Not Listening to God's Voice

 When God tells you to do something you REALLY NEED to do it! Sometimes it can be a struggle against our flesh but come on, God knows EVERYTHING and everyone He created. 

I'm sure we can honestly say of course we know to listen and act on what God says to do but in our human nature we mess up here and there.

Train Up a Child In the Way They Shall Go

 

Train Your Kids to Wage War!

 

This is a post that has been written throughout the years. One developed from personal experience and filled with testimony.

The Mental Attack on a Warrior of Christ

Satan's main attack is to destroy the mind. Once your mind is destroyed you become frail. Satan wants to unstable you. For "a double minded man is unstable in all his ways."

You have to remain in God's WORD. If you do not remain connected to the source you will fall captive. I'm not talking about just going to church or listening to Christian music alone. This is consistently- minute by minute staying in the mindset of praying, seeking Him, studying His Word. 

We underestimate Satan. We can not have down time because Satan is always lurking to attack at every given moment. We need to know we have a "Confidence" in God.  BOLDNESS- where you KNOW who you are and WHO you belong to.

I had a conversation with my brother about why professed believers fall prey to Satan's demise. We    often talk about the state of the church at large, the coming tribulation and events leading up to it that
have been and are taking place today.  

I had mentioned we often lack boldness and confidence because we do not stay  connected to the source. We have power outages because we unplug. The current dies. 

Satan attacks warriors. Those driven to do the work of God. He sees you as a threat. We have to permanently keep the Armor of God on.

- Let's Review It- 

Helmet of Salvation:

Guards you against confusion, deception, despair.  You have to protect your mind. We need God's Wisdom, Salvation- protecting our mind. Guarding our ears and eyes. We are human. We are vulnerable. We can easily be deceived. Easily unfocused. Easily blinded against the truth.

Breastplate of Righteousness:
Protect your heart. Without the breastplate your heart is open for every arrow to pierce you. Each arrow will wrought you to the core and you don't even realize it. 

Mark 7:20-23
That which comes out of the person, that is what defiles the person. For from within, out of the hearts of people, come the evil thoughts, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, murders, acts of adultery, deeds of greed, wickedness, deceit, indecent behavior, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile the person.

Belt of Truth: 

If you want to know truth you need to stay in God's WORD. Our own versions of truth are not the same as God's divine truth. Our views alone are very limited. God has given us everything we need to know. If we take the time to seek what He wrote, we can align it with what is going on in the world today. If you take the time to read and reflect on God's word you wouldn't be so taken about what is arising and what is to come. You will be prepared. You will rightly divide the truth from error. Rightly divide truth from our perspective.

Sandals of Peace:

You need a firm foundation in the Gospel. If you do not know God's Word you will slip, fall and perhaps even break an ankle when you enter unchartered terrain. There are so many false doctrines. A whole lot sounds good to our ears. Fancying words to keep us comfortable in our sin. Gird up and know God's Word for yourself. It is very direct. What it says, it means. The storms will come and it may seem that every demon in Hell has broken loose but if you are deeply rooted in Christ, you shall stand. If your foundation is not deep you will whither away. As the torch heats up you will not be that tree deeply rooted by the waters. Spiritually, you may whither up and die. Stay Rooted! Let your feet, your roots plunge deep.

Shield of Faith:

Your shield is a form of protection. Faith in Christ will influence the way you live. Sadly though, we are told to "take up" meaning carry this shield, many do not. It's like they left it at the camp, not even having protection during battle. It's foolish when you think about it. Without a shield you are free range.

Doubt and fear can easily overtake us. Having and utilizing our shield protects us as we call on the name of Jesus. Remembering His promises. Trusting in God. Remembering all the times God has seen us through many trials and having faith, believing He will see us through again. That He has a mighty work for us. It's our trust and assurance. It allows us to shift our focus back on God.

Sword of the Spirit:

Nothing like having a sword and not knowing how to use it. In the heat of a battle is not the time to figure out how to use a weapon. You do not have the time especially when combat is fierce. Satan is always out to attack and to destroy us. Our very flesh and sinful nature will destroy us, separating us from God. 

God gave us His scripture to combat, to speak over our lives. 

