ONLY FOR THE HUNGRY
Betty Hadden,
Hello again! I pray that you were enlightened by Part One of the below-entitled
teaching. Now, together we’ll believe that God will continue to open your eyes to
truths you don’t yet know so He may deliver, heal, and make you freer than
you’ve ever been before!
Though not always designated below, in addition to various translations of the
Bible, I also used either the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
(Strong’s) or Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words
(Vine’s) as my references.
CHANGING OUR IMAGE
SO WE CAN EXERCISE OUR
AUTHORITY
PART 2
When we speak something long enough, we will start to believe it even if it is
a lie. I believed a lie growing up and spoke it so long I eventually believed
it and it came to pass. What you believe and meditate on, you will speak, for
out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Your believing and speaking it long enough will eventually bring what you speak
to pass--good or bad--and the words you speak will create that image of you in
your mind, and that’s what you will walk after. Thus, it becomes the truth for
you regardless of whether or not it is "THE Truth." Jesus said, I Am
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And He is and was the Word of God made
flesh who dwelt among us.
Charles Capps told a story in one of his books about a lady with an unexplained
fever. As I remember it, she was running a continual fever and the doctors
could find no reason for it. It finally came out that someone overheard her
saying on a continual basis, "that just burns me up"! Upon
questioning her, it was found it was something she said continually. And so it
did! When told about it, the doctor suggested she stop saying it and the fever
went away!
I’m old enough to remember cartoons which depicted the devil on one shoulder
and an angel on the other. Each one would speak into the person’s ears. This is
oh, so true, except the devil isn’t a cartoon and neither are the angels of
God! They are very real.
And the enemy will speak things into your mind, and if you meditate on these
words long enough, you will start speaking them, and if you speak them long
enough, they will eventually manifest in your life. Did the devil make them
come to pass? No, he got you to use your "power" to bring what he
wanted to come to pass in your life.
MEDITATING
ON THE WORD OF GOD
RENEWS YOUR
MIND
In Joshua 1:8, the Bible tells us to meditate on His word day and night, and
then WE will make our way prosperous and have good success. Meditate, in one of
the translations, is said to mean "chew the cud." It also gives the
meaning to "roll around on the tongue" like hard candy, to mutter and
to speak over and over, louder and louder!
Well, the devil has taken the principles of God designed for good and has
turned them for evil. And we fell for that because we didn’t know any better!
Jesus said in Mark 11:23 that we could have what we say if we believe it in our
hearts and confess (say) it with our mouths that it will come to pass! When I
believed lies from the enemy and meditated on them, they then started coming
out of my mouth and eventually I did have what I said.
They were lies because they were thoughts contrary to the Word of God which is
"THE" Truth. They were lies from the pit of hell, but I believed
them, and out of the abundance of my heart, my mouth spoke, and I had what I
had believed as truth and consistently spoke.
That’s why it’s so important to plant God’s word in your heart, meditate on it
day and night, speaking it out loud, and according to the word of God, you will
have what you say!
Jesus said the works He did we would do also and greater. The Bible says:
1 John
3:8
[But] he who commits sin [who practices
evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the
devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the
Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and
dissolve) the works the devil [has done].
What are
the works of the devil?
Acts
How God anointed and consecrated Jesus of Nazareth with the [Holy] Spirit and
with strength and ability and power; how He went about doing good
and, in particular, curing all who were harassed and oppressed by [the power of] the devil, for God was with Him.
So we could
then say that to be harassed and oppressed is the work of the devil. Since it
says here "cure," we could also determine that sickness and disease
can also be the harassing and oppressing of the devil!
FOUNDATIONAL
TRUTHS TO CHANGE YOUR IMAGE OF YOU!
Luke
4:18-19
Lk
4:18 The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because
He has anointed Me [the Anointed One, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the
Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are
oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity],
Lk
Those scriptures are some that reveal to us what the works of the enemy are.
Jesus tells us why the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him. Acts 1:8 tells us
that the same Holy Spirit has come upon us so that we too have received power.
Acts 1:8
But you shall receive power (ability,
efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be
My witnesses in
1John
But as for you, the anointing (the sacred
appointment, the unction) which you received from Him abides [ permanently] in
you; [so] then you have no need that anyone should instruct you. But just as
His anointing teaches you concerning everything and is true and is no
falsehood, so you must abide in (live in, never depart from) Him [being rooted
in Him, knit to Him], just as [His anointing] has taught you [to do].
Now we know
that the Lord would not have set teachers in the Body of Christ if we didn’t
need to be taught! But among other things, we have the anointing in us to
discern whether or not a teaching is of God or not! The anointing teaches us!
