Did you know that a person who does the right things, may not always do them for the right reasons? Let’s take three people, who all do the right things, but are doing them for three distinct reasons:

Person A) does what is right because he fears that at the slightest mistake, God will be angry with him. He does what is right, but out of fear that God is a strict taskmaster, tapping His foot, waiting for a slip up.

Person B) does what is right, because he feels that he’s earning his good status with God. He is not relying on the mercy and goodness of God, but rather his own acts of righteousness. This is legalism.

Person C) does what is right because they have came to know God in a genuine relationship with Him. He knows that God truly loves and cares for him, and is merciful towards him in spite of his failures. Therefore he WANTS to do what is right, because he has been conformed to the image and likeness of Christ. He hates the things God hates, and loves the things God loves.

Person C is the only one who’s life (and heart) has been transformed by the love and power of Christ. The other two have not been transformed on the inside (their heart), and if you take away the fear and brownie points, where would their heart be? Would it be Christ-like?

Which person are you? I believe that God wants to take us to a place where we WANT to do what’s right. That only comes from a genuine relationship with Him! We have to KNOW of His goodness, before we can truly repent in our hearts for our failures. God’s Word tells us that it is His goodness (mercy, lovingkindness, forgiveness, love, etc.) that leads a person to true repentance:

Romans 2:4, “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”

Satan uses discouragement has a means to derail God’s children all the time. If he can get you to feel discouraged, you are one step closer to throwing up your hands. He wants you to feel like it’s too hard to have a relationship with God, or that your not good enough to be loved by God. Satan wants you to give up on God and your relationship with Him, so that you will stop trusting Him and instead put your faith in the things of the world.

The devil is always trying to get God’s people to feel like God is somehow angry with them. Once a person feels that they cannot rely on God to help them (due to their mistakes and failures), they begin to seek to work things out in their own strength and stop trusting God for the things in their life. This totally breaks down their relationship with God! When in reality, God is standing there waiting for the backslider to return, the backslider is often feeling discouraged and has no faith in their relationship with God, not realizing that if they will repent and turn back to God, He will forgive and restore them!

Just read the story of the prodigal’s son, and you’ll feel the heartbeat of God towards those who have backslidden!

I am a firm believer that in order to be filled with the fullness of God, we must be rooted and grounded in the knowledge of His love for us.

“And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” - Ephesians 3:19

If we don’t get it down into our spirits that He is a good God, and He has good things in mind for us, then we will have a hard time trusting Him, and following His path for our lives. Putting our faith in a God that we aren’t sure has our best interest in mind is just plain difficult, and to be honest, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Knowing that He cares for us, and has good things in plan for us, makes it easy to trust Him with every area of our lives.

Even consider Job’s situation. God wanted him blessed financially, and even after Satan tore everything apart, God wasn’t going to give up… He turned around and blessed Job with TWICE as much financial blessing as before!

“His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.” - Job 1:3

As if he wasn’t blessed then, let’s see what God ended up doing for Job afterwards!

“So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.” - Job 42:12

One day, the Holy Spirit spoke to me about Job, and said, “I wanted him blessed!” I have news for you - God wants us blessed too, in every area of our lives! Consider the goal of God for Job, even when everything looked black, was to turn around and bless him even more abundantly than before. God wanted His child BLESSED; God has GOOD THINGS in store for His servant!

Satan and evil spirits are always eager to make a person feel as if God is angry with them. It puts the person on the edge of their seat and makes them afraid of God… which causes them to feel discouraged in their relationship with Him, and tend to give up on spending time with Him. These things, of course, leads to a backsliding relationship in no time. No wonder Satan wants us to feel like God is somehow angry or disappointed in us!

Try this: if you have struggled and felt like God is angry with you, then try to imagine that God sees you, knows where you’ve been, and yet still looks favorably on you? It will loosen up the tenseness on your whole system once you begin to see things as God wants you to see them. Once you can imagine it, then turn to God’s Word, and learn of how He really does look upon you with favor and hope, even when you’ve messed up and done horrible things! He’s always calling us back to repentance, so that He can restore our relationship with Him.

I can’t tell you how powerful that imaginations can be when used for God’s glory instead of Satan’s. This is a powerful key to freedom and healing for many!

I like how one minister friend of mine said, “A bad attitude is like a flat tire; you aren’t going anywhere until it is changed!”

There’s few things that will hold up the work of God in your life, than not having the right attitude about what is going on in your life. Are you thankful that God loves and cares for you, or are you blaming Him for your problems? Are you forgiving others and loving them as Jesus requires of us, or are you allowing yourself to become upset, angry, and unforgiving towards them? Jesus said that if we are unforgiving, it turns us over to the tormentors and also prevents God from forgiving our own sins.

It’s one thing to be going through a trial or hardship, but it’s our responsibility to determine our attitude in the midst of the trial. While we can’t change what was done to us, or sometimes what is being done to us, we can choose how to respond to it. This is the very reason that many women who are raped end up in spiritual bondage. It’s not the rape, but their response to the rape which invites the work of the enemy in their life.

