Crosslines

The Authority of the believer is thought of as a recent idea in Christian circles, but have you heard of John A McMillan? He was born in 1873 and was a Canadian Presbyterian businessman who walked in the Authority of the Believer. What if you had been given authority from God but never walked in it? Instead of complaining about our problems, if we want results like Jesus, we might want to do it the way Jesus did. Speak to your mountain. Not everything we experience in this life is God's will. Ask yourself, are you asking God to do things for you when He has already given the authority to pull those things down from heaven?

Is there another experience with the Holy Spirit after we are born again? What does the Bible have to say? God gives gifts that seem foolish, only to confound those who think themselves wise. The Holy Spirit is the change we all need. Every character in the Bible who encountered the Holy Spirit was forever changed. Their boldness increased as their fear decreased. Are you asking for more of the Holy Ghost? 

Most Christians live and die in the wilderness, but it was only meant to be temporary. The Promise Land is God's true desire for every believer. People stay in the wilderness for three reasons. 1. They are still attached to Egypt(slavery) in their heart.  2. They are afraid of more of God and losing control. 3. They are afraid of the giants. God truly wants you free of carnal Christianity, free of control, and walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. 

Is your plan for losing weight watching workout videos while eating food? This is how many of us approach faith. We watch sermons, listen to podcasts, attend church, pray, and even read the Word...but there is little to no action. There are two categories of people: those who hear the Word and do nothing, and those who hear and do the Word. Be a doer of the Word. 

How can God use people who are so arrogant? The religious in the church often judge Samson but fail to see how God used him. The church works to disciple the lower levels of society, but we fail with the influential and strong. Be careful who you judge and stand against, many times God uses the "arrogant" more than the religious who refuse to take up any fight for the kingdom of God. 

What does the Bible say about drinking? Interestingly, the Bible tells us when not to drink and when to drink. But it's not a rule to follow, but a decision God is looking for us to make with our heart. 

The more you serve the Lord, the more surprises God has in store. God doesn't reveal everything the moment we start trusting Him, otherwise, it wouldn't be trust. He always seems to do something better than what we could think up. He likes to surprise us. Like a dear friend setting up a surprise birthday party or a man planning a date, God is setting you up for something good. When you figure out God loves you, the mystery becomes fun. And you truly see the mystery of God lead you into His goodness. 

God set up the family structure to keep us from being rejected. He wants each of us to have the strength of love, but people or circumstances can leave you with a wound that leaves you in a state of rejection. Realizing that God never intended for you to be rejected helps eliminate the spirit of rejection. Rejection is both a healing of the heart and a deliverance issue. The truth is we are beloved of the Lord, and we can't allow any spirit of rejection to convince us otherwise.  

Some people believe in a historical Jesus, others believe in an educational Jesus, but a very few believe in a Jesus who still raises the dead. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection." Are you letting God raise the dead areas of your life? For our lives to truly be used by God, they must go through the death, burial, and resurrection process. Don't hold onto your small ways, give them to God so He can resurrect them.  

What made Judas betray Jesus and the other disciples? He made himself look one way when his motive was entirely different. Judas was around the best ministry in the world, he saw all the miracles and probably did some himself. He was around extreme amounts of blessings but still chose to betray Jesus. Everything can look right in your life but if your motive is off it can spoil a whole thing. The true spiritual condition of our life is revealed by our affection for Jesus not simply our association with Him. The scary thing is we all may have a little Judas in us.

We all have an inner voice and an outer voice we fight we fight with. It is important we don't receive or identify with words teachers or even parents may unknowingly speak over us. This is an interview with Caeleigh and Dylan on how they overcame dyslexia and words spoken over them at a young age. 

Do you have unsatisfied longings? Creatures are not born with desires unless those desires exist...if I find myself with a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is I was made for another world...Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone because you were made for it, made for it stitch by stitch, as a glove is made for a hand. And beauty will unite with your soul, and you will think, this is what I am made for. -C. S. Lewis.

"If you rule out the supernatural, you will perceive no miracles." -C. S. Lewis.  When we work to disprove miracles, we are actually working to disprove our own faith. In recent history, mankind has decided to put God on trial instead of it being mankind being on trial. Could it be that this judgment we have towards the Almighty is the cause of the lack of miracles in our lives?  When we find God lacking instead of seeing our own failure and need to repent we miss who God really is and what He wants to do. Jesus was God coming down to us on eye level, showing us that God is the God of miracles. 

A summary of C.S. Lewis' book Screwtape Letters.  Have you ever thought, "There might be demons assigned to me"? In the same way, God has angels assigned to help us, the devil has demons assigned to us to pull us away from the Lord and what we are called to do in advancing the kingdom of God. Screwtape Letters is the conversation between two demons working to pull a new believer away from God. And it's not exactly what you think. Some of the devil's tactics are more "ordinary" than you would think. We must understand the scheme of our enemy if we are going to defeat him. 

