Have you ever gone after something that you thought was the will of God for your life only to find out that obstacles seem to keep you from doing what you thought God wanted you to do?  If you have, you need not feel alone because many of us have been in the very same place.  Even the apostle Paul felt this way from time to time.  In 1 Thessalonians 2:18, the apostle Paul said, "Wherefore, we would have come to you even I Paul once and again, but Satan hindered us." 

So, what should you do in times like these?  I want you to particularly notice the word hindered in that verse.  It comes from a Greek word that was originally used to describe a road so deteriorated and broken up that it was impassable.  It means to cut in two; to impede. 

When I was a kid, I had a friend who lived down a dirt road that was almost impassable after we received a hard rain.  The road was too full of deep ruts and holes to continue our journey.  As a result, we would have to turn around and go back or find another mode of transportation to get to where we wanted to go.  Well, that is exactly the image the word hindered portrays to us.  Paul used this word to describe hindering forces that kept him from going to see the Thessalonians.  There is no doubt that this means that Paul was on his way to see them, not once, but twice, but the journey became so filled with danger and unexpected bumps that he had to turn around and go back and rethink his strategy on how he was going to get to the church at Thessalonica.

I am sure that you can think of a time when you encountered something like this on your journey, but the Greek word that is used here means even more than this.  It was also used in ancient times in an athletic sense.  It was used to portray the moment when a runner comes along side another runner and literally elbows him out of the race.  Although the second runner was running a good race, he is shoved out of the way by the aggression of his fellow runner.  As a result of this action, the runner who was elbowed losses the winning edge he previously held. 

This means that Paul really understood Satan's tactics.  The enemy had tried to make use of dangerous and unexpected bumps along the way to throw Paul off track and to elbow him out of his spiritual race.  In fact, Paul was convinced that Satan had specifically orchestrated these unforeseen and unanticipated hassles to keep him from getting to the church at Thessalonica.  When these two ideas are combined together the primary idea of the word hindered becomes that of an impasse so severe that it prohibits you from going where you need to go, or of an aggressor who unkindly elbows you off course in your spiritual race.   

When something happens that seems to keep you from doing the will of God remember that you are not the first to encounter such difficulties.  Others have been in the same predicament.  In time, however; the devil's attacks ceased and the way for them to move ahead became clear.  In the same way, you can be sure that God is going to empower you and give you the wisdom you need to get you where you need to go.  Don't give up!  It ain't over until God says it's over.  Don't throw in the towel just because you run up on some kind of problem.  The devil has never had the last word on anything; and he is not going to have the last word on this situation either.  Regardless of what the devil has tried to do, it is time for you to remember that what God has promised shall come to pass as you hold fast to your faith in Him.

_It appears as though we are in the midst of a marital season.  A lot of young couples are getting married.   Most of the time that is a good thing; however some who find themselves a bridesmaid and not a bride can find themselves being troubled or depressed because of their marital status.  If you find yourself in a situation like this, the worst thing to do is to become jealous of the person that is getting married. This message is for all of us who are waiting on God's promise to be fulfilled in our life.  Whether you're waiting for a spouse, financial independence, a job, house, car, etc. remember that God is not a man that He should lie.  No matter what you are waiting on in life, make sure that it is a promise made from God and not one that you or someone else has dreamed up for you.

I find that there are a lot of people who say that God has said something when in actuality He hasn't said anything at all.  All of these things are good things, and I believe that God would desire for us to have them; however we must possess our souls with patience.  As we are waiting on the manifestation of the things that God has promised, don't compromise your convictions while waiting.  I have seen so many times that a person wanted a thing so bad that they were willing to compromise their convictions.  They got the thing, but lost it later on.  Said another way, they got what they wanted, but they lost what they had.  The truth of the matter is that when God blesses us with something, the Bible says that it maketh rich and addeth no sorrow. 

I have spoken on numerous occassions of wanting something so bad that I convinced myself that this was the thing that God wanted me to have, or that God was telling me to get that particular thing.  Upon receiving (the car, for example), I praised God for it because I convinced myself that it was God.  Later on, I found out that it couldn't have been God because it was never a blessing to me.  It gave me trouble after trouble.

God's desire for me, and all Christians, is to rejoice with them that rejoice.  I find that in doing that it combats the spirit of jealousy that resides in all of us.  So, instead of withdrawing get involved and help that person who seems like they are getting what you have been wanting and see how God blesses you in the process.

