without the bother of seeking or thanking God who gave him his life and his prosperity!

He had no fear of God, but imagine now he has to face God; now he is in the predicament of having lost it all and losing his soul go to hell as a punishment for dishonoring God!

This is a wake up call and everyone one of us should have a sense of urgency; we are in a crisis in this nation and in this community! God is allowing tragedy, persecution, and suffering in all the diverse communities to sober people up so they will stop all their selfishness and foolish living, and for their lack of living thankful lives in obedience to God. Sadly, when in judgment they will realize how they did nothing with good intentions offending God and others!

6. People who never let their heart be converted to be like the heart of Jesus, people who never want to hear and learn the Word of God to practice it, people who could come to church to worship but instead mock the people in the church, who reject Biblical thinking and view all things from their carnal, selfish, corrupted by the world mindset are potential ones to lose all. The ‘I got to take care of myself cause nobody else will’ attitude,  puts people in spiritual danger and they are exposed to God’s wrath the same as like the man in these verses.

Where else does it mention in the scriptures about the sin of being shallow with God? Or another way to look at it, how does God deal with people who live life as if they are the almighty powerful ones, calling the shots and in control? People who want their selves to appear to be a great somebody by intimidating other people? People who believe that because they have a little more than others, they have the right to judge and mock and put down others? What happens when even in the churches some people put others down? Words of pride bring on serious consequences!

7. Luke 12:45-47

45 But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken;

46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.

47 And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.

Always there will be people in the world and in the church who are drunk on their own pride of self-accomplishment despite all the horrible suffering of those of their own community around them! They are as the blind who do not see! Why is it some people, and include yourself if it applies, always having their minds on their own self-interests and they do not have the capacity to have compassion on others and love as Jesus did? Some people always tear down and attack others in order to make their selves look good but pride, things, and a greedy attitude destroys! Sin brings on death and suffering!  

8. In the church, in our Corps, what happens concerning attitude? Some people benefit from our love, God’s love and mercy, yet some people have been known to say offensive and ugly things about our church members. Why?

People who forget God may be allowing their own death at any time due to an unrepentant heart! They lie to themselves that they will always be on top and they also lie to their selves that people in the church are bad as they are in order to justify why they will not seek God desperately as they should.  

People who criticize compassionate Christians, who hurt others with their words are like the ones in the verse 45 who attack and beat up others. And where do these people who do the works of unbelievers spend eternity? In the lake of fire! Not because God wants that for them, but because they don’t want to be with Him.

9. Not everyone who comes to church should think that they will go to heaven. Death can come any day! Only those who repent and honor God and do his will will go! Only those who show love and compassion to others, only those who consider the poor and suffering, only those who sacrifice their pride and forgive and do the works that Jesus did will make it to heaven! Believing in Jesus’ death and resurrection is by faith only, but if you believe your lifestyle will reflect it! No person can think they are a real Christian and then live and speak in an unholy way! The pride of wealth, of boasting, of thinking you are superior, of putting others down is very offensive to God and judgment often comes quickly for these offenses.  Our mouths should not be used for our own self glory but for the glory of God!

Matt 12:36-37

36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

Who wants to change in how they live enjoying too much of a good time thinking it is forever without ever thinking of thanking God? Who wants to call their family and friends and warn them, telling them that they could lose everything today? Every day is a new chance to get right with God! The final reality is God is angry with those who become greedy and insult Him and others by overconfidence and pride!

Help me warn the community! Help me wake people up that an early death could happen as it has befallen thousands in Miami and around the world. The wrong attitude, the wrong words could cause anyone to lose all in shame, so we must urgently examine ourselves to be sure we pleasing God in our love and service living a holy life! 

Thanksgiving Days & The Sacrifice of Praise Is God’s Idea!

Thanksgiving Days & The Sacrifice of Praise: God’s Idea  

By Capt. Kelly Durant  11-23-14

Ps 107:22

22 And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.

Ps 50:14  

14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:

Jonah 2:9

9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.

2. It’s our Thanksgiving Day Sunday! It is obvious from the verses of today that giving thanks to God by sacrificing was God’s idea a few thousand years ago, long before the forming of this country! The verses of Psalm and Jonah today are almost 3,000 years old so we conclude that God wants His people to take special days of sacrificing reverencing Him doing it together with others.

