Believer’s Authority in Christ

We have people in authority over us: teachers, managers, police officers, and so on. On their own they are just other human beings that do not have authority over us. They cannot tell us what to do because they have no authority. In the authority given to them through their professions: teachers have authority over students, managers have authority over employees, police officers have authority over people in their jurisdiction.

This is the same with our authority in Christ. We alone do not have the power to heal or cast out demons, but we have authority in Christ as believers to cast out demons and heal the sick in the name of Jesus.

Luke 9:1-2 “When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases,  and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.”

In the book of Acts, Peter healed a man just by speaking it. It illustrates the power believer’s have over sickness IN JESUS’ NAME, not in their own power.

Acts 3:6-8 “Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.”

Peter did not ask of God “Lord please heal him”. Peter exercised his faith and authority in Christ and commanded the healing. He said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” There is power in the name of Jesus.

After this happened Peter knew people would think he and John had some godly power. Peter was quick to correct them and give all credit and glory to God. We do not have the power, but we have the authority, as believers in Christ, to call on the power of the Lord to heal the sick.

Acts 3:12,16 “When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? … By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.”

We should not be surprised to see miracles, signs, and wonders. If you’re a believer, be encouraged and walk in the authority we have IN CHRIST.

God’s Promises

I was reading a study here about the Prosperity Gospel and flipping back and forth between the teaching article and scripture, occasionally wandering off to read other scriptures and I came across Jeremiah 33:6-9 that I think so shows a picture of the Lord’s promises to his children.

We are Judah and Israel that have rebelled against him but he will forgive us and cleanse us of our sins, he’ll heal us and give us peace and security. When other nations (people) see all the Lord has provided, they will be in awe of God and what he as done for us!

Jeremiah 33:6 “Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security.”
** God will heal us! His word says it!

Jeremiah 33:7 “I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before.”
** He will rebuild our relationship with him to what it was before the fall of man. Those that knew the Lord and fall away, He’ll bring them back to a saving relationship with him.

Jeremiah 33:8 “I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me.”

Jeremiah 33:9 “Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.”
** Believers that are prosperous and blessed will praise and honor God before all nations (people). They, the people, will be in awe at the good things God has done for his children.
** When God abundantly blesses us, other people see it and take notice. They will want to know how and why we have what we have. That’s when we get to tell them about Jesus!!

I need the Holy Spririt

Thursday night I attended a Prayer Meeting/Bible Study at the Keller’s house. We began with a few musicians playing worship music. As the group that assembled there started singing, the Holy Spirit fell in that place. I felt it and had not felt the Spirit move like that in awhile. It’s been awhile where I was able to attend a meeting where the Spirit was allowed to do what He pleased. James tossed what he had intended to share and the night turned into a evening of worship, testimony, salvation and culminated with a baptism of a teenager that just got saved that night.

I left the Keller’s house feeling, “I miss this. I miss being in the presence of a free flowing Spirit.” The church I attend loves the Lord and they are all about sharing the Gospel to anyone and everyone. They preach Jesus, which is great. That has allowed the church to grow quite a bit in the three years existence of the church. However what I feel in worship there does not compare to what I felt at the Keller’s.

I had dinner with some dear friends on Friday night. One that lives in another city shared some theological differences he faces with his current church. I related to A LOT of what he said. Coming away from that dinner what I got was the importance of allowing the Holy Spirit to flow FREELY and the importance was walking in the victory and newness of life that has been paid for by the blood of Jesus.

This morning I was looking through papers in my old bible and I found sermon notes I’d prepared when I was given the opportunity to preach during my old church’s youth services. There was so much faith in those notes, I almost felt like someone else had written them.

What happened to me?

I did some reading off a bible study site called GreatBibleStudy.com that my friends suggested I visit. For the first time in awhile, I prayed in tongues for an extended period of time. I didn’t plan on doing that it just happened.

I want the Holy Spirit in my life. I need the Holy Spirit in my life. Scriptures that I’d heard before suddenly had new meaning:

John 10:10 “The Thief comes only the steal, kill, and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

Hosea 4:6 “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge …”

I’m posting this because I want my friends and anyone that reads this to please keep me in prayer because so often I feel alone even amongst other believers. I pray for the Holy Spirit to be active in my life as much as He wants. I don’t want my theological differences with some at the church to be divisive so I don’t say anything. But in not saying anything I feel like I’m isolating myself.

I thank you for your prayers and I’ll keep you in my prayers.

It’s never too late to comeback….