Hebrews 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His (God's) sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

We have greater power when we proclaim God's word over us. Greater power when we proclaim God's promises over us. We have to know and take God at His word. You will only know it by studying it. Reading alone can sometimes go through one ear and out the other or because you read so fast you do not retain it. By retaining it, it becomes apart of you and you can destroy what the enemy throws at you. You can kill demonic forces when they come to devour.

Prayer:

Let us not forget the power of Prayer. Making intercession. I encourage you to pray BOLD prayers. Pray with confidence. Pray without ceasing. It invokes perseverance, initiating endurance. Through prayer God's nourishment and power can flow in our lives. It allows us to stay connected and thrive.

Now, the warrior is equipped but I'm telling you the battle grows more intense each day. One of Satan's greatest tactics is getting to your mind. Once your mind has been compromised Satan can easily take you down. One of the greatest things we can do is to stay in the attitude of wagging war but our flesh sinks in.

We may grow tired. Sleepless nights, taking on the world but not caring for ourselves. 

... Satan loves these moments. Opportunities to attack. Satan loves to play mind games, it weakens the warrior. 

• Thoughts of frailty, not being good enough. 
• Bringing up fear, flashing it before our eyes. 
• Voices of death, telling you to take your life.
• Voices of Murder, telling you to do the most obscure thing to someone you love.
  
  ...Satan has utter hatred for you because you are a threat to his kingdom.

Warriors - hold your ground. You may be weary but God's right hand is upholding you. 

They that wait upon the Lord- staying in His Word. Diligently seeking Him, Living unto Him, the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Be strong and courageous. Do not be fearful or dismayed. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

The warrior of God can stand strong. They have the assurance of being able to focus in the midst of the war. If their focus even goes astray remember.

God will keep you in perfect peace when your mind is fixed on Him because you trust in God.     ~Isaiah 26:3 

Stay Tuned In for My Next Post on Fighting Through Midnight. 

Until Then, Intensify your Worship and Prayer Life. See You on the Battlefield.

Did the Universe Have a Beginning?

Did the universe have a beginning?, is both simple and profoundly important.

In the Beginning was God and God created the world in 6 days and on the seventh day rested. As Christians we all are founded on the story of creation however we are bombarded in middle school about the Big Bang Theory. Then there are those who argue that the universe is eternal and the rest of creation is by happenstance...by chance.

As Natasha Crain says in her book Talking with Your Kids about God, Either it had a beginning or it did not. It's profoundly important because, if it did, the theological implications are glaring: something or someone had to have caused it to begin. If however the universe is eternal - it's just always existed - there's no logical need for a Creator. The universe wasn't created.

Alexander Vilenkin

In the 1990s scientific evidence began to mount that the universe couldn't have existed forever and that, instead, it began to exist at a specific point in the past. Many scientists agree with respected cosmologists Alexander Vilenkin who says, "With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.

The Expansion of the Universe

1917

Albert Eistein

Created a cosmological model of the entire universe. His equation predicted the universe could not be static. It had to either be expanding or contracting. He and other scientists understood that an expanding universe would imply s beginning (rewinding the process of expansion must always take you back to a beginning point for that expansion.) And beginnings require a cause - an implication Einstein clearly understood. 

1920s

Edwin Hubble

Found direct observational evidence that the universe was, indeed, expanding. Using the world's largest telescope at the time, Hubble detected that galaxies are moving away from us, like spots on an inflating balloon.

Cosmic Background Radiation

The predominant theory (both then and now) was that the universe started out much hotter and denser than it is today and expanded and cooled over time, It had a beginning. In the 1940s, scientists predicted that if the universe did emerge from such conditions - and hadn't always existed in an eternal, steady state - there would be lasting effects in the form of cosmic background radiation (residual heat in the universe). * In 1965, that prediction of a beginning starting out hot and continually cooling, was confirmed through an accidental discovery by radio astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

The second law of thermodynamics sats that the amount of energy within a closed system (such as the universe) will always stay the same, but the amount of unusable energy in a system will continually decrease. There is still plenty of usable energy in the universe today, so that implies the universe hasn't been around forever. If the universe were eternal, there would be no usable energy left.

- - - - - 

Where did the law of gravity come from? It too must have come from somewhere. Furthermore, laws themselves don't create anything. They simply describe what happens under certain conditions. So even if a law could exist without cause, that still wouldn't explain how the universe emerged. 

Nothing in the universe comes into existence on its own, so it defies
 our experience to suppose the universe itself did.

