Part 5: Hearing God Speak

Psalms 19:7‭-‬11 CEB

The point of these verses is this: Because the Scriptures are the Word of God — the communication and revelation of the living God — they have effects on us that are better than the effects of anything else we can read or study or watch or listen to.

God understands you better than anyone else. He knows how people get to be the way they are and how they are affected by their surroundings. God understands society perfectly. God knows all facts about how the world works. God knows the future and how everything will come out in the end. God is wiser than any wise writer. God is more caring than any counselor. God is more creative than any artist. It simply stands to reason that what God says will be more useful to us than what anyone else in the universe has to say. Not to sit at his feet and soak our minds with his wisdom is sheer craziness

May God increase your confidence that the Bible is his very word! And may that persuade you that by meditating on it and following it there is great reward — greater than much fine gold. And may you discover every day the benefits of life and wisdom and joy!

Shalom

MSG BY: John Piper

Part 4: Hearing God Speak

Romans 15:4 NKJV

All of us who have been born again are hungry to be encouraged by the Scriptures. Therefore we are often impatient with the need to be instructed by them. We would often rather have the fruit without laboring in the vineyard.

So the first lesson in this passage is that the Bible is for instruction. Literally: for teaching. We must be willing to learn what the Scriptures teach if we expect to be encouraged by its truth rather than reflections of our own ideas and desires.

When the teaching of the Scriptures is properly understood, it produces steadfastness and encouragement. Steadfastness means endurance. It’s what you have to have to keep on going in a path of obedience when you feel miserable and when you meet all kinds of opposition.

Where does endurance come from? It comes from the Scriptures.

This is exceedingly practical! Again and again the Scriptures gives you God’s perspective on things, and that biblical perspective will make a hard situation endurable. The Scriptures are given to us for our encouragement and our endurance in hard times.

If you want to have staying power, if you want to endure to the end in the path of costly obedience, then turn off the distractions and meditate on the word of God.

Shalom

MSG BY: John Piper

Part 3: Hearing God Speak

Psalms 119:97 NKJV

Never reduce Christianity to a matter of demands and resolutions and willpower. It is a matter of what we love, what we delight in, what tastes good to us.

When Jesus came into the world humanity was split according to what they loved. The light came into the world and men loved darkness rather than light (John 3:19). The righteous and the wicked are separated by what they delight in—the revelation of God or the way of the world.

But someone may ask: How can I come to delight in the Word of God? My answer would be twofold: 1) pray for new taste buds on the tongue of your heart; 2) meditate on the staggering promises of God to his people.

The same psalmist who said How sweet are your words to my taste (Psalm 119:103), said earlier, Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law (Psalm 119:18). He prayed because to have holy taste buds on the tongue of the heart is a gift of God. No man naturally hungers for and delights in Gods wisdom. Ask God to work this miracle in your life.

Shalom

MSG BY: John Piper

Part 2: Hearing God Speak

PSALMS 139:17 AMP

The Holy Spirit is the divine author of all Scripture. If this doctrine is true — and it is — then the implications are so profound and far-reaching that every part of our lives should be affected.

Because Holy Spirit is the author of Scripture, it is true (Psalm 119:142) and altogether reliable (Hebrews 6:18).

It is powerful, working its purpose in our hearts (1 Thessalonians 2:13) and not returning empty to the One who sent it (Isaiah 55:10–11).

It is pure, like silver refined in a furnace seven times (Psalm 12:6).

It is sanctifying (John 17:17).

It gives life (Psalm 119:37, 50, 93, 107; John 6:63; Matthew 4:4).

It makes wise (Psalm 19:7; 119:99–100).

It gives joy (Psalm 19:8; 119:16, 92, 111, 143, 174) and promises great reward (Psalm 19:11).

It gives strength to the weak (Psalm 119:28) and comfort to the distraught (Psalm 119:76) and guidance to the perplexed (Psalm 119:105) and salvation to the lost (Psalm 119:155; 2 Timothy 3:15).

