God Thinking LXVII - You Are That Person 9

"Are you ready to get beyond yourself and see what God can do with someone who is willing to step out in faith and really trust Him.Are you ready to ask God for something that you have been storing in: 

That place in your mind that says:

• It can’t be done
• There’s just not enough time
• I’m a thousand miles away
• I’m just not good enough
• I’ll never have enough money      
• Nobody cares anyway
• I don’t need God’s help to get where I’m going(Depending on where you are headed you might be right about that)

Are you ready to ask God for something?

Bigger than you can do without the aid of Almighty God?

Are you ready to ask God for something that cannot be earned or attained, something of great value that you have no control over, and believe for it in a way that brings it to pass?

Are you ready to step out in faith and release the grip you’ve had on things for a better way - A way where God is in control?

In your mind and in your heart you have to let go and allow God to increase your faith. 

You have to go to God and say, “Whatever mission you have for me, I am the man or the woman for the job.” “I want your life in me to explode with faith - where I can operate under the guidance of the Holy Spirit - and do those things which are pleasing in your sight.”

You have got to get beyond your self and your constant striving to be fulfilled with the things that are robbing you of a deeper walk with God.  The things I’m talking about do not need definition.  You know what they are for you.

You have got to take your mind off of the, “what’s in it for me” syndrome long enough to be in God’s presence for more than a moment or a minute.

Is this the day your faith takes you..................?????????

Do you want to go to the alter of God in your heart and see your life transformed into a life of faith?

Are you prepared to walk out on the plank of faith and get beyond yourself and reach out to others with power from on High?  Trust me, you will lose your bearings for a moment.  On the plank of faith you may get spiritual vertigo. But not until you let go of your self and walk out on the plank of faith are you prepared to take the leap of faith where you allow God to have control in your life.  

Note: Trust me I know this is not at all popular, relinquishing your control and handing over the reigns of your life to God.  After all God has been so illusive thus far. Oh that's right you haven't walked out on the plank of faith yet.  No wonder God seems illusive. Are You That Person?

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVII - You Are That Person by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

                                                

God Thinking LXVII - You Are That Person 1

"I am going to take you to a dimension of God Thinking that can only be apprehended by faith.  I want you to sense - an intuition of urgency, concerning the spiritual condition of your nation, your city, your friends and family and your own spiritual condition as well?

Have you or do you feel a tug on your heart to get things right and keep things right with God?

Have you noticed that the opportunity for you to speak about your faith has come up more recently than ever before?

God has chosen these last days to build up and empower an holy people.  These people are not all well known, nor are they of a certain heritage - nor are they all the same age.

They don’t all have the same last name, nor are they of the same nationality.  They don’t have the same educational background, nor is it required. 

They don’t all have the same gifts, nor do they all say things exactly the same way.

They are individuals, empowered by an invisible force that goes beyond reason and logic into the mystical world where Jesus is Lord.  AND YOU ARE THAT PERSON."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVII - You Are That Person by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 11

"The fourth attribute that makes you who you are and makes you able to receive from God is your spirit:

4.    Your spirit

Different from the body, mind or heart, your spirit is ready and willing to receive from God.  Your spirit as born again believers, is alive and joined with Christ.  Your spirit is not in rebellion against God like your body, mind and heart can be.

Go with me if you would to Mark 14:37-38.  Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane praying.  And as soon as He is finished praying, He speaks to Peter and says. Mark 14:37-38 starting at the middle of verse 37, “Simon, sleepest thou?  Couldest not thou watch one hour?

V38 Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.  The spirit  truly is ready, but the flesh is weak.”

1 Corinthians 6:17

“But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.”

Once you have received the Holy spirit, your spirit is ready and willing to yield to God.  Think about it, if your spirit rebelled against God like your flesh, your mind and your heart, there would be no hope. 

But there is hope.  God quickened your spirit with His Spirit and that makes you able to yield to the Holy Spirit.

The man or woman who has not allowed God entrance through salvation cannot receive the wisdom of God, because their spirit has not been quickened, i. e., (made alive). 

The Word teaches Corinthians 2:14

“14.  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

Having a theological discussion with the unsaved is unfruitful.  No one is won by your theological prowess.  They are won, once they see clearly that they are lost. Man is far too proud to lose an argument, but no one wants to lose their soul.