Something or someone supernatural must have caused the universe to exist. In order to create space, time, and matter, the cause would have to be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and uncaused itself. This doesn't tell us that the supernatural cause is synonymous with the God of the Bible, but it's certainly consistent with him.

STRIKE UP THE CONVERSATION

Genesis 1:1
                    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

(It had a beginning and the cause was GOD.)

• It's not only the Bible that tells us the universe had a beginning and hasn't always existed. Scientific findings point to the fact that the universe had a beginning as well. 
  Why do you think the question of whether the universe had a beginning is important in the discussion of the evidence for God's existence? (If the universe were eternal, there would be no logical need for a Creator)
  
  
• If something begins to exist in the world, something else caused it to exist. We've never seen something come into existence by itself! For example, think about a car, a flower, and a puddle of water. What was the cause of each one that brought it into existence?
  (Have your child trace the causes all the way back to the beginning.)
  
  
• If we know the universe had a beginning, and everything that begins to exist was caused to exist by something else, what do you think could have caused the universe to exist? To answer the question, think about what the cause would have to be like in order to be able to create everything in the world.
  (Discuss the fact that in order to create time, space, and matter, the course itself would have to be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. Explain that the Bible tells us much more about God but that this is consistent, supporting evidence for his existence.)
  
  
  
  
• REAL LIFE SCENARIO - How would you respond to an atheist who says this based on what you learned above?
  " Personally I do not claim that the universe ' came from' anything at all and it did not 'appear.' The universe just is ... it needs to creation story."
  
  
  

Get the Book 

General Revelation

Our next excerpt from Natasha Crain's Talking with Your Kids about God is: The knowledge about God that we obtain through the observation of nature is called general revelation.

Psalm 19:1-2
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge."

The apostle Paul says there is no excuse for not believing in God because He has so clearly revealed himself in nature:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)

Paul goes on to say that God has also given humans an innate knowledge of right and wrong - a moral conscience:

(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God judges people's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. (Romans 2:14-16)

WHY PEOPLE DISAGREE ABOUT the EVIDENCE
 for GOD in NATURE

To answer that, we need to understand four key points about the nature of any evidence that doesn't literally speak for itself.

1. Evidence is a body of facts that require human interpretation.

    People look at the evidence in the natural world inevitably draw different conclusions. That doesn't
    make the evidence any less valuable for consideration. It's simply the nature of any evidence.

2. Because evidence requires human interpretation, there will always be multiple possible
    explanations for it.

   The relevant question is not how many possible explanations there are but rather which is the most
   likely explanation given the evidence.

3. If we rule out certain possible explanations before considering the evidence, we on't ever
    conclude that the evidence points to those explanations.

    If we rule out God before we even consider the evidence, of course we will conclude there's no 
    evidence that points to God!

4. The best explanation for a body of evidence is often debatable and rarely certain.

    We may determine a best explanation, but even best explanations aren't certain.

So How Do We Start Our Thought Process
on Evidence of God in Nature?

Try writing your thoughts in a journal!

Imagine that you grew up without hearing anything that's in the Bible. What, if anything, do you think you would be able to know about God from looking at the world around you.

Evidence from nature- such as the universe, life, and our innate moral knowledge - provides good reason to believe that a Being consistent with whom we call God exists.

Dive Deeper

Read:
Psalm 19:1-2

Romans 1:18-20

Romans 2:14-16

What does each passage say the natural world can tell us about God?

Most of what we know about God comes from the Bible. If you don't read it much you should. How else can you personally know about Him if you do not know what it says? 

Why do you think evidence for God's existence outside the Bible and our personal experiences is important - for both Christians and nonbelievers?

People can draw very different conclusions about the meaning of any evidence depending on their assumptions, life experiences, and motivations. What are some ways those things might impact whether people believe the evidence in the natural world points to God?

NOW LET US APPLY IT

It's great to be proactive in our thoughts so we know how to respond when the situation presents itself.

When Someone says there's "no evidence" for God (or anything else), what questions could you ask to clarify what that person means?

As you can see Natasha invokes thought provoking questions that we all need to think about and be ready to have an answer for. Trust me, one gets tired of feeling defeated because they can't offer an explanation. As I once heard an atheist say to me when I was younger. " Why should I convert to Christianity if Christians can't even explain why they believe in God or give evidence that He exists?". 

