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Subject: Staying Full of God
Replies: 11 Views: 1681
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:07pm
By Andrew Wommack
Do you ever feel like you and God have drifted apart and
that the love
and joy you once experienced with Him has faded? If you do,
you're not
alone. Most Christians feel like the experiences they have
with God
diminish over time and that they need another touch. But is
that the way
it should be?
The Bible says God will never leave us nor forsake us (Heb.
13:5). If
that is true, and it is, who moved? As born-again
believers, we are all
capable of living in the fullness of God every day of our
lives. God is
continually pouring out His love, joy, peace, revelation
knowledge, and
every other blessing. *
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:10pm
But, we can get to a point where
we're not
receiving and feel like He has drifted away.
Romans 1:21 says,
When they knew God, they glorified him not as God,
neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their
foolish heart
was darkened.
This scripture contains four separate elements, or keys,
that can lead
us into and keep us operating in the fullness of God.
Expressed
positively, they are: glorify God, be thankful, recognize
the power of
your imagination, and have a good heart. You have the power
to control
each of these in your life.
Glorify God
In many places throughout the Bible, the word
magnify is the same word
translated glorify. Therefore,
magnify and glorify can be used
interchangeably. And magnify means to
make bigger.
*
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:14pm
Did you know that you can make God bigger? Technically
speaking, God is
who He is, regardless of what you think, but in terms of
your
perception, He can be big or small. You have the power to
make Him one
or the other in your life.
Most of us have become masters at enlarging our problems
and minimizing
God and His Word. I remember a lady who thought she was
pregnant but
found out she had cancer instead. The doctors said she
needed a
hysterectomy immediately. They said she only had a fifty
percent chance
of living, and she wouldn't live more than two weeks
without surgery.
She came to me crying, Andrew, have you heard what
they said? Now, I
don't always respond this way, but I believe God led me
to say what I
did. I started laughing and declared, Cancer's no
problem with God. The
lights in heaven won't dim from the power drain if the
Lord heals you!
It's not any harder to be healed of cancer than it is
to be healed of a
cold.
I started magnifying and glorifying God. I made the Lord
bigger and the
cancer smaller. The only thing that made the cancer
insurmountable was
the value she was placing on what the doctors said. *
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:18pm
They
even called her
a fool for refusing treatment and made her sign paperwork
to absolve
them of liability when she died. But she
decided to stand her ground
and believe God. It's now been almost twenty years
since she refused
that operation-and she has a whole slew of children.
What do you value? What's big to you? You can magnify
the Lord and make
Him and His Word bigger than any problem. Do it by
glorifying, praising,
and thanking Him. Find someone in the Word who overcame a
situation
similar to yours. Meditate on the Word, and make it more
real to you
than the problem. You need to get to a place where
God's Word is true
and where He is greater than any situation.
All things are possible to him that believeth
(Mark 9:23).
Thankfulness
Paul listed un-thankfulness as one of the signs of the end
times and put
it in the same verse as covetousness, pride, blasphemy, and
unholiness
(2 Tim. 3:1-2). Not many would argue that we live in a
society full of
unthankful people, even in spite of the fact that we have
more
prosperity and opportunity than any people who have ever
lived. *
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:23pm
The second key to staying full of God is a thankful heart.
Glorifying,
magnifying, and thanking Him are all interrelated, but to
glorify God,
you must be thankful. As you are thanking Him, you're
reminding yourself
of what He has said and done, which magnifies Him.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his
benefits (Ps.
103:2).
Being thankful involves both humility and memory. Humility
is the
understanding that you didn't accomplish these things
on your own.
Then, humbly remembering the good things He has done for
you always
brings thankfulness. So it's important to look back and
rehea*se your
victories and remember whose power brought them to pass.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his
courts with
praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the
LORD is good;
his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all
generations
(Ps. 100:4-5).
*
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:29pm
Every time you are tempted to gripe and complain about a
problem, don't.
Instead, enter into God's presence and spend ten
minutes thanking Him
for His goodness. If you will, you'll find that the
natural desire to
complain will cease, and the problem will shrink as you
begin to see it
in the proper perspective.
*
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:33pm
Imagination
Imagination is much more important than most people
realize. The Hebrew
word that was translated imagination in the Old
Testament literally
means conception. Imagination is how we
conceive new ideas. Without
it, we become spiritually and creatively sterile.
A few years ago I took a trip to Israel. I remember
stopping in the
valley of Elah. I got out of the bus and walked down to
that little
stream. I picked up five smooth stones just the way David
once did. I
began to imagine what it must have been like for David when
he faced
Goliath. The story came alive.
The Word of God comes alive when you can picture what
it's talking
about. Let the Word of God control your imagination as you
think about
scriptures, and you will see things in Scripture that you
can't see with
your physical eyes. You see it on the inside...in your
imagination. *
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:39pm
When the Bible says you're healed, you've got to
meditate on that truth
until you see yourself healed. Most people allow their
imaginations to
become vain and agree with the image the doctors have
painted rather
than the Word of God. They're told what is going to
happen, and they
imagine it as truth.
When we fail to be thankful and glorify God, our
imagination
automatically becomes vain. That doesn't mean it
isn't working; it just
means it begins to work against us. A person with a vain
imagination is
a pessimist, imagining failure instead of success. *
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:43pm
We need
to use our
imagination to agree with God's Word and see ourselves
the way God sees
us: happy, healthy, and prosperous.
A Good Heart
The Scripture makes it very clear that the attitude of your
heart is far
more important than your actions.
Jesus said it this way in Matthew 23:25-26,
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
ye make clean the
outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are
full of
extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first
that which is
within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be
clean also.
The Lord is more concerned about your heart than He is your
actions.
Matthew 12:35, Mark 7:21-23, and Proverbs 23:7 make it even
clearer:
A good man out of the good treasure of the heart
bringeth forth good
things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth
forth evil
things (Matt. 12:35).
*
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:47pm
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed
evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness,
wickedness,
deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolishness: All
these evil things come from within, and defile the
man (Mark 7:21-23).
For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he
(Prov. 23:7).
Your heart controls what you say, and it also controls what
you do. All
of the above are products of your heart. The opposite of
those can be
true also. *
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:51pm
Love, joy, peace, patience, and the rest of the
fruit of the
spirit are also products of what your heart believes. The
reason the
heart responds in a negative way is because you allow it to
be dominated
by external, or physical, things instead of by the Word of
God.
Our understanding is then darkened, and we become
insensitive to God. We
actually cause our hearts to become hardened. The word
harden,
according to the dictionary, means cold, insensitive,
unfeeling, and
unyielding. When our hearts become hardened or insensitive
to God, they
automatically become sensitive, dominated by, and
controlled by our
physical senses.
So what do most people do when they realize their actions,
which are
being controlled by their hearts and are causing problems
for themselves
and others? They resort to behavior modification. *
endtimes 15.10.08 - 08:56pm
They try
to change
their actions without changing their hearts, and that never
works
long-term. If you want your behavior to change, you must
change your
heart. Make sure that the Word of God is the dominant
influence.
If you will put these four keys into practice in your life,
you will
never be the same. It will change the way you think about
everyone and
everything around you. It will give you a God perspective.
What I have written here is only an excerpt from the
teaching on this
subject. My new book, Discover the Keys to Staying Full of
God, has just
been released. In addition, I have released the companion
Study Guide, a
great tool for individual or group study. In them, I teach
on this
subject in depth. You can also order this teaching in CD or
DVD album
format. *
