Passionate excitement finding God's will

I pulled up a 2012 message from the sermon archives on our Shorewood Bible church website (entitled "A Lesson for Lent from McDonalds), in which Richard Jordan talks about Lent not having anything to do with the Bible, and found this passage:

The word “blessed” in the Bible, when you see it, it’s the concept of happiness and delight. Go back to Genesis 30:13: [13] And Leah said, Happy am I, for the daughters will call me blessed: and she called his name Asher.

When you say someone is blessed, what are you saying? “Happy am I.” So when God is called the blessed God, Paul’s really saying He’s the happy God.

That doesn’t mean He just sat down and watched Johnny Carson and got some chuckles out of the monologue. Happiness in the Scripture is not something based on just the surface kind of things.

Look at why Leah said she’s happy. The name Asher means "happy." When she had this little boy born into her life, she said, “We’re going to call him Asher because happy am I.” The happiness is the joy of a newborn son into the family.

You get the idea of “blessed be God.” It’s not just, “Oh, we’re going to bless you.” This is, “Man, God’s excited.”

Look at this. David says in Psalm 103:1, “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”

You read that and you say, “Who’s David talking to when he says that?” He’s talking to himself. He’s not talking to God. You know how you know? He says, “Bless the Lord.” Who you talking to, Dave? He’s talking to his soul.

You know, a lot of times we get in trouble because we listen to ourselves more than we talk to ourselves. That sounds screwy, doesn’t it? If you would preach the gospel to yourself instead of listen to yourself, running off about this and that, all that stuff that you can come up with . . .

You know, you can beat yourself up real good, can’t you? God says, “You know what you need to do; you need to bring all those thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ and set your affection on things above.”

Go corral up your mind and get it under the control of truth; cinch it up under that girdle of truth. Get it tied down by the truth of God and you do that by renewing your mind.

*****

Isaiah 9: [6] For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

[7] Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

When it says, “the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this,” that’s saying, “Here’s what He’s going to do, here’s what Christ is going to accomplish, here’s how He’s going to execute the Davidic Covenant and the zeal of the Lord—God’s excited about what He’s doing and His working through Israel. God’s got this plan and He’s thrilled about it.”

In John 2 when Jesus runs the money changers out of the temple, He says, “You’ve made my Father’s house a den of thieves.” It’s meant to be a house of prayer for all nations and then the disciples remembered that verse in Psalms where it says “the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”

John 2:17: [17] And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

The Lord Jesus Christ was just consumed, eaten up with a passion; with the joy, the delight of what God the Father was doing and His part in it.

You see, when Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” he’s talking about, “You know who God is? God’s somebody who’s excited, thrilled, passionate about what He’s accomplishing in His Son.”

You know what He’s done? He’s brought us into the same joy that He has. Our lives as Believers are designed to be lived with a passionate excitement and joy over what God’s doing. Now, we’re always worried about what we’re doing.

I deal with people all the time who say, “Does the Lord want me to marry this person? Does He want me to go to the mission field? Does He want me to buy this car?” It’s all, “What does the Lord want ME to do?”

You know what I say to people: “Quit worrying about what you’re doing. Relax and find out what God’s doing and then go do that. Because if you’ll get in that Book and find out what God’s doing today in the dispensation of grace, you’ll know what He’s doing and go do that and you’ll be doing the will of God.

His will for you is that you do what He’s doing or, better yet, that you let Him do what He’s doing through you. That it be the life of Christ, His will, His attitudes, His actions that are carried out in your life. That’s why He created you in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2: [10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

God’s got this plan for the Body of Christ. I Thessalonians 5: [18] In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

In everything. It didn’t say where. It just said, “Wherever you are, here’s the attitude you ought to have.” Why? That’s God’s will for you.

That’s not hard to understand. It’s like Mark Twain said: “It’s not the verses in the Bible that I don’t understand that bother me; it’s the ones I DO understand.”