The wisdom of God in Scripture is inexhaustible.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 

If I would count them, they are more than the sand.

Shalom

MSG BY: John Piper

Part 1: Hearing God Speak

2 PETER 1:20‭-‬21 AMP

This passage teaches that when you read Scripture, what you are reading does not merely come from a man but also from God. The Bible is the writing of many different men. But it is also far more than that. Yes, men spoke. They spoke with their own language and style. But Peter mentions two other dimensions of their speaking.

First, they spoke from God. What they have to say is not merely from their own limited perspective. They are not the origin of the truth they speak; they are the channel. The truth is God's truth. Their meaning is God's meaning.

Second, not only is what they spoke from God, but how they spoke it is controlled by the Holy Spirit. Men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God. God did not simply reveal truth to the writers of Scripture and then depart in hopes that they might communicate it accurately. Peter says that in the very communicating of it they were carried by the Holy Spirit. The making of the Bible was not left to merely human skills of communication; the Holy Spirit himself carried the process to completion.

Shalom

MSG BY: John Piper

Part 7: Experiencing God's Victory: Dream Becoming Reality

Nehemiah 4:4‭-‬14 NKJV

Perseverance is an important element of following Jesus. How would you describe what Jesus endured? How does that inspire you on a daily basis? Nehemiah knew morale was declining and fear was increasing among the community. Nehemiah was able to help them refocus on the Lord and His greatness. Take some time today to reconnect with God and put your eyes back on Jesus. When you stare at your problems, they can be magnified and start to consume you. It is an intentional decision to remember the Lord and draw strength and courage from Him. As you abide with Jesus, He will enable you to finish the race and He will bring victory into your season of despair. Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

Shalom

MSG BY: Pastor Jesse

Part 6: Experiencing God's Victory: Dream Becoming Reality

Nehemiah 4:10‭-‬12 NKJV

Who needs your encouragement today? It has been said that we go faster alone but further together. There is strength in unity. Who in your life is reliable in supporting you and most dependable in keeping their word? Love includes sacrifice. True friendships and healthy marriages are built upon a foundation of unselfishness. Nehemiah made sure that in his community everyone was ready to come help each other quickly when danger arose. Speak words of comfort today and reassure your loved ones that you will be there when they need you. How can you create a deeper sense of togetherness and positive compassion where you live, serve, and work?

Shalom

MSG BY: Pastor Jesse

Part 5: Experiencing God's Victory: Dream Becoming Reality

Nehemiah 4:8‭-‬9 NKJV

Nehemiah was very realistic. He knew that a group of people wanted to physically harm him and took precautions. Have you ever faced persecution that included either dangerous people or threats? Many Christians around the world today are being killed, jailed, or beaten for their faith. You will protect whatever is most valuable to you. What are you protecting every day (people, time, resources, habits, pleasures, etc)? Nehemiah prayed and took a practical step of action by posting a guard. Do you need to make any adjustments in your life or form a plan of protection? Having a guard did not mean Nehemiah stopped trusting God, instead He was being faithful to defend what God had entrusted to him. Ultimate protection does come from God, but God often involves us in the solutions. 

Shalom

MSG BY: Pastor Jesse

Part 4: Experiencing God's Victory: Dream Becoming Reality

Nehemiah 4:6 NKJV

 Are you serving God with all of your heart? Victories usually begin with your inner battle. God gives you the ability and strength you need every day, but you decide how you want to respond to His direction. In the Bible, many people were stubborn and worked halfheartedly. The result is that they missed opportunities and fell short of their potential. Nehemiah built unity and set a tone of full commitment to the Lord. A strong work ethic is contagious. If you are leading or parenting, the people following you will imitate your attitude and actions. Are you holding back in any ways from giving the Lord all of your heart? Make a clear decision to honor God, and the progress and success will follow.  