The unsaved man or woman is trying to live out their existence and make sense of it all, without revelation from God.  That’s why it is so important for you, to put on the mind of Christ and to reveal the image of the living God in your life and your actions. 

No one just believes. God must first be seen in a man by his example before that man can reveal God by words.

Your flesh, your mind and the heart war against your yielding to the Spirit of God.  But the Spirit of God is able to win this war, and will win this war, as you yield. 

Just as God was revealed to you by another, as you yield, God will be revealed to another by you." The whole person yields to God a little at a time until they realize that yielding a little is not yielding at all.  

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 10

"The third attribute that makes you who you are and makes you able to receive from God and can keep you from yielding to God is:

3.    Your heart

Your heart is not your body, nor is it your mind.  Your heart is where faith resides.  The heart is that central part of your being that senses the Holy Spirit.  The heart is that part of your being that is able to receive and believe the things of God by faith. 

When your body doesn’t want to and your mind just can’t fathom it, your heart receives it openly.  But the heart is also able to harden itself against the things of God and keep you from yielding to the Holy Spirit. 

1 Samuel 16:7

“But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as a man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.”

Proverbs 23:7a

“For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Phillipians 4:5-7

“Let your moderation be known unto all men.  The Lord is at hand.

V6 Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be known unto God.

V7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Hebrews 4:12

“For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than a two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Romans 10:9-10

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

V10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

It is easy for the intellectual to talk like they don’t need God, but their heart exposes them as desperate and needy.

The heart must be trained by faith to believe God.  The heart can stand in the way of yielding to God, but it is the heart that can by faith, yield to God as well. 

Please teach your children or tell a friend - their heart must be trained by faith to believe God.

Please don’t let the world teach your children, your family or your friends about God. 

You are the one, who must lean in and speak the words that changes hearts - “Jesus is alive.  I met Him and I just want you to hear it from me, Jesus is alive.”

You have to ask yourself, "am I by faith, yielding my heart to God?"

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 9

"The second attribute that makes you who you are and makes you able to receive from God also makes you who you are and can keep you from yielding to God is:

2.    Your mind

It’s a tough battle, the battle for your mind.  You want so much to be right and have the last word.  Your mind is not very receptive to learning new things. That is why you are so reluctant to receive revelation, because revelation refers to learning something new or unlearning something of no value.   It may not be a new thing or a new principle from God, but it may be new to you.

Your mind is reluctant to allow God to reveal new truths in you, but you must.  God calls you to a renewing of the mind and to put on the mind of Christ. 

Ephesians 4:17-24 aptly express this very thought.

Ephesians 4:17-24

“This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

V18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

V19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.

V20 But ye have not so learned Christ;

V21 If so be that ye have heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus:

V22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

V23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

V24 And that ye put on the new man, which is after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”

If your mind is stagnant,  you are not in the will of God. 

You have a lot to learn when you think you have learned it all. God gave you a mind to be utilized, challenged, stirred up and changed. You are to study to show yourself approved and when you do you are not going to be carried away with every whim of the undisciplined mind.

Your relationship with God is not (solely) of the mind, because if it were you could not live by faith.  And the Bible tells us that “the just shall live by faith.”

The mind science religions and the metaphysical religions are popular among those who have no faith because the teaching satisfies the mind, and requires no faith.

Unfortunately, satan has access to the mind and the body, and without the indwelling Holy Spirit, we trust our minds and our bodies to deliver us, but neither the mind or the body can deliver us.

Here again with the mind as with the body and the heart, you mustn’t attempt to get everything in order and then yield to the Holy Spirit.  No, you must yield to the Holy Spirit and then everything will get in order."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 8

The same attributes that make you who we are and make you able to receive from God also make you who you are and can keep you from yielding to God.

1.    Your body the flesh.

your flesh knows that because of the indwelling Holy Spirit, that when you yield, your flesh yields and the flesh doesn’t yield without a fight. 

The flesh knows that when you yield to God you are going to change some things. 

Your flesh is seeking satisfaction and it is going to get it.

And that’s just fine when the flesh is trained to be satisfied with what pleases God, but until then, you are in for the battle of your life. 

