God is Love

The Bible tells us that God is love (I John 4:8).  The Bible also tells us that love is of God (I John 4:7).

Christ himself is God (John 1:1).  And to repeat what I wrote earlier, in the gospel John, Philip asks Christ: "Show us the Father."  Christ responded, "Have I been with you for so long and yet you do not know me...  He who has seen me have seen the Father.'  (John 14:9).  Read what Jesus said, how he acted and what He did.  Jesus was not a prophet (a man inside a human body who spoke God's words), but God inhabiting a human body.  (incidentally this is not rocket science; it was a very east fertilization, similar to cloning, of Mary's egg that produced a human body.  Instead of sending a human spirit inside it, He went Himself.)  The personality and character of God can be seen in Jesus.  You can see the nature of God by looking at Christ and by looking at what He did for you on the cross when He died.  He RESCUED YOU.

God came for you.  He came in the only way he could to legally and factually save you by reuniting you with Himself.  He took away you sins, punishment, and the curses and the evil that exists on and in you.  The cross was not a place of defeat; on the contrary, it was a place of victory and compassion.

Focus on and understand the sacrifice, pain and hardship and the mind-boggling, emotional experience it was for Go to do what He did: come for you and me and take what we so richly deserve so He could get us back.  God wanted and wants you with all His heart.

Let me repeat:  God came for you!  He is not mad at you.  He came to take await what is between you and Him.  He came because of love.  He loves you.  He came to save you and to welcome you into His family.

At last comment about God's love:  understanding the immensity of creation - (billions of planets), multiple dimensions, 7 billion people on the planet - it can be hard to think that any person is special or personally loved.  However, in the infinite greatness of God He is able and does LOVE us individually and completely...and He has time for each of us as though we were the only one (see section on God's humor).

Moving On - Further renunciation and release

A part of renunciation and release is to understand how the spirits work and refusing to "follow" them down the path they want you to travel.  Recognize the road at the beginning, confirm the renunciation and release, and don't go with them.  For example, in the case of anger, don't even begin to get angry.  Don't start down that road, catch yourself at the beginning.  If allowed the spirits will take you to murder.

As mentioned int he first part of this book, the spirits want you to "run" with them.  There are all kinds (families) of spirits to "run" with:  proud spirits, violent spirits, perverse spirits, sad spirits, death spirits (a lot of these), sexual spirits, pleasure spirits of all types, lazy spirits, and on and on.  They want to lead you and also get you to frequent or live in geographical areas they control.

An example is  spirit (not Holy Spirit) led desire to drink alcohol. (Drinking wisely itself is not a sin, if you have no addiction and it does not open you to sin).  A susceptible person goes along with the spirit-led thought of drinking.  After the first drink, the person accepts the idea of another couple of drinks.  Not long after, the spirits (from my observation, they usually run in groups) then suggest dancing at a respectable place (so why no go out)...

Some of the dancers are sexy.  The drinker is now susceptible; sexual desires are aroused and he or she orders another drink and asks a sexy person to dance.  Closeness occurs, arousal occurs.  The body needs no help, but the spirits impose thoughts and graphic images into the person's mind.

The next step: The sexy person suggests a hotter bar.  It is  filled with heavier spirits "vibing" each other and its inhabitants.  The behavior and standards manifested are those of the spirits and the people given over to them.  Relaxed, semi-intoxicated, the person is now in the hands of the spirits; they lead the person as far as he or she will go, into new territory of sexual sin, other drugs (aside from alcohol) and increasing debauchery.  Watch out - get free.  Just run - but it may be too late, you may be in their clutches and too far down the lust road stop.

The leading of any spirit works in similar ways.  Again, the general operating rules of the spirit world are the same for all spirits.  The Holy Spirit works similarly, but with saintly destinations.The Holy Spirit led person will got to a worship service, then to meet with some Christians who choose to speak of the things of God.  A company of Christians is encountered.  Ideas flow: giving to missions, helping someone in need etc.  The person and group move closer to God.  The presence of God (versus evil spirits) grows and everyone moves closer to God and engages in further acts that are useful for everyone along the way.

