Sat, 04 May 2024 16:30:27 -0400WeeblyWed, 18 Nov 2015 02:58:44 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/the-great-spiritual-forces-in-the-world-11112015THE GREAT SPIRITUAL FORCES IN THE WORLD

 
The greatest forces in the world are not material but spiritual.
 
The things that dominate men are not riches and wealth, but they are spiritual forces that drive men after these things.
 
 
 
Ø There Are Two Destructive Forces In The World.
 
Ø There Are Two Major Constructive Forces In The World.
 
Ø Two Of These Forces Emanate From God; Two From The Enemy.
 
These great spiritual forces are dominating the human race now.
 
There are three Wills at work in the world…
Ø God's Will
Ø Man's Will
Ø Satan' Will
 
Two forces head up in God
Two head up in Satan.
 
 
Ø The Two Constructive Forces Are Love And Faith.
 
Ø The Two Destructive Forces Are Hate And Unbelief.
 
There never was such a need for clear, intelligent teaching on love and faith as there is today.
 
Men must be taught to believe if they are going to win.
 
Hate and unbelief have caused all the insurrections in morals, in finances, economics, and nations down through the ages.
 
Few people know the destructive power of unbelief or the constructive, creative power of faith.
 
Hate and unbelief come from the same source.
 
Love and faith are of God. God has been the constructive Force in all the ages.
 
Hate and unbelief never produced a great soul, a great nation, or a great enterprise.
 
They destroy every nation where they have gained the ascendancy. They are the enemy of prosperity and peace.
 
Satan is the author of hatred. He operates in the realm of unbelief.
 
He is the author, the source of poverty, sickness, broken homes and hatred that dominate the human race.
 
John 10:10
10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
 
 
It is most important that we recognize the place that Jesus gave to faith in His three years of public ministry.
 
 
Matthew 17:20
 20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
 
 
Mark 10:27
 27 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; 
all things are possible with God."
 
Mark 9:23
"Everything is possible for him who believes."
 
 
 
Faith unites man with Omnipotence (Almighty Power of God). Jesus said: "I am the vine; you are the branches."
 
Jesus was God's faith manifested.
 
 
 
 1 John 4:7-8 
(Is the definition of the source of faith, love.)
 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
 
 
This is the definition of real Christianity, of the New Creation. Everyone that is Born Again is born of the love of God and knows God.
 
He that loves not knows not God.
 
Love gives birth to Faith.
Here is the statement of faith: "For God is love."
 
Christianity is defined as a love life, a life dominated and ruled by love. The kind of love mentioned here is the new kind of love that Jesus brought to the world. There are two kinds of love in the world.
 
The Greek words for them are Phileo and Agapa.
 
Phileo is human love, the best thing that natural man has outside of Christ. Without Christ it is weak and frail and will fail.
 
The other kind of love, Agapa, is the Nature of God manifested in the New Creation.
The new kind of Love that Jesus brought would be the solution of the family problem and of the home problem; it gives real faith in the family. The great fact is that God Himself is Love. This makes Him the real Faith God.
 ]]>Wed, 18 Nov 2015 02:48:19 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/the-lordship-of-jesus-11112015 THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS

 
From E.W. Kenyon:
 
In the early days, when I first saw the teaching of His Lordship, I was a bit fearful of Him. I used to say, "If I should recognize His Lordship over my life, I would fear that He would lead me to do things
 I would not care to do and to go places where I would not care to go."
 
I did not know then that His Lordship was the Lordship of Love.
I did not know that my happiness and my joy depended on His governing my life.
I did not know that independence on my part spelled misery and mistakes.
I did not know that I could do all things in Him.
I did not know that He could make me a master of circumstances.
 
When I saw that truth in Philippians 4:11: "I have learned in whatsoever state I am therein to be independent of circumstances," (20th Century Translation), I did not know what it meant. In a large measure I had interpreted the Word with Sense Knowledge.
Now I stopped interpreting it. I began to practice. I began to do the Word as James tells us.
As I practiced the Word there came an unveiling of the Master such as I had never seen before. His very heart seemed to be uncovered. I came to know Him with a spiritual intimacy that I had never realized possible. It was not until then that I understood the 23rd Psalm: "Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the waters of stillness. He restoreth my soul."
 