Just start with what you got. There’s an attitude, there’s a thinking process, there’s a DELIGHT. He’s brought us into the ability to delight in what He’s doing. 

Emotional intelligence

“I believe that therapists would be in much lower demand if humans had higher emotional access, acumen, skills, and expression—better awareness and understanding, especially with vulnerable emotions in general,” writes a psychiatrist in a recent column for Psychology Today magazine.

“In my experience, personally and professionally, most of us were never taught how to effectively manage our emotions—not in school, not at work, not with our peers, and not in our families. We’re told, especially men, to ‘calm down,’ ‘toughen up,’ or ‘don’t cry’ when a strong emotion arises, but rarely shown how to lean into emotions and what they’re actually for.

“Emotions aren’t problems to get rid of, as many frequently treat them as; they’re crucial signals meant to guide us to what matters most. And when we ignore, discard, suppress, repress (suppression is conscious while repression is not), and/or misunderstand them, we usually suffer much more than we need to.”

*****

“There are two fundamental emotions humans deal with in life—one is love, drawing us toward things, and the other is fear, pushing us away from things,” says Richard Jordan. “Fear is a debilitating thing; in John 14, the fear of men kept people from trusting and believing even when they saw the truth of God’s Word by seeing the Messiah in their midst!

“Romans 12:12 is in the context of how we relate to other Believers ([12] Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer) and verse 9 says, [9] Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

"In other words, the focus in our relationship with others is going to be on love. Let love be the real thing. Don’t ‘diss’ somebody when it comes to love. Be genuine.

“I John 4 is very clear: ‘If God so loved us we ought to love one another.’ Your love for others HAS to be based upon an understanding of God’s love for you. The reason the world can never love their fellow man . . . 

“I’m going to be continually, constantly in prayer, all for the sake of loving others, loving our enemies as we ought. This is how Christ is designed to become visible and more real, and frankly more convincing to those who are about us. His life becomes a tangible reality.

*****

“II Corinthians talks about that living epistle. The epistle of Christ written in your heart and that life of Christ living out through you.

“You see, grace isn’t just a theology, and what he’s saying here is, ‘This is the way you think through . . . that renewed mind thinks through how to deal with the issues of life.’

“Jesus said, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ What does your heart do? With a heart man believes. Then He says, ‘Neither be afraid.’

“Without having that turmoil down inside, you have the ability to just go, ‘Ahhh,’ and let it all hang out and relax inside; relax in the truth of God’s Word about who Jesus Christ is and what He’s accomplished.

“Why should you trust it?  Christ says, ‘Look at me; I’m trusting it!’

“He says in John 14:28, ‘Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.’

“Christ is saying, ‘You know why you ought to have your heart trust me and not be afraid? Because you’ve heard my Word!’

“He already told His disciples, ‘If you love me keep my commandments.’ 'I’m living in complete total dependence on the will of my Father,' is what He’s saying. Paul has a great phrase for that—he calls it ‘the faith of Christ.’

“Jesus Christ entered into a plan and an agreement with His Father about what He would do and said, ‘Now, my peace I leave you.’ He’s completely at peace. He has complete inner tranquility even though He knows the agony He’s going to face on the Cross.

"In fact, when He says in verses 30-31 (‘Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.

[31] But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence’), He’s saying in the vernacular of our day:

“ ‘Let’s git-er done! . . . Let’s get on with it! The Adversary, the prince of this world, has come to fulfill the conflict of Genesis 3:15 where the seed of the woman and the seed of Satan will be in personal hand-to-hand combat. That day has arrived, so let’s go!’

“Because He’s got nothing . . . ‘There’s no weakness in me at all; I’m ready to go.’

“He knows what the Scripture says is going to happen to Him and yet He doesn’t hold back. In Hebrews 12, it says, ‘Who for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame.’

 

“He had in His mind an understanding of what God had promised Him and believed it and confidently trusted in it. There’s no rebellion, no hesitation; He has that complete inner tranquility.

*****

“There’s a fascinating passage in Philippians 4: 9: 'Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.'

