"Fear not!"

The bible says again and again to "fear not". Fearing anything besides the Lord must be the root of all evil. The only thing that can counter fear effectively is God himself. The reason why God can counter attack fear so well is not just because He is mighty and just. It is much more than that. He is love and it is this love that exudes from His person, from His Spirit, that nullifies the effects of all fear. His love is perfect, so He is perfect, and so this love being Himself and His presence is also perfect. Perfect love drives out all fear. We can believe the words of 1 John 4 and know that whatever is happening in our lives, no matter how afraid we might be, we can count on the love of Christ to be with us to counter all possible effects of fear.

Fear is so nasty. In the bible fear is the number one thing that separates us from God, His presence, and His love. So many people don't end up doing what the Lord is asking of them because they're too afraid of the consequences. They think the consequences will be bad and so don't trust the Lord. God is not a trickster. He is not out to get us. If He was He sure wouldn't have sent His son to die for us. All He has ever wanted since the beginning of time is to be with us. That is all. But it is fear that keeps us sinning and it is that sin we commit that separates us from our Father in heaven. But that sin, even the efects of the fear, are all lies. There is nothing that Christ hasn't already done for us that would inhibit us from being with him and His Father. He paid the price so we wouldn't have to. It's his blood that washed us clean. We don't have to do anything out of our own strength. Rather all we need to do is believe and trust Jesus and receive our forgiveness. We don't have to beg for it because it's already been given to us. Imagine the forgiveness of God piled up in a giant bank. All we have to do is make a withdrawal and receive it. That pretty much goes for anything he has for us. Grace, love, joy, peace and strength. All these are ready for us at his bank and yet hardly anyone is there withdrawing it. People are too afraid and fearful and they're standing at the door begging to get in. It's our bank! It's there for us! We have access to the keys to the kingdom of our Lord. Let's walk in with boldness, knowing the Lord and believing in his word and then we can obey in joy and strength and not in fear and doubt and worry and anxiety.

The Lord is waiting for you to come to him. Give him your burdens and take up the cross. Sacrifice your flesh on the altar of your salvation and live with the Lord in His virtues today.

The Submitted Body

Do you ever wonder why at times it's so hard to walk up stairs? Physically there are obvious gravitational reasons. If we believe though, in our Christ-like minds and the power of Holy Spirit how is physical strength then interpreted? If you believe stories of people lifting cars off of people or even stories of the battles of King David then you know what I'm talking about.

The Bible says the joy of the Lord is our strength. (Nehemiah 8.10) Have you ever put that to the test? I'm willing to put a wager on the table and say that the next time you walk up stairs and it's physically hard for you to carry on, start running up the stairs and while you run laugh out loud. Every step you take shout out loud HA HA HA HO HO HE HA! With every step beat your body into submission and praise the Lord. Your body would submit to the joy of the Lord and receive strength from heaven. Your faith can prove this for you.

Now I'm not saying punch yourself in the chest and run up and down stairs until you collapse to prove Gods' strength. I can see the Lord using this kind of faith though to give us strength in hard times emotionally, mentally, and even physically. Our bodies can be burdens at times and we have the God given ability to be victorious over our bodies and the weakness therein because of what Christ did for us.

Sometimes we'll start to pray and suddenly we'll get distracted. Hunger will come grumbling at the door to your belly, a bathroom break will be calling your name or maybe that show you watched last night just won't leave it's impression from your brain. Perhaps the prayers for our families and friends are even distractions. Sometimes we get so caught up with the obvious needs of loved ones and so keep asking the Lord for favors. "Lord please save my son, protect my daughter, be with my mommy, heal my Daddy, mend my marriage, grant my grandparents long life", etc.

Our faith and determination is what becomes crucial in these times. Think about Jesus. How did he cope for 40 days and 40 nights in a desert without food or water? What do you think the first few days were like? Well the scriptures tell us it was pretty much hell. The devil was with him every step of the way until the Lord rebuked him. If the devil says Jesus can turn rocks to bread obviously it's a temptation to Jesus to eat something or the devil wouldn't have said it to begin with. Our Messiah rebuked Satan with the word of God and continued with his arduous journey in the wilderness commanding his body into submission to be closer to the Father. This is what we too must do when times in our lives get too hard to deal with.

Instead of complaining and grumbling about doing what we have to - why not laugh it off, get the joy, and realize that our situation is nothing for Christ to deal with? All things are possible because Jesus is more than capable of dealing with it. Our own strength has nothing to do with overcoming our own circumstances. The thorn in Paul's flesh was a good thing to the Lord; the sufficiency of God's grace is reason enough to be happy and rejoice in our Fathers abundance for our lives.

So remember the next time you hear yourself start complaining about your situation, no matter what it may be, the submitted body can do a lot more for you and the Lord then a grumbling lifeless corpse feeling sorry for itself. No wonder it's hard to climb stairs feeling like a bag of bones and a heap of flesh! The joy of the Lord "IS" your strength! Be happy for laughing out loud!

-Jezzadiah Giles

The sword of the Spirit of God is an offensive weapon not defensive armory.

