How God Creates a Man or Woman He Can Use (Part 6) Vows Made Are Vows Kept

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by eisakouo in How God Creates a Man or Woman He Can Use

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anointing, bush pilot, christianity, Coca Cola bottle, commitment, defilement, God's gifts and calling are irrevocable, God's promises will stand, J I Packer, Kalahari Desert, Luke 1:15-17, nazarite vow, Nazarite vows, promises, road signs, Samson, Samuel, saying yes to the Lord, stumble, the evil thing, The Gods Must Be Crazy, the things you don't know abut, vows

When we say “yes” to the Lord’s calling and command, sometimes the Lord requires we keep a vow or promise. This can be for a short season of time or for the rest of our lives. John the Baptist was required by the Lord to keep a series of vows or promises called a Nazarite Vow. The vows are also mentioned in Numbers 6.

15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. 17 It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Luke 1:15-17

Many have been required to make and keep the Nazarite Vows… even Christians. Only the Lord can call someone to be a Nazarite from birth. This was John the Baptist’s calling. The same was true for Samson and Samuel.

The Lord may ask or require many different things from us in certain seasons of our life. This is especially true in the areas of prayer, study, preaching, teaching, witnessing, etc. The Lord is not trying to be difficult or overbearing. He knows what we all know… defilement is a very important issue for the man and woman God desires to use. While God’s calling is irrevocable, the anointing which empowers that gift/calling is not. When we defile ourselves, we limit God’s work. If we allow sin to go unchecked, it will not only destroy us personally, but will bring harm to the work of the Lord.

Making vows and promises will not prevent any of us from defiling ourselves. Samson is a great example. He loved many women and it became his downfall. Vows, promises, and convictions do help us to maintain focus and be reminded of our committment to God.

There was an old movie called “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” This movie was about as stupid as stupid can get, but it had a point. It was about a bush tribe that lived in the Kalahari Desert. They had no earthly possessions to speak of and had never seen or heard from anyone outside their community. They were happy, content, and self-sufficient. Life rolled on in their little village, just as it had for hundreds of years.

One day a bush plane flew overhead (which they mistook for a god’s tummy rumbling) and the pilot threw an empty Coca Cola bottle out of the aircraft. It landed in the middle of the village.

Immediately, the bush people thought this must be a gift from the gods. They had never seen anything like the bottle. Sure enough, they found good uses for it. They discovered it could make music, it could effectively help them grind grain, and it pulverized pulp. But this new “possession” brought other things too … envy, anger, covetousness, and violence. They learned to hurt each other by using the bottle. They soon named the bottle “The Evil Thing.” The Evil Thing threatened to destroy their whole way of life. The movie ends with the tribal leader going on a journey to the ends of the earth to get rid of the bottle.

Does all this sound crazy? How could something so ambiguous as a coke bottle practically destroy a whole tribe’s existence? Many times it is not the things you know about and are ready to face which cause you to stumble. It is the things you don’t know about which catch you unaware that cause you the most difficulties in life. In fact, some trials and tribulations will never make sense to any of us. Making vows and keeping promises keeps us grounded in our commitments to God. They are constant reminders and never allow us stray too far off God’s path for our life. Can you imagine never cutting your hair or beard your whole life. Each day you wake up and look in mirror and do not recognize yourself. Allow your convictions to be the road signs and guard rails which keep you moving forward on the path of life.
Blessings,
Pastor

Putting Your House In Order

08 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Living In Uncertain Times

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2 Chronicles 32:2-5, bad attitudes, countenance, devil operates like pack of wild dogs, Elbert Hubbard, Emerson quote, Eric Schroder quote, faith lift, garbage from your own mouth, got his house in order, habits, King Hezekiah, not giving the enemy access, patterns of thinking, personal inventory, repairing the broken walls, Samson, scars, the soft areas of our life, using the same old paths, weak areas, what lies behind us, what lies within us, worked hard, wounds or scars

Difficult times and difficult circumstances eventually come to everyone’s life. The important issue is to know the Lord and follow His voice. After this is settled, what should we do next? King Hezekiah took a personal inventory and got his house in order. He blocked off the bad, mended the broken, bolstered the weak. Whatever you wrote down yesterday as the most uncertain issue in your life, apply these three points to it.

Now when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to make war on Jerusalem, 3 he decided with his officers and his warriors to cut off the supply of water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. 4 So many people assembled and stopped up all the springs and the stream which flowed through the region, saying, ‘Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?’ 2 Chronicles 32:2-4

The King was wise. He determined, “I don’t want the enemy to have access to anything which would cause him to linger longer than necessary.” In other words, the King didn’t want his enemies’ life to be easy. He didn’t want the enemy gaining and keeping a foothold in the land.

I am sure you have realized it by now, there are some things in our lives that supply strength to your enemy. The enemy of our soul feeds off our own bad habits, attitudes, and patterns of thinking. These negatives strengthen his resolve to keep fighting. Many people believe the devil can read our minds. Listen, he doesn’t have to do this. All he really has to do is listen to the negative garbage coming from your own lips to know what is going on in your life. Your countenance also speaks volumes about what is going on inside you. Many people think they need a “faith lift.” What they really need is to lift their eyes, ears, and hearts towards heaven and gain strength. If you walk around looking rejected and forlorn all the time, you are going to continue to get beat up by your enemy. The devil operates like a pack of wild dogs. It doesn’t make any difference which dog starts the fight, the dog on the bottom of the pile is the one which gets beat up. He looks for the easiest victim to conquer. I didn’t say it was fair. If you go around looking like you are rejected and defeated… he will oblige you.