As I said in the last blog, there are two types of pain:  physical, a needful pain because it is oftentimes is an indicator that something is wrong physically and needs your immediate attention, and emotional pain.  I believe that emotional pain is the mother of all pain and more difficult to heal.  It may take a physical wound a few weeks to heal, depending on the severity of that wound, but an emotional wound can and often does last a lifetime.  One of the reasons for this lifelong wound is that society as a whole tries to cover up emotional pain.  Society uses band-aids like using alcohol, using drugs, shopping, changing relationships, or moving to another city.  None of these things will work. 

Emotional pain has been around since the beginning.  It existed in the first family.  The reason for Cain's killing of Abel goes back to him feeling rejection.  The feelings of rejection are strong. For a lot of us, we grew up in dysfunctional families because perhaps our parents grew up in dysfunctional families.  The process has repeated itself over and over again.  It is true that emotionally hurting people hurt people emotionally.   

This actually goes all the way back to Lucifer becoming jealous of God's ability to rule.  And it is not all about that, but jealousy and envy are a type of emotional pain.  They can cause outbursts of angry words, violent behavior, physical illness and even death.  Emotional pain has destroyed lives, ruined marriages, torn families apart, stifled productivity in the workplace, and put nations against each other.  Emotional pain is a major source of  destruction.  It costs both physically and financially.  In fact, antidepressants are some of the most widely prescribed medications on the market today.  Though they can be helpful at times, they are not able to deal with the root of the problem.  The loss to society is great; the band-aids don't work.

One of the biggest causes of emotional pain is relationships gone awry.  This can leave a person scarred for life when not dealt with properly.  When rejected by someone we desperately want to be accepted by it can alter your life if allowed.  Rejection is one of the most common causes of emotional pain and it can kill.  I think that a lot of the emotional pain that we live with can be eliminated if we would just be honest with ourselves, tell ourselves the truth, and then speak it to others without anger.  Healing comes through transparency at the right time and in the right way.  When we cover up, we can never be healed from something.  This is why most of us experience a lifetime of pain. 

Continue with us in our next blog.

Pain is something that nobody likes, but I find that it is one of those so called "necessary evils" in our lives.  There are basically two types of pain that we suffer through:  physical and emotional.   I want to deal with physical pain in this blog.

Pain in and of itself is one of life's greatest teachers.  When there is physical pain, it is usually an indication that something has gone wrong somewhere in the body.  What a lot of us do is to try to ignore the pain, but when we do that it can lead to something far worse.  Many people have died because of that very reason.  Some of the most dreadful diseases are those that a person has and doesn't have any symptoms to let them know that something is wrong.  By the time they find out it is too late for them to do anything about it.   My daddy died from a battle with prostate cancer, but there was no pain in the initial state.  He was thinking that he was healthy until he finally got checked and it was too late.  I watched this strong man waste away quickly and die. 

So, I am convinced that God created pain as a mechanism for our protection.  For example, if you didn't have any way of feeling pain in your hand and you place that that hand on a hot stove, you would let that hand sit there until it burned severely or somebody else rescued you.   The effects of the burn could take you out of here.  The pain receptors protect you from doing harm to yourself. 

If you look at the ministry of Jesus, for the most part, those that he set free were people who were plagued with physical pain such as:  the woman with the issue of blood, the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, the young boy that was possessed with demons who would through him in the fire, and Lazarus whose pain was so bad that it took his life.  Jesus came to set the captive free!  We have to believe that he is the Great Physician, Jehovah Rapha, the God that heals us. 

Had they not had great pain many of them would not have tried to reach out to Jesus for help.  The pain caused them to come and know Jesus.  If you are in physical pain today, perhaps you can use that pain as a motivating force to reach out to Jesus for help.

We will talk about the mother of all pain; the one that is most difficult to deal with next time. 
 

My story today picks up in the book of Joshua chapter 6.  Joshua is given specific orders to take possession of what God had promised and to cross over Jordan to enter into the land of Canaan.  But as it is with every promise there are always obstacles that stand between you and the manifestation of the promise.  In this case, it was a very high and thick wall.  The wall stood between them and the promise of God so they had a major dilemma.

What do you do when you have come so far and you seem like you are right at the fulfillment of the promise, but yet there are major hindrances that stand in your way?  For Joshua, he sought the face of the Lord and he was given a strategy.  They were to march around the wall for six days and not utter a word.  On the seventh day, they were to march and then shout.  Each day, God's people marched to Jericho and returned.  Up and back from where they were was about a two hour trip, and believe me, I know that that is a lot of marching.  It is about the same amount of time that I run every morning.  So, I can imagine how fatigued they must have been carrying their weapons and armor for that distance. 