“You want the God of peace to be with you? What does that mean? Well, look at verse 7: ‘And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’

“Wouldn’t you get the peace of God from the God of peace? This is peace that BELONGS to the God of peace.

“When Paul talks in Philippians 4 about the ‘peace of God,’ that’s the peace that BELONGS to God. In Romans 5, he talks about ‘being justified by faith we have peace WITH God.’

"That’s the peace that God Himself has. God is at peace with His own will. He’s at peace with His own plans. He’s at peace with His own word. And God’s peace; that total tranquility and inner calmness over what He’s doing, He takes that and gives it to us when we trust Him.

*****

“By the way, when it talks about the peace WITH God and the peace OF God, Melchizedek was the king of righteousness and the king of peace. Righteousness is first, peace is second. Because peace can only be based on righteousness; things have to be dealt with righteously.

“James 3:17 tells Israel, ‘But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.’

“Isaiah 32 says, 'And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.

[18] And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.' 

“Righteousness has to do with being right. God’s Word is right and I’m in relationship with it and the peace comes out of His righteousness.

“John 14: 27 is the great illustration of the peace OF God.  Jesus says, ‘Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.’

“Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. Here’s God living in our humanity and He has complete and total peace—inner tranquility, inner calmness, a relaxed mental attitude in His heart that results in that faith, that total dependence on the Word of His Father.

“Philippians 2:5 says, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.’ This is a truth that Paul followers should be very clear about and should rejoice in.

"Paul goes on, ‘Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: [7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: [8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.’

“He made Himself of no reputation. Who did that to Him? He did it to Himself. Voluntarily, He took up a position and took upon Him the form of a servant. Though He’s equal with the Father, He chooses to function in relationship to the Father as a servant. Did He have to? No, He willingly chose to.

“The next verse says, ‘He humbled Himself and became obedient.’ What does a servant do? He does what his master, his lord, tells him to do. So when Jesus Christ says, ‘The Father is greater than I,’ it’s in relationship to Jesus Christ coming as a servant. What He’s doing is owning His place as a servant.”

“Paul says, ‘A spiritual transaction took place on a supernatural level inside of me, where I received His life and so that the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I have His life and it’s Him living in me.’

“The way He does that is when I live in my flesh the way He lived in HIS flesh! How did He live? ‘Without the Father I can do nothing. The works I do, the words I speak, are the ones the Father gave me,’ and I just put my faith in the Father and I’m living the life He gave me.

“So how does Christ live in me? He lives in my flesh the way He lived in His own flesh, 2,000 years ago and faith is just the issue of depending. Whatever you depend on is going to control you. 

“The Lord Jesus Christ, my friend, is most magnified, most exalted, when we’re satisfied in life with Him and He’s enough. All the other stuff, even if we lose everything else, we’ve got Him and we’re still ahead.

“Paul said, ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ To live is to know Christ and to die is gain because now I just get more intimacy with Him. I’ve heard that word defined ‘in-to-me-see.’ That’s really what it is.

“More and more there’s the ability to see into Him, and Him to see into me, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. In your life, when He is preferred above everything else, that’s how He’s cherished and demonstrated to be the treasure.

“When we’re satisfied with Christ, when we’re prizing Him, cherishing Him, treasuring Him as a prize, and His gain is our heart’s delight above all else, that’s what Paul means in Philippians 3:9 when he says:

‘[9] And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
[10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

God wears the north's face

(new article this evening)

Not only is there a tremendous amount of information in the Book of Job about creation--the mechanics, the structure, the purpose, how it’s designed to operate, etc.—but the information was already on the table for people when the Book of Genesis was written.

“When you study Genesis 1, it’s good to work from a frame of reference in your mind that’s given in the Book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible,” advises Richard Jordan (shorewoodbiblechurch.org). “In Job 26, for example, Job is answering Bildad and is going to make some statements about what his understanding of creation is.