We are protected by the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith and even the cloak of humilty that so few of us put on before battle. But we are not protected by the sword of the spirit of God. On the contrary the sword is forged as a weapon of warfare and is intended for the sole purpose of attacking our enemies with. It is with this weapon that we win our battles for and with our Lord Jesus. With this weapon we are victorious and come out on top all the time. We can kill our enemies- the strongholds in our lives, be it a spirit of Jezabel, Leviathan or Behemoths of fear and oppression. Because our Messiah is with us we are victorious as he was victorious against his enemies. The devil never wins. He was never meant to win. He's a loser that takes joy in merely attempting to deceive the ones in the body of our Lord. But praise God for we see with the eyes of our heart and not with the eyes of our flesh. We know the devils tactics and are aware of his strategies. We know the plans of the enemy and we will with the Lords discerment always know Satans angles and plan of attack. Put in us a clean heart oh God and renew a right spirit with us so we can witness the body as one in the Lord and be unified under a banner of love being led by precious Holy Spirit. Be blessed church and receive your inheritance for Gods gifts are many and there are still many to come.

Jezzadiah Giles

Be Careful... The taste of false hope is sweet.

Candy coated words gives people false hope. In Jeremiah 28 Hananiah is exposed of this and the false prophet died. Hananiah prophesied the end of Babylonian rule in 2 years time. He arrogantly broke the wooden yoke off Jeremiah's shoulders - a symbol of punishment for the Jews because of their determined rebellion against their God Yahweh. Hananiah tried to make a spectacle of Jeremiah and openly mocked him in front of the other priests. Jeremiah left but God told Jeremiah to tell Hananiah that he and the people of all nations that serve Nebuchadnezzar will serve him with yokes of iron. Jeremiah then prophesied Hananiahs death. Hananiah died two months later.

It's important for us to rely on God in times of trouble. It's not important to expect delivery from our circumstances just because we want to be delivered from the hardship of dealing with the circumstance. In trials and tribulation there is wisdom to seek out and lessons to be learned. If we praise the Lord in the midst of our hardship then he sees our dedication to Him and heals us.

- Jezzadiah Giles

Job's wisdom?

The book of Job has an envelope structure: Poetic drama (3.1 - 42.6) framed by the opening and closing scenes about Job (1.1 - 2.13 and 42.7-17). Many interpreters treat the two entirely separately. However, because in the final form they are bound together, we must ask how they are related. Three friends accuse Job of sinning and defend God while Job claims he deserves a fair trial before the almighty. Elihu though, defends God in a slightly different way in that he say's God uses suffering to strengthen people's character and he say's Job speaks without knowledge. By the time God comes on the scene the ignorance of Job is exposed when the Lord asks Job how he can demand answers from Him when he doesn't even understand the world He had created. Scholars say this poem asks the questions of divine justice: why do innocent people suffer? The view is that of an "anthology of doubts", that are expressed but not resolved. Humankind must learn to accept what appears to be temporary injustice, secure in the knowledge that there is divine justice that will ultimately prevail.

Righteousness itself should not be sought after. During Job's time wisdom in and throughout the proverbs of David and Solomon and sages in the land was the prevalent knowledge of the day. Men who followed God tried their best to be wise and full of knowledge. But God is the source of all righteousness and unless we believe in Him and have faith in Him we will not give ourselves an opportunity to know Him; thus we will not know righteousness if we do not know God. Job's problem was that he thought he was righteousness because he did many things to be righteous. If he would've known God he would've known that temporary injustices are irrelevant to one's desire to know God more. Only the presence of God can deliver us from our circumstantial injustices. He is the source of all our virtues. Without the Lord's presence how can we obtain the patience and peace of mind to understand what the Lord is allowing to happen to all of us?

- Jezzadiah Giles

"Unity"

And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Genesis 1:27).

Man was originally created male and female. After the woman was taken from man, it would take both the man and the woman, in unity, to reveal the image of God. No man can fully reveal the image of God, and neither can any woman. We need each other, and this is why one of the primary assaults of the devil is to deceive men and women into thinking that they do not need each other. Therefore, homosexuality is one of the ultimate perversions of the purpose for which we were created.

For this reason, if the devil cannot push men and women into homosexuality, he will at least try to blur the distinctions between them. He will try to get men to become like women, and women like men, so that true unity can never be achieved by them. The way a man becomes one with his wife is not by making her into a man, but rather by acknowledging and honoring her differences. Likewise, the only way that a woman can become one with her husband is by acknowledging and honoring the ways that he is different. In general, women have strengths and perspectives that men do not have, and men have strengths and perspectives that women do not have. This is not stereotyping; it is simply acknowledging a fact that one has to be both spiritually and scientifically blind not to see this. The way we become one, so that we can reflect the image of God, is by acknowledging our differences, and seeing them as complimentary, not contradictory.