I saw that my soul was my reasoning faculty and that He restored it into fellowship with my recreated spirit. I had been drunken with desire for success. I had been drunken with sorrow. I had been drunken with unbelief and fear. Now He restores my soul, my mind, so that it is in perfect fellowship with the Word. My mind agrees to live love.
I had not agreed to love before; I had not realized that the Father was Love, that His will was Love, that His way was the Love way. I had never agreed to this Love program. Now I see it. I understand it. I joyfully agree to it.
 ]]>Fri, 06 Nov 2015 10:44:12 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/developing-the-human-spirit102815DEVELOPING THE HUMAN SPIRIT

 
Gal 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.NIV

Paul is speaking of the fruit of the recreated spirit. 
That is not the fruit of the Holy Spirit. He doesn't bear fruit. We are the fruit-bearing part.
We are the branches of the Vine. The recreated human spirit linked up with Christ, grafted into the vine, is the fruit bearer.
 
If we could learn how to walk in love and make it the business of our lives, 
we would solve many problems of human relationship which we thought were impossible.
 
Jesus lived in love.
He lived in the realm of Love.
He spoke love.
His words were love-filled.
His acts and deeds grew out of love.
He could not help healing the sick.
 
Love drove Him. He could not help feeding the multitudes; Love compelled Him. If we could have our spirits developed in love like that, we could live like the Master.
 
We could maintain a real, a beautiful fellowship with the Father, with the Word, and with one another.
 
We read John 14:16,17, Jesus said He would send the comforter.
 
This Comforter He calls the "Spirit of truth" or "reality." He is to guide us into all truth or reality. He is to take the things of Jesus and of the Father and unveil them to us.
That is what our hearts are craving. He is not going to guide us into Sense Knowledge but into Revelation Knowledge.
 
He is going to take those wonderful truths in the Word of God and make them a reality to us. In order to do this, it will be necessary that we have quiet hours a little while each day set apart for meditation.
 
Under the New Covenant we are to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. 
We are to abide in the Word, and the Word is to abide in us.
 
This will lead us into the prayer life, into prayer conquests.
 
Phil 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.NIV
 
In nothing are we to allow anxiety to govern us, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make our requests known to the Father. Then we are to leave them there; and the Father declares that His peace will come in like a garrison of soldiers into a turbulent country, and quiet us.
 
In the 8th verse He tells us the things that we are to think about. Read it over carefully.
"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
 
We cannot feed on scandal, on nonsense, on stories that are unseemly, and expect to develop in grace.
 
The Spirit will not help us do that. There must be times when we can sit quiet with the Lord and the Word and meditate upon it until the Word absorbs us and we absorb the Word, until the Word is being built into our mental processes as well as into our spirit lives, until it absolutely governs our thinking.
 
Do you see what that implies? The renewing of our minds is absolutely necessary.
 
Rom 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve 
what God's will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will. NIV
 
How is that transformation going to take place? 
By the renewing of our minds. How does that come? By meditation in the Word.
 By practicing the Word, letting the Word rule us.
 
Col 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. NIV
 
Our minds are renewed after the image of Him that created us. That means that the Jesus’ image is going to be reproduced in us until after a while it will be no more we that live, but Christ living in us.
 
Gal. 4:19: "Until Christ be formed in you."  
 
The Word never becomes a part of our lives until we act it. 
It is living this Word, having it live in us in our daily life, that counts.
 
Share your heart life with Him until you exclaim, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me."
 
Share with Him until the Vine Life becomes consciously your life. Eph. 3:19: "And to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God."
 
God's fullness takes us over, dominates us. His fullness of Love, His fullness of Grace, His fullness of Wisdom,
 
Healing and Ability have displaced all the weaknesses and failures that exist in our lives.
 
Jesus has come on the scene to take over the business.
 
