Spirit listener

"The Spirit of the LORD is upon me...He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners...to set the oppressed free..." The Lord Jesus, reading the words of the Prophet Isaiah Jesus was, and is, a liberator.  He came "to save us all from Satan's power."  Satan is the oppressor, the slave master.  Jesus is the one who redeems us and frees us from Satan's tyranny and slavery.  We are set free to know and be like God.  This was, and is, Jesus' calling, what the Spirit came upon and anointed Jesus to do. The Spirit of the Lord is also upon us, you and me, those who believe in Jesus.  We have the same calling and anointing.  We are liberators, by the Spirit of liberation, as it is written, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."  It is also written, "whom the Son sets free is free indeed."  The freedom spoken of here is freedom from sin and from sinning.  Paul said it as well: "...

Here is the issue.  God is our Creator, and thus our Master, our Owner, Definer, and Determiner.  But when we belong to God, we are actually free to be what He made us to be.  Our true Master sets us free.  And a slave can only have one master, as it is written, "No one can serve two masters.  He will love one and hate the other, or serve one and despise the other."  We have a Creator, a true Master.  But if we reject Him, we are accepting Satan, and his oppression.  There is no way around it.  We are going to be someone's slave.  But we can choose our master, as it is written, "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves, whom you obey?" We can choose our Master, and we can point others to their true Master, God their Creator. We can be liberators. We can be truly free, and let others be truly free around us, seeking only self-control as our goal.   Imagine that. I...

"When the sentence of a crime is not speedily carried out, people's hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong."  Ecclesiastes 8:11 Listen to the very first words of God to the first man, "You may freely eat from the trees in the garden, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat of it, you will surely die."  Genesis 2:16-17.     Notice two things: 1. First, God gives Adam a positive command or blessing, what he could do:  Eat from the trees of the garden, including the tree of life, which would lead to eternal life.  God gave Adam a positive incentive .  Freely eat from any and every tree you want, including the best tree in the garden.  Then God gives Adam one, and only one, limitation, the second thing to notice. 2. Second, God gives a specific prohibition with very specific and immediate negative consequences:  You shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good an...

Apply all of this to God's dealing with Adam.  God promised Adam immediate rewards for doing good (freely eating from the permissible trees,) and an immediate punishment for disobedience.  Take note of this as well:  Adam had not eaten from ANY of the trees as of yet.  He has NO frame of reference for how any of the trees will taste, nor for the effect of any of the trees on his life.  In other words, God isn't telling Adam to take JUST ONE bite from the tree of knowledge, then forbid him to ever taste it again.  God isn't tempting Adam.  As far as Adam knows, an apple is just as delicious as the forbidden fruit.  The tree of life is just as unknown as the tree of knowledge, and as every other fruit is. So God's way of influencing Adam was perfect in wisdom and goodness and justice.  God didn't promise a "future pie in the sky" if Adam obeyed.  Adam would have immediate experiences of very good and perfect fruit.  He only had one ...

My second mistake was telling Yusef what I thought the Spirit was saying to me.  (A word of advice to those practicing hearing the Spirit's voice, or prophetic ministry, or following the Spirit's leading:  If you believe you are hearing a message from the Spirit for you , about you , and exclusively dealing with you, keep it to yourself.  It's about you, after all.  So just wait.  If it is from the Spirit, it will come to pass, and Christ will be glorified.  If not, then lesson learned--and it will only affect you.) Yusef was ecstatic, and encouraged me to make mistake number 3:  tell James-Michael and the gang!  Which I foolishly did...and "the message" grew and grew and grew until it became a message about a ministry money messenger making millionaire ministers out of me and my brothers...culminating in us sitting one night and waiting for the promised messenger...who never came. So now, I'm a false prophet...not just for the three mistakes...

Please allow me use two examples from my life to answer the question posed by this blog. EXAMPLE 1:  MY "STREET MINISTRY"...AND MONEY After a tragic event took place in my life, I devoted myself to following the Spirit as the sole purpose of my life.  I did this because that which I wanted more than anything else did not, and could not, happen.  I was at the end of my definition of life, and I turned to Christ to save me, as He had done before.  The Spirit led me to move to Athens, Georgia with my friend Yusef.  I stayed there and spent my days and nights in prayer, not knowing what was to take place next in my life.  I had left my job as a Middle School Music Teacher, and thus was unemployed, being taken care of by Yusef at the time.  While Yusef was in school at UGA, I spent my days practicing hearing the Spirit's voice, then sharing whatever the Spirit shared with me with Yusef. As time passed, I went to classes with Yusef as his guest, and to ...

Some ministers condemn prosperity ministry as "heretical" or "apostate" or "false teaching," or worst and most pointed of all--a "false gospel."  They believe that the very essence of the good news is negated and replaced with false promises and false hopes.  The true good news of salvation is reconciliation to God and to each other by faith in Christ Jesus; but prosperity ministers, according to the ministers who condemn prosperity ministry, preach a good news that promises first class jets, expensive Armani suits, huge mansions, and very many cars to the prosperity ministers, if their followers will "sow into their prosperity ministries." The key to what I just said is the followers of prosperity ministers. Who would these be? Who would be most attracted to prosperity ministry? Those most in need of prosperity!  The poor.  The struggling. To them, there is a gospel that prosperity ministers preach that is good news.  And wha...

EXAMPLE 2:  WORKING TOWARDS GOD AND NOT MAN I'm moved to Key West, Florida with Bobby and Yusef, a city I'd never heard of in my life.  I became a bouncer, something I'd never done before.  I did that for 4 years.  I then became a corrections officer.  Again, something I'd never done before...or planned to do...or wanted to do.  I did that for 10 years.  I met my wife, Lucy, while I was a bouncer.  That seemed to be the primary purpose I worked at Sloppy Joe's.  The secondary purpose was to learn all the lessons about manhood, authority, and ministry I learned while being a bouncer, and continued to learn as a corrections officer. During these 14 years in Key West, I worked really, really hard, but was struggling financially.  I had 7 children in Key West, and a job that allowed me to take 3 months off for each of my children's births to give relief to Lucy...which again, I believe is THE reason I worked corrections, at least the pri...

"The fruit of the Spirit is love..." The Apostle Paul What is better than following the Spirit and knowing it? You can do both. To follow the Spirit, do what He inherently wants to lead you to do, or lead you in doing.  There are nine things the Spirit leads us to do, or nine ways to know the Spirit is leading you.  The first and foremost way, the way He leads that encompasses every other way He leads, is the way of love. Jesus said, "He who has and keeps my commandments, is He who loves me."   Jesus also commanded His followers to love each other as He had loved them.  He said that His followers would be known by their love for each other. Loving God supremely, and loving people impartially, even our enemies, fulfills the entire law and will of God.  As Paul said, "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ...Love does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fu...

"The fruit of the Spirit...is self-control."  The Apostle Paul "Do not be drunk with wine...but be filled with the Spirit."  The Apostle Paul. When the Spirit leads you, when He completely influences and controls your life, you will experience freedom, as it is written, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."  It is also written, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm then, and do not let yourself be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom--never burdensome pressure, never passivity of mind or will. You can distinguish the influence of demonic spirits from the leading of the Spirit by this very thing: freedom. Demons try to possess and oppress us.  The Spirit fills us and liberates us. As we saw in part one, if you pursue love, you are pursuing a goal that the Spirit will lead you in.  The same is true for freedom, o...