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| PART 2 |
| �NOW�, He says, �My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.� What has happened? What has changed? The prayers have changed! Hebrews 11: 6 says, �Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.� In the first chapter of Romans we read of people who exchange the truth of God for a lie, and so are �filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful.� What a list! Paul then goes on to say that although these people are aware of the righteous judgement of God, that those practising these things deserve to die, yet they continue to do them and also approve of others who do the same things! As you move into Romans chapter two the spotlight turns toward the church � �Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things...And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practising such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgement of God?� For years I puzzled over this � does this mean that the church is full of homosexuals and sexually immoral people, etc? And so I sought revelation and wisdom from the Lord. He gave me the answer from the next verse of Romans chapter two � �Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?� What the Lord showed me was that we are inexcusable when we despise the riches of His goodness � when we reject His provision for sin, for sickness, for oppression, etc. That is when we fall into the same category as the homosexuals, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the deceivers, the backbiters, the haters of God. Psalm 14: 1 says, �The fool has said in his heart, �There is no God��. When we start to believe that God is not good all the time � when we exchange the truth of God for a lie, that maybe He hasn�t made provision for all of our needs, when in the midst of a physical attack on our bodies we cry, �There is no healing for me,� what we are really saying is �There is no God who is good all the time!� - we are saying there is no God who heals the sick every time, all the time! If we are in financial straits and we say, �There�s no help for me� what we are really saying is, �There is no God who supplies seed to the sower and bread to the eater, there is no God who has always provided for the righteous and has never left his seed to beg for bread!� |
| Some time ago I met a young man who said that he was involved in a new Bible study outreach called �Beggar�s Bread�. He said, �We are just beggars reaching out to other beggars.� An objection rose up in my spirit and so I said to him, �Excuse me, but that�s not right. If you are born again, then you are not a beggar � you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and Psalm 37 verse 25 says, �I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread.�� Later in the conversation with this young man who was a student and also worked a part time job, he rather excitedly reported that he could probably now qualify for Social Security. Now, praise the Lord for social security for those who would have nothing without it, but it is hardly a goal to be aspired to! And so another objection to this young man�s reasoning arose within my spirit. I said to him, �The reason that you can get excited about social security is because of the way you have been thinking of yourself as a beggar � you need to repent of that mindset and come into your inheritance as a child of God.� The reason I am relating this incident is that this young man left our encounter with the words, �I think we will have to come up with a new name for our Bible study.� What had happened here? There was a turning from �wicked ways� � from a �lie� to the truth of God�s goodness! |
| Jesus said that He was anointed to preach good news to the poor. Does that mean that He came alongside them and said, �Hey guys, look, I�m the Son of God and I�m poor too!� No! Jesus came to the poor and He ministered to them from His money bag, and then He shared with them the good news that they didn't have to be poor anymore. He shared with them that they were on God�s heart, that God loved them, that God had made provision for them. It�s time to repent of our wicked ways � our despising and rejecting of God�s goodness! We need to repent of the fact that too often we are not a demonstration in the earth of the goodness of God - simply because we have exchanged the truth of God and of His goodness for a lie that says God is not good all the time! We are talking about Revival NOW � God is the God of the NOW � He is the great I AM! |
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