Do you know how the U.S. Thanksgiving Day began? It began with a group of Christian Immigrants, immigrants just like you and me! Plymouth, Mass. 394 years ago was inhabited by Native Indians, and then one day a ship of Englishmen landed to set up a colony. This happened in 1620 as they were escaping religious persecution in Europe. Under the tyranny of King Henry VIII just a few decades earlier and even afterwards an estimated 70,000 lost their heads for not submitting to the abusive dominating monarchy that imposed their church hierarchy system on them as well. Are you thankful you have not lost your head due to an abusive authority? In history and even today millions have lost their heads over religious and governmental persecution!

The problem is these desperate immigrants arrived too late in the year to have a harvest of food that would keep them alive throughout the cold winter. But thank God the Indians had compassion on them and gave them some food in a festival. One of the most common foods then was turkey, along with corn, and other vegetables, it was fall harvest festival. Historically most cultures celebrate the beginning of spring and this coincides with Easter and Passover; and celebrate in the fall as the Jews celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and the Torah, while Christians celebrate Thanksgiving Day.

Thus the tradition of eating turkey! Many more of those immigrants would have died if they had not been helped! Half the colony later did die of hunger anyway! It was Sqanto, a native slave of the English who taught them how to raise corn and fish ell. He sacrificed his time and food to help these immigrants who were ignorant of living from nature since they came from large European cities. God bless the natives!

3. But many people have immigrated to many different lands throughout history so what makes this thanksgiving festival so special?

These Christian immigrants took the time to rejoice, and have a party and celebrate, and praise the Lord and thank Him for freedom, life, and new friends, that’s what is special! It is a sacrifice to create a big celebration, many of you here sacrificed to make our lunch special, and sacrificing your self is what pleases the LORD! Psalm 54:6 I will freely sacrifice to You; I will praise Your name, O Lord, for it is good.

Before it was common that the government authorities, and all the townspeople, would get together to celebrate expressing their faith and thanks to God in the public square. Never succumb to secularists that in this country that insist you must keep your faith private and secret! To the contrary, celebrate as is traditional, show God your thankfulness and be public about it anywhere, and everywhere! Be generous and share with others! How ironic that in this country today some people even get arrested for sharing food publically with the needy. Christians traditionally have fed the needy in shelters and on the streets and we should not allow lawmakers make our traditions un-compassionately illegal.

Over 200 years ago congress recognized the importance of the Thanksgiving Day observance, and President George Washington issued a national Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789. He wrote, "Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country”...

He understood the basics of being Christian and he recognized the need to set aside a day to show God that we as Americans are thankful for this land under God!

Ps 107:22 And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.

4. Thanksgiving Day in reality is all about thanking God for maintaining your life and for sharing with others your thankfulness! (repeat)

In the verses of today we observe that David and Jonah, and we know well that all men of God, have always made a special event out of praising God for victories, protection, and supply! The problem in the world today is there is not much of an ‘attitude of gratitude’ anymore! For the past few decades unthankful Godless people have been rudely drowning out the thankful polite people! There are many sins in this nation and many people in the media are like rotten apples that incite bitterness over the past, and they promote hate between races, and insult the goodness of God’s people. But on the first Thanksgiving Day the natives and the Pilgrims were both good people being good to each other!

In our community you would assume people would come to worship and thank God for their blessings but instead often they offer only negative comments (the opposite of praise) about personal frustrations or situations and this makes God very sad and angry! God allowed a whole generation of Jews who escaped Egypt with Moses to die in the desert because they were unthankful to Him! 1 Corinthians 10:10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.

Thankful people are happy people who recognize God as their provider and they are blessed by God and they make others feel good nearby them! Unthankful people disturb the peace and bring others down and they are on the path to their own destruction!

5. Just think, this country now has 50 million Hispanics, and about 30 million have arrived within the past 30 years. I personally have a hard time understanding why most all of them are not going to the church of their choice giving thanks to God?! I think I read about 15% do start going to a church of some kind but that is too few! In their countries about 80% go to church! You and I need to awaken more thankfulness in these new immigrants! We already have too many arrogant, Godless, unthankful people in all sectors of society! Let’s encourage new ones to thank God!

Most immigrants, like the first European ones, recognize that they are strangers in a strange land and they could literally die if they were not having God on their side providing, protecting, and guiding! I know when I moved around in South America I literally cried out to God every time to provide and protect my family because arriving somewhere not knowing how the system functions, not having friends, not speaking the language, and arriving with almost no resources is a situation that will make one desperate and thankful for every place to stay and every plate of food!

You who are here today to thank God are special to God!  I am thankful to God for you, and always we must be thankful for our Christian brothers and sisters, because you are the special ones of God! Being here to thank God today is comparable to being with the one leper that was healed that came back to give thanks. Ten were healed but only one returned and expressed thanks! Eternally we praise God and Jesus in recognition of thanks. Sadly, in infamy, there are the unthankful nine others. Never be one of them!