He does it according to the ability-His Ability-that is at work within us. We must learn to become God-inside minded, to cultivate a consciousness of His indwelling presence-the presence of the Living One in us.
 
1 John 4:4: "You are of God, my little children."
 
That is our source. That is our genealogy. That is our comfort and faith builder.
 
Israel had long pages of genealogy dating back to Abraham, but our chronology is brief: "We are of God." 
"Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world."
 
The God inside is greater than any difficulty or problem outside. We have been fortified within.
 
Here is the source of real strength. It can become a reality to us if we meditate upon it.
 
 "All things are possible to him that believes" becomes a thrilling reality.]]>Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:17:15 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/the-value-of-right-meditation-10282015
The Value of Right Meditation

 
One way to develop spiritual wisdom and understanding of
 The Word is through meditation of the Word.
 
God told Joshua this fact at the very beginning of his ministry after the death of Moses.
 
Joshua 1:8
8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (Or you will be able to deal wisely in the things of life).
 
Take time to meditate in the Word.
 
 
Shut yourself in alone where the clamor of the world is shut out.
If you are ambitious to do something worthwhile, take ten or fifteen minutes daily for meditation. 
Learn to do it.
 
In other words, begin the development of your own spirit.
 
You have gone to school, or you are going to school, for the development of your intellect.
Some are taking physical training for the development of the muscles.
 
If you will, take time you can develop your memory.
 
You may develop any gift that you wish, but the most important gifts that God has given to you are the spiritual gifts. It is the development of the spirit that is going to mean 
more to your life than any other one thing.
 
When Jesus went away He promised to send the Holy Spirit.
 
John 14:16-17
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. NIV
 
There is coming, Jesus said, a Spirit that is going to recreate your spirit. This is the New Birth.
 
Then He said there was coming an infilling, a baptism, an empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
 
You are going to yield your spirit to the leading of the Holy Spirit through the Word.
 
 
He said that the Holy Spirit would come and guide us into all reality; not the reality of the intellect, but into the reality of spiritual things.
 
That is the reason we need to get quiet a little while. We need to be so quiet that the Holy Spirit may communicate with our spirit through the Word and unveil these truths to us.
 
It will make you a master. The great body of men do not meditate in the spirit. They live in the realm of the senses.
 
Their meditations are guided by the senses. The Sense-governed mind is limited. 
Your spirit has practically no limitations.
 
You can develop your spirit life until you dominate circumstances.
Your spirit can come into vital union with His Spirit, the Father Himself.
Your spirit becomes a partaker of the Divine Nature.
 
It is not your intellect or your body, but your spirit that fellowships in the riches of
 His gracious presence. Your spirit, with God's Nature in it, can
 fellowship on terms of absolute equality with God Himself.
 Do you see your limitless possibilities?
 
Jesus brings us into contact with spiritual things. Spiritual things are more real than 
physical things because they are eternal.
Your spirit can reach the point where the things in His Word will become as real to you 
as Jesus is real to you.
 
John 16:12-15
 
12 "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. NIV
 
He is to take the things of Jesus and the things of the Father and unveil them to us.]]>Thu, 15 Oct 2015 13:16:35 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/the-believers-greatest-danger-wednesday-10142015
The Believer's Greatest Danger

The believer's greatest danger is to lapse from the Light of the Word to the light of the senses.
 
Luke 11:35, 36 explains this: 35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. 36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted,
 as when the light of a lamp shines on you." NIV
 
You have seen faces illumined with the Glory of God upon them. That is the result of the Life of God flooding the very being of that person. Joy fills them, laughter, praise, songs and shouts of GLORY is the result of the 
infilling light of life within the believer.
 
 
Living and walking in the Light of the Word is the most beautiful and thrilling experience known, but to walk in the senses and to trust in the wisdom of the senses is dangerous.
 
 
 
But one is tempted to do this because everyone around him perhaps lives in the sense realm and they look upon him as fanatical because he dares walk in the Faith realm, the Love realm.
 
You dare practice love when everybody else practices selfishness. You live the Jesus Life while they live the self-life.
 
You give and they criticize your giving. You deny yourself while they live in self-gratification.
 