There is no escape from the spirit world and the influence of the supernatural over your life.  There is no safe place.  You can’t opt out; to deny its existence has no effect.   Denying the existence of the spiritual and supernatural, or believing in other things, doesn’t change the reality of the spirit world or diminish its influence over your life.  Your environment is defined by God who made it for your good, and by the consequence of sin that brought corruption. 

The good news is that God has given you, as a believer, authority and power over the spirit world and its powers (ruling spirit beings), that is, over the spiritual and supernatural influences of evil.  Even, without Christ, our human will blocks the entrance of many things into our lives.  But in Jesus Christ we are given far greater authority over what Satan can deliver to us.

Page 17, Defeat Your Saboteurs

Heartbreak/Broken hearts

Heartbreak/ broken hearts

Heartbreak is awful.  It was never part of God's plan.  As I explain, death and all other evil entered because of man's choice to know good evil.  When man chose to know good and evil, the door to the Evil Once opened at humankind's behest.  So in that sense, all heartbreak (a form of evil) comes from the Evil One.  It is part of his evilness and his kingdoms.

That said, not all heartbreak comes directly from the devil's hand.  The death of a loved one, the loss of a relationship with someone you love, sickness, etc, are often the immediate cause of heartbreak without the devil acting in a specific way in the particular event.  But in the cases he has, and i, acting, and your heartbreak is simply the fruition of his hidden, long-term plan for your life.  Regardless of cause, heartbreak is real.  The world is full of broken hearts and heartbreak.  Heaven and our future in God will be utterly free from it.

God was and is aware of heartbreak:  His own for the loss of creation and His loss of so many people to their own way.  He is also aware of our heartbreak.  He feels it.  Jesus came to open the door or relationship with God the Father so He could heal the brokenhearted (Is. 61:1)

Heartbreak is so devastating that people can, and very often do, die of it, rapidly or slowly, sometimes through alcohol or overeating.  During times of heartbreak, God can and does help us.  He lives in our hearts and His Presence can and does heal them.  In the heartbreak process (which I know all too well through the death of my wife in an automobile accident), it is often only (or mostly) God who pulls us through.  Initially, He may act by placing us into a different, best possible available situation to keep us alive;  He may give us work or daily activities to do to be sure we put one foot in front of the other until we realize we'll survive and learn to thrive again; and/or He'll take whatever other steps are necessary to deal with us as individuals.

The key thing is to know is that in our helplessness, He will provide a way forward so that as time passes He can heal us.  Even in heartbreak, however, God expects us to do what we can, as much or as little as that may be.  Action is what God expects/ requires of us.  Applying the principle you find here will expedite your recovery if your heart is broken.  One day a new view of life will be visible, a new plan will seem possible, then a new course, until one day a bit of happiness and joy will return to you.  In the fullness, He will give you the promised abundant life.

Key points about the spirit world.

• The spirit world is not random.

• There are spiritual laws that govern the spirit world in the same way there are natural laws that govern he natural world.

• The spirit world is orderly

• The spirit world is as real as this world ( but not more real)

• It is logical

• As God honors, created and respects natural laws, so He honors created and respects the spiritual laws.

• The laws that govern both worlds work in such a way that there is interchange between the two worlds.

• Adam was able to walk and communicate freely with God, consciously living in both worlds.

• The introduction of sin changed the spirit world and the physical world.

• All human beings are subject to both worlds.

• In Christ Jesus we jump from the regular application of the laws (physical and spiritual) to the rules established by and through what Jesus did.

The Supernatural

The is no escape form the spiritual world and the influence of the supernatural over your life.  There is no safe place.  You can't opt out; to deny its existence has no effect.  Denying the existence of the spiritual and supernatural, or believing in other things, doesn't change the reality of the spirit world or diminish its influence over your life.  Your environment is defined by God, who made it for your good, and but the consequences of sin that brought corruption.