Anyone that tells you that this is an easy battle, simply hasn’t been in the battle yet.

There’s the health battle

The weight battle

The habit battle

Not to mention some other unspoken battles

Powerful, long term inhabitants within you, unwilling to yield.

There is a great war going within you between your flesh and the Spirit of God within you.  The Bible speaks to this issue over and over again.  It started with Adam and Eve. 

After they were dispelled from the garden there was a separation between man and God that has continued until this day.  This separation can only be joined together by yielding yourself to the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:5

“For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.”

When you yield to the Holy Spirit, God gives you power to overcome and win the battle between the flesh and the Spirit.

Jesus said in Matthew 26:41

“Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

John 6:63

“It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

When your flesh is in charge, as a Christian, you are most miserable.  You can no more control the flesh than you can stop a freight train, without yielding to the Holy Spirit.

God the Holy Spirit will intervene and fight the battle with you if you yield to Him. 

This isn’t about getting everything straight in your life and then God can have His way with you, it’s about letting God have His way with us and He will straighten out everything in your life."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 7

"Yielding is when you trust God so much that you let go of the reigns.

Yielding is when you come before God without any agenda. 

Yielding is when you don’t have to have all the answers.

Yielding is when you submit yourself to God - without any deals, like 'If you do this for me I’ll do that for you.'

Yielding is when you are quiet before God, surrendering to His will.

Yielding is allowing God to teach you, fill you, work in you and through you without any barriers.

Yielding is where you receive from God His will, His plan, His power, Himself - God abiding in you in such a way, that His will is performed, not only in your life, but in the lives of those around you. 

That is the relationship you can have with God.

You cannot yield to the Holy Spirit at all until you have been born again. 

Until you have been born again your relationship with God is strained and uncertain. 

You do not have the confidence that God is on your side and you do not understand the workings of God. 

Until you are born again you cannot yield to the Holy Spirit. You are totally at the mercy of natural law.

Once you have been born again the Holy Spirit comes to make His home in you and abide in you.

I believe that all of us want to thoroughly understand how to be in God’s will and how to stay there. 

In order to have this understanding you are going to have to look at the whole person and see what might be keeping you from this kind of a yielding relationship.

The same attributes that make you who you are and make you able to receive from God can keep you from yielding to God."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 6

"Finding God’s purpose:

In your marriage

In your singleness

In your jobs

In your recreation

In your hobbies

In your stewardship

In your ministry

In your commitment

In your failure as well as in your successes

In your down times and in your up times

And it is by yielding to God, that the answer to these and every question is discovered.

When you see God’s purpose in it, (whatever it is), it makes sense. 

It is not God’s will for you that you are always in the fog about God’s purpose for you.

It is not the will of God for you when you are unsure and disconnected, afraid or confused.

If you do not yield to the Holy spirit, the Holy Spirit cannot fulfill God’s will in you.  If you do yield to the Holy Spirit, then God’s will is accomplished, (not by you, but in you, and through you) by the Holy Spirit."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 5

"God speaks to you in His written Word and by His spoken Word to create in you a likeness of Himself and when you yield to God’s spoken Word - you become more like God. 

It is during this time of yielding that we receive power from God. 

It is during this time of yielding that we receive the filling of the Holy Spirit. 

It is during these times of yielding that God is in agreement with you and His will is accomplished.

  

The Spirit of God is above and beyond you.  The Spirit of God knows all things.  God, the Holy Spirit knows all about you, what you want, what you need what you should pray for. The Holy Spirit knows what is good for you and what is not.

The Holy Spirit indwells you for a purpose.  That purpose is so that you will yield to Him and be filled to overflowing, with peace and comfort, fulfillment and joy.

When you yield your body

When you yield your mind

When you yield your heart

When you yield your spirit

And ultimately when you yield your soul

God’s will for your life is accomplished. 

Before you let that thought pass into the realm of inconsequential or trivial - It is in finding God’s purpose in each facet of your life that gives value and eternal worth to your experiences, otherwise most things grow dim and vain."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 4

If you learned how to turn away from God, you learned it from others. If you learned how to sneak around - how to hide from your responsibilities - how to be two people, you learned it from others. 

Those who have learned their way away from God had better stop what they are doing and turn around. 