6. In order to show you are thankful, you must sacrifice something for God’s work from time to time. You must make a commitment and then keep it.

If you are thankful in life in general, you are always praising and happy, you are willing to do anything, and willing to give up anything to show God your love and appreciation, and thankfulness to Him!   As David the Psalmist words it, Ps 50:14

14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:

We should all be dedicated to God’s work and to God’s people to have a proof of our thankfulness! Some people serve in shelters and some give food to their hurting neighbors during these holidays, but really you can show thanks anytime!

Serve others with a need! Invite them to eat and tell them about your love for Jesus!

It is the tradition of many countries, even here, that when someone has been nice to you and done something special, you invite them to eat with you. Everyone likes to eat, right? What a great way to get to know someone and learn to love and like them!

7. Jesus commanded his disciples to travel and basically immigrate or integrate as they preached. No one can understand the full extent of being thankful for a bed and food unless they have had to be at the mercy of others for it! I have been in this situation many dozens of times in my life! Matt 10:9 Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, 10 nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food. 11 “Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. 12 And when you go into a household, greet it.  In other words, bless those that bless you!

Back to our U.S. lesson in history, imagine these defenseless Pilgrims in a new land with no homes except the ones they could build before winter, and no with no food stored for the winter either! Just think if right now I were to tell you, you are condemned to die in two months! In two months your life will be over, you will die a slow death of starvation!

But then if suddenly there appeared a group of strange people of another race unexpectedly putting food on your table, just think how happy you would be! The reality is some of them survived in that Plymouth colony throughout the winter yet quite a few of them did die!

We praise and thank God this time of year (but we should every day!) and celebrations are good for all of us! And let’s also recall we must thank the native people for supporting the immigrants because your great-great grandparents were able to arrive here and work and have a life! All of us should thank all immigrants here including Latinos, Blacks, Irish, and Asians all of which helped build America’s major cities, railroads and farmlands. The ones before us suffered painfully through extreme hard work and hard times, and their great grandparents suffered as well! People use to die at age 40 something, remember?  We have a super nation full of prosperity with wealthy cities, super highways and mega factories all due to the labor of the many races that make up the population of The United States!

8. Thankfulness to God involves being thankful to those different from you, by accepting and loving them, and respecting them. God’s glory invokes praise for His creation of the entire diverse human race, and the maximum thankfulness we can show Him is to love Him and love one another as Jesus commanded!

Because the lives of those few hundred immigrants that were saved almost 400 years ago, we now have a great nation today with many millions of immigrants who are Christian! This is still the most generous nation on earth because many thankful people still have faith in God and want to give back to their communities.

Did you know Jesus said He would celebrate a meal with us sort of like Thanksgiving? Let’s look up, Rev 3:20-21

 20'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Even Jesus offers to eat, fellowship, and celebrate with us! But the food Jesus is offering is not physical food, it is spiritual which is more important!

It is sad to see people with hungry bodies but we must also see that many people are dying of starvation spiritually! Many of your friends and family are weak and dying inside due to not understanding the roots of why we give thanks to God! Tell them the story of Jesus and take opportunity to emphasize the story of the Pilgrims. It is your and my job to tell everyone about God’s food, this bread of life, that He offers so ‘whosoever will’ can live forever! It is our job as Christians to teach others to always be thankful to God for even a cup of water! We must be a light to others in this work of feeding the sick and the suffering! Physical food is just a temporary aspect of life but spiritual feeding is what will keep us motivated to be alive!

Now, let us conclude that as we are thankful today, that we will recognize that it is by God and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit through which comes our Salvation. Any of us can die at any moment so being alive today let us, as in the book of Jonah, do our part to be fair with God and honor Him for his goodness and be sacrificial; Jonah2:9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.

Ask yourself right now, have I shown thankfulness and sacrifice to God lately as I really should by being loving and doing something kind for someone else in need as happened on the first Thanksgiving Day?

Dreaming of Your Perfect World? Not in this life!

Dreaming of Your Perfect World? Not in this life!         11-16-14 By Kelly Durant

A study of the life of Job, Elijah, John the Baptist    Jesus said: Matthew 21:44 “And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”

2. How many of you have sadly laughed when you have heard speakers, preachers, or read in books, that anyone with faith can speak into existence the dream reality they want! These erroneous ones claim that you can command God to give you the wealth and the material blessings you deserve! Just demand what’s yours from God! I pray the Holy Spirit protects you from such misguided ideas and theologies! Jesus had no place to lay His head and life here is not easy!