The good news (Gospel) is that God has given you, as a believer, authority and power over the spirit world and its powers (ruling spirit beings); that is, over the spiritual and supernatural influences of evil.  Even without Christ, our human will blocks entrance of many harmful things into our lives,  But in Christ we are given far greater authority over what Satan can deliver to us.

Negative Faith

Negative Faith

Beware of negative faith.  The negative statement of faith that comes from your mouth makes you a prisoner of you own ill-considered words.  Positive confession and the Word of  God in you mouth put you on the right path.  What you say, mixed with your positive faith, puts you on the path to what will become you new reality in Christ.

Regarding negative expressions, the Bible says in Proverbs 6:2, "You are snared by the words of your mouth; you are taken by the words of your mouth."

In the first section of this book we looked at spirit things.  As you recall, there are good an bad spirit things - genuine things made of spirit.  Satan brings you packages of evil things (e.g. illnesses and temptations).  When you state with you mouth that you own them, it's like signing a receipt for a package the devil wants to deliver to you.  Don't do it!  Refuse to take delivery.

But don't give up!

But don't give up!

When  you're weak and beaten down, the battle will manifest in its fullness:  Satan will steal things, bring loss and heartbreak.  You may find yourself in even worse sin.  When it happens, don't pray for death, because during this time you are being allowed by God to witness the manifestation of evil;  don't be discouraged by what you see.  Through your trials, God will help you understand your tormentors (defiled spirits) so you can beat them, so you can humiliate and disgrace them for all to see.  God and you as a team will beat them!  It takes time.  Keep applying the lessons you've found in the book.  Do the best to choose right today and every day.  Take it one day at a time, making right decisions you can make at any moment (even following bad decisions).  When you have victories, share them with others who need to hear them.  God will use you even when you lose individual skirmishes. 

God Cares About Us

God cares about us

In spite of the phenomenal expanse and greatness of creation, God came to this apparently undistinguished planet, one among billions of other planets, became a man, lived as a man to reveal Himself to us and show us that we are not forgotten or unimportant!

Spirit Places

Physical places have a coexisting spirit "place" in the spirit dimension.  The physical environment and furnishings reflect something of the spirit environment and "furnishings".  The focus here is how the environment affects you so you can choose to avoid a sin/evil provoking environment.  There are times (under God's leadership) to enter evil environments with the things and Person of God. 

There is also a spirit "place" where out spirits can go without "out of body" travel or visiting physical lairs.  We can mentally and spiritually hang out with spirits through music, meditation, and sharing thoughts and emotions with them.  Our stay with them will affect out mind, decisions, and heart.  Pornography and its effects are a very good example of this process.

With good reason, the Bible says to bring every thought under control.  Be careful, watch out.

God is a bit wacky.

God is a bit wacky.

Clearly, God is not straight-laced.

Consider: He created the clown fish, giraffe, and the elephant.  In Him, all of creation on Earth would have manifested without sadness, sorrow, death, in joy, peace, and unity.  God's Kingdom is NOT divided or in conflict.  Even in its fallen and decaying state (now degraded to the point of evil), the original wackiness of God can be seen.  I think it best to not costume God in a Sunday dress suit or in bohemian's garb: He is in a class all by Himself in three persons.

GO WITH JESUS

Decide to go with and into Jesus and what He says. 

Take no other exit. 

Fight the good fight so your particular war ends only after the enemy is defeated. 

Keep at it until you win. 

Bottom Line: you can get there from wherever you are, no matter how damaged you are, no matter how impossible it seems in the natural. Review the stories of Abraham and Moses. They started too late and only achieved what God had for them by living the supernatural. 

I’m laying out the principles of your existence and showing you how to manage things so you can live the life that God has for you. 

LIVING IN A REALITY OF CHRIST

Someone I know is fond of saying, “The way you see it – so it must be.” That’s a profound statement. Reality remains subject to each person who interprets it. How you perceive reality will govern you. What is your own point of view?

