Sword of the Spirit

Cheap Religion By A. W. Tozer What passes for Christianity in our day is cheap religion!  To listen to the current concepts of Christianity, we would conclude it is little more than bits of beautiful poetry, a man-made bouquet of fragrant flowers, a kindly smile for our neighbor and a couple of good deeds on behalf of a brother or sister.  When I consider some of the elements now offered in Christianity as acceptable religion, I have to restrain myself lest I speak too disapprovingly.  I fear my words would be so strong that I would have to repent of them!  And I read in the Scriptures that there are some things God does not want us to say even about the devil.  What do we find surfacing in much of our Christian fellowship?  The complaint that God takes a long time to work out His will.  We do not want to take the time to plow and cultivate.  We want the fruit and the harvest right away.  We do not want to be engaged in any spiritual battle that takes us into the long night.  We want t

Putting Your Best into Words By E.W. Kenyon Faith is built by words.  Deeds have their place, but deeds are the children of words in large measure.  You speak, then I watch you perform. It is your speech that attracts my attention.  Your deeds have their place, and we give you credit for them, but it is your words that set us on fire. You can fill your words with anything you wish.  You can fill them with fear until the very air around you vibrates with doubt and fear and restlessness.  You can fill your words with fear germs, and fill me with fear of disease and disaster. Your words are either filled with interrogation points, with a sense of lack, with hunger and want, or you come to me and speak words filled with faith.  Your faith words can stir me to the very depths.  Then I wonder why I ever doubted.  Your words enwrap me within themselves. They are like sunlight, warming a room on a cold, frosty day. Your words can pick up my drooping, broken spirit and fill it with confidence t

Right and Wrong Confessions By E. W. Kenyon For a long time, I was confused over the fact that there was a continual sense of defeat and failure in my own life and the lives of others. I prayed for the sick.  I knew that the Bible was true, and I searched diligently to find the leakage.  One day, I saw Hebrews 4:14 (asv), which says that we are to “hold fast our confession” (“profession” in the Authorized Version). Reading the third chapter of Hebrews, I discovered that Christianity could be called the “great confession.” I asked myself, “What confessions am I to hold fast?”  I came up with these:  I am to hold fast the confession of the absolute integrity of the Bible. I am to hold fast the confession of the redemptive work of Christ. I am to hold fast the confession of being a new creation, of receiving the life and nature of God. I am to hold fast the confession that God is the Strength of my life. I am to hold fast the confession that “surely He hath borne my sicknesses and carried

The golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters is not intellect, but obedience.  In the spiritual world discernment is never gained by intellect; in the common sense world it is. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide, but if he wants insight into what Jesus teaches, he can only get it by obedience. If things are dark to me spiritually, the reason is there is something I won't do. Intellectual darkness comes by ignorance; spiritual darkness comes because of something I don't intend to obey. - Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

A word of Knowledge On   The Kingdom of God come with Power Mark 9:1 KJV And he said unto them,  Verily I say unto you,  That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power. "The kingdom of God come with power" is clearly referring to the day of Pentecost where,  (Read also Acts 1:1-7) Acts 1:8 KJV But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Which is to say, in order to have the power to witness onto Jesus, we need to receive the Holy Ghost. He needs to come upon us all in a distinctly separate experience from water baptism.  "Witnesses unto me" refers to the following by the power of the Holy Spirit,  Luke 4:18-19 KJV The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;  he hath sent me to

A word of Wisdom "Be filled with the Spirit" Ephesians 5:18. If you think that upon believing or conversion or water ba[tism, you woll automatically receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit, you are deluding yourself. You only need to compare your life now to that of the post-Pentecost disciples. If you think that being filled with the Holy Spirit must be accompanied with an outburst of emotions, you are limiting God. The way of God is much bigger than you can comprehend. If you think that being saved, you do not need the fullness of the Holy Spirit, you have missed the whole point of His grace and blessings. Do you not understand that it is God's will and purpose for you that God's descent in the Holy Spirit, indwelling in man fully, is so that you can be One with God fully? Brothers and sisters, you need to first desire and even thirst for the Holy Spirit in order to receive Him. Do you really think that you are able to receive this fullness of God by not doing you

A Big Devil and a Little God By Don Gossett God is only as big as we allow Him to be in our lives. He will be to us what we believe Him to be. To most people, God is too small. Perhaps you are one who has faith in a big devil and a little God, and your whole life reveals it. You have more faith in sickness than in health; more in weakness than in the Lord’s strength; more faith in possessing fear than in God’s gift of courage; more faith in lack than in God’s supply of your needs; more faith in defeat and failure than in the triumphant life Christ gives. To give you the right faith, read 3 John. 2; Psalm 27:1; 2 Timothy 1:7; Philippians 4:19; and 2 Corinthians 2:14. I challenge you to let God be big in your life. God is limited to the amount of your faith. He is “small” in the world as you make Him small. He is big only when you make Him big by using your divinely given authority. It is important to have a scriptural appraisal of the devil and not one of your own making. Have a Biblesi

Keys to Receiving God's Miracle By E.W. Kenyon  Faith, the Conqueror It is said that Jesus never reasoned or laboriously worked out problems, as did Napoleon, Newton, and other great intellectual geniuses. I never knew the reason until lately why Jesus didn’t belong to the reason realm.  Faith acts in its own domain with a boldness that startles those of us in the realm of reason.  When the believer begins to walk by faith, he or she comes into the same realm in which Jesus walked. Faith doesn’t care a thing about what the natural eye can see, what the natural ear can hear, or what the physical body can feel.  Faith sees only omnipotence.  The natural eye sees the great walls of Jericho and hears the taunting of the enemy.  The natural body feels the gnawing pain of cancer.  Meanwhile, faith serenely stands by. Faith says, “Become quiet.”  Walls are knocked down, demons are defeated, and cancers are healed.  One might think that faith is utterly blind to physical conditions. When