They cannot understand you. (They didn't understand Jesus.)
 
Those most intimate with Him didn't understand. Neither did they understand Paul and Peter and John in those early days. Then don't expect them to understand you because you live the God kind of Life.
 
You are walking in the Light of the Word instead of the light of the senses.
 
The “light” or the understanding that is in them is darkness. They are walking in darkness. They know not where they are going, but you walk in the Light of Love.
 
There is no habitual stumbling in you. You act like Jesus; you talk like Jesus.
You have the Jesus Nature in you, and that Jesus Nature is dominating your spirit.
 
You find joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. They have found all kinds of trouble, and they are ever advertising their trouble. You live in the Light as He is in the Light.
 
Now you can understand what He means when He says "I am the light of the world”.
 
When you follow Jesus, you will not walk in the light of the senses but will have the Light that comes from Eternal Life.
 
You can't have the Light of Life without having the Love of Life, the new kind of love that Jesus brought.
 
You can't walk in Love without becoming a seeker after the lost, a burden-bearer of the weak, and a comforter of those in sorrow.
 
Eternal Life is a wonderful thing. It is a solution of all home problems. Yes, it is a solution of the human problem. Men who have Eternal Life can never take advantage of the weak, but rather, become their burden-bearers.
 
You will always count it a privilege and a pleasure to deny yourself in order to help someone else. Jesus becomes big in you. I can understand now what Paul meant when He said to the Galatians church:
 
 
Gal 4:19-20
19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, 20 how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you! NIV
 
Notice verse 19 in the KJV…"My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you."
 
 
The Life of God had not gained the ascendancy in those men who had just left heathenism and embraced Christ as Savior and Lord.
 
Paul yearned over them, longed to help them know their place in Christ. Christ being formed in us is Christ being built in us through our acting and doing the Word.
 
For Paul, His prayer for them was like child birth, it was like labor pains. He Travailed in birth again for them so that Christ would be formed in them.
 
Romans 8:29
 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. KJV
 
Prayer for those God puts in our lives is scriptural. Travailing prayer is scriptural; Paul and His 
companions did it all the time.
 
Colossians 4:12-14
12 Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. 13 I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. NIV
 
Philippians 2:16-18
16 as you hold firmly to the word of life. Then I can brag on the day of Christ that my effort was not wasted and that my work produced results. 17 My life is being poured out as a part of the sacrifice and service I offer to God for your faith. Yet, I am filled with joy, and I share that joy with all of you. 18 For this same reason you also should be filled with joy and share that joy with me.
 
As we become "doers of the Word" the Life becomes manifest in us. A new day has come. The Life of God ruling in men, Jesus men with the Jesus nature, the Jesus conduct.
 
The old struggle with sin nature is past. Man knows what his Redemption means, knows that Satan has no dominion over this New Creation.
It is not religion; it is the very life of God holding sway in man, this New Creation man.]]>Thu, 15 Oct 2015 13:05:28 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/part-2-wednesday-1072015WALKING IN THE LIGHT OF LIFE

 
ONE of the most illuminating sentences that God ever gave is in John 8:12: "I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life." This is one of Jesus' many 
affirmations of what He was.
 
You will remember that He dared to say….
 
"I am the good shepherd."
"I am the Bread of Life."
"I am the way."
"I am the door.”
"I am the Life." And now He said:
"I am the light of the world."
 
You remember that 1 John 1:5 says:
"God is light and in Him is no darkness at all."
 
God was light. God is the Source of light.
 
Now Jesus declares that He is the Light of Life. Then we understand this beautiful fact: that this 
God is light and light is Love.
 
If one walks in this Life, he walks in Love; and he walks in the Light and the wisdom of the Word.
 
Walking in the light means walking in the Word, acting on the Word.
 
Walking in the Light of Life means walking in Love. This Life is an inner light of the spirit. It is the Life of God, and our spirits are radiating love. 

Jesus said : "I am the way, the truth, and the life." The three are all in Jesus.
 
Jesus was reality or truth.
Jesus was the Way into the Father's presence.
Jesus is reality in every phase of this Divine Life.
 
