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Showing posts with label darkness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label darkness. Show all posts

August 17, 2013

The Key To Victory

By Tony V. Hammack

Abundant Life Today Media
Abundant Life Today Podcast

Podcast: Play in New Window | Download
These notes are best when used in conjunction with the audio or video.
 
Holy Spirit Empowered Discipline

Self Discipline – doing something you don’t like in order to get or achieve something that you place a higher value upon; correction or regulation of oneself for the sake of improvement.

Thesis: Allow the Holy Spirit to empower you today with the self discipline you need to govern your life in a way that causes maximum impact for God, maximum destruction to the kingdoms of darkness, and maximum blessings for you and your family.

2 Timothy 1:7
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
  • Timidity
  • Power
  • Love
  • Self-Discipline
Timidity

Fearfulness: "cowardice and timidity“ lacking in boldness or determination

Power - dunamis, refers to intrinsic power or inherent ability, the power or ability to carry out some function, the potential for functioning in some way power, might, strength, ability, capability, the power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature.

Acts 1:8
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Why Have the Holy Spirit?

Luke 24:49  
“I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

John 16:7
But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

The only way John 16:7 is true is if you and I carry on the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus was doing a great job so for him to go, and it be good, it must mean that you and I will be endued with power to perpetuate the ministry of Jesus in the Earth as his chosen vessels.

Jesus died so we could receive the Holy Spirit. Don’t treat the Holy Sprit like he’s not important or a 3rd class citizen of the trinity. He’s God and He empowers you and I to be the kind of people that are pleasing to God.

Philippians 4:13
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

If we don’t know what to do it creates timidity or indecision but when we have a clear word of instruction, it becomes actionable intelligence. This is when we, as God’s people, must seize the kairos moment God is presenting before us.

Agape Love

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

The Greek word for soundness of mind or self-discipline is sophronismos. Sophronismos is derived from the Greek word sophron which literally means, “to save the mind”.

If you and I are to do what God’s called us to do we must have a certain level of mastery over our own minds.

Sometimes our own worst enemy is ourselves and how we see ourselves. We have meditations about ourselves that others don’t know about and we end up fulfilling these secret meditations.
 

We must allow the Cross of Jesus Christ to penetrate and permeate every part of our personalities and allow Christ’s Word by His authority to re-program our minds allowing us to see ourselves the way God sees us.

It’s one thing to pick yourself up by your boot straps and do the right thing for a season hating every minute of it, only to find yourself after a month, six months or a year going right back to whatever destructive behavior we were partaking of. It’s another thing to allow the living God to reprogram your wants and desires changing us on the inside.

I heard a man say one time, “If we could do what we knew to do, we’d all be rich, happy and skinny.” I thought that word was perhaps a bit harsh but there was truth in it.

The key is to have mastery over our thinking and our thought lives. The Holy Spirit gives us sophronismos (self-discipline) as a promise. None of us has to be a victim of our own thought lives anymore. There is power available from heaven to prompt and direct us to choose what is best and then the power to act on the choice.

Train and Run to Win!

1 Corinthians 9:24-27
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. 27 No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Law arouses sinful passions

Romans 7:4-6
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

What is the law of the Spirit of life found in Romans 8:2? The law of the Spirit of Life is the guidance of the Holy Spirit as He gives us the desire to live a holy life, wisdom concerning how to overcome the world, bodily passions and self-will, and the power to choose holiness in place of spiritual uncleanness.

Allow the Holy Spirit to empower you today with the self discipline you need to govern your life in a way that causes maximum impact for God, maximum destruction to the kingdoms of darkness, and maximum blessings for you and your family.
 
 
Visit with us at Jubilee Family Church this Sunday at 10:15 AM (Central Standard Time U.S.A.) and Wednesday evening at 6:30 PM (Central Standard Time U.S.A.) If you can't be with us in person please visit via internet video on Jubilee T.V. If you live in Batesville please tune into KBAP 88.1 FM to listen to contemporary worship music.

Jubilee Family Church45 Thunderbird Dr. Batesville, AR 72501 (870) 793-9124
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August 13, 2013

The Spiritual Birth

By Tony V. Hammack

Abundant Life Today Media
Abundant Life Today Podcast

Podcast: Play in New Window | Download
To watch the video, click here.
Abundant Life Today Video
These notes are best when used in conjunction with the audio or video.



John 3:34
For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.

Eternal Life

John 3:14-21
14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

We Must Believe

Believe - who cleaves to Him, trusts Him, and relies on Him Cleave - to adhere firmly, closely, loyally and unwaveringly

Trust - assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something one in which confidence is placed

Rely - to be dependent, to have confidence based on knowledge

Love Gives Sacrificially

Because God loved he gave his very best.

He didn’t come to condemn the world but to save the world.

If you don’t believe you “stand condemned already”.

Come into the Light

Followers of Jesus will come into the light, exposing their weakness, sin, humanity, and failings. Jesus loves us exactly the way we are but loves us too much to leave us this way! His desire for us is for us to manifest or express his kingdom through our lives.

1 John 1:6
If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.

Seeing and Entering the Kingdom of God

John 3:3-8
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Signs equated to the Kingdom of God

John 3:2,3
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

Born of Water

Water Baptism is a symbol of the death burial and resurrection of Jesus and when we get water baptized we are saying we are dying to our old man and going to live for Christ. Gal 2:20. It’s a covenant ceremony.

Born of the Spirit

Like the Wind

John 3:8
8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Elijah is our Old Testament example of a man led by the spirit.

1 Kings 18:11-15
11 But now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’ 12 I don’t know where the Spirit of the Lord may carry you when I leave you. If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn’t find you, he will kill me. Yet I your servant have worshiped the Lord since my youth. 13 Haven’t you heard, my lord, what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord’s prophets in two caves, fifty in each, and supplied them with food and water. 14 And now you tell me to go to my master and say, ‘Elijah is here.’ He will kill me!” 15 Elijah said, “As the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today.”

Sixty eight times the phrase “Kingdom of God” appears in the New Testament.   Fifty six times or approximately 80% of the time, the phrase refers to the establishment of a Kingdom in the present that’s near or a kingdom in the heart, right here right now. Approximately 20% of the time, the phrase refers to a Heavenly Kingdom or the Millennial reign of Christ, a future kingdom.

Luke 17:20,21
20 Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

Matthew 12:28
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Jesus cast out spirits because his Kingdom is superior to the kingdoms of this world. Demons are of this world and are subject to the superior kingdom in the same way a corporal will take orders from a General, unclean spirits had to submit to the authority of the king of the kingdom of God.

That same King, if ruling and reigning in our hearts will deputize us with authority to do the very work he did.

John 14:12
12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

Romans 14:17
17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, The Kingdom of God is expressed wherever Jesus Christ rules the hearts and minds of his subjects. When the believer exhibits self rule they will not express the kingdom.

The challenge today is to come up to the level of being a kingdom man or a kingdom woman. If you believe in Jesus you are saved according to the Word of God. However, there is a lot of work to do until we meet him face to face. Let’s fight the good fight of faith, believing to become kingdom manifesters, kingdom expressers. Let’s allow the king of the kingdom to touch lives through us.
 
Visit with us at Jubilee Family Church this Sunday at 10:15 AM (Central Standard Time U.S.A.) and Wednesday evening at 6:30 PM (Central Standard Time U.S.A.) If you can't be with us in person please visit via internet video on Jubilee T.V. If you live in Batesville please tune into KBAP 88.1 FM to listen to contemporary worship music.

Jubilee Family Church 45 Thunderbird Dr. Batesville, AR 72501 (870) 793-9124
View Larger Map