For the “I-know-that-I-know” Folks

A Look at Psalm 139

This is a special Psalm for those who have trouble or feel some inadequacy explaining their experience of God.  You know, the I-know-that-I-know-that-I-know folks.  Their hearts are into the Lord.  They know He is into them.  They live their faith.  It’s not about answering all the hard questions or thinking profoundly or even having a thought-out testimony.  What you see is what you get with them.  And that’s just…

The Origin of Strongholds

One of the great gifts coming from the Hebrew Scriptures we call the Old Testament is its physical presentation loaded with spiritual meaning.  Scripture was opened to new understanding when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Instead of just the localized history of a small tribal group in the Mideast who believed in a single god, their Scripture turned out to cover everyone’s personal history from Creation to as long as people live, in the context of…

Does Our Freezer Need Emptying?

Hearkening back to our discussion on strongholds there are lots of ways strongholds can appear.  A close look at Paul’s words in 2^nd Corinthians 12:7-10 about his thorn in the flesh and Romans 7:7-25, about his sinful condition, tells us an awful lot about strongholds.  As we have already said quite a few times, strongholds are attitudes and attitudes are spiritual reactions to circumstances that cause our minds to find a way to handle them. …

Wisdom, the Work of the Spirit

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better (Eph.1:17).”

When we are talking about strongholds, we are describing man’s wisdom.  It’s the way man, apart from God, devises his own way to deal with right and wrong.  Going back to the original problem in Genesis 3, we see Eve tempted to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and…

It’s a Matter of Attitude

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you’re doing (1Th.5:11).”

Why do we think the things we do, do the things we do, feel the feelings we do and see other people the way we do?  It’s a past something, an impress being relived in the present.  It’s our heart’s conditioning after we have had some experience that was pleasant or one that hurt us or one that…