Can You Come Down?

"While ye have light, believe in the light." — John 12:36 We all have moments when we feel better than our best, and we say - "I feel fit for anything; if only I could be like this always!" We are not meant to be. Those moments are moments of in sight which we have to live up to when we do not feel like it. Many of us are no good for this workaday world when there is no high hour. We must bring our commonplace life up to the standard revealed in the high hour. Never allow a feeling which was stirred in you in the high hour to evaporate. Don't put your mental feet on the mantelpiece and say - "What a marvellous state of mind to be in!" Act immediately, do something, if only because you would rather not do it. If in a prayer meeting God has shown you something to do, don't say - "I'll do it"; do it! Take yourself by the scruff of the neck and shake off your incarnate laziness. Laziness is always seen in cravings for the high hour; we talk about working up to a time on the mount. We have to learn to live in the grey day according to what we saw on the mount. Don't cave in because you have been baffled once, get at it again. Burn your bridges behind you, and stand committed to God by your own act. Never revise your decisions, but see that you make your decisions in the light of the high hour.

"The Lord … hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight."

Acts 9:17 When Paul received his sight, he received spiritually an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ - "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." No attraction was ever allowed to hold the mind and soul of Paul save the face of Jesus Christ. We have to learn to maintain an unimpaired state of character up to the last notch revealed in the vision of Jesus Christ. The abiding characteristic of a spiritual man is the interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ to himself, and the interpretation to others of the purposes of God. The one concentrated passion of the life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after God's own heart. Never allow anything to deflect you from insight into Jesus Christ. It is the test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you. "Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus, I've lost sight of all beside, So enchained my spirit's vision, Gazing on the Crucified."

"The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."

Matthew 20:28 Paul's idea of service is the same as Our Lord's: "I am among you as He that serveth;" "ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." We have the idea that a man called to the ministry is called to be a different kind of being from other men. According to Jesus Christ, he is called to be the "door-mat" of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior. "I know how to be abased," says Paul. This is Paul's idea of service - "I will spend myself to the last ebb for you; you may give me praise or give me blame, it will make no difference." So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does. The mainspring of Paul's service is not love for men, but love for Jesus Christ. If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fellow men. Paul's realization of how Jesus Christ had dealt with him is the secret of his determination to serve others. "I was before a perjurer, a blasphemer, an injurious person" - no matter how men may treat me, they will never treat me with the spite and hatred with which I treated Jesus Christ. When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.

Crushing the spirit of the snail

The spirit of the snail is one of the most wicked weapons used by the devil. Satan’s intention is to make people hoist the flag of their lives at half mast. It is the spirit of slow motion. It makes the victims go back and forth sluggishly, while their counterparts are breaking new ground and achieving great feats. The spirit of the snail manifests itself in various ways. Students who are under the attack of this ugly spirit keep writing the same examination without achieving any success. When victims undertake a journey that should last for two weeks, they spend two years. The spirit of the snail is the spirit of non-achievement. It makes men sluggish in their endeavours. Lots of people become too slow and have no tangible achievement to show for their efforts. They eventually give up in the race of life. The ultimate aim of the devil is to make the runners in the race of life trail behind through an embarrassingly slow movement. These prayer points will destroy the manifestations of the spirit of the snail and make you experience accelerated progress. Confession: Luke 10:19 Behold, I give to you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the authority of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you – Luke 10:19 Praise Worship 1. Every power, prolonging my journey to breakthroughs, fall down and die, in Jesus’ name. 2. Every problem, that I brought into my life through my association with the spirit of the snail, die now, in Jesus’ name. 3. I cancel the activities and powers of the snail spirit in my life, in the name of Jesus. 4. I break the covenants and curses of the snail spirit over my life, in the name of Jesus. 5. Every effect of the spirit of the snail over my life, be nullified by the blood of Jesus. 6. Every spirit of sluggishness and backwardness in my life receive the fire of God now and be destroyed, in the name of Jesus. 7. Every spirit, preventing good things in my life, be destroyed, in the name of Jesus. 8. O Lord, I reject left-over blessings. 9. By the grace of God, I will not feed from waste bins, in the name of Jesus. 10. I refuse to have boneless blessings, in the name of Jesus. 11. Every spirit of irritation in my life, be washed off by the blood of Jesus. 12. I reject the spirit of fear, anxiety and, discouragement, in the name of Jesus. 13. Every evil instruction, prophecy or prediction, issued against my life with snail shell, be cancelled by the blood of Jesus. 14. I reject the spirit of the tail; I claim the spirit of the head, in the name of Jesus. 15. I receive angelic transportation to where God wants me to be now, in the name of Jesus. 16. Every evil deposit in my life as a result of eating snail, be washed away by the blood of Jesus. 17. O Lord, catapult me into greatness as you did for Daniel in the land of Babylon. 18. I reject slippery blessings, in the name of Jesus. 19. I reject the spirit of oversensitivity, in the name of Jesus. 20. Holy Father, let all my enemies and their strongholds be shattered to pieces by the thunder of God, in the name of Jesus. 21. I deliver myself from the grip of my enemies, in the name of Jesus.

"I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord."

Jeremiah 1:8 God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally - "Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey." That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are a matter of indifference, we have to sit loosely to all those things; if we do not, there will be panic and heartbreak and distress. That is the inwardness of the overshadowing of personal deliverance. The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on Jesus Christ's errands, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, Do not be bothered with whether you are being justly dealt with or not. To look for justice is a sign of deflection from devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will begin to grouse and to indulge in the discontent of self-pity - Why should I be treated like this? If we are devoted to Jesus Christ we have nothing to do with what we meet, whether it is just or unjust. Jesus says - Go steadily on with what I have told you to do and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance. The most devout among us become atheistic in this connection; we do not believe God, we enthrone common sense and tack the name of God on to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts.

"If that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended."

Philippians 3:12 Never choose to be a worker; but when once God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us. There is never any thought of - "Oh, well, I am not fitted for this." What you are to preach is determined by God, not by your own natural inclinations. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not to bear testimony only, but to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God's hand on you, your life is in the grip of God for that one thing. How many of us are held like that? Never water down the word of God, preach it in its undiluted sternness; there must be unflinching loyalty to the word of God; but when you come to personal dealing with your fellow men, remember who you are - not a special being made up in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace. "I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do . . ."

Blessed are …" "

Matthew 5:3-10 When we first read the statements of Jesus they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unobserved into our unconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people, but of very little practical use in the stern workaday world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the dynamite of the Holy Ghost. They explode, as it were, when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of these Beatitudes we say - 'What a startling statement that is!' and we have to decide whether we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is child's play; the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies Our Lord's statements to our circumstances is the stern work of a saint. The teaching of Jesus is out of all proportion to our natural way of looking at things and it comes with astonishing discomfort to begin with. We have slowly to form our walk and conversation on the line of the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations: it is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us.