Our reward is in heaven, so why should any of us worry so much about what we have while on earth? Everyone who has read the Bible knows well that Jesus was not rich! He exposed the rich young ruler as loving riches more than God’s will. Many parables of Jesus express that in this life we will have no security, and while building bigger barns we may die in the night! In the end we are all just unjust, undeserving servants and the perfect world we dream of is only going to be in heaven! Many people communicate with God according to their own ideas, premises, and demise of how they want the world to function around them, but this is not how God’s plans come to be a reality in our lives. This is my warning to you, life may not always be as you want it to be!

People, even believers, often forget how easily their selfish sinful human condition often influences their dreams and they live by their illusions to avoid the reality of seeing who they really are or in accepting their lot in life: It all is because of our fallen world. Throughout the Holy Scriptures it is clear, not one of us controls God, and God does not even control us if we don’t want to let Him! Did you pray for His will to be done in your life today? We pray, ‘thy will be done’, right? If so then this implies you leaving behind your plans, and your expectations and yes, your dreams as well! God provides for you and me, giving us contentment despite our surrounding conditions, as long as we worship Him and are obedient. Luke 14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. This includes what’s in our dreams in the future as well!

3. Jesus said: Matthew 21:44 “And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Jesus is the stone. It is God’s plan for you and me to die to ourselves, to become like a dead seed so that you and I may blossom back to live again. You and I are just worthless rocks, but if we willingly accept getting broken and smashed open, then the beauty of the crystals (like in the Brazilian stones) inside will show for others to awe and wonder at. Those who never want to accept God’s broken-ness through Jesus will one day be broken beyond recognition and usefulness; made powder in His judgment.

I am addressing this because too many people lately have a misconception of God, that God is there to serve you and me, and in their minds God should be providing for each of us our dream world. The ultimate dream world will only happen in heaven! In the meantime this world is headed for a crash course! God has us temporarily here in this terrible place to be learning how to love Him, His Son, and others, learning obedience by the things we suffer, just as Jesus learned. Hebrews 5:8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;

Everyone must willingly fall on the rock (Jesus) and be broken apart and get humbled and remade and reshaped in life. Actually, just living out life’s circumstances as you wind on down the road will be enough to break you! But all the lessons and suffering will all be for nothing and wasted unless you capture the soul reshaping lessons God has in it for you.

4. Consider this, due to our mental blocks, due to our living in our own idea of what the world should be like influenced by media and culture, and due to our resisting of God’s breakings, many of us may actually be living in a bubble or in an artificial world. Ask yourself, am I honestly being sensitive and open to God letting His mysterious plans work in me? Have you signed a blank page for Him to fill in?

Here are 3 quick case studies of God’s servants in the Bible. These are 3 people of God that suffered tremendously and it cost them but they surrendered to accepting God’s will. These great men of God had to give up different things such as their position, wealth, health, freedom, and loved ones. They were glorious and superior to other men for a season but then they suffered some severe losses. The life of Jesus is paralleled in these lessons as well. He was glorious healing the sick and raising the dead, but look how He was hated and crucified in the end! How he suffered with only a lasting handful of followers when dying! But all of these and millions live eternally in glory because of Him being faithful!

5. What does everyone know about the Book of Job? That Job had incredible riches but lost them all suddenly, that the devil wanted to tempt Him to curse God and die, but in the end due to his faithfulness God, he got returned to Him double of what he lost! Not everyone in this life gets back the things they lose!

This is a great story with a great lesson on faithfulness but remember Job did not know how it was going to end: to him in the middle of the trial it was the very end! Job lived in his own perfect world where he loved God and God loved him back, and God permitted him to be superior to others. Everyone knew God favored him because he had great riches, and a big family and a perfect world!

Many people live in this type of modern illusive world where they think nothing will ever go wrong but when it does, what a faith crisis and dilemma it is! It can cause a complete nervous breakdown! Isn’t God supposed to provide and protect? He always does, God wins in the end but only if we are willing to give up our idea of what He should be doing and submit to learn humility and love.

6. Job’s friends could not console him in his extreme pain! He had boils all over his body, thieves had stolen all of his thousands of camels and animals, and the worst of it was it seemed God had abandoned him! He had done no sin, but he was put to the test. What poverty and horrible circumstances! His pain was unbearable!

Listen to this cruel statement, Job 2:9 Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” When your or my world is coming apart what happens? Instead of getting support from those closest to us, we quite often get criticism and cruelty, and as the saying goes ‘people make firewood from the fallen tree’. Jesus had compassion on the broken ones, we should too!