If you put what is second before what is first, you lose both first and second. Second things do not have the strength to hold up things in life as first things do. Second things are temporal; they are what we can see. First things are what is unseen and what holds everything together. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. -Matthew 6:33

Are you giving Jesus what He truly desires? Simon the Pharisee gave Jesus a meal and a seat at his table—an honor probably not given to most. But a woman, a sinful woman, interrupted Simon's dinner to kiss Jesus' feet. She wept, she kissed, she poured out perfume...she gave Jesus all of her love, in front of everyone, she laid her heart bare, hoping Jesus would not turn her away. The woman with the perfume bottle gave Jesus everything. What part of your heart are you withholding from God? 

Are you the one whom Jesus loves? Do you believe that Jesus loves you more than everyone else? It sounds arrogant even to think that way but God is love. You can look for love and miss it. You can try to do things to get God to love you, but what does the Word say to do? In 1 John 4:16, it says, "to BELIEVE the love that God has for us." Even if you don't yet feel the love, believe the love and abide in the love of God. You have a responsibility to believe God loves you because it is true. God's love is more true than anything else in this world. 

What is the art of deferring? It is one of the highest forms of love. Have you ever tried to out-love God? Yielding to God in such a way because you know He will give you more back in return. It is the volley of love. The back and forth is never meant to end, it is only meant to grow. Happy Valentine's Day!

It is okay to go through a period in your life where you are blinded by love. Love has passion to it. God intended it to be that way. Love is not logical it is full of emotion. Don't let things too get serious, find good love. 

Does Jesus treat critics and spectators differently than participants? To a novice casting out demons, Jesus says, "For whoever is not against us is for us." - Mark 9:40. But to the Pharisees being critical of Him delivering a man who was blind and mute, He says, "Whoever is not with me is against me" - Matthew 12:30. Don't run or pick sides between Biblical truth that seems to contradict each other. Contradicting truths are two rails on a train track that keep the train from derailing at speed. 

We live in deceptive times, but the LOVE of TRUTH keeps us out of deception. So, the truth of God's Word sets us free, but what do you do when there are two conflicting truths in the Word?  Jesus said, "For whoever is not against us is for us." - Mark 9:40 and "Whoever is not with me is against me" - Matthew 12:30. Which statement is true? Or if they are both true, how do you follow both principles? 

Should you evaluate your prayer life by the answers you receive? In almost every other area of life, we measure our effectiveness by the results. Why don't we do the same in our prayer life? Is God just the god of no? Or are we missing something on our end? When our prayers aren't answered, something is wrong. We must go to God until we receive a clear answer. We must come to believe that God hears every prayer, and that He answers every time. 

Even the scientific community has evidence of the differing results between people who pray and people who don't. Have you ever thought about what you choose to cover in prayer and the things you don't? Our fixes to the situation never work as well as praying through the situation. The Almighty is more mighty than us on our own strength. For 2025, do a prayer experiment. See what changes when you make God number 1, when you bring him into every area of your life. 

Group discussion on the ability to turn something in prayer. Prayer is not wishful thinking, and neither should it be random. There are not times it works, and times it doesn't. Prayer is meant to take a situation that would have gone down bad and with God's warning ahead of time, turn it for good. In short, prayer is meant to change things. We have the authority to bring God's Will into situations.  

This year, a human craft has traveled closer to the sun than ever before in history. There were certain precautions made to ensure the crafts' survival, much like Mose and the children of Israel experiencing God's glory at Mount Sinai. There is a certain awesomeness to God's presence and voice that we should not take lightly under the New Covenant. And just as many engineers and scientist dedicated their lives for a closer glimpse of the sun, should we give our lives to the pursuit of God's glory?

What is peace? Do you have peace with God? The cross is the place where Jesus brought peace to the earth. Believers should have a foundational internal peace. Not having peace is a warning sign there are areas you need to work out with God. Jesus blessed the peacemakers. We should have enough internal peace that we bring external peace to other people's lives. The devil markets a false peace. "Peace" among people without God's Lordship. God's peace is not peace at all cost. Peace does not come from compromise; it comes from Godly conflict.  Peace is a prince. It is the person of Jesus. When you speak His Name it brings Peace. 

Blessings are meant to overtake you. If they come from the Lord, they come from behind and overtake you but if you chase the blessings instead of God, they will forever be a carrot on a stick. But the truth is if you pursue God blessings will overtake you from behind. God truly wants to satisfy us in a way things and people cannot. True satisfaction is in the world we can't see, what we can see, the temporal world can never satisfy us the way God can. True contentment moves you from stage to stage with promotion and satisfaction. Contentment is a learned trait.