We need to be like Paul and Silas and have a heart filled with thanksgiving even while sitting in the prison with rats running about our feet! Do you know what happened? They didn’t stay in that trial long because their hearts towards God moved the very heart of God to send down an angel to remove them from that seemingly hopeless situation!

What if Paul and Silas didn’t praise the Lord in the midst of their trial? There’s a chance that would have put an end to their preaching the gospel… as harsh as that sounds, that’s the facts.

A lot of Christians live their entire lives in the same place spiritually because they are trying to go places with flat tires. If we want to reach God’s next step for us, we need to make sure that our flat tires are changed.

Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

The Bible tells us to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, that we can prove the acceptable will of God. Do you know that anything other than the acceptable will of God, is unacceptable? If it’s not God’s will in your life, then it’s unacceptable in His eyes. Right now, women are being raped and children are being killed… that is NOT acceptable in the eyes of God! Neither is sickness, disease, or demonic bondage acceptable in the will of our heavenly Father!

What God finds unacceptable, we too should find unacceptable!

And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
Matthew 17:14-21

I have heard people twist this verse to say that we should be praying and fasting to get demons out, but not casting them out. Or maybe some demons shouldn’t be cast out, but prayed out. I want to point out a few things about this passage that will put new light on this situation…

First, Jesus was living a man’s life here on earth, and had no special abilities that we don’t possess today when it comes to casting out demons and healing the sick. Jesus said that by Himself, He could do nothing (see John 5:19), but the reason He was able to go about healing all who were oppressed of the devil is because God was with Him - He was anointed with the Holy Spirit (see Acts 10:38). Therefore, what He did, He also expects us to do as well. He said that those who believe upon Him will do the works that He did and greater (see John 14:12).

Second, how did Jesus deal with this deliverance case? Did Jesus call a fast and “pray the demon out”? No! Jesus CAST it out! Jesus was already prayed and fasted up and had the faith in His father to do the deliverance. The disciples were not prayed and fasted up, and therefore had unbelief in their heart. Notice that Jesus said that the reason that they were unable to drive out the demon was because of their unbelief (see Matthew 17:19-20).

Jesus’ disciples asked, “Why couldn’t we cast this thing out?”

Jesus replied, “Because of your unbelief…”

Jesus didn’t rebuke the disciples for not praying the demon out, but rather because they lacked faith, which they should have been obtaining through prayer and fasting on a regular bases. Jesus on the other hand, was prepared to cast the demon out, without having to call a fast and pray it out. Jesus was already fasted and prayed up!

Then begin to take heed of the things which He has shown you! Acting upon what God shows us is a huge key to receiving more from Him. If He tells us to get rid of our TV set and we disobey Him, then don’t expect Him to continue to speak to you about other things in your life or give your further revelation. As the saying goes, we need to be doers of the Word and not just hearers. If we are just hearers, then we will lose what little we have. Jesus made this clear when He said:

And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete [meaning to use], it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
Mark 4:24-25

Jesus made it clear that if we want to receive more from the Lord, we need to use what we’ve been given. If He’s spoken to us about something, then we need to be obedient if we want Him to continue speaking to us about other things in our lives. Being obedient to what God shows us tells Him that we’re ready for His next move in our lives.

Let’s say that you were a beloved wife who is married to the most wonderful and loving husband who would gladly give his life for you. Then one day, somebody tells you that he’s looking at other women. If you begin to listen to that lie, do you think you’re going to be able to freely receive his love for you? Not at all! You’re going to look at him through the eyes of suspicion, which will naturally write off any true love that is being transmitted.

Did you know that we can do the exact same thing when we believe what the devil tells us about God? This is why demons work so diligently to convince us that God is a distant, un-loving, cruel, and legalistic taskmaster!

You can block your heart from feeling the love of God simply by believing a lie about Him!

I like the saying that a deliverance minister once told me, “Cruel distant taskmasters don’t give their lives for you!” But our loving savior Jesus did just that - why? Because He desires an intimate (anything but distant!) relationship with us!

Did you know that when we look down upon ourselves, we are looking down upon a person that God Almighty has made with His own hands? Were we not made in the image and likeness of God? Did God make a mistake when He made us? Absolutely not!

Would you dare go to an art gallery, and with the artist present, point at an area on one of his paintings and exclaim, “Boy, that’s just so ugly!”? Then why do we stand before a mirror, look at a beautiful person whom God has made, and exclaim, “My nose is ugly!”?

Think about this: anytime that you pick at a painting, in reality you are putting down the artist who painted the painting. Anytime you pick at a created thing, you pick at the creator of that thing. Anytime that we belittle ourselves, we are belittling God who made us.

Have you been honoring or belittling your painter / creator (God)?

What is your attitude (thankful/unthankful) concerning the person that God has made in you?