You have heard me say Satan doesn’t want to attack you in some new and unproven way. No, he wants to attack you using the same old paths that are proven and well-worn. Expect the enemy to gain strength and encouragement from your previous defeats. He always thinks he can conquer using the same old areas. This is why we must dam the creek beds and streams, so he has no hope.

In addition, the scripture says in verse six, Hezekiah worked hard repairing all the broken sections of the wall. Sometimes mending or repairing what was formerly broken in our life is the most difficult task. These are personal and sensitive areas because battles have been fought in these places. The fact is, these things were once healthy, but now only scars remain. I don’t know what this means for you personally, but I do know this… the passage says they “worked hard” in repairing the breached areas. Hard work is sometimes necessary!

Do you know what is broken or the soft areas of your life? I am not a big believer in spending a lot of time on past issues, but sometimes we need to go back… not to rehash old issues, but to fortify. Broken bones and scars can become the strongest areas of our life.

Verse five says “He built another wall outside that one and reinforced the supporting terraces.”

We know from history that the King didn’t wait until the last-minute to do this work, but had been reinforcing it for years. There are some things in your life that are doing okay right now, but you know if the enemy concentrated on that point, he might be able to break through. Just to make sure, you make the precautionary decision to reinforce those areas of your life. Do you know your weak spots? Everybody has weak spots or vulnerabilities. These areas over a long siege could be trouble. What are you doing to reinforce it?

Ernst Schroder said, “The optimist already sees the scar over the wound; the pessimist still sees the wound underneath the scar.” Which do you see… the wound or the scar? Don’t let your wounds dissuade you from erecting stronger walls.

The Bible says, “Samson loved women.” It was a fact. Guess what Samson kept running into over and over again. Yep…women. Someone said, “Samson was a He-Man with a She-Problem.” He never took any precautions…he didn’t want anything to change. He was a “player”. It ultimately destroyed him. He could have shored up these weak areas anytime he wanted. He didn’t want to do any work in these areas because he wanted to keep falling into this type of sin. Difficult times are on the horizon. The time to get our own house in order is now.

Blessings,

Pastor

Lessons From The Golden Calf

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Our Journey Into The Promised Land

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blessing to curse, confessing our secrets, conform to the world, creat idols after our own desires, Hideyoshi, little imaginationm, Romans 12:2, Samson, sin is easy

After Aaron bowed to peer pressure, he called for all the gold within the camp. The blessing of gold God gave the Israelites as they left Egypt had now become a curse. A raging fire was built and Aaron began to craft the gold to form a calf. He shaped it quickly without much difficulty.

There are many lessons that we can learn from the making of this golden calf. I just want to mention two.

– The Easiness of Sin –

The material was poured into a mold and shaped without any trouble. It required no originality or effort of thought. All that was needed was a faded memory of how the calf looked in Egypt. It came so natural, so easy.

This is the way sin operates in the lives of men. It’s modus operandi is so subtle in its approach and how it just fits men’s appetites.

Do you remember Samson? He was a he-man with a she-problem. Samson convinced himself that it was not really a sin to go down and date the Philistines girls. You know how attractive the girls can be across the border. Maybe he thought he could do some “missionary dating.” Because he failed to deal with his sin issues, it eventually cost him his ministry to his own people. Sin easily led him to Delilah. She led him to confessing his secrets. Once his secrets were known, he lost his sight and was imprisoned in a heathen temple.

Samson didn’t wake up one day thinking, “I want to be a bald, blind slave serving the Philistine gods.” No, it took some time. Eventually sin caused Samson to conform as it does everyone who fails to go to battle against it. This is why Romans 12:2 reminds us:

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”

Sin is easy. You don’t even have to work at becoming a better sinner. All of us are on course for sin to run rampant in our lives unless we make other plans.

No one has ever been to a seminar on:

How to Be a Better Liar
How to Cheat Your Boss or Customers
How to Hold a Grudge
How to Destroy Things with Anger
How to Sin More Effectively
The Benefits of Corruption
The Essence of Immorality

Without attending any of these seminars, most of us know something about how they work. Why? Sin is easy and unless we allow the Lord to conform us into something different, we will be molded into the world’s sinful form.

– Idols Require Little Imagination –

The idol maker infuses as little of himself as possible into the making of the idol. He is not an artist. He is just a mechanic or tool. The goal is to creat something divine, something beyond ourselves. Somewhere the idol maker believes a god is just waiting to be born.

Hideyoshi, a Japanese warlord who ruled over Japan in the late 1500’s, commissioned a colossal statue of Buddha for a shrine in Kyoto. It took 50,000 men five years to build, but the work had scarcely been completed when the earthquake of 1596 brought the roof of the shrine crashing down and wrecked the statue. In a fit of rage Hideyoshi shot an arrow at the fallen statue, and then he shouted, “I put you here at great expense, and you can’t even look after your own temple.”

The idol in our story was made in a day. It required little thought or imagination. The gold was mixed with other alloys, put in a mold and cast. Shazzam! The refugees from Egypt had a new god to serve…one they could now see, believe, approach, and worship.

Their idol became everything they thought God wasn’t. Wow! Most of our idols work this way. Sin causes us to create idols after our own fleshly desires.

Hey, have you failed to place your sin and idols upon the altar of the Lord? Have your unbridled sins become an idol of your own desires? It is time we become honest with ourselves and allow the Lord to identify and cleanse every area of our lives. Are you ready?

Blessings,

Pastor