God wants you to understand what He’s saying so your subjective (understood) view coincides in truth with the natural, spiritual and supernatural reality (life) that God has opened for you to live in. Jesus said, “I am the truth, the way and the life.” When you live what God has for you in the way He makes for you, what you take by faith and your reality (life) become the same. 

You live in the fullness of the life God has given you through and in Jesus.

In Romans 12:2b, Paul lays out the principle when he says, “...be transformed by the renewing of your mind....” We have to understand, think, and ultimately live according to the truth of what God has given us.

Peter, the impulsive (perhaps unstable) fisherman got it. He left his prior understanding (which was reality for him) and the constructs that governed his life and went on to confirm Jesus’ work on the cross and God’s love through signs, wonders and miracles. In his first letter, Peter says in the first chapter, verse thirteen: “Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind....” -- that is, keep your mind strong, prepared and protected.

Grab what God is saying here: you need to protect both your mind and its strength to gain life in God and experience your true God-given reality. This is how we begin to live in the promised supernatural provision and life that God teaches in the Bible.

So the challenge is to understand God, His purpose, and what he has done – and to believe. When you do, your understanding through faith will open a new reality for you – and a corresponding new life!

Before I met Jesus, I didn’t take into account the existence of any God, much less a God Who could know me and who I could know (a real person). Yet that God and the host of evil were already working in my life. And although I was surrounded by a spiritual dimension, I didn’t realize it, nor did I know I was controlled by spirits.

In a very real sense, my life was a play. I lived as directed by evil. I was an actor playing the part that Satan assigned to me. The part I played was not the real life available in and given by God, but a sub-life created in a bubble. I accepted evil’s tale as true life much like Jim Carey in The Truman Show accepted his life. As he was in the movie, I was an actor in a created life which was not the life truly available – it was created by lies and sleight of hand. But like Carey in the movie, the possibility existed to understand and to open the door and see and live the real life available outside the bubble. That is what God offers us in Jesus Christ. 

The only correct understanding I had was that I lived in a human body. I lived a life based upon a complete lack of understanding of my true condition. I was living tragedy and my manifest life was largely fantasy: I became a sexy pirate smuggler to make living in the bubble tolerable.

At the moment I met Jesus, I grasped that everything I had built my life on was false – my conclusions and how I saw everything were based on certain misunderstandings and on an elementary, even primitive, level of knowledge. (Note Isaiah 65:2b.) The moment I encountered Jesus and heard His voice, I knew that my life was all wrong: Shortly after that I learned about evil spirits and how they had controlled me from birth.

The process of my salvation has largely been a process of understanding my environment, the players, and what God has done to take me from where I was to the promised abundant life (still continuing on) and finally into heaven. For me, it was necessary for Him to teach me what I needed to know to navigate in this world and in the spirit world successfully and in truth.

It has been work to leave the theater of my mind and body behind and successfully live the life God wants for me. It has also been the process of learning that God is God – a real God with limitless power who cares for me, and that I am loved, truly loved.

The point is that God has a good and abundant life for us in and through Jesus. 

RENEW YOUR WAY OF THINKING

The Western world has failed to see and understand the spirit dimension.

As a sad result, many walls of protection have collapsed, allowing Satan and his hosts of evil to overwhelm our society like a tsunami. The evil ones hate being exposed, hate when their tactics are revealed, and hate even more that you now know God, how to defend yourself, and that you are on the offensive to get what God has given you. 

If you react negatively to the teachings on this blog and in Defeat Your Saboteurs, please just consider the possibility that the source of your discomfort may be from spirits that fear being disclosed.

The truth is that you’re bombarded by evil beings hell-bent on conforming you to their distorted agendas. Your environment is intense. Our own spirits, souls and bodies are continually subjected to input from the spirit dimension. The input is in the form of thoughts, spirit “pressure” (applied directly to our spirits, souls and bodies) from local spirits, and by pressure exerted by the spirits in the air (the powers and principalities mentioned in Ephesians 6:12). Our minds and spirits are also influenced by the continual ungodly demands of our fallen body.