The march would require discipline, consistency, and endurance.  The same holds true for every believer today.  We are to be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.  For six days they marched.  There were no results; no fruit for their labor for six days.  They probably had to listen to the insults of the Canaanites who were upon the wall.  If they were mocked by the Canaanites, the Israelites could not fight back or say anything.  For six days, they probably had been humiliated before their enemies.  The seventh day finally came and it was a day of actually possessing their possessions.  The priests blew their trumpets and the people shouted!  The word shout in the Hebrew indicates the shout came from the depths of the soul.  God will sometimes hold off the fulfillment of what He has promised you, until you come to a point where you are ready to release a faith that comes from the depths of your soul.  It was the shout and where it came from (not just the sound of the shout), and the faith that was released in the shout that caused the obstacle, the wall to come down.

I have found that the secret of staying in love can be summed up in one potent word:  Intimacy.  You won't find the word intimacy in the Bible at all.  Instead, it speaks of oneness in marriage; a oneness that has been designed to meet our needs of companionship and completion, and to relieve the loneliness that is part of being a human being. Since this is precisely what intimacy does, we can view it as the vehicle that carries out God's plan to bless us in marriage. 

Oneness has a deeper significance and intimacy a higher purpose.  Oneness contains such depth of meaning that the Word calls it a great mystery.  Scripture informs us of two amazing things about this oneness.  First, the husband-wife relationship is designed to reflect God's image.  In marriage, neither the husband nor the wife can do this alone.  It takes two together united as one to reflect God's nature.  Second,  the New Testament reveals something even more mysterious.  God has chosen the one flesh union of husband and wife to depict and paint the picture of the intimate closeness and permanent love relationship of the Lord Jesus Christ and His church.  So, intimacy in marriage becomes the expression of the oneness that reflects God's image and Christ's love to the world around us.  I believe that it is a vital part of our witness to a lost generation and to our own children.

When we consider intimacy in this light, it acquires a new sense of urgency.  We stop asking ourselves what is in this intimate relationship for me to enjoy and begin to ponder what is there in the intimacy of our marriage for God's glory. 

Everybody desires increase.  We want to have more, go more, do more, be more.  The fact of the matter is increase doesn't automatically come because you ask God for it.  I know that this may surprise (or sound strange to) some because a lot of us have the mentality that if we ask and just believe it will happen.  Years ago, I was praying for increase and God plainly told me that if He gave me more, I wasn't able to handle it.  He told me that He wasn't going to give me more than I could handle.  That disappointed me at the time, but as I thought about it, it made a lot of sense.  I knew of people who suddenly came into large sums of money and found themselves after a few years broke.  Why?...because they didn't know how to handle it.  The statistics show that even in things like weight loss, the large majority of those who lose it will gain it back because they don't know how to discipline their appetite.  There are also all types of resolutions that are made in January and by March those resolutions are gone by the wayside.

I began to research scripture and I found several places that address these matters.  I don't have the space to discuss all of them here now, but one in particular in Luke 16:10 says: "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much:  and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much." What I saw in that scripture is that the way to the increase is to manage what God has already given me; to manage that well which is already in my possession.  During the early part of my adulthood I was frivolous in spending.  I was a poor manager of what God had allowed me to have.  My credit was a mess and it was just a reflection of my attitude toward scripture at that point in my life.  I didn't see the connection between how I managed that material things that God brought into my possession and my integrity.  I definitely didn't see how that would hinder what God would trust me with in the way of increase, and I was a pastor at the time.  It was the small things that were hindering me like not paying my bills on time and buying things that I didn't need. 

I had to learn how to become a better manager, and that was not easy.  Coming to the realization of that was powerful, but to put it in operation was very difficult.  It requires a life-change.  One of the major keys to increase is managing well what God has already given you, whether it be money, time, talent, or relationships.  Are you preparing yourself for increase?  Prepare to be blessed by learning how to appreciate and best use what you already have.

Giving up is an easy thing to do when you're under pressure.  In fact, for many of us, we become convinced that it is God; convinced that it was the will of the Lord for us to give up and quit, especially after we have fought for a while.  There are some immediate benefits that we gain by giving up:  We get rid of the pressure; We don't have to deal with the test anymore;   It feels like God has given us relief from our pain; It's just outright easier; There is a short-lived peace that you quickly obtain;  You are free to put your energy into something that seems like it's better; and It gives the impression of moving forward.  

