Walking Contagion!

 

Thank God for infections! Yes, you heard me correctly. Did you know that living on and in you are more bacteria than you have cells in your entire body? (Pause) Okay, now that you are recovering from the nausea of such an idea, let me explain. On your skin and lining your respiratory and gastrointestinal tract are millions of bacteria, without which you would be severely sick. Research has shown that if certain bacteria are not present in certain areas of the skin, specific diseases can occur.

In the intestinal tract, normal flora bacteria produce growth factors and nutrients which allow your cells to function, not only normally, but at a higher level than they ever could without the bacteria. Another way bacteria benefit you is by providing a competitive environment, where harmful and deadly bacteria can be hindered from causing disease.

Now think about the promises, dreams and hopes that God has given you as bacteria! You see, God’s principles are always revealed through His Word, and all of creation is literally His words manifested (Gen. 1-2). God desires for you to be “infected” with His plans and dreams for you and His Kingdom.

For example, when we hear from God concerning our purpose and destiny, a hope arises within us. This hope gives rise to faith and acts as a protective covering, much like bacteria on your skin, to help fight the lies and frustrations of circumstances from consuming God’s Word concerning you.

The Bible also says that God’s Word is the bread of life. Each time you allow a dream or prophetic word to grow and multiply within your spirit, you allow God’s Word over you to supply the “nutrients” needed for you to rise above the circumstances and ultimately walk into the manifestation of your dream.

You see, when we meditate on God’s Word, be it the scriptures or personal words from God, we allow God’s Word to be established as the “normal flora” of our lives. God’s Word now fights off the “evil bacteria” that come to try and steal our confession, our faith, our hope and our joy.

Now for the fun part! Do you know what is so great about bacteria? They can’t just stop by infecting one host! They are always looking for opportunities to infect and reproduce themselves in as many individuals as possible. Why? Because the more they spread, the greater they become (number-wise that is). So I ask you this question: What have you been doing to grow and reproduce God’s Word in you? Have others been infected with your dreams, your passion for God and His Kingdom?

If your answer is no, then stop being sterile! Throw away your spiritual antibiotic scrub-brush and embrace, cultivate, and spread the infectious words of God in your life. And soon, you will be a walking contagion for the Kingdom of God!

~Dr. Matt

Image Credit  © Johanna Goodyear | Dreamstime Stock Photos

 

The Hunger Games

“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” ~John 6:35 

“Blessed [are] they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” ~Mat 5:6

You can tell what people are hungry for by watching what they spend their time waiting for, what they spend their time doing and what they spend their time talking about.

I know people who spend every second of their day playing video games. When they’re not playing, they’re talking about playing or planning when to get back to their games so they can play some more. Why do they do that? Escape is what they’re hungry for.

I know other people who talk non-stop about their jobs…they recount every second of their day, they talk plans and strategies, all of their thoughts revolve around their work. Why? Success is what they’re hungry for.

There are folks who obsess over what other people think about them. They plan everything they do and everywhere they go based on what other people will say or how others will react. They do this because they’re hungry for the approval and acceptance of those people.

I’ve even known people who spend every minute thinking about how to fix other people. These folks are constantly devising plans to change other people, programs to put them on to “improve” them, and exercises to run them through to test them. They run around trying to counsel others and give advice for them to change. Why do they spend so much time and energy on these things? Because they’re hungry for control.

Figuring out what people are really hungry for is kind of like driving by a strip of restaurants on a Friday night and seeing all the people standing outside waiting for a table. Some people are hungry for steak, some for seafood, some for Mexican… you can tell what they’re hungry for by seeing where they are and how long they’re willing to wait for their meal. Same principle with people in every day life… what do they hang around? What are they willing to wait long hours for? What do they talk about and plan about throughout the week?

What are you hungry for? It’s Easter Sunday, so you might be hungry for ham or chocolate rabbits, but what else? Do you really hunger after people’s approval or acceptance? Or are you  hungry for a new house or car? A nice long vacation to the beach? Do you hunger after a promotion on your job or a new relationship? Success? Fame? Belonging? Validation?

I know the religious answer we all want to give to this question is: I am hungry for more of God in my life. We want to say that, and many of us probably really want to mean that… but do we? Do we spend more time thinking about Him and His Kingdom than we do about our own success or pleasure? Do we spend time doing the things that He has called us to do, or do we give the majority of our time to the things our flesh hungers for? Can people around us tell that we are more hungry for God than we are for our dinner out this Friday night?