“Verse 5 says, ‘Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.’ Notice the connection with water and dead things under the water. Verse 6 says, ‘Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.’ Hell is naked before God and destruction can’t hide from Him. 

“There’s some people living under the water and Hell is under the water. Destruction, or those things connected with dead people and hell, are underneath the water.

“Verse 7 says, [7] He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

“There’s a place up there in the heavens that’s empty; it doesn’t have a bunch of inhabitants. This place is not given to anybody. It’s an empty field and above it is ‘the north.’ There is an absolute direction for the universe.

l

“Psalm 75 says, ‘[6] For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.'

“You’ll notice a lot of these verses like this one are just kind of stuck in places. People say, ‘Well, why isn’t all this stuff just laid out for you—bop, bop, bop, bop, bop?’ Well, one reason is it would be kind of boring.

"Have you ever read a scientific textbook? Did you ever take Physics? Didn’t you just get a real thrill reading through the Physics textbook? Didn’t you just go home at night and want to read it again?!

“Did you know the easiest way to learn is as a corollary to some life experience? And if your Bible was written like a theological textbook . . . I’ve studied them for 30 years and I never saw a one—I’ve read dozens of them—that I thought was good reading again.

“I’d rather read a Tom Clancy or a Robert Ludlum novel any day than to read a theological textbook. It’s like choosing between ‘Gone with the Wind’ and an Encyclopedia Britannica. Which one you want to read, you know. Why would you want a Bible written like that? It’s written in a way to captivate your interest and cause you to learn because you keep reading and studying it!

“A preacher told me just the other day, ‘You know, I just get tired of studying.’ That’s something I never have done. I’ve been studying the Bible over 30 years. Just yesterday I spent about 15 hours studying. I was researching something and I turned the phone off and went to it.

“I study at least 20 hours a week and have the personal discipline to do that and I’m fairly busy in other things. It’s the one thing I do that NEVER has been a burden to me. Now, sometimes it’s frustrating—you don’t understand something—and sometime your old flesh says, ‘Boy, I’d sure like to not do that,’ and sometime I can’t read it—I got to get closer or put it away from me, but it’s wonderful to study it.

*****

“But getting back to ‘the north.’ You’re going to find these verses in strange little places and they’re just going to be dropped in. Little explanations, little statements dropped in because the Bible is written in such a way to assume that you’re going to read all of it and pay attention to the details, picking them up as you go along. It’s meant to be a treasure hunt.

“When Psalm 75:6 says, ‘For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south,’ do you see from the Book of Job how God is put in the place of the fourth direction? He does that because that’s where God is!

“The message is, ‘Look, promotion doesn’t come from the east, it doesn’t come from the west, it doesn’t come from the south—it comes from, only one direction left. But he doesn’t tell you the direction; he tells you WHO it comes from that lives there! It comes from ‘the north,’ but Job says it comes from God because God . . .

*****

“Now you understand God is omnipresent. That’s a theological term to try and describe the immensity of who God is. He is not limited by time or space. And yet you know, although God is everywhere, as theologians would say, you know He’s not everywhere in the same sense. You know if God the Holy Spirit indwells you as a Believer, He is in you, in communion with your spirit, in a sense in which He is not in an unsaved person.

“God isn’t limited by where He can be, but He chooses to manifest the glory of His person and His personality in certain places, and the place where He has chosen to manifest for His creation, the glory and the majesty of His person, is a place located in ‘the north.’

“So when I start Genesis 1, I’m going to need to know that there is a place that God calls 'north.' Anytime you get a map out, the first thing you need to do if you’re going to get directions is find the little arrow that is always pointing north. Why doesn’t it always point south, or east or west? That’s interesting but now you know.”

Milan's pentagram Olympics

One Christian website, in describing the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics, wrote, “A massive triumphal arch, a blazing suspended centerpiece with a pentagram. The entire scene drenched in blood-red light with fire raining down from the heavens like a victory celebration for something ancient, pagan, and proud.”