Isn’t that what happened to Jesus? How can you or I expect any better in our life? Prepare yourself, life is long and you and I have no clue of what sickness, or loss of home, freedom, and wealth is to come. Just praise God to know that like Job that if you are faithful you will be blessed in heaven and maybe on earth as well: Blessings will happen beyond your own imagination and dreams one day!

7. Now take into account a man that was so close to God he called fire down from heaven on Mt. Carmel! Elijah was not only a righteous man but he must have been quite strong as well because he killed 450 evil Baal worshippers in one day! The evil Baal worshippers sacrificed to false gods and Elijah wanted justice.  

I Kings 18:22 Then Elijah said to the people, “I alone am left a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. 1 Kings 18:40 And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal! Do not let one of them escape!” So they seized them; and Elijah brought them down to the Brook Kishon and executed them there. Never forget despite its unpopularity, we play a role in stopping evil!

After this great moment he had to escape evil queen Jezebel’s command to kill him!  I Kings 19:4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, “It is enough! Now, Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!”

8.  God provided for him food by the ravens bringing it to him daily by the stream where he lived alone in the woods. In Elijah’s mind he was supposed to be the great new leader of Israel. He just proved how God is victorious so how did his world fall apart so quickly? Once again we see that God’s plans do not always happen within our ideas of expectations. God deals with all things His way.

Reflect on what we just read here in I Kings 19:4, a prophet of God is asking God to let him die! Have you ever felt that way that you want to just die?! I know I have about a half dozen times! I have prayed like Elijah on a few occasions when I have felt like life is enough already. I have complained, “Lord, these people in this place where you have me now are horrible and do not genuinely convert, they are two-faced, I have wasted my life, time, love and effort on so many unthankful abusers, I don’t want to live and keep on doing this anymore!”

But in the end God wins me back to the right compassionate attitude! Everything is a process and conquering evil takes much time so each of us must be patient when God has us in a time out. Jezebel was killed not long afterwards and Elijah lived to do more miracles! Encouragement comes, we have to pray and just wait!

9. Now the last person we will look at who reached the bottom and was disillusioned with reality and what should have been while rotting away in a shattered world was John the Baptist. He was truly brave and countered the corrupt system, even telling Herod it was unlawful for him to have his brother’s wife. In a time when the Romans would kill you for anything, he certainly had audacity to start up what would be considered a “holiness sect” today. He had a few faithful friends and followers in the desert who preached with him about repentance and holy living (as we Salvationists preach) and they water baptized as an expression of a desire to live for God with a clean spirit. Remember John made it known that Jesus would baptize His followers with ‘spirit and fire’!

He was God’s man for that hour but his mission was short lived. Jesus even said that he was one of the greatest! Matthew 11:11 “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

But when John was in prison he was not living in the world he thought he should be living in! He asked himself, “Was Jesus real, was it all in vain?” Matt 11: 2 And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples. 3 and said to Him, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” What an absurd question! John saw the heavens open and the Holy Ghost spoke, Matthew 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

John was human and became confused and discouraged in the loneliness and isolation. It can happen to anyone of us! John had no clue he was going to lose his head over an exotic dance as a revenge on him from Herod’s wife. An early promotion to glory in heaven was what God knew was best for him! We must all be willing to accept God’s will, and actually we must accept God’s will as in Romans 14:8 For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

10. I get encouraged when I read these types of stories of the lives of the people of God! No person of faith has ever had life easy, and if your life is easy, and you are not suffering persecution for Christ’s sake as most have, just accept it as a blessing because may happen one day! John Westley, the first Methodist who preached over 40,000 sermons in his lifetime came to the U. S. in Georgia for a time, but he failed to convert anyone after a few thousand sermons in America and be able to start a mission! How discouraging after being so successful in England! Only after his death did his Methodists churches really take root in Georgia and everywhere else in the USA. I am sure he dreamed to see America convert to Christ, but he suffered sadly to not see his dreams come true! I can relate to his suffering as a disillusioned dreamer who has frustratingly not seen enough people in the world follow Jesus and obey His mission of love & salvation!

The reality is the world will never be as you and I want it to be! All of us are subject to the will of God and often the evil ones in this world changes everyone’s plans! Having reviewed all this, don’t you agree that none of us should create in our minds dreams or plans for a perfect world, of a perfect Corps or church, of perfect leaders, or of a world getting better in general as it may not happen?

It is better to just not dream for anything! God will give you more than what you could ever dream of in heaven! Another reality on earth is that not all is suffering; there are happy fulfilling times as well! Many of them!