However, we all need to understand that nothing happens to us unless God allows it.  Scripture says. "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).   Note that in scripture, escaping the temptation is not quitting (unless you're practicing sin), but it is bearing up under a burden.  Why? Because this is one of the many ways that God has chosen to strengthen our faith.  There are two ways to come out of a trial.  The first one is to give up.  The second one is to bear up. Both routes out end in the word up, and they both will seem like they are taken you in an upward motion.  The truth is that one is deceptive; it's a lie and won't lead you up and out...it could just take you out.

It has been my experience that when I have chosen the first way out that I usually find myself right back in the midst of the same set of circumstances a little later on.  But when God brings me out,  it means that I have learned the lesson of faith that the Holy Spirit was teaching me and my faith is ready to move UP to the next level.  Consider what I have said and may the Lord give you wisdom.

Why would God sow seeds of discord when he has declared that it is one of the 7 things that He really hates? When two opposing sides are at war with each other they both strive to not only create unity in their own camp, but to sow seeds of discord and confusion in the camp of the enemy.  We see this strategy in spiritual warfare: the continuous battle between God and satan.  The devil is not alone in employing the use of discord.  God himself has made use of this tactic.

An obvious example of this would be the confusion of tongues at the Towel of Babel.  Genesis 11 describes how these people tried to increase their unity; which would make them less vulnerable and less dependent on God.  Satan was the instigator of this scheme, but to stop him God turned their unity into confusion.  In the words God spoke at that time, I think that it is remarkable to see the strategic value God attaches to unity.  In verse 6, "The Lord said, Behold the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."  He says, ..."let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."  We also find many other biblical instances of God bringing confusion among those who tried to frustrate His plans.  His strategy has been to curtail His adversary's strength by sowing seeds of discord among people who are under satan's power.

Along with this tactic of confusion, we also see in the Bible how God seeks to unite His own people.  In contrast to the incident at Babel, when people no longer understood each other and were dispersed in all directions, Pentecost (in Acts 2) was a day when people from many nations came closer to each other because the Holy Spirit enabled the Apostles to speak to them in their own language. In the New Testament, our unity as Christians is strongly linked to the Holy Spirit.  In Ephesians 4:3, the Apostle Paul says that we must keep the unity of the Spirit, and reach unity in the faith (verse 13).  Our unity in the Spirit is a fact to be kept while our unity in the Faith is a calling to be reached.  If our unity in the Spirit is indeed a fact and He, Holy Spirit, works for our unity, why is there so much discord among believers especially in regard to our views about the Holy Spirit? There are plenty of people who are working together in unity, but they are not working together in the unity concerning the things of God.  They are working together in unity to accomplish the things of satan.

Growing up in my house there was never a dull moment.  When I was younger, my daddy taught us all to work.  We had to work.  There was no option.  He was self-employed with his own construction company, so we all had to learn how to do construction work.  Back in the early years, My father worked a lot of men who couldn't get jobs anywhere else.  Some of these men didn't have the opportunity to go to school because they had to enter the workforce really young in order to take care of their family's needs.

I remember distinctively two men who could not tell time.  One of them always wore a watch, even though he couldn't tell time.  Well, the one who did not have a watch and couldn't tell time went to the man who had the watch on but couldn't tell time.  (Remember this would have been before there were digital watches.) So, when the man without the watch went to the man with the watch he asked him, "What time is it?"  thinking that it was about time for lunch. The man who couldn't tell time held it up in the other man's face and said, "There it is right there!"  The gentleman who also couldn't tell time looked at it knowing that he couldn't tell time either and said, "I'll be dogged if it ain't".  They both walked off not knowing what time it was even though there was a time piece there to tell them, but they just couldn't read it. 

The Bible says, that we have not because we ask not.  In this scenario, there were two men who could have not only gotten the right time if they had asked, but they could have learned how to tell time, if they were not too proud to admit that they couldn't.  A lot of Christians are like that.  They would rather look like they know something knowing that they don't know it rather than to admit that they don't know and learn what they really need to know.  The temptation is always there to look better than you really are.  You can't get help like that.  You have got to admit:  "I don't know." Once you admit it, you can go to the right person (or the right place) to get the right answers, and equip yourself to know exactly what time it is!