THE PRODUCTION CENTER –
II
Betty Hadden,
Oregon
Greetings in the Name of
Jesus Christ our Lord! My heart
is so stirred as I set out to share more with you, my precious readers.
This year has not been
without more warfare as we apply His wonderful Word and stand determined to
receive every iota of what He has promised us!
The Lord has not been silent or inactive as He continues to break forth
before us with His Word and by His awesome Spirit showing us the way to
victory!
More than ever before,
I am sure that the truths I’ve been sharing with you in these teachings are
aggravating the devil like never before!
Yippee! Because the more you
digest His wonderful truths about who
you are and how the Word of God will work in yours lives, you become a greater
threat to your adversary, the devil, and you are learning how to put him where
he belongs! Under your feet!
Be well balanced (temperate,
sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious
at all times; for that
enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion
roaring [ in fierce
hunger], seeking someone to seize upon and
devour. (Amp.)
(emphasis mine)
You know, I wasn’t
going to go to the trouble of copying that verse, but decided it was very
important for you to know that you know that you know that you do have
an adversary, and he is the devil. And
that you don’t let that knowledge make you afraid because Jesus has defeated
him already for you at Calvary.
The enemy tries to
disguise himself by getting people to “blame God” for all the bad things in the
world. He has impressed man to question
the goodness of God and therefore cause him to separate himself from man’s only
“answer to” and “only authority over” the wiles of the evil one! God is NEVER the problem! He is ALWAYS the answer!
Yes, God has given us
authority over the devil and his schemes and devices that he uses to steal,
kill, and destroy in or through our lives!
These truths, “if” you apply them to your lives, WILL make you free!
PART 2
Psa. 1:1-3
BLESSED (HAPPY, fortunate,
prosperous, and enviable) is the man
who walks and lives
not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their advice,
their plans and purposes],
nor stands [submissive and inactive] in the path
where sinners walk, nor
sits down [to relax and rest] where the scornful
[and the mockers] gather.
Ps 1:2 But his delight and desire
are in the law of the Lord, and on His
law (the precepts, the
instructions, the teachings of God) he habitually
meditates (ponders and
studies) by day and by night.
Ps 1:3 And he shall be like a tree
firmly planted [and tended] by the
streams of water, ready to
bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also
shall not fade or wither;
and everything he does shall prosper [and come
to maturity].
God likens us to
trees, doesn’t He? He gives us a deeper
understanding of spiritual things by using examples of things we already know
something about in the natural.
Throughout the
Scriptures, the Lord uses things we can readily identify with to give us
understanding about spiritual things. In
this case, trees bear fruit and He compares us with trees that bear fruit. These Scriptures describe the person who puts
obedience to God first in his life as his highest priority.
These verses also
describe the person that chooses to fellowship only with people that follow the
Lord with pure hearts. If you were to
read the verses following those above, you would find that the rewards given
here for doing so are not given to those who do not obey.
When I came to the
Lord, my desire was to win! To be a
success and to receive all these promises manifested in my life. I saw in the Scriptures that God always had a
reward for obedience, but it was only for those who “did” His word, who obeyed
His Word! I also found that even when
I didn’t really “feel” like obeying Him, that when I brought it to Him anyway,
asking Him to please give me a “want-to heart,” He always did!
Jeremiah 17:5-8
5 Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that
trusteth in man, and maketh
flesh his arm, and whose
heart departeth from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see
when good
cometh; but shall inhabit
the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and
not inhabited.
7 Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope
the LORD is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that
spreadeth out her
roots by the river, and
shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be
green; and shall not be
careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from
yielding fruit. (KJV)
It’s been true for all
of us that have trusted in man and tried to make man our strength. We’ve been let down, haven’t we? We’ve depended on others to be strong for us
and give us all the answers we have needed to be happy.
We’ve been deceived
into thinking that others are the answers we need in order to live
successfully. But soon we’ve learned
that people will let us down. We’ve
found out that they too are human just like us.
That only trust in God and His Word will bring us victory.
God says that a person
that relies on the arm of flesh will be cursed!
Not blessed! But whosoever puts
his trust in God will be blessed! Have
you ever noticed that God doesn’t give “suggestions?” But He ALWAYS leaves the choice to us!
It is true that for
awhile, as we’re first growing up in Christ, God does allow us to “lean on”
others who are spiritually more mature.
But just for awhile! God, like
most parents, insists that his babies learn how to “grow up” in the things of
God and not remain babies! Imagine what
it would be like if your two-year old never matured! Wow!
We do that by learning to lean on and trust in Him and on His Word by
cultivating a relationship with Him.
These Scriptures, if
followed, are prescriptions for success!