How much obedience do you and I have, how much of our dreams are the dreams of the Lord? Are you letting God break you open so you are useful? The dreams in your mind for the future need to be laid on the altar of sacrifice! Are you willing to give up your world in God’s hands today? Every person of God, even Jesus, had to give up all, and now He and mega millions live in eternal glory! Come, forget the past and don’t worry about the future, confess your weaknesses, fears, and dreams, let God’s will be done in you!

The Flesh in Conflict with The Spirit

The Flesh in Conflict with The Spirit                   11-9-14         Kelly Durant

Romans 8:5-10 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. 10 And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

2. There are some new high tech toy devices out that can monitor your heartbeat, body activity and temperature all day long. That would be a cool Christmas gift, right?  They seem good for those that need to monitor their health, especially for those that have issues. I was thinking about this, brainwaves have already been read and images printed of thoughts so how amazing it would be in the future if there was a monitor that could take a record of when a person was thinking thoughts of the flesh, or thoughts of the spirit. What would your monitor read throughout the day? What do you think, do, and say all day long that you may not be aware of? Are you more “in the flesh” or “in the spirit”?

We must dig deeper as to what it means to live carnally minded or spiritually minded. To be spiritually minded means to have peace and be full of love with no appetites to sin just because God’s spirit is with you! (Romans 8:10). It means you will not be living with conflict in your head over your personal desires or issues with other people, but rather you live in the spirit praying over everything having the assurance God is in control handling everything! You feel good, you love everyone, and God’s love flows through you like a fountain. But people that are not fountains are drains! People in the flesh are like a dark energy sucking the joy, spirit, and life out of you just by their actions, words, and intentions.

The people that live only for the flesh, or in the flesh, live restless and without peace.  They are as the living dead even though they are still in their body and they are tortured with pride, appearances, lust, envy, addictions, frustrations and anger. Let’s examine further what is in the mind of a carnal person and then contrast that to the life of a spiritual person.

3. Sometimes we forget how mentally tortured others can be! Can you feel or read people’s thoughts, and pick up on subliminal body language which reveals attitudes? Does this awareness of people seem evident to you? What I will mention here doesn’t happen so often in our Corps, as not so many new unconverted people come in to visit, but typically there is a reaction from a carnal person when visiting a church that I, and any observer, can observe.

When the carnally minded man steps into the church he automatically gets uncomfortable and on the defensive because he notices that he is not glowing with happiness from the Holy Spirit as the other people.  His carnal mind is in the dark to notice that it is a wonderful day and that it is a great to be with others who praise the Lord; that it is a special time to give and receive love exchanging words of encouragement with others, thanking God to be alive worshiping Him in appreciation. Instead in his mind is full of frustrations, self-centered emotions and animosities due to his carnal-ness, which is programmed to function only around his pride, jealousy, anger, and envy. He/she is basically like an animal or beast that only seeks to gain something. He/she is unaware how oblivious his/her emotions and intentions are to discerning Spirit filled Christians around him/her.

His suspicious eyes scan over the Christian people and when he sees a brother whom he perceives by appearances imagines that he has a good situation, a better house, or car than his, he already just doesn’t like that brother or sister and may even say that he just doesn’t like them. He may look at the women and get frustrated thinking none of them are the kind he likes since he likes to party but they all appear too spiritual and holy for him.  He isn’t touched by the music or preaching either because that is just taking up his time interfering with him being able to mingle and talk to others about the business deals he would like to do with the people.  Do you get the picture of what is in the head of those with carnal mindsets? I know I and most of us often forget that not everyone has good intentions. Christians can often be naïve forgetting how others in the flesh are.

4. It really is a case study to observe the unsaved carnally minded person surrounded by holy loving Christians! You subliminally perceive the confusion on their face as they try to rationally comprehend how a Christian could come week after week to church just for God and not for a personal gain; not for something monetary for himself. What is his conclusion? That the church people are really crazy, ignorant, and manipulated fools! The carnal mind finds no explanation for those who find pleasure in just simple worship of God, Bible study, and fellowship with one another!

For the spiritual person, fellowship, prayer, Bible study, worship, and a Biblical message recharges their spirit battery and energizes their faith! They get empowered and full of the spirit! But for the carnal person visiting these spiritual things just burns their fuses in their carnal minds and perplexes their spirit! They are in shock at what they observe, and they fear getting asked to participate in something since they don’t understand how it works or how to control it. Only those living in God’s spirit get energized by the things of God and only by becoming loving in living in His spirit will one ever have peace and please Him!