Do you have satisfaction and security in life? If not, don't worry, contentment is learned. Life is not meant to always be striving but never arriving. God means for us to find contentment in every season of life. He has joy for us in every area if we don't allow frustration. A truly satisfied Christian is free to be who you are called to be.

Cloy, the test of indulgence. The one test that has yet to be passed. The Solomon test. God lives in the land of indulgence...but He can't let us go there because of what we would do with it. Surprisingly, more people pass the Job test than pass the Solomon test. But God wants to be able to trust us with goodness, not control us with punishment. His heart is to give us the desires of our heart, but there is one step before that can become a reality. Lordship. 

Six times in the gospels, it says if you try to keep your life, you will lose it. But if you lose your life for God's sake you will gain it. So if you hold onto your life and live without any risk towards God you will lose it. But if you lose your soulish life for God's sake you will gain life. Our trust test in life is our we going to live for our own interest or our Master's interests. Make peace with the uncomfortable feeling of risk. God took a risk and trusted us. We will return the favor and risk it all for Him?

This is the story of Pocahontas and her conversation to Christianity. Even though Jamestown struggled because of its lack of commitment to God, Pocahontas was a gift, a heritage from the Lord that Jamestown did not deserve.  

Are there times you should use info as ammo? Having information about someone is having leverage, but can you be trusted with it? Are you using info for judgment or to bring mercy? God wants to trust you with both natural and supernatural information, but what will you do with the information you have been given?

Info is what everyone wants to know, but as believers, we mostly share info when we shouldn't and don't share info when we should. What is your motivation? Information on people is valuable and powerful. With the right information, you can destroy someone's life, or you can bring healing it all depends on your heart. 

If you are going to understand good, you must understand the author of everything good. When you get around the character of God, you get around His goodness. But God has an opposite. Lucifer. God and the devil will never change their character, but our lives are in the balance. We are good to the measure we mirror our Creator. Many in the church have accepted the goodness of God but never have rejected the evil of the devil. We have become neutral towards evil and thus become deceived. Hebrews 5:14 tells us, "Solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." We must not mix good and evil. Truly, our hearts are either seeking the goodness of God or the selfishness of evil. 

If demon spirits need a body, where do they go when people die? According to Luke 11:24-26, demons are always looking for somewhere to go. If demonic spirits are truly on the move, we must be armored up and walking in our authority as believers. 

What is a spell? Have you ever been under a spell? Spells work to try and take over your thinking and personality completely. They can come over someone quickly, but thank the Lord, they can also be cast off quickly. God doesn't want us to be defiled by witchcraft. He wants to destroy all our witchcraft, as is says in Micah 5:12. 

What does it mean to keep life sacred? Do you let God tell you no? In a world that is becoming increasingly bizarre, there is little left that is sacred. Maturity is realizing God tells us no for our own good. Truly, our value and meaning come from us being set apart from the rest of the world. 

As believers, it is vital we see that controllers are attracted to those who have the call of God on their lives. We can find comfort in being controlled, but when we do that, we are laying down the responsibility God has given us. When the enemy sends manipulators into our lives, it is by design to pull us away from our relationship with the Lord and keep us from completing our calling. 

You are either working on your image as a Christian, or you are serious about getting free. Having a good image will not save you, but crying out to Jesus will. Have you clearly won your war? Are you free? Or are you just sinning less than last week? There is a difference between being better and being free. 

Have you ever realized we follow people based on the amount of conflict they have successfully been through? Each of us is judged by how much conflict we handle. We choose our path based on the amount of conflict we are willing to go into with the Lord. The more conflict, the shorter the path to the destination. 

Are you missing out on good in your life because you refuse to confront? In the church world, we act as if it's "humility" to avoid conflict. But in Matthew 18 Jesus clearly tells us how to confront our brother. Truly the ones we love the most, we will confront the most. Biblical confrontation is not selfish it is an art to be learned. Confrontation is a partnership with Word to save a brother's life. 

What is ours by promise is not always ours by experience.  We are often too stubborn to receive the promise of God's goodness. All the children of Israel that God delivered out of Egypt were promised the Promise Land but only two entered. Only Joshua and Caleb had the courage and were able to enter in. Good truly tests us more than evil. And a lot, if not all of what God promises you, you must fight to possess. The harvest and entering the Promise Land is a lot of hard work. 

The past sets the standard for the future. God sets a standard through history for the next generation to build upon. We live in times where everything in the world is trying to tear down past precedents instead of building upon them. Precedence is what we are judged by but it is also a ladder that takes us to the next level. It makes you responsible to past miracles, that God wants and wills to do the same miracles and greater through your life today. We must mix faith with precedence to pull down the reality that with God all things are possible.