matthew 13:15, "For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." I was speaking with one of my spiritual daughters today and she said something that enlightened me. She said, “I have had so many prophets speaking in my ear that I became confused and shut everything down, including God!” Now, that is a strong statement to make, but I understood her heart and proceeded to minister to her. She was so overwhelmed with so many voices that the enemy confused her and seduced her into even shutting down the Voice of Truth. That is precisely where the enemy wants each of us. He wants to flood our ear gates with so much nonsense that we become overwhelmed, burdened, and frustrated with trying to sort out what God said from what he and she said. Daniel 7:25(b) exposes this tactic, “and shall wear out the saints of the most High.” Apostle John picks it up here in Revelation 13:7, “Then the beast was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them, and it was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.” Can you see what is happening here? The enemy wants you worn out and weary so much so that you become a pawn in his game of Chess. He wants to access your ear gate. Why? Romans 10:17 tells you so. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Listen, if your ears are blocked due to being frustrated with people, you may have unknowingly blocked your ear to hearing the truth, too. Moreover, without hearing the word of God, your faith life suffers. Moreover, if your faith life suffers, your ability to move God in any area of your life is rendered null and void. Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith, it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” I need you to pay very close attention to what I am about to say. When your ear gate has become polluted, contaminated, and toxic, your ability to hear God diminishes. When that happens, the faith you need to provoke God to stand up and fight for you is compromised. Now, can you see why Jesus said the people’s ears are dull of hearing? They are like the person described in Jeremiah 5:21, “Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.” Jeremiah called these types of people with dull ears, fools. Let us look further, okay. Ezekiel marries Jeremiah’s thought in chapter 12:2, “Son of man, thou dwellest amid a rebellious house, which has eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.” If we can pull all of these schools of thought together, we can arrive at a very revelatory conclusion. Your ears are one of your most precious assets. You can hear God, discern the truth from a lie, rejoice at what is God, and reject what is not. If your ears are dull, you will not know the difference. You will not know what to ‘Amen,’ because everything sounds like God when your ears are dull. The enemy wants us to operate in dull hearing or heavy ears, as one passage of scripture tells it. The enemy inundates the unsuspecting with his spawn of hell and entice us into believing it is God, frustrate us when we find out it was not, and then persuade us to stop listening altogether. In that, we develop a mistrust of the people of God, and we initiate the process of rejecting the truth. This is where both prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, come in to say, if your ears are dull, you are setting yourself up to be played like a fool, and if you continue operating in dull hearing, ultimately you will find yourself in rebellion. And we all know how that ends. So, my friends, that was a rather lengthy dissertation on the importance of guarding your ear gate. I pray you will devote a few moments to studying those passages of scripture I shared and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to you. Receive deliverance from every evil spirit seeking to contaminate your ear gate and return to the Voice of Truth who will never lead you astray.
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Psalm 37:23, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way."Many times when we hear that God has ordered our steps, a common perception is that we are being led through places of beauty, serenity, and peace. Although that may be the case at times, prepare yourself for those seasons when the Lord orders your steps through routes that contain storms and rains. I reflected over a season in my life when I know for a fact that my steps were ordered but, my God, I had no idea what I would have to endure in the process. I had been under the assumption that when God orders your steps, that all things become easy for you, that nothing withstands you, and that all goes well with you, but I testify to you that nothing could be further from the truth. When God is developing you in a certain area, He orders your steps through terrain that is specially formulated with that purpose in mind. He leads you to places where you are destined to develop that particular attribute He wants you to have. I emerged from that particular season with swollen and bruised feet, chipped toenails, and heels so tough that you could kick down a wall! That's a little humor for you, but the sentiment is the same. Yes, God ordered my steps. Yes, I heard Him clearly. And, yes, He brought me through and out of it, but it was a process designed to toughen me up, literally. Trust me, it did what it did! So, I do not want you to be alarmed when you encounter challenges in your journey. I do not want you to feel as if you missed God or that you made a mistake. Honestly, in some cases that may be true, but understand that there are routes and passages that God-ordained that escort you through some highs and lows. Encourage yourself in the Lord and know that though He may slay you, you must keep your trust in Him. Things are going to work out for your good. Lastly, though those feet may appear bruised as you come out of your journey, like Jesus, those scars will tell a glorious story as they radiate the beauty and faithfulness of the Lord. One of the things I often focus on is the word “inventory”. In fact, I hear myself often saying, “You have to take inventory,” and what I have found out is that not everyone knows what that means. When I say, “Take inventory,” I mean that each person should take the time to discover what God has placed inside of them. My husband is a sales manager in the building industry. A few months ago, he was obligated to work a few Saturdays for ‘mandatory inventory’. It means that he and other staff had to take time out of their weekend to personally count every single item in the warehouse. Go figure! So, when I say, “Take inventory,” it means to take the time out of your life to count every skill, talent, gift, and ability God has placed inside of you. And check this, don’t even think for a moment that you can accomplish that on a Saturday afternoon. No, it will take the rest of your natural life to take inventory because you grow, develop, and unfold as a person every day. Again, you have to take inventory of who you are. When you do that, you identify what is in within you and THEN you are in better position to apply who you are in whichever environment you find yourself in. Many times, when we hear the prophetic words that, “God is sending you to the nations,” for some reason, we define that to mean we are about to travel to some remote country somewhere and start preaching. Now, I am not saying that you shouldn’t do that, I will say that you shouldn’t limit yourself to ministering with a passport. When God sends you to nations, He is sending you to a certain group of people. These may be nations of women, men, and children. These may be nations of wealthy, impoverished, or underprivileged people. These may be different races, different mountains of culture, and nations of subcultures. Shall I go on? When you take inventory, discover what you are carrying, then you are properly positioned to do something with who you are. Listen, when you know what you carry, you won’t wait for someone else to PERMIT you to execute your purpose. Stopping here for now, but think about it! |
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