As mentioned in verse 6; the unconverted unspiritual carnally minded people are living in death and to them feeling dead is normal! The outlandish unsaved carnally minded crowd have always been very public making a ruckus to try to awaken a feeling of some kind in their bodies with the hope they could get rid of that empty and dead feeling with stimulations. Many articles have labeled the music industry and Hollywood as “cultures of death” since drugs, alcohol, suicide, and early deaths seem to be the norm.  How sad it is to note that people are preprogramed for self-destruction and death without God in their lives! Without God we are dead spiritually and this invokes a premature physical death!

5. Every generation seems to have a portion of rebellious youth that have always craved excitement, and had an appetite for death and destruction! This excessiveness may even be from being possessed by a demon or from the influence of demons and from bad friends, or the media.  It reminds me of these verses where a youth had a demon and his parents felt helpless. Mark 9:21-23 And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child. 22 And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us. 23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Jesus freed him from the demons! Today suicide tendencies are on the rise and this is from people wanting their dead feeling to stop and they wish to feel something, even if it is pain! Only Jesus can stop self-destruction!

We know zombies have been popular in the media. They are meaningless ugly fictional carnivores, mass invasions of the dead, and what a waste of time! Well even from the trash of Hollywood a few good things can be found, this actually portrays an excellent analogy to the condition of people in the world today, insatiable, destructive, carnal, and worthy of being terminated! But despite how horrific people are, God still gives them a chance to have a new spirit! So if Jesus had the patience to be crucified in order to save ‘whosoever’, how much more we all need patience with those who have not come to live in God’s spirit!

There is a mass crowd of humanity that all they want to do is consume and feed their passions and lusts, never getting satisfied, and never feeling remorse for all the people they harm never caring about their destructiveness. They are dead in the spirit and the fruit of all of what they do is destructive. They live at war with those that are living in the spirit. Those of us who know God and are spiritual try to warn them, stop them, and save them at all cost, but they must choose it.

6. After having to face the reality that we live in a society surrounded by a vast majority that are carnally minded, how should we respond? Change begins with you, you can choose to include Jesus in every thought, in every action, and in everything living in the Spirit! Verse 10 makes it clear, “And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness”.

So how do you know if you have God’s spirit in you? After receiving Jesus I know most of you pray and have asked the Holy Spirit to be in you but you must repeat that prayer often, maybe daily! We need renewing! Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (washing and renewing means repeating the process) You and I have to get renewed minute by minute and we have to practice seeing through the eyes of holiness. If we could just learn to practice 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing”, we would have Jesus spirit guiding us in all matters to respond correctly to all situations.

7. At any moment the enemy can temp anyone of us with some random divisive accusatory thought.  For example, you may see your brother or sister in church and the enemy may lie to you, ‘Oh, they act like a saint in church, but I bet they are a devil in their home’! So remember the verse in James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. This formula really does work, just resist the temptation to dwell on things you perceive to be negative taking you to a dead end since the things of death are depressing.

If the devil can’t get you to get dirty fighting with the world’s carnal people because you are too busy loving and helping them, then he tempts you to fight with the saints! The flesh and the Spirit are at war all day long!

Don’t you want to see everyone in the world saved by Jesus, blessed and happy? Only you can make the connection with God and have a new glorious fulfilled lifestyle living in the Spirit. You and I can reach this holiness purity by living in the Spirit of God, in wholesomeness and love, working at it daily, dying daily to our sinful nature, filling our hearts and minds with God’s word!

8. Ever since I have tried this life in the spirit, I can personally testify it is the best way to live! I would not trade this life of being blessed with love and peace, life and hope, of being dead to the rule of sin for nothing! Sure, the devil tries to trick me as he does you at times to imagine that sin is delicious, but since I (and you) already have had a taste of that before we know it is not true, and we reject it!

Jesus transforming spirit transformed our lives, we already have learned that sin and carnality is a mental torture and a life of death! A life of death means you feel guilty and ashamed, even suicidal, always fearing the future judgment and condemnation of deserved reattribution for your wrong! So let the light in and the darkness will flee! We please God by cultivating our spirit with His and escape death. Life and death cannot occupy the same time and space! Seek the Spirit of God and unexplained emotions will confirm in your spirit that with Jesus all things will conduct you into His life of love and righteousness! Rom 8: 10 ‘And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.’ This is life!

Be Sad, Mad, then Glad!

How to Worship Our Emotional God!

Be Sad, Mad, then Glad! Worship God!  Kelly Durant 

We just got to visit out daughter and one thing very funny about her I that remember is that when she was little she was very emotional! Maybe something happened and she would cry big tears but then if I did few faces or something I could get her to laugh and she would go from crying to an instant laugh and it was so funny!

How many of you often get sad? If we are made in the image of God then all the emotions we feel, He feels, right! But what makes you sad?

