One of the great problems with Israel, and I dare say one of the great problems of the church today is if we are not very careful, we can easily become blind to what God is doing in our world –even in its darkest hour.

"For many years we white folk enslaved our fellow African Americans, treating them like animals, splitting up their families, sometimes sexually abusing their women, sometimes murdering the men if we felt they were out of line. When slavery was finally overturned we continued to treat them as sub humans – discriminating against them as to where they could sit on a public transport bus...."

It was the Holy Spirit who taught John how to cultivate an inner/hidden life with God in the wilderness. It was the Holy Spirit who gave him utterance and boldness and fiery zeal for holiness and truth amidst an unholy and perverted generation.

All of this to say, for this woman to even enter this house, much less to carry on like she did probably for five to fifteen minutes - knowing she was being scornfully watched by these men of power and influence – something powerful and life changing had to have taken place in her life prior to this encounter with Jesus of Nazareth.

Grumbling and complaining is evil because it basically communicates that God is not good nor just nor wise nor a good Father nor able to bring about needed change in our circumstances; and it all originates from the evil one himself.

Paul clearly did not believe he should never ever think upon those things again. While he refused to allow any shame or condemnation to enter his mind re: his sinful past, he clearly had regrets – especially about the way he harshly persecuted believers. And it was the occasional reflection upon his sinful past that caused him to see the greatness of the mercy of God towards Him.

Chapter three is somewhat of a timeout! It is a reminder of the dangers of getting so wrapped up in serving Jesus as Martha did, that we lose sight of savoring Jesus as Mary was able to do. It is Paul sensing a check in his spirit via the Holy Spirit, and thus he lays aside discussion of the advance of the kingdom, for something of even greater importance and that is – affection for, and pursuit of the King of this kingdom.

One of the things we have come to realize around here is – Our perception of God greatly affects our pursuit of Him. For instance, if I think God is mean and grumpy and condemning and always in a bad mood, then I will not very likely want to know and fellowship with Him, and spend my discretionary time with Him.   

Nothing sucks the life out of the God given destiny on every family to be an instrument in God’s hands than this prevalent practice of turning a blind eye to obvious sin and evil and unrighteousness in one’s family or extended family.

It is my conviction that God chose Esther and Mordecai primarily because they were available and useable in a time of history where the bar of spiritual vitality among the Jews was very low, but the stakes for their survival was very very high.

While Hesed doesn’t’ once appear in Esther, it is God’s lovingkindness that is operative behind the scenes in this great book. It is God’s covenant love for a people that He chose and formed and destined to be a demonstration of His love to the world around Him, that is lurking behind the many turns of events in the book of Esther.

And I think one of the reasons we so struggle with this is because we see the Holy Spirit use unholy people – even ourselves, and we therefore conclude their lack of holiness (or ours) is no big deal. One of the things I used to justify my own lack of holiness was the fact that God was using me in people’s lives. Therefore He must have been pleased with me.

Sound, Christ like, and God pleasing behavior rides on the back of sound, Christ centered doctrine. Sound doctrine protects Christ’s church from confusion and deception. It helps her rightly examine the more subjective aspects of kingdom life like prophetic words, dreams, visions, trances, etc. It provides guard rails for the life of the Spirit.

Obviously Paul in his heart wanted everyone to be free of slavery. If there was some clear route to that freedom made possible by God’s power and intervention, then great! Otherwise trust God and learn to see what He is doing in your suffering and hardships.

You see perspective pretty much more than anything else determines whether we thrive or just survive. Perspective determines whether we see the glass half full or almost empty.

I want to say this morning that in the kingdom of God – sternness or meanness is never appropriate or justified……. Sadly in our culture we have just assumed this is the way authority figures have to be.

June 17, 2018 INTRODUCTION – As we jump into Ecclesiastes ch. 4 today, I want to direct my thoughts primarily to the working folk among us, because that is what most of this chapter is about. Thinking back to Genesis ch. 2 if you would for a moment, soon after God created Adam and Eve , He set them to work in this beautiful and most likely quite expansive garden in a place called Eden. The living God is a God who loves to work. He never dreams of retiring. He enjoys and tak

God’s will and full intention is that the elders of His church – wherever in the world a corporate expression of Christ’s church finds itself – thrive in the carrying out of their ministry, and that they end their race strong and well, and that Christ’s church is safe and secure under their leadership and care as a result.

This word “ungifted” never appears anywhere in scripture but in this chapter. It clearly is referring to people who have not received any of the more prophetic gifts. And I at that point had not. Paul is not in any way in this passage shaming or rebuking the ungifted. Rather he is warning those who are prophetically gifted of not unduly offending the ungifted when we gather in our public worship services.

WE looked at each other and realized we had just lived out this scripture. Randy had read the supernatural word of God to me for five whole chapters until I could get cleansed of the burden that I was carrying. It was a supernatural work that happened that night through Randy reading the word of God to me.