You need to tell them. 

They are in eminent danger. 

They don’t have a lifetime to work things out. 

God is gathering His people under His wings to take them out of this perverted and subverted culture. 

You need to steer them to stop looking and start seeing.  Jesus Christ - God among man - lowered Himself to walk among us - to go before us and make things right for us. 

You can, by faith live out the rest of your life under the guidance and leadership of Almighty God. 

You can, by the power of God, say no to things that used to rule you like the gestapo ruled over Auwshowitz.

God designed you so that when you do not believe God’s written/spoken Word - when you do not yield to what God has said - you become incapable of reflecting the likeness of Christ - you become unable to do the will of God - you become paralyzed and powerless, because you were not designed to be without the indwelling Holy Spirit. 

I hope you are getting this.  You were not designed to be without the indwelling Holy Spirit."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014
  

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 3

"AS life goes on little by little you can develop a philosophy of self reliance; one that only recognizes that there is a god, not one that turns to God for sustanance.

Little by little you can become less like God’s image and likeness - because you cannot be like God without Christ. 

You cannot imitate holiness - it is received from God unto you.  You cannot create it or make it or become it or contrive it. 

Everything to do with being spiritual, except the presence of the  indwelling Holy Spirit, is a fake. 

All the Christian look-alikes’ (the tares as the scriptures calls them) are filled with double standards, empty promises, unsupported statements of belief, vain thoughts and idle words. They are impotent of the ability to ascertain the will of God and powerless to perform it.

When you do not yield to God’s spoken/written Word - You are slowly convinced that you do not need God.  Eventually, if you were to live long enough, you could eradicate the idea of God altogether, or, as so many have, just create a god that suits their needs, but that’s not how you started out."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 2

"When you do not yield to God’s spoken/written Word - when you listen to God’s Word with indifference - then what you receive is  incomplete and unable to solve your problems, cure your diseases, help you through troubles.

When you do not yield to God’s spoken/written Word, you are compelled to speak to the issues of life under your own power, by your own strength, with your own words, without the aid and support of God.

Isn’t that how most things get messed up in the first place. 

No one of sets out to go against God. 

All the ugliness of life is learned behavior.

No one starts out thinking - hey someday I’m gonna be a drug addict - or hey let’s go get drunk, maybe we can crash our car or hit some innocent bystander.

No one takes their first drink or their first puff on a cigarette or marijuana and says, “my that has a delightful taste.”  No, our body, mind and spirit all cringe at the smell and the taste of harmful or intoxicating substances. 

You have got to be taught to like it. 

Without someone standing over us and egging us on, we would all turn down drugs and alcohol and cigarettes as if it were poison.  We wouldn’t take the chance on anything that might cause us harm if it hadn’t been for someone patting us on the back and telling us, “it’ll be alright.”   

No one starts out thinking that they will someday spend more on lottery tickets than they do milk and bread for their kids.

No one starts out thinking that a little flirting around will end up in divorce with a restraining order to keep them away from their own children. 

No one sets out to misrepresent a product or service.  Over time they are desensitized to believe that the customer deserves to buy a fraudulent product. 

Kids aren’t born with a propensity to bring guns to school and shoot their teachers or other students.  You’ve got to exposed to a whole lot of evil before considering such a grotesque act of evil.

Teens don’t start out on a Friday night thinking they will get pregnant or be given a drug to seduce them by someone that says they love them more than their own mother.

When you do not yield to God’s spoken/written Word - little by little you will stray from God’s plan for your life. It is not all at once, but little by little.  Do you agree?" 

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C.                                          Powell Copyright 2014

God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields 1

"Proverbs 9:6-10

 6.  Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.

 7.  He that reproveth a scorner, (someone that makes fun of wisdom), getteth to himself shame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot.

 8.  Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.

 9.  Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.

 10.  The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.

When the Word is preached, the Holy Spirit confirms it within you with an unction.  This unction is a simple yes or amen to the spoken Word or the spoken truth.  Truth brings hope through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Every Word of truth that you receive becomes part of who you are - but just the same every word of truth that you reject or rebel against also becomes part of who you are. 

God speaks to you to create in you a likeness of Himself and when you yield to God’s spoken Word - you become more like God. 