Fitness Thoughts

After reading a friend’s blog post on her fitness achievements and frustrations, I was inspired to write a few thoughts on my own recent workout experiences. I’ve always liked running, though for some reason I’ve never been able to run for a long time … even back in high school, and I was active in sports. The longest I’ve ever run without stopping is 2 miles. Hearing people say they ran 4 miles or more amazes me. I used to wonder if maybe it had something to do with how my lungs developed as an infant. I was born 2 months premature … yeah I baked for 7 months instead of 9 months. Anyways, my struggles with long distance running wasn’t what I intended to write about. Though it does give me something to think about.

Moving on ….

I started running again a few weeks ago. I’d run for maybe a mile and walk/jog back another mile to where I parked my car. Then I’d do a short workout of pushups and crunches. I varied the routine to incorporate the pushups and crunches during the jog  back to the car. After about three weeks of this ( I only did this about 3 times a week), I noticed the first mile got a good deal easier to run. Huzzah for fitness progress! Then about a week and a half ago I got hit with a horrible bug that kept me home sick from work for a week. Yesterday, rather than enduring the outdoor heat, I decided to run indoors at a local university’s wellness center (I work and go to school there). I ran about a mile and a half on the indoor track and it was surprisingly easy.

Yes I know it’s common sense that it’s easier to run in a climate controlled environment as opposed to outdoors in the elements. It’s just interesting to experience it first hand. Again, this is after a bout with some form of lung infection or something (I still don’t know what I had), and my body is still recovering. I feel fine but twice a day or so I have to blow my nose to clear out left over phlegm.

That’s pretty much all I planned on saying.
I ran through someone’s fart cloud yesterday while running at the wellness center … That was unpleasant.

My Sick Days Off

I wanted to chronicle the last several days just … well just because I felt like it.

Last Friday, I took a sick day from work because I woke up with a pretty bad sore throat and a cough. The entire night I barely slept because I was up coughing, as a result I was horribly tired. I probably could have gone to work but it would have sucked and I wouldn’t have gotten much done. I figured I’d get over whatever it was I’d caught and I’d be right as rain by Monday. Boy was I wrong.

The weekend was kind of a blur. Sunday was in fact the worst fricken day. I forced myself to go to church because by then my health had deteriorated pretty considerably. I wanted someone to pray for me and I didn’t know where else to go. It was no longer a sore throat and cough. It was a persistent cough, fever, sore throat, body ache, headache, dizziness, and an overall desire to just lie still. I remember eeking my way through the morning service, coming home, and  just sitting on my sofa half watching an episode of Andy Griffith. I couldn’t eat. I tried to eat something but could only manage a few bites since it was an effort just to swallow water. Needless to say come Monday, I found myself at the doctor’s office. They said I had a 102 degree fever and tested me for flu and strep throat. The swabs they tested came back negative but told me those test can be wrong. They are used to quickly gauge a person’s status. My doctor told me he didn’t know what was wrong with me so he prescribed an anti-viral and a course of antibiotics. He also told me not to go to work for four days. That kind of surprised me but ok, “Doctor’s orders”. I go back to work on Friday.

At this point I’ll note the anti-viral he prescribed was Tamiflu. I made the mistake of actually paying for the Tamiflu before researching it. I think this is the same drug that was distributed to people when the whole swine flu thing came out a couple of years ago. I’m sure it’s been improved and refined since then but a number of people had bad reactions to it. After reading reviews of people who had taken the drug, I decided NOT to take Tamiflu. I heard too many negatives and the doctor wasn’t even sure I had the flu. So I decided to stick with the antibiotic pills (a week’s worth). Side side note: Some of the side effects of Tamiflu are: “abnormal behavior, confusion, hallucinations, mental changes, seizures, severe or persistent nausea …” So that was a No on the Tamiflu.

I think at the height of the fever I seriously could not think straight. I remember trying to sleep at night but my mind was going full speed trying to figure out a problem that I can’t really remember now what the problem was. I remember asking myself why I was trying to figure it out but I still kept trying. Anyways … moving on.

So Monday evening came and I actually started to feel a good deal better. So much so that I thought I could probably go to work the next day. My cough had subsided somewhat, the fever had gone down, and the aches had left. Well that changed.

Tuesday morning came and I wake up with a horrible headache, and the fever returned. I’ll note here that from Thursday night to Monday night I slept in 30 to 45 minute intervals because I kept waking up to cough and hack-up phlegm. When Tuesday morning came, I still felt like crap even though I had felt better Monday night. I can’t explain how that happened. I spent most of the day at home save a trip to HEB to buy groceries.

Wednesday (today), seemed to be the breaking day. I actually got about 2 hrs of continuous sleep last night before the coughing interrupted my sleep yet again. From there I managed to get sleep in 1 hour intervals. From the previous days it was a big improvement. My mother called at the ungodly hour of 9am to see how I was feeling … I was of course trying to sleep but I appreciated the concern. I did feel A LOT better that I had in several days. I had lunch with my father and threw down a Mexican plate (taco, chalupa, enchilada, rice and beans) like [insert witty metaphor here].