What we accept, believe, and conclude from our thoughts and experiences form our perception of reality. It is, by definition, a subjective reality, i.e. our individual reality. The entire host of evil is there to mold our subjective reality so we fail to understand Who God is, who we are, what He has for us now and in the future, and how to live it. Satan and his hosts want us to live their reality so they can manifest through us. 

God wants our perception of our situation in Jesus to be true and correct so we can experience and receive Him and what He has for us. 

FAITH IS A FORCE

Faith is a force. 
The Bible says that your faith, even faith the size of an almost invisible mustard seed (Matthew 17:20), is sufficient to move mountains. As we can push and move things in the physical dimension, so faith pushes and moves things in the spirit world (dimension). Great faith operates like a bulldozer or crane does in the physical dimension. If it is big enough, obstacles are removed.

Faith is a conduit. 
Faith is a passageway between the spirit and physical worlds.
The things (and works) of God that exist in the spirit world manifest in the physical by your faith in them. Your faith is the channel that allows spirit things to manifest in your physical world.

Faith also is the interface where God moves on your behalf. 

Faith, authority, and actions. 
You have authority over Satan and his power. Luke 10:17 and 19, respectively, say: “Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name’” and “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Matthew 18:18 says: “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed (let loose) in heaven.” Faith is your enabler; through faith you believe what He says; with it you exercise the authority that God has given you through Christ. Through faith you take actions. By faith you continue doing whatever “it” is until the results manifest, until they become solid and secure for you (i.e. you believe that your existence in God is as He says it is).

BELIEF & FAITH

Belief is to faith like oxygen is to water. 

Oxygen is a part of water, but very different. 

Faith is similar. It has parts which must combine to make it faith rather than mere belief – which is a component part of faith. In my experience, the Word of God only gains control of my mind (consciousness) when my experience in God, His personal word to me, and my (at least) semi-conscious awareness or understanding of something relevant in the spirit world combine to cause faith to trump the natural. Or when the foregoing causes mere belief to become powerful faith; that is, faith in the truth revealed in the Bible. 

Faith is the vehicle through which you know and receive from God after sin separated you from Him. 

Before Adam and Eve fell into sin, they walked with God. Faith wasn’t necessary: they knew God.

Faith is a spirit thing. God is a Spirit, and faith allows us to connect with Him and with the spiritual. God uses faith to open a path between the two worlds (the spiritual dimension and the physical dimension). God designed faith, and He works through faith according to the laws of faith.

Cautionary Note: Faith in the devil, any desire to know him, and false teachings all work similarly. Ungodly faith allows access to evil (through faith you can know the very real devil) and negative faith opens the door to the unwanted (for example: catastrophe). 

THE PROGRESSION OF FAITH

In the things of God, simple faith (willingness to try) is the beginning. Faith is later confirmed through experience, understanding and knowledge.

Often a need, for which there is no solution in the natural, will compel you to look into the faith area. Once motivated, faith is the first “concrete” step that opens up the things of God to you: whether it’s a first step to seek Him or advanced steps to grow in your relationship with Him, mature in your new life with Him, and receive the things He has given you as His child. Your initial step of faith in Christ may be nothing more than openness to investigate or explore the things of God through Jesus.

In my case, motivated by a selfish need, I mentally began to explore the possibility of finding a supernatural or spiritual answer. I listened to Christian radio, through which the reality and person of Jesus was preached. As a result I began to think that Jesus was worth a try. And there were other encouragements, including the conversion of my late wife Maggie a short time before, and her insistence on Jesus. At some point, though, for me this “theoretical Jesus” had to become real. 

Experience had to confirm faith.

As an intellectual, my deep faith was, and is, a process. In the beginning I combined a smattering of faith (about the size of the proverbial mustard seed) with an inquiry. I sought to know if God existed. I encountered Jesus (my spirit to Spirit) in a parking lot in Kona, Hawaii, early one morning. He said to me in a clear voice, “You are saved and I am your friend.” 