The Word living in us is God living in us.
 Living means "doing", "acting."]]>Thu, 15 Oct 2015 12:57:59 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/i-am-what-god-says-i-am-wednesday-1072015
I AM WHAT GOD SAYS I AM

 
THIS is a militant confession. This is declaring war on defeat, failure, and weakness. This is carrying war over into the enemy's camp. This is taking the initiative from the enemy.
 
Colossians 1:13-14: "Who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we have our redemption, the remission of our sins." It is God talking and He says: "I delivered you out of the authority of Satan. He has no more dominion over you than he has over My Son. I delivered you out of the authority of darkness."
 
Darkness means uncertainty and lack of assurance. It means halting, hesitant walking; it means that the light has been extinguished and you are not sure of the next step.
 
You have been delivered out of that, and you have been translated into the realm of light.
 
Jesus said: "I am the light of the world. He that follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
 
You have been delivered out of that darkness. Now declare it. Now confess it.


Confession Of Faith:         
“I am delivered out of the authority and dominion of darkness. Satan cannot rule my life because God is the very strength of my life; and greater is He that is in me than the demon forces of darkness."
 
You dare to make that confession, hold fast to it, and refuse to yield a single moment.
 
You have been "translated into the kingdom of the Son of his love in whom you have your redemption." That wipes out everything that you have ever done. That is more than forgiveness. The slate of the past has been wiped clean. You stand complete in Him.
 
Now in the face of your enemies you dare to make your Confession of Faith: "I am what He says I am. 
If He says I am redeemed, I am.
If He says that I am a New Creation created in Christ Jesus, I am.
If He says that He has translated me into the kingdom of the Son of His Love, I am in the Love realm under the Love law.
Then as a New Creation I am no longer under Satan's dominion. Jesus is My Lord”.
 
Ephesians 2:10 says that I am His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. "God has imparted to me His Own Nature-His Own Life. "I am now a member of Christ's Body. This New Creation has been born out of the Heart of God."
 "I have received God's very Nature and Life. I am a partaker of the Divine Nature."
 
Can you hear John say in 1 John 5:13: "These things have I written unto you, that you may know that you have Eternal Life, even you that believe on his name."
 
You see, if you have partaken of God's Nature, God's Life, and the very Substance of His Being, 2 Corinthians 5:21 is true to you "Him who knew no sin God made to be sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him."
 
As surely as Jesus was made sin for you, you have been made righteous by receiving the Life and Nature of God.
 
He says that you are His righteousness in Christ.
 
You dare to say that you are what He says you are, and you will see that it places 
you in the realm of victors.
 
You begin to confess that God has told the truth about you, and you will thrill Heaven.
 
Instead of telling people of your failures and weaknesses, now you can boldly confess you are what God says you are and you can do what God says you can do. All because of His Son Jesus!
 
You will fill the heart of the Father with joy. You will be repeating John 1 :16: "For of His fullness have we all received and grace upon grace."
 
Sense Knowledge cannot walk in this realm.
 
Sense Knowledge cannot even get you through the gate that leads into the Fellowship where you are walking with God.
 
Ephesians 3:16-19
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of 
all the fullness of God. NIV
 
2 Corinthians 3:4-6
 
4 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant- — not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. NIV
 
 
 
Here God becomes our sufficiency; our ability. He told the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. The word "power" comes from the Greek word "dunamis" which means ability. Jesus said, "I want you to tarry in Jerusalem until you receive God's ability."
 
He is calling that ability "sufficiency" now. He has become your ability, your sufficiency.
 
Now you can understand Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Or, "I can do all things in Him who is my ability, my sufficiency, my strength."
 
You understand that you are taken out of the realm of natural ability, out of the realm of Sense Knowledge ability into the supernatural realm of God.
 
God Is Now Not Only The Strength Of Your Life, But He Is Your Ability.
 
You can understand 1 John 4:4: "You are of God, my little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world."
 