From a Christian YouTuber in England, giving a sort of play-by-play of the spectacle: “So we come out to the gates here, 'The Gate of Peace,' a victory gate with the European Union stars and they start to elevate up with this torch with a flame; the lightbearer.

“This flame which apparently was taken directly from the sun; that’s how they actually lit it. They lift it up and it lights this cauldron like a sun and the fire ignites and you see the emblem on it looks very much like a pentagram. Yeah, I mean, just blatant paganism, folks.

“Right in the center of the gateway, that arch of quote unquote “peace,” there are fireworks now going off. The dictatorship, the iron, the coming together as one in the beast kingdom with a harlot religion going straight back to Babylon and through the ages and, folks, a false counterfeit Christ is being shown. We’re really in these times; it’s unbelievable to see them unfold, to be honest.” 

The Tempter traffics in thinking patterns

(sure enough I didn't meet my deadline and will now have to wait until this evening to finish and post new article. I can tell you I'm putting together a piece that includes satanic symbols seen at Olympics 2026)

A good Bible trivia question would be to name all the men Satan’s actually come against himself. The list would include Job, Moses, Jesus Christ, Paul.

“The reality is there have only been a handful of people in human history Satan’s deemed important enough to intervene directly into their lives,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “We’re all pretty insignificant individuals who don’t deal with the devil; humans encounter his emissaries, his cohorts, his fledglings, his dupes.

“Job is a primary example of someone who gains Satan’s personal attention. God asks Satan in Job 1, ‘Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?’ He then informs Satan, ‘Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.’

“Satan says to God, ‘Go and touch what Job has and he’ll curse thee to thy face.’ You know what he’s really saying? ‘Job serves you because you’ll bless him. He’s serving you for profit. If you really knew his heart you’d know he’s doing it for some other reason than what he tells you.’

“You’ve got a Bible passage here where what Satan knows about Job is put in contrast with what God knows about Job. God says, ‘I know his heart,’ and it’s obvious from what Satan says about Job that he doesn’t know the real motives of Job's heart. He falsely accuses Job before God. He didn’t really know what was in Job’s mind; he just knew what he thought he could put into Job’s mind.

“Satan says, ‘I know what I can put into his mind,’ but it’s pretty obvious in the passage Satan’s not really capable of looking into Job’s mind and reading it.

*****

“We could talk about Paul, Peter, Eve, and it’s clear Satan can’t read their minds.

"Satan tempts Jesus Christ in the wilderness after He’d fasted 40 days and 40 nights. Matthew 4 says, 'And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread . . . If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.'

"In the passage, Satan’s not a tempter among tempters, but The Tempter; the No. 1 guy.

“Satan’s whole business is that of tempting and that’s why James 1:13-14 says, ‘Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.’ God is not tempting any man and a lot of people misunderstand this.

“A lot of people make the mistake of blaming God for things when they come along. They ask, ‘Why did God allow this happen to me?’ Or, ‘Why did God allow that to befall me?’ The verse is clear God doesn’t tempt men; that’s Satan’s whole purpose and program. That’s his whole business, job, activity.

"In Satan’s tempting of Jesus Christ, it’s crucial to understand he’s tempting the humanity of Christ, and as the God-man; a man who was hungry, thirsty, tired, weary, in need of sleep.

“But you know what was consuming the mind of Christ? The Word. Like David said, ‘Thy word have I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee.’ What was in Christ’s mind was not feeding himself, but it was the Book.

“Notice Satan quotes Scripture to Christ? Don’t get upset, folks, if Satan and his ministers can read to you right out of the Bible. Satan is a better Bible student than any of us will ever be. They know what’s in the Bible and they can pick it up and read it as good as you can.

“Don’t be amazed if you say, ‘It is written,’ and (Satan’s dupes) say, ‘It is written,’ right back at you. That’s the way Satan operates.

“In Matthew 4:7, we see Jesus say, ‘It is written again, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’ It is amply evident Satan doesn’t know what’s in the mind of Christ and he can’t get into His mind. He doesn’t have access to the mind and body of Jesus Christ in order to read His mind.

