God Thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? 6

"As you get closer to God:

• The world and everything it offers takes its proper place in the presence of God, (full of false hope and empty promises).
• The huge and seemingly impassable obstacles look like toys made with toothpicks when we get close to God.
• Your worst, real live nightmare fades into obscurity in the presence of God.

 As you get closer to God:
God imparts hope to encourage us that you can accomplish your dreams in spite of every barrier and God let’s you see how to do it. 

God let’s you into His foreknowledge and you can use that vision to take any you to your next level.

I hope you are letting this get down into your spirit.

As you get closer to God:

• Your faith rises to a new level. The kind of faith that needs no further proof - faith that needs no sign - raw faith that believes things into existence.
• The impossible becomes probable and then the probable becomes conceivable and then the conceivable becomes potential and the next thing you know, what was impossible is now actuality.

As you get closer to God.   

Your enemy comes after you with a vengeance to remind you that everything that God says is true, isn’t true.

Every time you have a genuine great thought that draws you closer to God, here comes satan to remind you of how utterly ridiculous it is to think you could ever get closer to God.

satan jeers in the background, because he has seen so many Christians say one thing and do another.  satan has seen so many Christians start out one way and end up another.  satan counts the times when you fail and brings them to your remembrance every chance he gets. 

satan lies to you about what happens when you get closer to God. 

he lies about what is ahead for you. 

he lies about what the results of the encounter will be. 

he lies about what you’ll lose, what you’ll gain, what effect it will have on others, what your place is in the big picture.

satan lies to you as you start to draw close to God, because he knows the truth about himself, which he has managed to hide from so many people today."

Excerpt from God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2012

God Thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? 5

"It’s not prudish or overly spiritual to take a look at our lives and evaluate ourselves to see if we are living out our salvation experience in the manner that God prescribed for us.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5

“5.  Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?:”

I can tell you this with certainty.

A little self evaluation is far less painful than the adversity that comes with chastisement by God or the empty feeling that comes with knowing that we are out of God’s will. 

It is better that we come to recognize our errors early, so we can adjust our lifestyle to avoid any more pain that comes with being outside of the will of God.

Is there pain and suffering and negative consequences with living outside of the will of God?

Is it unreasonable for this pastor to ask each of us to evaluate our relationship with God, to make sure that we are living out our calling, in Christ?

As you get closer to God - God gets real big - You sense the awesome power of God - You sense the light of God, the brilliance that emanates from the throne of God - You sense the holiness of God.

As you get closer to God something else happens also:

• The things of this world grow ever so dim.
• The so called big problems get smaller and smaller.
• The past takes its proper place.
• What was a crisis yesterday, God turns into a matter not worth mentioning.
• What was so big you thought you couldn’t get through it, gets very small.
• What use to look good to us, starts to look less delectable, because our eyes are opened to see more than the moment.
• You can see further into a thing in the presence of God, because God reveals to us more of His foreknowledge as we get closer.

I know some of you have experienced this knowing - inside, about some things, and you have moved on them and these things in your life that just weeks ago seemed insurmountable or running out of control - have taken on their true identity - which is, situations that you can manage under the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God. 

Do I detect an Amen?

Excerpt from God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2012

God Thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? 4

"If people don’t like the things of God on this side, what makes them think they are going to like the things of God on the other side.

I believe that God is calling us to practice living with what God has supplied and ordained for His children - And also God is calling us to practice living without those things that are not for us, those things that are not supplied by God , nor are they ordained for His children.

David speaks to us in Psalm 95 and God speaks to us through David in Psalm 95.  God knew that you and I would someday read Psalm 95.  In it is David’s response to being in the presence of God, but in it God speaks to us also.

Psalms 95:1-11

1.  O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
2.  Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
3.  For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.
4.  In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.

5.  The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land.
6.  O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
 7.  For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice,
8.  Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9.  When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.
10.  Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, and said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways:
11.  Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they should not enter into my rest.

God’s people do not always know God’s ways. 

There are many reasons why God’s people do not know God’s ways, but:

• Lack of God’s urging is not one of them.         
• Lack of God’s calling is not one of them.
• Lack of God’s revelation is not one of them.
• Lack of God’s constant directing is not one of them.
• Lack of God’s Supernatural intervention is not one of them.

Why is it that God’s people do not follow God’s ways?
 

I believe it is time to ante up in our lives and take a hard look at our ways to see if our ways are God’s ways.

 

Excerpt from God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2012

God Thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? 3

"Today, too many people represent the work that Christ does in us as pitiful, powerless, weak, impotent, and significant.

They claim Christ, but not the work that Christ does in them.

They claim to be a new creation, that just happens to enjoy all the same old habits as before.

They claim that Jesus is Lord...but...

Jesus said in Luke 6:46 “And why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”

The Holy Spirit reminds the believer that Jesus is Lord and to be worshiped and adored.