This is the surpassing grace of God. Weymouth's translation of Romans 5:17 is illuminating : "For if through the transgression of the one individual, Death made use of the one individual to seize the sovereignty, all the more shall those who receive God's overflowing grace and the gift of righteousness reign as kings in life ,through the one individual, Jesus Christ."
 
You have received God's overflowing grace and the gift of righteousness. That enables you to reign as a king in the realm of life through Jesus Christ.
 
What would that conception of Christianity do for the millions of earnest men and women who are struggling to get faith and to get wisdom so that they may walk well pleasing in His sight?
 
They have no knowledge of the Word. This is a revelation of the grace of God to us who are in the Body of Christ.
 
Let us notice further Phil. 4:13. One translator says : "I have strength for anything." God is my ability; He is my wisdom; He is my righteousness; He is my perfect redemption from weakness, fear, and lack. I stand complete in Him, a victor over all my enemies. I think the 20th Century Translation of Phil. 4:11 fits here "I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therein to be independent of circumstances.
"I know what it means to live on short rations; I know what it means to have an abundance. In all things, in every place, He is leading me in triumph in Christ."
 
2 Corinthians 2:14 is true: "Thanks be unto God who always leads me in triumph in every place."
 
He is making Paul a victor, a conqueror, an over comer; and is enabling him to write this revelation, most of it behind prison bars. Paul was the spiritual conqueror of the ages; and what Paul was in Christ you are in Christ.
 
Now we can live Isaiah 41:10-13
 
We ask that the Holy Spirit reveal this prophecy and promise that belongs to the Church and open our eyes to see what the Spirit is saying to us right now!
 
Isaiah 41:10-13
10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.(That is Jesus)
11 "All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. 12 Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all. 13 For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, 
Do not fear; I will help you. NIV
 
Jesus is God's right hand of righteousness, and He whispers to us: "Fear thou not, for I am with thee."
 
If God is with you, then He is for you. And if He is for you, who can be against you?"
 
But the next sentence is the one: "For I am your God."
 
Think of the Creator of the universe speaking to you like that !
 
This should make you know that you are more than a conqueror. You see, this is the truth in regard to what we are in Christ when He says: "I will help you, I will uphold you and I will be your strength and ability."
 
You are not afraid of anything. Fear has lost its dominion. You and Christ are walking in triumph.
If you have Eternal Life, you have God's Nature.
 
If you have God's Nature, you have God's righteousness.
 
If you have God's righteousness, you can pray the prayer of the righteous man.
 
If you have Eternal Life, you are God's son.
 
If you are His son, you are Satan's master in Jesus' Name.
 
If you have Eternal Life you are a "branch of the Vine." Then you can bear vine-fruit; you can do the works of God.
 
You are grafted into Christ, and Christ is God. The Vine and the Branch are one. The Vine is hidden, the Branch is seen, laden with the fruit. Men see the vine life in you.]]>Tue, 06 Oct 2015 12:46:59 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/wrong-confession-wednesday-9302015 

A Wrong Confession

 
A wrong confession is the confession of defeat, failure, and of the supremacy of Satan.
 
Talking about your combat with the devil, how he has hindered you, and how he is holding you in bondage and keeping you sick is a confession of defeat.
 
It is a wrong confession. It glorifies your adversary. It is an unconscious declaration that your Father-God is a failure.
 
Most of the confessions that we hear today glorify the devil. Such a confession continually saps the very life out of you. It destroys faith and holds you in bondage.
 
Proverbs 6:2 NKJV
2 You are snared by the words of your mouth;
You are taken by the words of your mouth.

 
The confession of your lips that has grown out of faith in your heart will absolutely defeat the adversary in every combat.
 
Proverbs 18:21 NKJV
 21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
And those who love it will eat its fruit.

 
The confession of Satan's ability to hinder you and keep you from success, gives Satan dominion over you, and fills you with fear and weakness. But if you boldly confess your Father's care and protection, and declare that He that is in you is greater than any force around you, you will rise above Satan’s influence.
 
 
2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

 
Every time you confess your doubts and fears, you confess your “faith” in Satan, which is not really faith it is fear, and deny the ability and grace of God.
 