Shalom

MSG BY: Pastor Jesse

Part 3: Experiencing God's Victory: Dream Becoming Reality

Nehemiah 4:4 NKJV

There will be moments along your journey when you feel like there is no hope and the task is impossible. It is so important to choose to pray when you hit the low points in life.

No one can ever take prayer away from you. God is always there, and He listens to your cry. Nehemiah was despised and ridiculed, but that became fuel for his communication with God. Nehemiah knew that he should not take revenge against people who mistreated him, so he entrusted the final results and justice to God. What areas of your life are you struggling with now? Will you take a few moments and pour your heart out to God? The Holy Spirit helps you to pray, even when you do not know what to say. God is powerful in your weakness. 

Shalom

MSG BY: Pastor Jesse

Part 2: Experiencing God's Victory: Dream Becoming Reality

Nehemiah 4:2‭-‬4 CSB

 When you are serving God with all of your heart, you will face many people who oppose you and God's work. Do not be afraid, discouraged, or quit.

Nehemiah was mocked by Tobiah and Sanballat who wanted him to feel defeated. Is anyone hurling insults at you?

It can be brutal when people attack your character, abilities, and efforts. Make sure the people working closely with you are on the same page. Protect unity.

Do not give people's insults too much power. Accusations and trash talk does hurt; but when people throw shade at you, become even more determined to shine the light of Jesus.

Shalom

MSG BY: Pastor Jesse

Part 1: Experiencing God's Victory: Dream Becoming Reality

Nehemiah 4:1 NKJV

God told Nehemiah to restore the city of Jerusalem. Has God given you any assignments recently?

Just because God is directing you to complete a work, it will not necessarily be easy to accomplish.

God wants you to learn how to fully rely on Him. Obstacles do not always mean you have taken a wrong turn.

Nehemiah had to travel, find resources, motivate and inspire people. He had to organize, lead by example, build a wall, pray, and persevere.

What challenges are you facing? How are you overcoming these difficulties? Are you operating in God's power and wisdom?

Shalom

MSG BY: Pastor Jesse

Bread for thought

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

I Corinthians 10:31 NKJV

DAY 5: Seven Ways to Make the Devil Flee

Deuteronomy 28:7‭-‬9 NKJV

God has promised us that He will cause our enemies who rise against us to be defeated before our faces. But we can get in the way of our blessing and leave room for the enemy to stand in our faces rather than fleeing seven ways. With that in mind, here are seven tactics to make the devil flee seven ways.

1. Diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God

2. Repent before you engage in battle

3. Know that God is on your side

4. War from a position of victory

5. Praise your way through

6. Take up your armor

7. Pray always and be watchful

Breaking the power of vicious circles is often a matter of making better choices, but when it’s a demonic cycle you need to identify the imaginations and wrong thought patterns that are allowing wicked spirits to wreak havoc on your life.

Go forth, spiritual warrior, with praise in your heart and prayer on your lips, dressed for battle. The battle belongs to the Lord, and the devil will flee seven ways. He has no choice when you submit yourself to God and resist him. No demon in hell is stronger than a will aligned with the Word of God. God’s grace floods the soul that seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Shalom

MSG BY: Jennifer LeClaire

DAY 4: The Bait of Bitterness

Ephesians 4:26 NKJV,  Ephesians 4:30‭-‬32 NKJV

I was stewing in my own juices. My husband had abandoned me with a two-year-old and tons of debt so he could suddenly start a new life with a woman about half his age in a foreign nation. I was enraged and vengeful. I was bitter—beyond bitter—and it didn’t take the gift of discerning of spirits to see it. I hated him, and I was mad at God.

Bitterness is deadly. Over time, bitterness will defile our spirits and dull our ability to sense the presence of God or hear His voice. If you are mad at God, be honest with Him. Give Him your anger, and He will turn that anger into peace and a greater revelation of His sovereignty if you will let Him.