“The way Satan is tempting Christ is by making suggestions to Him—to try and have outside suggestions go into His mind and lead Him. It’s to try and affect His thinking from the OUTSIDE.

*****

“Your body is the temple where God the Holy Spirit dwells in this earth today and the very idea that Satan would be able to have access into your body as a Believer is ridiculous. It’s the height of absurdity to believe Satan could have access into the mind or body where God Almighty’s Holy Spirit dwells.

“At the same time, it’s quite clear from Paul’s epistles that Satan does understand and know the minds of unsaved people. It’s quite clear that he has access into their thinking processes. I’ve told you repeatedly that the very creative genius of unsaved people is satanically inspired. Unsaved men can have more than one demon in them.

“By the way, the Greeks, when they use that word ‘demos,’ it’s translated in our Bible ‘devil.’ The Greeks looked at the word as a word that was good and not bad. They didn’t consider it necessarily bad to have a demon. They looked at a demon as that which gave a man the ability to be a genius.

*****

“When you trust Jesus Christ and God, the Holy Spirit comes and takes up residence in your body and all the demons are cast out. Now, because Satan doesn’t have access into your mind, he comes against you and seeks to tempt you and influence you the same way he did the Lord Jesus; that is, by outside suggestions.

“May I say something to you, the battleground between you and Satan is in your mind; it’s in your thinking processes. The mind’s the most important part of you. Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.’

“Isaiah 26:3 says, ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.’ He takes his mind and fixes it on the Person of God Almighty and it stays there. His thinking capacity, his ability to perceive and know and think is focused and directed and flowing toward God Almighty. If it flows toward God, it has to flow toward His Word. And it’s just like Jesus Christ said, ‘It is written.’

“II Cor. 10:3-5 says, ‘For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
[4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
[5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;’

“You know where imaginations come from? You know where those vain thoughts and dreams come? In your mind. Casting down the imaginations means casting down the vain reasonings.

“Please underline these two words from verse 5: ‘EVERY THOUGHT.’ You want victory? You’ll have to bring ‘EVERY THOUGHT to the obedience of Christ.’ You’ll never have it any other way. You’re not trying to bring every action, every emotion, every response—but you’re thinking first. You see, my friend, you sin with your mind, not your body. Sin begins in the mind.

“When you study in theology what’s called the Doctrine of Pecability, pecability is that accountability for sin that takes place in the thinking—when the decisions are made. What you do with your body is decided by your mind. And Satan’s pattern is to attack our minds from the outside by outside suggestions being poured into us.

“Paul emphasizes in I Timothy 4:1 that some Believers ‘shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits.’ This bad information and doctrine is pumped in from the outside, and from the outside these teachings bombard us at all times through teachers, preachers, books, TV and radio, etc.

“We’re being bombarded by Satan’s doctrine constantly and he’s forever trying to lead our mind down a path of thinking that’s his thinking and not God’s thinking. And you, my friend—right here in the technological age in which we live, in which communication is the name of the game--are more susceptible to this than at ANY other time in human history that we know anything about.

“There’s NO time in your Christian life you’re ever going to have a respite from Satan attempting, from the outside, to govern your thought patterns. You see, my friend, he’s after your mind and he never quits being after your mind! He has ‘seducing spirits’ incessantly trying to entice you from proper thinking so he can teach you ‘doctrines of devils.’ It’s just a constant bombardment.

*****

“You turn that stupid TV on and what are they doing? There’s that old mess on right in the background where you don’t even notice it. And you just sit there like that.

“Ephesians 6:11 says were to ‘stand against the wiles of the devil.’ Now that word ‘devil’ there—I’ve told you this time and again—the Greek word is ‘diablos,’ and that word is a compound. It’s the little preposition ‘dia’ which means ‘through’ and the verb ‘to throw.’ You put together the preposition ‘through’ and ‘to throw’ and you get a word that means to throw through something; the word ‘balos.’

