WHO OR WHAT ARE WE SLAVES TO?

[Minister Connie]

Romans 6: 16} Do you not know that if you continually surrender yourselves to anyone to do his will, you are the slaves of him whom you obey, whether that be sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness (right doing and right standing with God)?

Let's face it, many of us have become slaves to people and things in this world which should not be. It's not just bowing down to people, it's bowing down to things. Too often we are so concerned with people's opinions of us that we get into bondage of all types. The same things go for when we become slaves to the things of this world. We need to remember that everything begins in the mind as a thought. So a man thinks, so he is. Thoughts always become actions be it good or bad if we give it enough time.

We can become slaves to our thoughts. If we think we will be sick for the rest of our lives then we become a slave to sickness. Instead we should be standing on the Word of God and believing it until it comes to pass in our lives, because it will! By His stripes we are healed! These aren't just words, they are promises from God to us handed down to every single generation. It's time to do warfare with the Word of God folks. The enemy has intensified his attacks and we need to intensify our warfare. The word internalized is the enemy neutralized. The enemy bombards our minds with lies, we need to bombard our minds with the Word of God....not just read it, study it! We have the power to stop him from taking any more ground from any area of our lives. The key to victory, however, is that we need to be living in the will of God and in total obedience. When we live in true obedience and humility is when no weapons formed against us are going to prosper. It is then that we will live under the great favor of God and He will overtake us in His blessings in every single area of our lives! We should be living for Him, not this world. We need to become bondservants for God. What does that mean? It means that we love Him so much that we don't want to do a single thing to displease Him. If we take the time to look at our recent behaviors we will find that a lot of things we do is not only not pleasing to Him but does not honor Him in any way. It's time for repentance and obedience folks. It's time to rededicate ourselves to the Lord and His work. Salvation needs to be a daily working out folks! It doesn't stop the day we were born again.

When we give in to addictions like drinking, gambling, sexual immorality....anything that goes against the word of God than we have become slaves to sin and are not living righteously. The danger of this is that death will be looming at the door. Not just spiritual death, but physical as well. If we knew how we open the door to many demons when we do this, we would not be doing anything to allow this to happen. Our behaviors and attitudes many times are not pleasing to God so how can we expect to get any blessings into our lives? We don't attend church anymore because we want to do our own thing, or else other things take priority over taking time to praise and worship God. And the biggest excuse is that someone hurt us or rejected us. Since this works and keeps us away from the Body of Christ, Satan will keep using it. This is when we have to ask ourselves why are we going to church? For Christ or for people? If we allow people's actions and words towards us to chase us away then we need to look at how serious our walk is. How sad for us! We have become slaves to our own flesh, our emotions and feelings, and our own desires and our own needs. Our wills have become lord and master over the place of Jesus Christ being first in our lives. It's the Me, Myself and I generation. We need to constantly remind ourselves that pride comes before a fall. Humility comes before honor.

Many of us have become slaves to our feelings and emotions. The moment something goes wrong or something bad happens we allow our emotions to go over the top and rule over us.We panic, get into hopelessness, worry, fear etc... Satan knows our weaknesses and he will use them. That's why it's so important to give him no foothold in any area of our lives. We need to submit ourselves and every part of us to God. Bring all thoughts and imaginations to the obedience and authority of Christ. And to have a right attitude and reaction when things go wrong is also a very powerful tool. Instead of losing it, or blowing a gasket, or reacting in any negative way, look to see why God has closed that door or why these things are taking place. Most times it's His protection over us. But sadly, we see it as an attack against us and give Satan way too much glory. When bad things happen we need to stop being a slave to our feelings and emotions, take a step back and a deep breath and seek God in it. Seek Him in all things! This is why we make so many wrong decisions and choices, we don't take time to seek the counsel of God. Instead we seek the counsel of our feelings and emotions, and yes our thoughts too.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying life and what God has put on this earth for us to enjoy. He wants us to be happy and have some fun. However, it's wrong and it becomes sin when we overindulge or make those things a god before our God. As human beings, we seem to always take things to the extreme. We have no discipline in our lives. God is calling us in these days to humble ourselves, to repent, to come back to Him and to pray so that He can heal our nations. We need to be doing some serious intercession for our president, our government, these nations and each other! I pray God gives each one of us a true revelation of the power we have through prayer, obedience and living a righteous life. We are to be different from this world just as Jesus was different when He walked this earth. We are to stand up for His truth and to be an living example of it. In other words, don't just be hearers of the word but be doers. Stand up for God's truth even in the worst adversities and rejections!

So let us take time to do a real deep heart search and allow the Holy Spirit to not only show us what is operating in us that should not be, but give Him permission to remove those things from our lives. People's opinions should not matter to us, only God's opinion. Too many of us are running around wounded because we have listened and taken in other people's wrong opinions of us. Such as : you are a burden, you are not loved, you are not wanted, you will amount to nothing, you are not gifted and the list is too numerous to name here. When are we going to stop focusing on this nonsense and put our focus on what God thinks of us and who we really are in Him? Forgive those who hurt you and go on with your walk! Let nothing and no one stop you from pressing in to a deep relationship with Christ. He, and only He, can get you to a place of stability where you will be unmoved by people or things. Nothing will shake you! We are accountable to cooperate with the Spirit of God, not this world.

I see so many needs out there and yet no one is moving out to help. We are here to help one another! When we see or hear of a need we should not sit on our hands and do nothing. We are one! We are one Body and need to be there for one another! It is in blessing others that we will be blessed. Give, and it shall be given to you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over shall men give unto your bossom. But we have to sow in order to reap. And we need to do it generously not holding back. Also give with right motivation which should be love. Our stinking thinking often stops us from moving out. Fear is the core center of not moving out to do God's will. Fear stops us from being obedient, anointed, and most of all blessed. We can and should be doing all things through Christ who strengthens us! If He brought us to it, He will equip us to do it! We need to stop relying on the things of this world and other people and rely totally and completely on God. Why? Because He is powerful, supernatural and most of all He is faithful and true....so is His word! He never does things the way the world does, He does it His way. And His way is perfect! Stop listening to the doom and gloom of the tv news and the newspapers, seek God and allow Him to show you what He is up to. Stop being slaves to negative reports. God loves us and longs to bless us. God bless you, I love you, but Jesus loves you so much more than I ever could.