Off to Spiritwind Children's Camp!

Hey, everyone! I'm off to Spiritwind Children's Camp for the next week. This is the third year now that I have volunteered as a camp nurse for Papa Gene and Miss Judy. For some reason they keep asking me to come back! :D As in the past two years, it has been a tremendous battle this last week before camp. The enemy doesn't like it that I'm going and has tried his best to cause me to step out of my Peace and my Love Walk. BUT, "greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world!"

Due to work and packing, I was up until almost 5am and was supposed to leave by 9am this morning. It's 9:10am right now and I still have to carry all my stuff down to the car. In the past I would have been somewhat frazzled by now, but God's Peace is so wonderful. I'm really started walking in a revelation of the fact that My Steps Are Ordered By God! So, I'm off now, with great expectations of how God will affect the lives of 60+ kids this week. I'm excited that I AM his hands and feet. And I am going my way unhindered in his power and grace. I'll be gone for 6 days, so I'll update when I get back.

Closing thought: Don't give up when circumstances get hard while following the call of GOD on your life. satan always fights hardest when he's scared of what you're going to do to further the Kingdom of God. If we just do as Paul said in Philipians 3:13-15 (KJV) then we will see a mighty move of God in and through our lives.

13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. [Emphasis mine]
15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

See you in a week! Grace and Peace!

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...And I will rebuke the devourer...

I dropped my cellphone in the washing machine last week. I was at the Laundromat with my daughter and youngest grandchild and was leaning over to place a few baby clothes into the washer. My cellphone was in the "watch pocket" of my jeans. You know that small, shallow pocket where people used to carry a pocket watch (back in the day!) Before I realized what was happening, it popped right out and into the washer full of water. In the 10 seconds or so that it was in the water, there was a window of time in which I had the opportunity to either get over into faith or get over into fear. Thanks to the Holy Spirit, I chose to get over into faith! The first thing I had to do was to tell my mouth to keep quiet! That’s the vehicle by which we win or lose many of our battles…our mouths. Secondly, I had to remind myself of what the Word says to ME. And I declared out loud, in the Laundromat in front of a crowd of people, that I had a covenant with God, the devourer was rebuked for my sake, and that my phone would dry out and work again.

It’s so important, as a born-again child of God, to know exactly what our covenant with Father God includes, how it is activated, and what mistakes we sometimes make that cause us to not fully walk in them. In the case of Malachi 3, the Lord speaks through Malachi to give us that exact information. When someone becomes a tither he enters into a covenant relationship with Father God. That’s the thing that activates that covenant…being a tither. Now the benefits of tithing are spelled out clearly.

He’ll open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing (the empowerment to go our way unhindered) that there won't be enough room to receive

He’ll rebuke the devourer for our sake, and he shall not destroy the fruits of our ground

Our vine will not cast it’s fruit before its time

Nations will call us blessed

Wow! What awesome promises! And it’s all because we make a heart decision to trust God in the area of our finances. (But that’s a topic for a different post!)

I know many people might ask, "Well, I’m a tither, and I don’t see all of those benefits operating in my life—Why is that?" That question leads me back to my cellphone story. As I said, I had a window of time in which to act in faith or fear. I know, in the natural, if you see your cellphone floating in the washing machine your first reaction might be, "Crud! Now I have to get another phone! I don’t have the money to buy another one! Why does stuff like this always happen to me?!" I submit to you though, that as a believer, we cannot react in the natural…not if we want God’s Word to operate in our lives. I’ll repeat my previous statement. Many of our battles are lost because of our mouths!

When I grabbed my phone out of the washer, (amazingly) I kept my mouth shut!. As I was trying to shake the water out and wipe it dry, I started bringing to remembrance all of the promises of God that I could think of that could be linked with that situation. I thought about the devourer being rebuked—that means he had no right to steal my cellphone or the replacement fee for another one! I thought about when Jesus said in Mark 16:18, "and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;" Water can certainly be deadly to electronics, and my covenant includes my electronics, too.

Then I thought about the verse in Isaiah 43 that says, "2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." Then I thought about the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, Daniel in the lion’s den, and so forth. Do you get my point? I first had to KNOW what the Word says, then I had to take it and apply it to my own situation. Faith began to really rise up in me as I began to SPEAK the Word "out my mouth!" We have to confess the Word, especially in the face of circumstances that appear to contradict it!

Let’s take a look at David…1 Samuel 17 recounts the instance where he was facing Goliath. First, David knew that HE had a covenant with God and that Goliath didn’t. This is obvious by his question in verse 26, "who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" Circumcision was a sign of covenant, so—uncircumcised = no covenant. Then he began to SPEAK OUT in remembrance of God’s past faithfulness to him.

"34 And David said unto Saul, Thy servant was keeping his father’s sheep; and when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock, 35 I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth; and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. 36Thy servant smote both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. 37 And David said, Jehovah that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and Jehovah shall be with thee."

David knew he had a covenant. He knew the benefits of the covenant. And, just as important, he knew how to operate in that covenant…by the words of his mouth. Interestingly, the whole army of Israel had that SAME COVENANT, but none of them knew how to make it operate in their lives. They looked at the circumstances instead of the promises of God that had been spoken to them.

My question to you is this, "Will you be like David? Will you be the one to not only know that you have a covenant and what it’s benefits include for you, but also cause it to operate in your life? Or will you be like the masses of the army of Israel, including the king himself, who lived in fear and operated well below all that God desired for them?" The Lord spoke through Hosea, in chapter 4, saying, "6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:" Hasn’t the enemy stolen enough? Romans 10:17 AMP tells us, "So faith comes by hearing [what is told], and what is heard comes by the preaching [of the message that came from the lips] of Christ (the Messiah Himself)." Arm yourself with the Word, learn to speak it and apply it to your circumstances, and sit back and watch as the Great I Am does "rebuke the devourer" for your sake!

Oh, back to my phone, it started working again that very night. God is FAITHFUL!

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Welcome to Faith Bytes

I know, some of you may be wondering, "Don't you have enough to do with the Missions Blog, without starting a new blog?" Well, to tell you the truth, NO. There's only so much that I can write about our missions activities, and so far no real takers on joining the team yet. (Despite the fact that we do have a lot going on in regards to missions!) I do have lots to say, but, since the other blog is specifically missions related, I've decided to start this Blog for the rest of my verbal wanderings. So...Welcome to Faith Bytes!

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