Are you willing and obedient?  By James Lantz

     Are you willing to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Are you willing to be healed? Are you willing to prosper and increase? Are you willing to trust and believe? Are you willing to be full of peace and joy and rejoice and give God thanks before you see the manifestation of your prayers? God says that if we are willing and obedient we shall (after we are willing and obedient) eat the good of the land. We know from the word of God that it is God’s will to bless and prosper his children. God did not create this world for the devil and his children. He provided all the good things and the wealth of this world for his children (us) to enjoy.       1 Tim. 6:17 .  .  .  nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;  Do you really want to be filled with the Holy Spirit? You have to desire God’s will more than your own. Do you really want to be healed? Sometimes people are healed on the faith of others, but eventually they will have to believe for themselves or they will lose their healing. The majority of the time (especially those of us who have experienced God’s power before), we must believe that we receive our healing before we will have (experience) our healing. Brother Hagin said, christians that fail to receive their healing have a relationship problem. He stated that all cases seem to fit in one of two categories, either a lack of yieldedness or a lack of faith. Bro. Hagin said this after being in the healing ministry for over fifty years. He said some want to receive Abraham’s blessing on the Thomas kind of faith. Many times when you check your body (your symptoms) to see if you are healed you are not believing from your heart. Often it is an indicator of having more faith in what you can feel and see than in what God said. Abraham considered not his own body now dead nor the deadness of Sara’s womb. He was considering what God said about them having a son.  Heb. 3:1 Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession (confession), Christ Jesus.   We are to consider Jesus, the one who is able to deliver to the uttermost and is watching over his word to bring it to pass in the life of those who speak it in faith. The righteous shall live by faith!  Ps. 84:11  For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.  Are you willing to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself? Are you willing to seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness? We are required to go all out, to serve God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things in order to receive God’s blessings. Half heartedness and complaining will get you nothing from God, except extra time in the wilderness. Being willing is not some wimpy attitude in which we say I quess I will serve God. I will try to go to church on Resurrection Sunday and Christmas. I quess I can spare to give a dollar in the offering. I have good news for you, you can change and it will not take long! You admit that you have not given God your best and commit to lay aside the things that hinder you and begin to do the things God says we must.

     My friend, Clair Stauffer, preached a message on change a couple of years ago. He told how the British navy finally accepted the cure from scurvy and how remarkably they had no more deaths from scurvy. Scurvy became rampant when long voyages became common. In 1553 Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins  noted that 10,000 seamen under his command died of scurvy. He also noted that research showed that sour oranges and lemons had been most effect in curing the disease. Two hundred years later, James Lind, who was a surgeon for the British navy, published a book on how to eliminate scurvy. Simply supply the sailors with most any citrus juice. Simple enough, but Dr. James Lind was ridiculed by the physicians of his day, ignored by Admiralty, and not given much honor. In 1794, forty one years later, the year of Dr. Lind’s death, a British Navy squadron was supplied with lemon juice. Interestingly, there was not one case of scurvy on this twenty three week voyage. Hard to believe, another ten years went by before regulations were enacted to require their sailors to drink a daily ration of lemon juice. With this enactment, scurvy disappeared from the British Navy. So sad that it took two hundred and fifty one years and thousands of lost lives before this truth was established. Change does not have to be this difficult!

     You can develop a new habit (a good one) in just forty days!  Heb.  5:14  But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.  Your flesh (your five physical senses) can be trained and thereby know good from evil by reason of use (repetition). The first step toward making changes in your life is being willing and the second step (obedience) is doing it. Jesus said to watch and pray so that you do not enter into temptation, because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Temptations will come to all of us! As we do what God has said we will be thinking right thoughts, speaking right words, and we will be in the right place at the right time and miss many temptations and traps of the devil. If King David had been with his men at the battle he would have missed the temptation with Bathsheba. It has been said, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. There is a lot of truth there and the scripture takes it a step further, saying we are to be busy with our hands doing that which is good.  1 Thess. 4:11&12  And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. That you may walk honestly toward them that are without, and ye may have lack of nothing.  2 Thess. 3:10  For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.  We have the commandment to work so that we lack nothing and don’t put a strain on others. When we are working our mind is not so inclined to go off worrying about how are needs will be met nor being a busy body getting our nose in someone else’s business. Our success in God is dependent on our ability to follow his instructions. Many times God’s people error because they do not know what to do. This is why God has given us the Holy Spirit and the word of God, and the five fold ministers, so we will not be ignorant of what to do. Some have closed their eyes and minds to what God has commanded us to think about and talk about. Jesus instructed us not to take any anxious thought for our life. We are not to be worried about what we have to wear or what we will eat. If you want to be depressed, think about what you don’t have and what you can’t do. We are told to think about things that are true, honest, righteous, pure, lovely, things of a good report, virtuous things, and praise. Obeying God’s instructions in this basic area will stop the gossip, worry, unbelief, fear and torment of the devil. We are to think about who we are in Christ, what we have in Christ, what we can do in Christ!  1 John 3:2  Beloved, now are we the sons of God .  .  .   2 Cor. 1:20  For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.   Phil. 4:13  I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.  This will set us up to speak the word and ultimately to act on the word which will bring blessing into our life. Some are trying to war a good warfare against the devil by speaking the word, claiming the blood of Jesus, anointing with oil, using the name of Jesus, prayer and forgetting to use some very important weapons given by the master. We have been given the ability to choose what we look at, what we listen to, and what we think about.  2 Cor. 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.  By casting out evil reasonings that God will not meet your needs, that you won’t get your healing this time, that no one loves you etc. All those evil unbelieving thoughts musts be removed from your thought life because they are toxic. You must fix your gaze on the truth that you are loved, blessed, healed, made rich and this image will be formed in you. You will be able to receive what God has given when the image is fully formed in you. Above all else, guard your heart! Our weapons are not natural weapons but supernatural weapons, mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of wrong thoughts.