“We say bowling. It’s to throw that ball. That’s a description of his activity. He seeks to throw something and separate you and God. His purpose, his aim, his strategy, his goal is to throw something between you and God that will separate you.

“The No. 1 way he does this above everything else is by false doctrine that seeks to separate you from the position and standing you have in Christ.

“Paul says in Ephesians 4:14, ‘That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.’

“That word ‘craftiness’ is that word ‘wiles’ over there in chapter 6—it’s those crafty, tricky strategies. What does he do? He comes in here with this ‘every wind of doctrine’ to toss you back and forth.

“And listen, folks, they’ll come in and teach right out of the Bible to you. They’ll give you chapter and verse. Satan doesn’t care how much of it you believe as long as it keeps you off-balance; as long as you never take your stand in combat readiness in who God’s made you in Christ.”

Read it to BELIEVE it--and see it WORK!

(super-grateful to report I am feeling much better and did not have this terrible flu others have told me about in detail after getting it and struggling with its aftermath weeks later! I just had some weird kind of bug--or, as I always wonder with a "mystery" illness, was it just some kind of food-poisoning? Will have new article for certain this evening--getting sick always makes me reevaluate life as a whole, which is what I need!)

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” – James Baldwin

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” – Descartes

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” ― Henry David Thoreau

“Once you’ve read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.” — Louis L’Amour

“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.”― Francois Mauriac

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”— Mark Haddon

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” — Sir Francis Bacon

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green

“And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.”--Revelation 5:4

*****

In his Wednesday night study my pastor really honed in on the fact that Believers must READ God's Word. It's not the same at all to listen to God's Word being preached or, of course, to read commentaries or other material giving expository writings about what the Word says.

The first occurrence of the word “read” in the King James Bible, where somebody is physically reading the word, is in Exodus 24:7: “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.”

Moses writes the words down in a book obviously. Exodus 24:8: [8] And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.

He sprinkles the book, but before he does, he READS the w-o-r-d-s. You see, it’s important in the Bible that you read the Bible.

When Moses describes to Israel about what they’re to do when they enter into the "land of promise," one of the first things he tells them (Deuteronomy 17) is that when the king "sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

[19] And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them."

*****

If you want God’s Word, the truth of who you are in Jesus Christ, the life of Christ, to work in you, you need to get into READING, says Richard Jordan.

If you want who God has made you—He called Israel to be somebody and if that was to work in them, they had to get those w-o-r-d-s, read them all the days of their life so those words would WORK in them.

You don’t operate simply on your memory. You don’t operate on what you heard a teacher or preacher say. You sit and continuously, day after day, read the words yourself.

When Moses dies and Joshua takes his place of leadership, God advises, "Be strong and of good courage." He says in Joshua 1:8, "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."

You see, they’re to take that book, they’re to read it and meditate on it. They’re to think about it and fill their mind with it.

Joshua 8:34 says, "And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law."

Do you see how when they’re going to be led into blessing--led into the land--and corrected for their misbehavior, they’re going to look at verses in their Bible and read them? It’s that important, folks!

By the way, this BOOK that Moses starts writing; it just keeps growing. He keeps adding to it. God is writing His Word, growing His Word, adding Scripture to it.

Joshua 24:26 says, "And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD."

The verses are showing you there’s this BOOK and they’re reading it, and the Book is why it’s important. Now that’s why there’s a Book, by the way!

The Lord says in Isaiah 30:8, "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever."

*****

The reason the emphasis is so much on that Book, and reading the Book, is because God designed His people to be People of a Book; of a written record of His Word.

I remember the first time I read through the Koran, and I had asked my neighbor to "get me a copy of the Koran that you guys use." I had gone and gotten the one that Arthur Arberry did and I didn’t know whether it was right or not. If you get a translation of somebody’s scripture you want to find the one that the people doing it want.