When you yield yourself to God, you start to and continue to operate with wisdom and prudence and truth. God thinking is all about yielding to God when its convenient and yielding to God when its not convenient."

Note: If you are like me the 'when it is not convenient' really hits a chord. If you believed that everything that you yield to God is better than anything not yielded, you would always yield.  But you don't believe that yet, do you?"

Excerpt from God Thinking LXVI - The Whole Person Yields by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2014

  

God Thinking LXV - Alive Faith 7

"Alive faith is ready to receive - always looking with expectation that somehow God will reach them.

Alive faith is always mining for a nugget of truth or a gem of revelation knowing that God has hidden the better things, (not to discourage us) but so that the will explore Him even deeper.

Alive faith listens carefully when the Word is read and places it over their situations - over their problems - over their circumstances - over their obstacles - over their barriers trusting that God has allowed whatever is in your path, and that in it you become more like God.

Alive faith isn’t satisfied with being tickled.  Alive faith wants  to be inspired and moved.

Alive faith is hungry for food for the soul. 

Alive faith speaks to the demons of life and commands them to go elsewhere.

Alive faith is that kind of faith that God can take and  increase and expand the simplest opportunity into a magnificent panorama of possibilities.

Alive faith makes the recipient glow with confidence and assurance, because alive faith works (in relation to, not separation from) God Himself.

 

Alive faith doesn’t have time to put others down, because it is too busy building them up.

 

Alive faith as the writer of Hebrews so perfectly exhorts:

Hebrews 11:3

 3.  Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Alive faith is beside the outcome.

Above the naysayer

Believes the impossible

Alive faith is the kind you want to be accused of.

God can take your whole life and turn it all around with just a little alive faith.  Do you believe it?

Excerpt from God Thinking LXV - Alive Faith by Keith C. Powell Copyright                                                       2014

God Thinking LXV - Alive Faith 6

"Alive faith is what connects with God to bring about great and mighty things.

Alive faith get results, because alive faith is looking to God for God’s answer or provision more than it is looking for it’s own contrived idea to be fulfilled.

Alive faith trust’s that God is so close and so involved and so contemporary that before you even ask, alive faith believes that God is on it.

Matthew says in Matthew 6:7-8

 7.  But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

 8.  Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

Alive faith seeks God and loves what God gives them, always in awe of how God goes beyond even your greatest expectations.

Alive faith believes in a risen Savior, one who is, “the same, yesterday and to day, and for ever.”      Hebrews 13:8

Alive faith is not easily dissuaded to follow after worldly pursuits, because those with alive faith have seen and tasted of the holy.

Alive faith believes in miracles.

Alive faith is thankful beyond description for the great love and mercy of God.

Alive faith finds a way to be with God’s people.

Alive faith believes in healing.   

Alive faith believes that you can speak the words that will change a man or a woman’s mind to receive the free gift of salvation, because alive faith understands the connection between the indwelling Holy Spirit and your role as God’s workmanship, God’s witness, a living testimony of a living God performing a living work - in you and through you by His own power."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXV - Alive Faith by Keith C. Powell Copyright                                                       2014

God Thinking LXV - Alive Faith 5

"Dead faith is Intellectual, but not wise

Religious, but not righteousness

All talk, but no action.

As James so aptly puts it, “Even so faith, if it hath not works,

is dead, being alone.”   James 2:17

And in James 2:20, “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

And in V 26 James writes, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

If you are thinking that I am preaching salvation is by works, forget it, the Word clearly teaches, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

V9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

V10.  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.  Ephesians 2:8-10

Not of good works, but unto good works.

  

Those with dead faith try to make those with alive faith believe that they have alive faith too, but it is evident that they do not.

There’s no fruit - There’s no testimony

There’s no witness - There’s no power

Just the motions of having faith, some of the language, but no real connection.

Dead faith is stirred to rebellion each time it is faced with itself.

Dead faith is always trying to lower the bar.

Dead faith is not moved when God enters - because dead faith is callous to God’s gentle wooing.

Dead faith looks alive on Sunday, but by Monday, there’s not even enough residue from Sunday, to see it under a microscope."

Excerpt from God Thinking LXV - Alive Faith by Keith C. Powell Copyright                                                       2014