After meeting Him I sought understanding. It came through experience (relationship) with Him. Then I sought to understand the things of God and the “why” of those things (knowledge). In the process, the world and my growing understanding of the spirit dimension began to make sense: the things of God became logical. 

This progression — from God-seeking, to faith coupled with understanding — created a certainty that the things of God were real, and created a desire for them to become manifest and to get what God had for me. 

KNOWING HIM & HIS WORD

Believing that God exists and knowing Him are two very different things. Even the devil believes God exists (and trembles as a direct result). Believing in God and believing what He says are also different.

Total faith is being absolutely convinced of something in every part of your being. Faith is strongest and most effective at that level. Some things only happen when one’s faith is total. That said, there are various levels and types of faith.

The essential part of your faith is to know God. Right behind knowing God is believing what He says. The most important part of believing what He says is to believe the Bible which is His account of mankind and Himself. Through divine inspiration, God created it and uses it as a living thing. Its function is to instruct you about God, existence, the things of God, of the world, and of evil. Aside from general instruction, He brings passages alive to speak to you. He brings laser-like focus and meaning to certain parts of the Bible to confer a specific understanding about what He wants you to know or consider. 

CRAZY LOVE

The love of God is aggressive, self sacrificing, merciful, faithful, and caring beyond all measure, reason, and emotion. The love of God is like that of a parent who puts all hurt and disappointment behind him and pursues his child.

God has left no stone unturned in his pursuit of you. He sent Jesus to rescue you. And in the continuous now He never lets go. He is faithful in His efforts to continually draw you to Himself. When you run down the wrong spirit trails, He stays with you to draw you back to Him.

It is crazy love; deeper and better than all joyful or tragic love songs. It is a love from the heart and mind, supported continually by aggressively kind and loving deeds. It is the only true love that exists... and it’s yours! It’s for you. It’s the kind of crazy love every heart desires. And if that’s not enough, He’s also your friend. He unselfishly wants the best for you. He likes you, He jokes with you (you mostly don’t get it), creates weird funny stuff for you (weird “coincidences,” ironic situations, and comic events), and He encourages, empowers and makes you who you were meant to be – who you truly are.

He is always with you, continually trying to help you. When you fail (morally or otherwise) and totally give up on yourself and want to die, He still believes in you and will put you back on the path of life. He is the cheerful, faithful friend who lifts you up. He has your back at all times: crazy love, crazy friendship.

From my point of view, God is crazy to love so much. Somehow He can risk caring so much. He can handle it. I suspect that if you and I ever truly understood the love of God we wouldn’t survive: our physical hearts would fail as a result of the magnificence of His love. Why does He care so much? Why does He care at all?

God accepts us in His love. He’s our Father. In Jesus, he made us His own; He made us part of His family, whether we, or anyone else, recognize it. We bear His name. We are His. He is your parent and He wants to teach, bless, and train you. 

– from Defeat Your Saboteurs

A RULER WHO WANTS TO BEFRIEND YOU

When was the last time the ruler of your country called and asked to be your friend? Probably never, right?

Why would the ruler and creator of everything want to befriend you or me? To allow us to know Him?

I don’t have that answer, but from all I’ve read and from my own experiences, all I know is that this is exactly what He wants to do. I can’t begin to understand what God sees in me that He considers it worth the bother. What can I possibly bring to the table?

My conclusion is that His character is love, fatherhood and relationship. 

He went to the point of moving heaven and earth through His Son’s death to reconnect with you and me, because He places great value on folks like us. 

Can it possibly be that God sees us in our defeats, battles and losses and cheers for us? Not excusing our sin, but seeing the hordes of dark evil spirits working against us and impossible odds of being saved. The Bible says that it is “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” than to be saved.

God, in His love, helps us, the underdogs by choosing us and caring for us.