Lord, I choose to forgive those who hurt me, offended me, abused me, despitefully used me, or wronged me. Help me, Lord, to recognize the enemy’s strategy to trap me in resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness. Help me not to hold people’s sins against them. Teach me to avoid responding with a judgmental heart when I am hurting. Heal my emotions and renew a right spirit within me. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

Shalom

MSG BY: Jennifer LeClaire

   

DAY 3: Fear’s False Feelings

Deuteronomy 28:65‭-‬67 NKJV

Fear started riddling my soul when I was a small child. I vividly recall seeing the spirit of fear in my bedroom most nights and screaming for my mother. My mother came in with a broom and chased it away, thinking it was merely my overactive imagination at work. But it always came back with a vengeance.

As an adult, after I had suffered many traumatic events, fear dominated my life. Fear’s false feelings were no longer just feelings. I had a legion of fear spirits that impacted every area of my life and manifested in diverse ways.

Fear is your nemesis. It is a master weapon in the enemy’s hand that defies God’s promises in your life. Fear comes to stop you from advancing in God. But you can be free from its stronghold in your mind. You can take authority over fear when it tries to rise up against your soul.

Father, in the name of Jesus I come to You repenting of giving in to feelings of fear. I rebuke the spirit of fear that is working to entrap me, steal my faith, rob my peace, and otherwise riddle me with anxiety, in Christ’s name. I choose faith, trust, and love. I fear and trust the Lord only, in the name of the Christ. Amen.

  

MSG BY: Jennifer LeClaire

Shalom

DAY 2: The Spirit of Jezebel

Revelation 2:20‭-‬23 NKJV

The spirit of Jezebel seeks to seduce and often works through teaching and prophecy. This spirit seduces the saints into idolatry and immorality. This spirit may use control and manipulation to do it, but ultimately that’s not the end game. Jezebel’s end game is murder. The wages of sin is death, and Jezebel leads people into sin.

Pastors—or anyone, for that matter—who fall into sexual sin are among Jezebel’s trophies. If you are doing anything at all for God, Jezebel wants to cut off your voice. If Jezebel can’t cut off your voice, it will try to pervert your voice by seducing you to defile yourself by tolerating its activity.

Jezebel is not something you can tear down once and for all, but you can break agreement with it and refuse to tolerate it.

Father, I repent for tolerating Jezebel and ask Your forgiveness, in Jesus’s name. I ask You to heal my heart of any detected or undetected hurts, wounds, offenses, pains, pride, rejection, rebellion, or any other open door that may have let or could let Jezebel into my life.

I break Jezebel’s witchcraft, controlling powers, flatteries, deception, word curses, fearful assaults, false accusations, polluted prophetic utterances, subtle seductions, sorceries, intimidations, and other foul operations, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

MSG BY: Jennifer LeClaire

Shalom

Daily Verse

Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, Titus 3:10

DAY 1: The Battle Against Evil

Ephesians 6:10-15 NKJV

When I got saved, I thought I’d spend my life walking beside still waters and lying down in green pastures. I had no idea embracing Jesus as the captain of my salvation meant I was enlisting as a soldier in the army of God.

I’ve since learned that believers are soldiers and Jesus did not come to bring peace but a sword. I’ve discovered that I’m more than a conqueror in Christ, which also tells me ungodly and unseen forces are trying to conquer me.

Keep this truth in mind: the enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Every demon has the same mission. How they go about it—their strategies and tactics—are different. A spirit of fear attacks your faith, for example, while a spirit of rejection attacks your identity. Satan is strategic. His army is highly organized, and he is sending specific spirits against believers to derail them from their kingdom purpose.

My prayer is that you will gain discernment to identify spirits opposing your life—and the lives of those you love—and develop spiritual skills to battle back. Spiritual bondage can manifest in many ways, but the good news is that victory can be ours. By walking in our God-given authority, we can effectively do battle and win in warfare.

MSG BY: Jeniffer LeClaire

Shalom