Seeing through the eyes of Faith

The story is to beautiful...
Two men went fishing. One was an experienced fisherman, the other wasn't. Every time the experienced fisherman caught a big fish, he put it in his ice chest to keep it fresh.. Whenever the inexperienced fisherman caught a big fish, he threw it back.

The experienced fisherman watched this go on all day and finally got tired of seeing the man waste good fish. 'Why do you keep throwing back all the big fish you catch?' he asked.

The inexperienced fisherman replied, 'I only have a small frying pan.'
Sometimes, like that fisherman, we throwback the big plans, big dreams, big jobs, big opportunities that God gives us. Our faith is too small.
We laugh at that fisherman who didn't figure out that all he needed was a bigger frying pan, yet how ready are we to increase the size of our faith?
Whether it's a problem or a possibility, God will never give you anything bigger than you can handle. That means we can confidently walk into anything God brings our way.

You can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens you(Philippians 4:13)

Nothing is too big for God!

Making proper use of the tongue

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit” Proverbs 18:21

A direct translation of this verse from the Portuguese, WBPT Brazilian Portuguese NT Bible would be “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who use it well will eat its fruit.

I believe you must have heard several times someone say that the word has power. Yes, and amazing how people do not give much importance to this fact. With words we can build or destroy. When the Bible refers to death it can be discourage, contamination of negative ideas, or negativity. And when it speaks of Life it can be motivate, cheer, teach, rebuke, edify, or save a person. Words can be poisonous or nutritious. There are several examples in the Bible of proper and improper use of the words. I want to cite an example where there is word of death and life.

The Bible in Book of Numbers, talks about 12 men sent by Moses to spy the land of Canaan. And after 40 days they were back with their report.

Think about this, the children of God are waiting for 40 days anxious to here the good news about the land that flows milk and honey. They gather together to hear the report the spies are bringing.

Negative report

1-Fear and impotence- “Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong…” Num13: 28

2- Inferiority complex - “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we” Num13:31

3-Contamination of negativity- And they gave the children of Israel a bad report…” Num13:32

4- Weakness and low self-esteem –“… and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight” Num13:33

Can you imagine the impact of those words? Well Bible says that the congregation lifted up their voices, cried and wept all night. They complained and were full of fear. Num14:1-2

They had just eaten the poisonous words.

Positive report

This was from Joshua and Caleb, 2 of the 12 Men sent to spy;

1-Audacity, encouragement - Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said “let’s go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it” Num13:30

2- Motivation – “...The land we passed thorough to spy out is an exceedingly good land.” Num14:7

3-Teaching and admonishing- “If the Lord Delights in us, than he will bring us into this land and give it to us…” Num14:8

What kind of words are you spreading? 

 “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles!” James3:5

Resisting temptation

We Know well that the first place the devil battles to conquer is our mind, the devil knows that once he won our mind, he won our heart and conquered our life. He will use every tool in his possession to win this battle. Our mind is our authenticity, our Label, our Brand, our dreams, our self-esteem, and our wishes; all of this is brought to our hearts through our mind. We should not underestimate our enemy that is very astute, and persistent. He will try to find a way to our hearts using our minds. This process of the devil working in our mind is called temptation, it’s the effort he does to make us sin. Temptation is not sin unless we give in.

The Bible says in “Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full- grown, brings forth death.” James 1:15

The death the Bible talks about doesn’t mean to die physically, but spiritually dead, emotionally dead, financially dead, etc etc. Once the devil wins this battle in our mind, he has control of our life, and once he has control of our lives, he takes away the joy of life, takes our peace of mind, destroys our dreams, our self esteem and laughs at our face. Plays with our lives, lets us be happy for while, and when you think your free he takes you back to hurt, oppress and humiliate you.

How to win this battle?

Submitting yourself to God, to His will, to His word, to His Laws and resisting the temptations is the only way to win this battle. “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” James 4:7

I learnt this, and like to use it as an example to illustrate temptation and sin. Think of the door bell ringing as temptation, sin happens when you open the door. You cannot stop anyone from ringing your door bell, but you can choose not to open. It does bother, it is annoying because of the noise but it’s your choice to open the door and invite the person in. If you choose not to, the person on the other side will certainly give up and leave. We shouldn’t invite sin in, less even entertain it. Whenever the devil is ringing the door bell of your mind, choose not to open it, read the Bible, pray, worship.

Do not accept your mind to be the playground of the devil, “Put on the Full armor of God, so that you can take a stand against the devils scheme” Ephesians 6:11

Qoute:You can't keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can sure keep them from building a nest in your hair!