I told myself, "I’m going to read this through at least 6-8 times so I have a little information in my head about what’s in it." Thomas Carlyle said reading the Koran was the most vain effort there is to read and he was right. It’s a confusing kind of thing.

Read it 4-5 times and you begin to see there really is no pattern to it, but I was struck by how, over and over, they refer to Christians and Jews as "The People of the Book."

That’s who we are. God wrote a Book. Now, that’s why READING it is important, because the reason you’re reading is you’re reading the Book that contains the w-o-r-d-s of God.

God didn’t say to listen to DVDs and CDs; He said, "Read the Book."

Now there’s a listening and hearing issue too, but it starts with the reading. Why does Isaiah 30:8 say to "note it in a book"? "That it may be for the time to come for ever and ever." 

Notice they are to take the word God gave them (through the prophet) and write it in a book so it can be preserved for the future.

*****

In theological circles, there’s a great discussion about inspiration. II Peter 1:20-21 says, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

[21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

Notice it didn’t say they wrote as they were moved. It said they SPAKE. See that? Romans 16:22 reveals, "I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord."

Wait a minute, I thought Paul wrote Romans?! I thought Paul said, "Read what I write and you’ll get understanding"? Does that mean Romans doesn’t fit if this dude Tertius wrote it? What’s the deal there?

Paul didn’t write most of his epistles. In Galatians 6, he writes, "Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand."

It’s only six chapters. But evidently he had some problems with his eyes and he didn’t actually do the penning. He spoke, and as he dictated, Tertius wrote it down.

But the verse says "holy men of God SPAKE as they were moved." So where was the inspiration? In spirit, in breathing; that’s talking. Then they record in written fashion the w-o-r-d-s. You know what the recording is? That’s preservation of what’s spoken. There’s inspiration and preservation in one verse.

It’s fascinating that you take the average doctrinal statement of the average church, and the average Christian institution since the turn of the 20^th Century, and they talk about the Bible. They say, "We believe the Bible was given by inspiration of God."

And they talk about verbal, planarian inspiration and dynamics in the original autographs. You know what the problem with that is? You’ve never seen an original autograph. You’ve never seen an original copy. The book Paul wrote to the Ephesians, you never saw the original. Most people didn’t. What did they see? Copies.

Well, if it was only inspired in the original, what have you got now? By their definition, you have an uninspired bible. You say, "Well, that’s not good."

Now when you go out and raise that question, these people blow their stack at you and they say, "Well, you’re one of those ‘King James Only’ people."

The point is God wrote His Word, He spake it and it was written down, and was designed to be preserved. How long did Isaiah 30:8 say it was meant for? Why did he say to go write it down? So it could be preserved for the next generation and the next generation.

It’s still as much His Word after it’s written down as it was when it came out of Paul’s mouth. The scholars say Tertius is Paul’s ‘amanuensis.’ I love that title. That’s just means it’s his secretary. That’s a just a big fancy definition for "he’s taking dictation." You can’t charge somebody $50,000 for an education if you don’t teach them big words.

What Tertius is doing is preserving for you the inspired w-o-r-d-s God gave through Paul. By the way, look at Romans 16:26: "But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith."

If God’s Word is to be made known to all nations, what would that require? It’s going to require that it be translated. You remember that verse in Zechariah 8 where he says that "ten men shall take hold out of ALL languages of the nations"?

God knows there’s all these different languages and if His Word is designed to be made known to all nations, He doesn’t tell all nations, "Come learn this language." He says, "Take my Word and put it into the languages of the nations."

If you go back and study doctrinal statements before the turn of the 20^th Century, you know what you find they say? They don’t say God’s Word is found in the originals only. They say God’s Word was found in the originals and then preserved through history, designed to be translated into the languages of the nations.

In fact, the Westminster Confession, the great old confession that everybody says is supposed to be the standard of everything, says that His Word is designed to be preserved PURE through all generations. God is going to preserve His word through history in written form, through copies, translating. It’s designed so it can be permanent and precise.