But one of the things I’ve found is that doing the Word is not something
you do once and then forget about it!
The Word of God has got to become a way of life for you, so that
you can keep your heart pure before Him.
Psa. 92:12-15
12 The [uncompromisingly] righteous shall
flourish like the palm tree [be long-lived, stately, upright, useful, and fruitful];
they shall grow like a cedar
in Lebanon [majestic,
stable, durable, and incorruptible].
13 Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall
flourish in the courts of our
God.
14 [Growing in grace] they shall still bring forth fruit in old
age; they shall be
full of sap [of spiritual
vitality] and [rich in the] verdure [of trust, love, and contentment].
15 [They are living memorials] to show that the Lord is upright and faithful
to His promises; He is my
Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
(Amp. Ver.)
We see then that we will
continue to produce good fruit even in old age!
So there is longevity in being a doer of the Word of God!
But is it enough to just
read the Bible? Is it just enough to
spend time with God in prayer and reading?
To just attend church on Wednesdays and Sundays? No, it isn’t.
It’s true that the Holy Spirit ministers to you while you read His Word,
but it is also necessary that “you” start speaking/sowing His Word into your
heart as well.
Reading His Word will
change the way you think. It will cause
you to see the errors in your old way of thinking as you see the Truth in His
way of thinking.
We find that the Word of
God washes us as we read it, and we also get convicted and instructed by the
Word. One of the awesome things He
taught me through His Word was the power of words, the life or death importance
of what I spoke, and how those words had entered my heart in the past and bore
fruit for death in my life.
Being raised in a family
that had never been taught the truths contained in Scripture, they didn’t know
they were “sowing” curses into my life with their words of condemnation.
Their words of
rejection sowed death into my heart.
Because I didn’t know any better, I just assumed they were right and
agreed with them by continuing to sow curses into my heart with my own mouth,
which produced self-hate, rejection, condemnation, suicidal thoughts, blame,
guilt, depression, anguish of heart, etc., and most of all, fear!
I’d not understood for
many years that those things were the “fruit” of the words that had been sown
in my life growing up. I’d agreed with
them and continued to believe them as the truth and speak them to myself as the
truth.
But Jesus said, “. . .
that He is the way, the truth, and the life. . . “ And Jesus is and was the Word made
flesh. This means that anything anyone
else says or voices an opinion about, if it doesn’t line up with the Truth of
the Word of God, is a lie! We’re no
longer interested in what people think about the Word. If it doesn’t line up with the Word of God,
cast it away!
So many of us have
been brought up to believe lies, and because we have, have brought forth fruit
for death . . . for ourselves as well as for others . . . even for those we
love. Just because we didn’t know the
truth! But now that is changing for us
as we continue to grow into the knowledge of the Truth!
God is showing us through His Word, that we can change the kind
of fruit we have been bearing, by beginning to sow the Word of God, into our
hearts now!
Isa. 55:7-11 This is God’s system:
7 Let the
wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
and let him return to the
Lord, and He will have love, pity, and mercy for
him, and to our God, for
He will multiply to him His abundant pardon.
8 For My thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,
says the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are My ways higher
than your ways and My
thoughts than your thoughts.
10 For as the rain and snow
come down from the heavens, and return
not there again, but water the earth and
make it bring forth and sprout,
that it may give seed to
the sower and bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that
goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return
to Me void [without
producing any effect, useless], but it shall accomplish
that which I please and
purpose, and it shall prosper in the thing for which
I sent it. (Amp. Ver.)
Again, God is giving
us comparisons in the natural to teach us spiritual truths. He’s showing us that just as the rain and
the snow come down from heaven and do these things in the natural, so His Word,
as it goes into our hearts, will do the same thing!
But understand that
this process comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. We can speak the word ourselves, therefore
sowing it into our own hearts. We can
listen to anointed teaching tapes which would also be sowing the truth into our
hearts! But remember, this is a process
and a lifelong one at that! Know that
your ability to believe these truths comes by over-and-over listening to the
Word.
As we apply these
principles in our lives, we need to watch what our mouths say and continue to
say, what our ears listen to and continue to listen to, and what our eyes see
and continue to look at, because continual sowing and watering the wrong or the
right things, will ultimately produce a harvest for us. A harvest of rotten fruit or a harvest of
great fruit. What is your choice? What kind of fruit are you producing out of your
production center?
When I was growing up,
I heard this little rhyme. Maybe you did
too. It went something like this: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but
names will never hurt me”!
As you can see through
the truths I’m sharing with you now, that is a lie from hell! Those are the kinds of untruths the devil has
sowed into this earth, and unless we discover the REAL truths in the Bible, we
will continue to sow and reap death in our lives and into and out of the lives
of those we love!