In Psalms, we are told the anointing oil, symbolic of the Holy Spirit, is
poured on the head of the High Priest and runs down the whole body. Hebrews
tells us Jesus is "our" High Priest. Ephesians tells us we are the
Body of Christ (Body of the Anointed One). Jesus said the works He did, we
would do also, and greater!
Psalms
133:2
It is like the precious ointment poured on
the head, that ran down on the beard, even the beard of Aaron [the first high
priest], that came down upon the collar and
skirts of his garments [consecrating the whole body].
Do you realize that Jesus left all His "God powers" to become a human
being? He walked on earth as a man empowered by the same Holy Spirit that is in
and upon us? He didn’t begin His ministry until after He was baptized with the
Holy Spirit.
If Jesus walked as God on earth, then why would he say "the Spirit of the
Lord is upon me because He has anointed me. . .?" Why would God have to be
anointed or empowered if He was walking as God on earth? No, He referred to
Himself many, many times as the Son of Man. And we are too!
THE HOLY OF
HOLIES IS IN YOU IF YOU ARE BORN AGAIN!
As a new Christian I would read about the various cleansings and blood sacrifices
that had to be performed before the High Priest could go into the Holy of
Holies, and then that was only once a year. A rope would be tied to his ankle
so he could be pulled out of there in case he’d missed it somewhere. If he had,
he would have been struck down by the holiness of God in that place. The Lord
many times had me meditating on the fact that the very Holy Spirit that was in
the Holy of Holies before the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
now lives inside me and you!
So meditate on the power of the blood that was shed for you that God Himself
could actually come now and make His home in your heart! You’re washed! You’re
cleansed! You’re also made holy by that blood that was shed for you!
We must start to rightly discern what is of the devil and what is of God. For
John
James 4:7 says to submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee
from you. To submit to God means to submit to His Word and to submit to His
authority. As we choose to see ourselves the way that God sees us,
the way the Bible tells us is the REAL truth, then we will submit to His Word,
which means to believe it enough to declare it as the truth and NOT what
we feel or think or have an opinion about!
We must make the Word of
God FIRST PLACE and FINAL AUTHORITY in our lives! If it doesn’t line up with
what the Word of God says, then it’s a lie regardless of ANYTHING ELSE!
It may be "a" truth, but not "the" truth! The
truth is ONLY what God says it is and not ours or any other person’s opinion of
the matter.
The spies came back from spying out the land in Numbers 13:33 saying "they
saw giants in the land and they were in their own sight as
grasshoppers and "so we were in their sight." The devil will see you
as you see you. The only way to change your image of you is to accept God’s
image of you. And the only way you can do that is to immerse yourself in His
word until your thinking gets renewed to the truth of the Word!
Romans 12:2 talks about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. In
Strong’s, the word "transformed" is a word that in the Greek is a
word we get metamorphosis from which describes what occurs when a caterpillar
is changed into a butterfly! Renewing our minds, in effect, means taking out
the old thinking and replacing it with the word of God.
HIDDEN
TRUTHS MANY DON’T KNOW
THAT KEEP
THEM IN BONDAGE TO THE ENEMY
From Kenneth Hagin’s book, "Authority of the Believer," he says,
"Originally,
God made the earth and the fullness thereof, giving Adam dominion over all the works
of His hands. In other words, Adam was the god of this world. Adam committed
high treason and sold out to Satan, and Satan, through Adam, became the god of
this world. Adam had the legal right to do so. Satan had the right to rule over
us until we became new creatures and got into the Body of Christ. . ."
Col. 1:13
[The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the
control and the dominion of
darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
We are in this world, but we are not of this world. We are on the earth but no
longer subject to the god of this world. Satan no longer has a right to
rule over or dominate us.
Another translation says "we’ve been translated out of the power of darkness."
That word "power" there in the Greek means authority. He has
delivered us from the authority of darkness. When we were in the devil’s
kingdom of darkness, then we were subject to his authority but no longer!
Now, because of the triumph of Jesus over satan, we have the right to exercise
authority over him and his kingdom in the Name of Jesus! Remember that if
we don’t dominate him, he will dominate us.
Satan is an outlaw. Just like in the natural there are those that are
constantly breaking the law, so satan will continue to try to dominate us until
we exercise our authority over him using the Name of Jesus to bring him subject
to that Name.
Matthew
28:18
Jesus approached and, breaking the
silence, said to them, All authority (all power of rule) in heaven and on earth
has been given to Me.
Mark 16:17-18
Mk
Mk
(Teaching will continue in Part 3 next month.)
blessed.hadden7@gmail.com