Discipline and Direction

I really love what Natasha Crain says here from her introduction of "Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have".

When we have no discipline and no direction, we're leaving our kids to wilt spiritually.
This happens when we're inconsistent in " watering" their spiritual lives (no discipline) and when we don't understand all that they need to thrive (no direction). It's an easy trap to fall into when we're busy. Our spiritual training ends up being a mealtime prayer here and there, a wishy-washy commitment to church, and occasional references to the Bible thrown in for good measure (especially when someone's behaving badly). If guilt takes over, we may "drench" our kids with more church activities or devotionals for a while, but for many kids, it's too little, too late.

I knew from teaching in the public school system that I wanted to send my kids to a private Christian school. What concerned me most is the culture of the kids. Today's kids think every thing should be given to them. They curse non stop, disrespect authority, have no will to learn, do not respect themselves and want nothing to do with God. I feel bad because most of them have a traumatic home life. I just do not want my kids to be swayed by the culture we live in. Then you have the side of can we afford private school? Do I really want to have a double mortgage/college tuition payment from the time they are born through college? 

We spend so much time wanting other people to raise and to educate our kids but the first place education should take forth is at home. 

I love the summers off because my routine is a Christian Home School approach. When I'm back at work I'm often left with no energy to come back to my own kids. Often they are shoved in front of a TV while I get dinner and prep lunches for the next day. I try for a Bible story at bedtime but if bath time runs late well then you know.


So Let's Begin. HELP OUR KIDS TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES

1. Why is it important to learn about the evidence for God's existence in nature?
To get kids thinking about this subject ask, "How do you know God exists?" 

Be sure to affirm that personal experience is important in the life of a Christian, but explain why it's also important to understand the objective evidence God has given us in nature.

2. Clarify Terminology. Kids need to know exactly what certain words and concepts mean so they don't get ambushed or confused when hearing others professions. Let's start with these:

          An Atheist: Is someone who believes there is no God.
          An Agnostic: is someone who believes nothing is known or can be known about the existence
                                 or nature of God.
          A Skeptic: is a broader catchall category of people who reject the claims of Christianity.
          A Theist: is someone who believes in a God who interacts with his creation (for example,
                           Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all theistic faiths).

3. Help kids remember the evidence by teaching them to memorize the"big three" questions that are heavily debated in today's world.
         Where did the universe come from?
         Where did life come from?
         Where did our moral understanding come from?

The Push

Many who know me think I'm just a Hell Brimstone Fire preacher but I do have other passions. A passion to sit outside on a deck with a sweet breeze sipping tea and reading for one.

As I reflect on my life, teaching high school, and now having little girls of my own I've realized a couple of things. 

The State of Christians:
Many Christians profess just that, " I'm a Christian." Yet they do not know or can tell others anything besides Jesus is the Son of God and that He loves them. You can look at their life and realize they don't even know enough to have an inward change to reflect the God they serve. No application of the Word of God because they do not read it nor apply it. Their every day speech resembles Nightly TV, the mouths love the taste of liquor, beer and wine. Don't even try to correct them as offense rises up because God knows their heart... YES HE DOES!

Just out of curiosity and I know I'm not alone thinking this but why does the majority of the church want to look the same inside and out as the world (non professing christians)? Why can't we stand apart? Why isn't it OBVIOUS that we stand for God and the principles, values He has called us to?

I have sat in classes and have seen Christian students being attacked because they could not offer reason to their beliefs. The common question of " HOW DO YOU KNOW...?" 
I've been there, have you?

I have seen those growing up in Christian households fallaway from the faith because their parents or their Church (IF) they attend regularly and pay attention may not give them foundation of real day adequate answers of defending our faith with boldness and confidence.

Our Blooming Generation:
I wanted to learn how to defend my faith. I want my girls to know God isn't real just because I say so but there is pure evidence He exist. I don't want them to doubt or to be deceived by every wind or doctrine that comes their way. I Need them to Believe God for themselves and to not be afraid to face the questions bound to come their way in school, social media, and on the street. I know I'm not alone on wanting to raise Kingdom Warriors.


In my research I found an author, Natasha Crain, who wrote a book called "Talking with Your Kids about God: 30 Conversations Every Christian Parent Must Have" I felt led to share key points and topics to help our families engage, be empowered, and to grow in Christ defending our Faith.

GET THIS BOOK!