Jesus made it pretty simple; if we hunger after Him, His Kingdom, and His righteousness, then we would be filled with those things. If we seek His Kingdom, He will take care of all of our needs. It seems pretty obvious to me that so many of us are running around, seeking fulfillment in our lives, because we are more hungry for other things than we are for Him. We say we’re hungry for Him, but our actions show otherwise. We’re playing a game.

You’ve probably heard about the smash movie hit, The Hunger Games, playing in theaters right now. The movie is based on the best-selling series of the same name written by Suzanne Collins. It’s a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story in which the lead character has to fight others to the death in order to survive and win a food prize for her community. There’s more to it than that, but the story got me thinking… how hungry am I, really, for God? Am I hungry enough to fight for what I believe in? Am I hungry enough to sacrifice my own desires and dreams? Am I really hungry enough to fight for others around me? Or am I just playing a game, saying things one way and behaving another way.

Think about it as you go through your week this week…

(image from thehungergames.wikia.com via Google)

What’s Separating You?

I had a dream this morning that went something like this… lots of people from my church were all in one building that I knew to be our “house.” I was walking through this house with Apostle David, and we were looking for a place in it where we could all come together to meet at one time, but all of the rooms were too small.

Some rooms were appointed with comfortable leather couches, but the couches were jammed so closely together that only a couple of people could sit on them at a time. Another room looked like a kitchen area, but you couldn’t get to the food in the pantries because there was a lot of furniture in the way, blocking all the cabinets. There was one rather large table in this same room that looked as though many people could sit around it, but it was crammed into such a small space that one whole side of the table was inefficient, and no one could sit there. Apostle David said to me, “Now, this table worked when it was in the other room, so why isn’t it working here?” We looked at the lay-out and realized the table was designed to be in a big open room, but it had been taken and crammed into this already cluttered room, so the functionality of the table was lost.  I replied to him, “This table wasn’t built to go in this room. It’s supposed to be somewhere else.”

As we left that room, we entered an upstairs hallway in which a handful of people were standing, crowded along a railing or banister. They said to us, “If you see so-and-so as you walk on through this house, will you give them a message from us?” I asked them why they didn’t just go give them the message themselves, and they replied, “We tried to go tell them, but there wasn’t enough room for us where they are. We tried to fix that by sending these messages over the rail to them, but we don’t think they can understand the message.” Suddenly, I realized each of these people had a golf club and were whacking golf balls over the rail. When I leaned over the rail, I saw that the balls were hitting the people down below in the head. I couldn’t hear what the people below were saying, but it was apparent that the balls were hurting them and they thought the people upstairs were attacking them with the balls. I turned to one of the people with the club and said, ‘They can’t hear what you’re saying, and the way you are launching this message at them makes them think you are attacking them, hurting them on purpose.” The people with the clubs said, “We know that. That’s why you need to tell them that isn’t what we mean. If they would just open up the balls when they land on them, they will be able to see the message.” I looked at Apostle David and said, “The rooms in the house are too small, and the people cannot communicate from one room to the next. There is confusion in the house because of the separation. People are hurting others by the way they’re trying to communicate. What should we do?”

Just then, it was like I was looking down at my box of Christmas ornaments with all of the little cardboard dividers in it meant to keep the ornaments from bunching into each other. Instead of a box of ornaments, however, it was our “house” with each little box separated from all the others like cubicles in an office. I was thinking, “Well, that’s not good. No wonder they cannot communicate… they are cut off from each other.” Just then, a giant hand reached down past us and lifted up the cardboard dividers, causing all of the cubicles to be one large, open space. When that happened, I woke up and the Lord told me there has been a spirit of confusion and separation keeping us all from being able to communicate and work and live together, and that the spirit was empowered by the separation each of us has between ourselves and Him.

When I got to church this morning for prayer, these verses came to me from Romans…

Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? (Even the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.” ) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~Romans 8:35-39 (NLT)

I believe this vision is for my own local church, but I also believe it is for the Body of Christ as a whole. There is a lot that can be learned from the dream, but I believe the most important thing is this: Walls of separation are put in place by religious, controlling spirits that come to divide and confuse. God has said that nothing can separate us from His love that is revealed IN CHRIST. We are THE BODY OF CHRIST, and His love is to be revealed in and through us. We can jump up and down and scream and holler at the devil and his religious spirits all day long, but they are empowered by the fact that we, as a body… as THE BODY… do not reveal the love of GOD through us. When that love is revealed through us, when we truly see it, then nothing can separate us from that same love… from that same love that is found IN HIS BODY.

It’s time we tore down the walls of separation between ourselves and our God. Only then can we destroy the walls of separation keeping us from effectively being ONE BODY.