"The Well" -2

"For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee." (Psalms 147:13)

  Okay, so that might have seemed a little weird; but I can do weird pretty good, I will not deny that. Anywho, this is mostly about spiritual warfare, more than it is about any sort of discipline. The thing we must understand, is that there is more and more focus being placed upon an outside spirit, then there is being placed upon the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, the children of God. Maybe we need a little reminder, the Holy Scriptures say, "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world." (1 John 4:4) As I was listening to CSN yesterday, there was a caller that wanted to know about the portion of Scripture in 1 Samuel 16:14, were is says, "But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him." Troubling times are upon us, there is no way to deny that; but this sort of trouble is not the cause of the LORD, but is the cause of hardened heart! Pastor Mike gave a pretty good explanation about this, in the example of the hardened heart of Pharaoh. The Bible says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart; but in reality, it was the miracles that God performed that hardened the heart of Pharaoh. Much the same as the time when Jesus called Lazarus from that tomb, the Jewish leaders had hardened their hearts, saying, that they not only needed to kill Jesus, but Lazarus also. As I thought about those things, it dawned on me how easy it is to forget about the miracle of our eternal life in Christ; not just the life that is to come, but the life we have right now, and the power of the Holy Spirit that lives within us. I was also reminded of that song we sang, once upon a time: "Spring up, O well," a thing about life abundantly came to my mind, as I remembered the words and how excited I was to be able to sing it, and live it! Not to be changing the subject, but there is something else that I heard yesterday, which was about the time Jesus read Isaiah 61:1 in the synagogue, and they threw Him out and took to the edge of a cliff to throw Him off. I guess I never really paid much attention to why they did that, but yesterday the explanation hit me, right in the heart! John makes this wonderful statement about what love is, "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God." (1 John 4:7) And it has been said of John, that when he was very old, they would carry him out to deliver a massage to the congregation, and he would simply say, "Love one another!" Anyway; well, that's all I got to say about that...

"For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thy offspring: and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the LORD'S; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the LORD, and surname himself by the name of Israel." (Isaiah 44:3-5)