The Holy Spirit brings to our attention that we are Ambassadors of Christ and as Ambassadors we have a responsibility to accurately represent Him to a lost and dying world.

 

The Holy Spirit convicts of us sin and reveals what should be put “on top” in the mind and convicts us of what needs to be pushed down and out.

The Holy Spirit steers us to conform to the image of God and to put off the old ways.

The Holy Spirit leads every child of God to take responsibility as a creation of God for His or her own actions. 

There are many counterfeit Christians and they are not interested in what God says.

 God declares He will have:

• A people in love with His Son.
• A people devoted to the things of God.
• A people informed in the truths of Scripture.
• A people who look for ways to build His Church.
• A people who desire holiness.
• A people hungry for the things of God.
• A people who adore the Lord.
• A people who seek the narrow path.
• A people who choose to be like Christ.
• A people who trust God.
• A people who love one another.
• A people tempered in righteousness.
• A people of faithfulness.
• A people who follow Christ.
• A people that desire to be with His people.
• A people who enjoy worship and praise.
• A people that give to the poor.
• A people that answer the call.

Why would anyone want to go to heaven that doesn’t enjoy the things of God on this side?

Excerpt from God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2012

God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? 2

"God is not moved by all the skeptics that think that the Bible is just a history book and a not very accurate one at that.

God is not worried that scientist will discover that we were once monkeys and that the earth did begin by two stars colliding 5 billion years ago, give or take a few billion years.

God is not unsettled that politicians would refer to God as, an “opiate to the masses.”

God is not moved by the poets referring to Him as the "one that isn’t."

God is not moved by the philosopher’s final analysis that, “God is dead.”  We have come to learn that Nostradamus is dead, not God.

God is not worried when satan and all his demons make up some new potion for people to try - or when satan repackages imitations of God’s Word and sells them as philosophy.

But, God is moved when those who call themselves Christians ignore His plan for their lives.

God is moved when those who claim to be saved treat His temple like a drug den.

God is moved when His people write more bad checks than the world.

God is moved when His children spend more of their money on entertainment than they do in helping the church reach the lost.

God is moved when His own people deny Him His rightful place in their lives.

God is moved when His people cheat and lie and steal."

 

Excerpt from God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2012 

God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? 1

"Just because there are many ‘ways’ offered by various religious groups doesn’t mean that those ways are credible. 

God is not in competition with anyone.

God is not concerned that you or someone you know or some guru from Nepal is going to come up with a better plan or a better way than His plan.

There is no book that God needs to be concerned about - One that might reveal something that God forgot to tell us in the scriptures.

God is not at all moved with the thousands of varieties of religious beliefs and religions that add to or take away from God’s inspired Word.

God is not at all surprised when Islam or Hinduism or Taoism attempts to stake a claim as a viable authority into the heart of God.

God is not concerned that the whole world seeks after something or someone other than His Son to fulfill their inner desire to know their creator.

God is not a bit distraught that spiritist, crystal ball readers, palm readers and card readers make money off of the vulnerable and ignorant public at large."

  

Excerpt from God thinking 60 - Religion or Christ, which is it? by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2012

God Thinking 59 - The timeline of timelines 13

"The last major event of the last days is:

The creation of the Gentile world domination/power
also referred to as the European Union.  
Timeline: 5993 or 2021 or prior

(Daniel 7:19-26), also referred to as the culmination of Eastern and Western empires Daniel 2:41 and by theologians as the European Union and the “one world government” in Ezekiel 38:2.

I don’t know how close you are following world events, but this idea of the European Union has already happened.

 

There’s one more major event that God prophesied that would have to take place prior to the creation of the Gentile world domination/power or the rapture of the Church.

The reinstatement/restoration of Israel.
Timeline: 5920 or 1948 A.D.

The reinstatement/restoration of Israel was predicted in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel and especially in Ezekiel Chapter 37 and 38.

That was 55 years ago.

Here’s where we are in time.

Now going forward

The next major prophesied event to take place

The creation of the European Union prior 5993 or 2021 A.D. or prior.

Then The rapture 5993 0r 2021 A.D. or prior

Using the seven year spread the end of six thousand years of man could be as early as 2014 and as late as 2028. 

Note: I'm not saying that that is the time of the rapture.  What I am saying is that it is the end of the six thousandth year of mankind.  It is the towards end of the (end times) as prophesied in the scriptures.

Then comes the great tribulation

Then the battle of Armageddon
Then the second coming of Christ
Then the binding of satan for 1,000 years
Then the 1,000 year millennial reign of Christ
Then satan is released for a short time
Then satan is cast into hell
Then the great white throne judgement
Then the new heaven and the new earth.

Hallelujah.'

Excerpt from God Thinking 59 - The timeline of timelines by Keith C. Powell Copyright 2012