When you confess your weakness and your disease you are openly confessing that the Word of God powerless.
 
He declares that: "With His stripes you were healed"; and "Surely He bath borne our 
sicknesses and carried our diseases." (Isaiah 53:4)
 
Instead of confessing that He has borne our diseases and put them away, many confess that they still have them.
 
You cannot take the testimony of your senses instead of the testimony of the Word of God.
 
As long as you hold fast to your confession of weakness, sickness, and pain you will still have them.
 
Even searching out other believers to pray for you will be fruitless if you are full of doubt and unbelief and your confession is not of faith.
 
 
The believer who is always confessing his weakness is building failure into his consciousness.
 
We should never remind ourselves or the Lord of our failings, or of our past mistakes.
 
If you confess anything, confess that you stand complete in Him, that what God has said in regard to your mistakes and blunders is absolutely true….
 
Heb 10:17 NIV
 17 Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more." ]]>Sun, 27 Sep 2015 22:36:08 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/confession-of-faith-wednesday-9232015Confession of Faith:
 “ I am filled with joy and victory because God has taken me over; He is fighting my battles. I am not afraid of circumstances because I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.
He is not only my strength, but He is at my right hand. He is my salvation; whom shall I fear? “
 
He throws light upon life's problems so that I know I can act intelligently. He is my salvation, my deliverance from every trap that the enemy sets for me, from every snare in which he would enslave me.
 
"God is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?" I am not afraid of anything. I have no fear because this God of Omnipotence is on my side. This is my continual confession.
 
I confess… that I have a Redemption that God planned and wrought in Christ. I am a New Creation of which He, Himself, is the Author and the Finisher.
 
I Confess… I have a righteousness that permits me to stand in His presence as though sin had never been.
 
I not only have righteousness reckoned to me, but I have righteousness imparted to me in the New Nature that I have received from Him.
I have received His nature, His Life; and in this Life and Nature is the Life of God. This makes me righteous even as
 He is Righteous.
 
 
This is my confession. This gives me boldness in prayer. This builds faith. This makes my way sure.
 
Read this aloud:
I am no longer hemmed in by limitations because I am united with the Limitless One.
He is the Vine and I am the branch. As a branch I bear His fruit because the Vine is imparting to me the fullness of His Life.
I know the reality of this because it has become a part of my very being.
I know I love because He has shed abroad His Love in my heart through the Holy Spirit, and I know that 
His Nature in me is Love.
His Love ability has gained the mastery, for now I can love in whatever circumstances I am placed.
I can say with joy, "Sin shall not have dominion over me." It can no longer lord itself over me. Circumstances can no longer hold me in bondage and hinder my usefulness in the world. I have not only God's life in me and this great Spirit Who raised up Jesus from the dead in me, but I have the use of Jesus' Name.
 
GLORY TO GOD!!!!!!
 
He has given to us a legal right to use the name of Jesus. Our confession is that whatever we ask of the Father in His Name He gives to me.
 
He has given us the power of attorney. We are using that power to help men.
 
We are taking Jesus' place now. He is working His own work through us. He is living His Own Life in us.
 
Jesus said : "In my name you will cast out demons." We are exercising our rights. He said : "In my name you will lay hands on the sick and they will recover." Our hands become the medium through which His Life pours.
 
We are living the abundant life. His words broke the power of death, of demons, and healed the sick. They do the same thing on our lips.
 
Confession is faith's way of expressing itself. Faith, like love, is only revealed in action and word.
 
Now we know how Faith comes…
Rom 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
 
Faith grows with your confession. The more you hear yourself confess the Word the more you will grow in Faith.
Confession does several things to the believer: It locates him. It fixes the landmarks of his life. It mightily affects his spirit, the inner man, when he makes his declaration.
 
For instance, there is Romans 10:9-10:
 
9 That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that 
you confess and are saved.

 
There are two confessions involved here: First, a confession of the lordship of Jesus. And second, that we have become the Righteousness of God and are saved.
 
These are positive confessions. The reason that the majority of Christians, though they are earnest, yet they are weak, is because they have never dared to make a confession of what they are in Christ. What they must do is to find what they are in the Mind of the Father-how He looks upon them-and then confess it. This can be found in the Epistles.
 