Do you get sad about it when you discover there is abuse happening and you see others suffering? On our trip we saw a documentary on the abuse done o monkeys for experiments and it affected Regina, I think any type of abuse, to animals or people affects us in a bad way!

Maybe in the day, during the week you get sad about things that you suffer in your home with misunderstandings between you and your mate or family. Or we get sad by injustices at our jobs too, right?  In Atlanta before we would be sad when we would know of someone getting deported and their family was split up and their children would be without a father.

Deportation is the law for non-documented, I am not refuting what the law does, we obey the laws but the consequences in real life do provoke women and children to suffer! Our founder William Booth said, that while women and children weep as they do, he will fight!

There are so many things that will make us sad in this world because we live in a fallen world full of injustices and sin! But God wants these moments to be times in which we seek him. God wants us to share our sadness with Him.

He wants to be our comforter!

There is a type of sadness that can clean us inside too, a sadness that we discover exists because we are offending God and others by our ways.

James 4:6-11

8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

God is telling us in James that he wants to see us humble, he wants to see us sad and weep, or at least give a place for it.  He does not want us to be always happy, there is time to be sad, and later there is a time to be glad.

Remember, the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept.” Why did he weep? He was sad because the people did not love nor seek God! He was sad because he knew of the judgment that would come over Jerusalem because of their lack of worship and recognition of God!

How do we worship an emotional God? We share in his sadness. This is the first step in getting close to God, the first requirement to worship Him is to have a humble, contrite (or sad) or broken heart.

Let’s turn to the sermon on the Mount and see what Jesus says.

Matt 5:4

4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

God is there to comfort us when we weep, wither over the problems of others, or over our own problems.

Sometimes God wants us to cry not over what sadness we feel but over the sadness He feels for us because we are often so proud and not clean in His presence, we have hearts that need cleaning because we are not in love with Him wanting to be with Him in prayer and  word  everyday!

Today we are studying how our emotional God wants us to worship Him, or Be in His presence. We can discover that the first step God requires sadness, a weeping but then He will give us comfort and joy!

He needs us to have the right attitude of soberness to see our own sin and feel sadness that we are hurting Him by having that sin. So the first step is we must mourn over our sin.

Neh 8:9

9 And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.

In this verse the people of Israel had lived in sin and they, like you or most of the people around you, had not heard the law or Word of the Lord for all their lives and when they heard it they started to weep. That was a good result, because their weeping showed they were sorry for their sins, that they were convicted they needed to be closer to God.

 Let’s look up    Isa 61:1-3

61:1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

These are the very first words Jesus taught in the temple when we began His ministry.  Isaiah 61. The concept is that every person is just like Israel that sinned. We mourn and we are broken over our sins but the Lord will give us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; so He will be glorified.

The Lord is Good and He does not want us to always be sad, but it is a something He requires in order to get out spirits right.         Eccl 3:4

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance

After we are sad we should become mad, angry at our selves and angry against the sin in the world so there is conviction to change. The Holy Spirit in our lives brings this change and that comes by a humbling and asking.

We should be angry enough to change our lives, that is the 2^nd step in worshipping God.

It is like a man that goes out every weekend to spend his money gambling and drinking, and finally when he wakes up and sees that he works all week sweating and working hard just to spend his hard earned money in just a few hours, he gets mad at himself enough times that he finally stops being a fool.

 Ps 7:11

11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

If you are like God you will be angry too and angry at the sin you have in your life.

But do not confuse the anger of God, the anger that means we take the conviction to hate the evil enough to change. Recall..

James 1:19-20

19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

And 3^rd and finally, we should be joyous in the presence of God! When Jesus left theis earth into heaven, he left everyone great joy!

 Luke 24:51-53

51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy:

53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen

The final result is that God wants us to have great joy in our lives!

John 16:20

20 Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

John 15:11

11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

 In Acts, despite their problems and persecutions they were filled with joy! Acts 13:52

52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.

Do you want joy in your life? It doesn’t come from parties and money. It only comes from the Lord! The fruits of the Holy Spirit in us are love, joy, peace and others, but the people that are joyous are the pones that are full of our Lord!

I want you to have joy today! Maybe you do not have joy because you have not been through the process. The process is to repent, and to be sad over the sin in the world and in your life, then to be mad or convicted so that your will lines up with God’s will, and when that happens from your obedience you will have joy like you have never felt ever before!

Come feel the joy the Lord has for you today. In the faces of many people I can tell you have lived without the joy of the Lord for a long time.  In Neh 8:10 we find;

for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength. Come and have strength and joy!