II Corinthians 3:18 states, "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit." To be transformed into the image of the Lord requires that we see His glory with an unveiled face. There are many veils the devil seeks to place on mankind, so that even if we see the Lord's glory, we will distort it, and pervert the true reflection of Him. Though the image of the Lord is both male and female, and there is the nature of Him that would gather us as a hen gathers her chicks, God is presented throughout the Scriptures as "Father," and is never called "Mother." To dilute this is to distort His image with a very thick veil.

"Father" means "life giver." The father gives the seed, and the mother nurtures the seed. In Scripture, we see the creation as "a" mother. Both Israel and the church are also referred to in Scripture as "mothers." Just as the woman was taken from Adam so that they would have to come together to be the complete image of God, the Lord will be joined perfectly to His bride to give the creation a true reflection of His glory. However, there can be no joining if we do not see the differences of each. God is the Father, and He is masculine to the uttermost. We must not compromise this basic truth if we are to see His glory and be changed into His image.

The roles of men and women are being severely challenged in our time. However, that which the enemy intends for evil always turns out for the good of those who love God. The church is also struggling with understanding the roles God intended for men and women. We must use this challenge to search even more diligently for God's answer to these questions. When men become the men they are called to be, and women become the women they are called to be, the whole world will stand in awe of them, knowing in the depths of their hearts that they reflect who they are called to be.

The Apostle Paul stated in I Corinthians 4:15: "For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers." The same is true of the church today. There are many teachers, but not many fathers who are reproducing. That is why most great churches and movements tend to die with the death of their founders. They did not reproduce their ministry in others or it would carry on and multiply. One reason there are not many true spiritual fathers in the church is that for one to become a father, a woman must be present. Until women are able to take their rightful place in the church, there will continue to be limited reproduction. This is a crucial issue for our time. It is obvious that the world will continue to fall into a deeper depravity concerning women's liberation if the church does not seize and promote the true liberation of women. No one desires to liberate women more than the Lord. Neither will men be truly liberated until women are. If any part of the body of Christ is still in bondage, we all are.

This was written by Rick Joyner. I did not write this nor do I claim to own these words but I agree with this one hundred percent. It was inspiring for me to see such truth in the unity between men and women and how that is translated and rendered into a truth for us as a world created by our Father, a bride for our Lord Jesus Christ and a vessel for the power of Holy Spirit. I hope that when you read it you will be encouraged as I was to see the hopeful future of our Lord and how we can all be like Him and a part of Him if we give up our "self" to be in Him as He is in the Father. I pray we will see this kind of unity before we go to be with our beloved in heaven.

-Jezzadiah

Oh, How He Renews!

The black plague came again last night.
I called out again,
For mercy and grace,
Forgiveness again.

The Spirit came just now.
He said, "Let's clean you up."
My skull split open wide.
Slowly it devides,
Revealing my brain.

Thick black ooze seeped in the cracks,
An angel comes to massage,
She touches my seductive mind and lets out a hellish screech.
Wrong procedure for an angel I guess.

Awe and guilt make me think,
Am I....
Do I....

The Spirit is there with me.
He reaches up and is passed living water.
In a jug made of glass the water is poured.

It burns my brain,
My brain is bleeding,
The blood clots,
My brain heals,
The waters prevail.

Those living waters push back the dark matter
Lodged deep within the recesses of my brain.
Black sludge runs off my skull canopy,
The vault closes up.

I'm dressed in white,
Skin tight white.
The jug of blood is poured out on me.
It moves over my whole body,
As if it were alive,
Crawling everywhere on my entire body.
A gold outline moves with it just on the edge of the blood-line.

Once covered and in need of protection,
A helmet is placed on my head.
"Don't you have one of your own?" He said.
I reach behind me and pull out the one from my vision.

"Nice design." Says the Spirit of YHWH.
"Thanks." Says I.
The cloak comes on,
Then the breastplate, belt, sandals, shield and sword.
All of my design.
Or maybe not,
Maybe that's how everyones armor looks.

I'm ready again.
Whole.
"Call your wife up here."
"Come up here soon."
She's there in an instant,
The process starts again.

When the vault opens up,
Smoke rises in the air.
Thick black smoke with dead autumn leaves.

The living water is poured,
The brain reacts and bleeds;
The suffering of Christ.
Nothing true is easy.

The waters are flushed and come out her eyes.
A large blue diamond shoots out to the ground.
"What is this for?"
"This is where she keeps us,
Inside the blue diamond is where her Trinity lies.
When she's ready she'll give it to Us,
Then We'll make it bigger and return it to her."

Skull canopy is closed.
The vault is sealed tight.
All is healed up and is ready for blood.
The jug of blood is passed and poured,
Moving quickly over her body sealing up all the doors.

After the blood comes the helmet to save - it's the same as mine.
Then the cloak to cover followed by more.
The armor seals together;
All seven pieces.
"Seven... a good number" He says.

Suddenly she is let go.
Falling from a plane I see her descent.
"When you touch her both of you will wake."
I fell and grabbed on at the last second.
"Will I ever see You again?" I ask.
"I'm sure of it."

Skydiving at mach three I see her falling like a rock.
I grab her and we wake up from bed.

Jezzadiah Giles
copyright winter 2011