When you find this, you boldly make your confession of what the Word declares you are in Christ. As you do this your faith will abound. The reason your faith is throttled and held in bondage is because you have never dared to confess what 
God says you are.
 
Remember that faith never grows beyond your confession.
 
Your daily confession of what the Father is to you, what Jesus is now doing for you at the right hand of the Father, and what the mighty Holy Spirit is doing in you will build a positive, solid faith life.
 
You will not be afraid of any circumstance, of any disease, or of any condition.
You will fearlessly face life as a conqueror. After a while you will find that Romans 8:37 is true: "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors." You will never be a conqueror until you confess it.]]>Wed, 03 Jun 2015 14:30:18 GMThttp://wolccbartow.org/from-pastors-heart/righteousness-study


On Wednesday nights we have changed our service format. We have put our chairs in a circle and we gather together and study and worship in a very intimate setting. We are studying Righteousness. Following are some thoughts from one of our studies.

Rom 1:17
17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
2 Cor 5:17-21
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.  20 Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. 21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Jesus had to become what we were so we could become what he was.
Confession of Faith: Jesus became sin for me so I could become righteous like Him.

We do not grow in Righteousness.

We are made Righteous, and Righteousness is credited to us.
 
2 Corinthians 5:21... For He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Romans 4:9-...9 Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness.
10 Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before!
11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

God Himself is our Righteousness and He made Jesus to be Righteousness unto us.
There is no such thing as growth in Righteousness. There is growth in the knowledge of what Righteousness means.
 
There is growth in acting upon our Righteousness.
There is growth in faith in our Righteousness.
 
Until we have confidence in our own standing before the Father, in our own Righteousness in Christ, we will never have faith that will bring blessing to ourselves and others.

 Faith is destroyed by Sin Consciousness.
 Faith is built up and made invincible by Righteousness Consciousness.
 This entire problem rests upon our estimation of the Word.
 If we have a low estimation of the Word, then we will have a low estimation of         our Righteousness in Christ
  
If we have a low estimation of the Word, our faith will be weak and vacillating. But if we believe the Word, rest on the Word, know that every Word from God is true and that God cannot lie, then our faith becomes strong.
 
When we say that God cannot lie we mean that the Word cannot lie.
 
It is the Word with which we are dealing. The Word is the contract, the Covenant, the legal instrument
 
        The word is a living document.
 It becomes a living force in our lives as we act upon it.
 A low estimate of the New Covenant or the New Testament will bring a low estimate         of the work that Christ did.
 
A low estimate of the Word and of the work that Christ did is bound to react in our lives.
 
This leads to weakness that cannot be covered up, it will be evident in our lives
 
        Our Attitude Toward the Word is Our Attitude Toward Jesus
 The Word of God has power and authority
 (JUST LIKE JESUS)
 It is alive and powerful 
 (JUST LIKE JESUS)

Hebrews 4:12...For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
 

The word will renew your mind but it agrees with your spirit because the Spirit of God resides there.
 
The Word by the Spirit can do all the person of Jesus can do.

John 1:1...In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Romans 4:25...25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
   
This is what we believe and this is what we will have manifested in our lives!
 
People will sense it in our conversation. But if we doubt the power of His finished work, every phase of our life will show it.
 
The reason people live in lack is because of a low estimation of the Word and of the finished work of Christ. 
 
When we have the proper estimation of the finished work of Jesus Christ we will know that every word of God is true and it is true for me!
  
All this trying to be worthy, trying to be Righteous, crying and agonizing before the Lord, is the product of a low estimation of the integrity of the Word of God.
  
When we know that the Word is true, that we are what the Word says we are, and that we can do all the Word says we can, we begin at once to take our place, assert our authority, and enjoy our privileges in Christ.
 
We Live By Faith.

Hebrews 10:38...But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him."
 
He speaks of us individually as His righteous one.
 
If we draw back into the Sense Realm of dead works, we rob Him of the joy that belongs to Him.


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