So here I am Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I feel about 95% back to normal. Just have the occasional cough and the need to blow my nose now and then. This has been a weird bug that I went to battle against. I forgot to add that at the onset of this thing, it was only a chest thing. Like I could feel myself coughing up stuff from my lungs. The doctor asked if I had a runny nose or nasal congestion. I said No because I didn’t at all at that point. I get home from the doctor’s office on Monday … nose starts running. WTH!

Older version of me … same probs

Not long ago a good friend of mine blogged that when an event inspired a blog post and she delayed actually sitting down to write about it, the moment was gone. The emotion and ferver that could have created a literary masterpiece suddenly … left. I’ve had this happen to me countless times. Something ticks me off, frustrates me, or I fall into my periodic pity parties, and I long to go home, sit down, and vent. By the time I get home it’s gone. The equivalent of building up a huge sneeze: your nose tickles, your breathing accelerates, you begin to inhale larger amounts of air in order to expel this monster. After a great buildup … all that comes out is a muffled mouse sneeze. Kinda leaves you feeling unsatisfied and wanting.

So here I am. Unfortunately I’m not “in the moment” now but it’s probably a good thing. Some things should be run through a filter before being posted on the Interwebs.

Those that know me, know that I’m horribly over analytical, especially when it comes to my faith. I vacillate over topics and things I hear in Sunday sermons. I constantly ask the Lord to help me to “be the man He wants me to be.” Sad thing is, I feel I’ve been this way since I was 22 when I first started going to the Christian church I got saved in. About two yrs ago I left that church because, well I didn’t want to be in my 30’s still attending youth services. I think I was 29 or about to turn 29 when I left that church. I’m 31 now.

At this point I’ll say that in a previous version of this blog post, here is where I continued to vent my frustrations/conflicts concerning my faith, life, family and so on. It got rather lengthy. I decided not to follow through with that post because well I decided not to. Sometimes just writing it out, even if no one EVER reads it, is just as therapeutic as writing and posting the thing. Sure it may leave the readers in the dark but part of me is overly concerned that somehow some way the wrong person may see it. Sorry I know it’s the equivalent to those emo teenagers on Facebook that post “I’ve had a horrible day!!” and nothing else. When a commenter asks “What happened?”, said original FB poster comments “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Call it the result of prayer.
Call it the result of looking back at one’s life and realizing how blessed you really are.
All the conflicts and struggles we have are probably what shapes us. Yes my conflicts are in many ways cake in comparison to the conflicts that others face. When that happens I feel horribly silly for making such a mountain out of something relatively small.

I’m not sure where do go with this now. Life is changing around me … I pray that I can keep up. I don’t want to be the same person I once was.

My Fridge … sometimes …

I took this pic a few weeks ago. I opened the fridge looking for a snack and saw this. For some reason I felt like sharing.

Proof that I'm a very simple man.

New glasses …

"Oh eee oooh I look just like Buddy Holly"?

So yeah I tried something different in my new selection of frames. Not sure if they work on me but they were free since I got a buy one get one free special. The other frames are similar in the size but are metal. Thoughts?

I wonder …

I wonder if anyone still reads this site.

When left alone with one’s thoughts, there is more warfare than takes place on any football field … congrats to the Seahawks and Jets by the way. Just happened to check the scores. Didn’t see the games.

Remembering and reminding myself of all of the Lord’s blessings in my life … increases my faith, which can be used against the fiery darts of the enemy.

Would you look at that … Internet from home

Yes yes, after years of having to use my work computer to enjoy some of the niceties the Internet has to offer, I’ve finally gone out and procured an Internet connection at home … AND …earlier tonight I set up a wireless router. So I’ve finally entered the 21st century I guess? I was hesitant to set up the router myself before asking some of my more learned friends/coworkers on what I needed to do. I still consider myself fairly uneducated to some hardware aspects of technology. I figured I may as well dive in and see what happens. So I managed to set up the secure wireless network and disable the broadcasting of my home network (a coworker said he does this at his home).

So now I have the vast open Internet at my fingertips and …. I really don’t have anything I want to look at. Most of the time at work I usually check emails, social network sites, and maybe check up on a sports team or two. Then it’s back to work. Now I’m not at work … but I really don’t have anything interesting in mind to read. I really need to finish the Harry Potter book I’m on. I don’t think I’m going to get through Goblet of Fire before the Spring semester starts. I have not been reading consistent enough. Oh well.

So here I am at 2am … bored? … Yes there are things I could look at but the moral side of me won’t let me. Good night WordPress. You might be seeing more of me in the future.