Feb 06 2015
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Eyesalve: Sit By The Well

By | Eyesalve

“And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? 14And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known. 15Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of Midian: and he sat down by a well.” Ex. 2:13-15

Sometimes, well-meaning Christians do something they think is right, but neither the church nor the world accept them. Moses’ own brethren rejected him and Pharaoh tried to kill him. When you have these moments in your life, thank God you have a well to go sit down by. “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Jn. 4:34

Feb 05 2015
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Eyesalve: Let Go of the Baby

By | Eyesalve

“And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. 3And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.” Ex. 2:2-3

Sometimes when you get promises of good things and hope of effective ministry, you just have to let go of the baby. If it is God’s child, you can be certain He will take care of it and bring it back in due season.

Feb 04 2015
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Eyesalve: Esteem Others

By | Eyesalve

“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Ph’p 2:3

Our society teaches us that if we have low self-esteem, we will be unproductive in life and be depressed. They teach that we need to have the opposite of low self-esteem and that is to have high self-esteem. This may be what the experts of this world say, but for the Christian it is not a matter of having low or high self-esteem, it is a matter of how much we esteem others. You know, if you are busy serving others you just really don’t have time to even think about yourself.

Feb 03 2015
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Eyesalve: Be Careful Who You Tell

By | Eyesalve

“Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” Gen. 37:20

Those dreams that Joseph had really bothered his brothers. They were afraid they would end up being true. So if they could kill him it would put an end to his dreams. You know, you have to be careful who you share your dreams and promises from God with. There are plenty of skeptics out there that will put you down.

Feb 02 2015
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Eyesalve: Bringing The Kingdom

By | Eyesalve

“But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. 29Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.” Mt. 12:28-29

You don’t bind Satan by telling him that you bind him, you bind that strong man by bringing the kingdom of God at him.

Jan 30 2015
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Eyesalve: Giving God The Best

By | Eyesalve

“And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. 8And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.” Gen. 18:7-8

Abraham did not order his servants to fetch the calf. When it comes to giving God your best, you can’t have anyone else do it for you. You have to go find the best calf, tender and good.

Jan 30 2015
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Believe The Whole Book

By | Articles

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: 19And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation” 22:18-19

We believers, can have a rather proud attitude sometimes when we proclaim that we believe the whole bible. We can talk as if we are so grounded and unmovable when it comes to the entire word of God, but saying you believe something is not proof of actual belief. It is a very disturbing thing to have millions of Christians, including whole denominations insisting that they believe the whole bible, yet there seems to be a thousand differing and divisive beliefs that they all claim the bible teaches. How is it that Christians, who all have the same book, and claim it is their final authority, are so divided? Well, it isn’t the fault of God’s word; the problem lies with man.

Because our human nature hates correction and self-denial, it isn’t hard to understand why man at times will resist the bible and even teach the scriptures in a way that accommodates the lifestyle of man. There are those who water down scripture and even teach a false view of scriptures for convenience sake. Those who do that are called false teachers. They do this for a variety of reasons. Some do it to justify their sinful life style, some do it to form their own brand of religion, some do it to please man and some do it to scare or rule over people. Some will try to make the scriptures say less than they do, while some try to make them say more than they do. I have often said, “The bible has enough rules already without someone adding more to it.” Whatever the motive is, it is of the highest offense against the kingdom of God to carelessly and falsely handle the word of God.

I want to address something of great concern, which has to do with this subject of mishandling the word of God. What makes it such a great concern is that this mishandling that I am going to talk about is widely accepted in the Christian church. Since it is so accepted, few see the danger of this violation. What I am talking about is what we all agree is forbidden to do, and that is, “take away from the words of this book.” No, it isn’t that a publisher has printed bibles with some of the words missing, it is that some of the words and verses have been marked as obsolete by some of the most popular bible teachers of our day.

I can give you two strong examples of what I am talking about. The first example has to do with the ministry. Let’s look at Ephesians 4:11-13. “And He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ:” You can see that I highlighted the words, “till we all come.” This simply means that there is a time that we will no longer need, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, but now is not the time. The time is when we all come into “the measure of the stature of the fullness in Christ.” Kind of sounds like heaven to me. Have any of you come to be a “perfect man?” If so, has the rest of your brethren? If not, then you still need ministers in your life. Has the church come into “the unity of the faith?” This is highly unlikely, since we have hundreds of denominations and different doctrines that separate us. It is plain to see that we need ministers in our life. Well, you may say, I believe we have pastors and teachers, others may say, we have pastors, teachers and evangelists. I will not disagree with them, but we also have prophets and apostles. However, we have those today that say we no longer have prophets or apostles, and that they died off in the first century. Just because we don’t have men anymore that can pen us scripture does not mean that we don’t have apostles in our day. I think some of the problem is that we over spiritualize the office of an apostle. Apostles were simple men like you and me that God used to establish and oversee the body of Christ. We still need that done today. Therefore we still need apostles.

Another example is the gifts of the Spirit. It is amazing to me how widely accepted it is that some of the gifts aren’t for day. The spiritual gift that is most commonly refuted is “speaking in tongues,” but it doesn’t stop there. I know of Christians that don’t believe that divine healing is for today. When I first heard that as a young believer, I just shook my head in disbelief. I have come to find out that this teaching is more widely accepted than I thought. All I can say is that Jesus said, “let it be done according to your faith.” If you don’t believe in speaking in tongues, you aren’t going to receive the gift. If you don’t believe in divine healing, you are never going to pray for someone to be healed.

The thing that is the most disheartening about the claim that not all of the gifts are for today is the desperate attempt to find scriptures to support that belief. One of the more common scriptures is I Corinthians 13:8-9. You would never come to the conclusion that this scripture is telling us these three gifts, “prophesies,” “tongues” and “knowledge” will cease during this church age. The bible experts that believe that, violate the principles of bible study by not reading that passage in context and not reading the verses around it. In fact, just read verse 10 and it will clear up the whole passage. The “perfect” that verse ten is talking about is obvious, it is heaven, and it is our completeness in Christ.

So we have prominent teachers and church leaders that tell the church that there are no longer apostles or prophets today. They tell us that some of the gifts have ceased, but there seems to be confusion and disagreement about which gifts have ceased. So I end this article with this immensely important question: Who has such authority today to tell us what offices and gifts are not for today? Who has the authority to make the final decision for all of us on these matters? Simple respect for God’s word tells us that the safest ground to be on is to just believe it all for today. Do you really want to get into trying to pick and choose what is for today and what isn’t? I don’t know about you, but the scares me to death.

“But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)

“But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.” (I Peter 1:25)

Jan 30 2015
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Where the Spirit of the Lord is, There is Liberty

By | Articles

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” II Corinthians 3:17

One of the last things a lost sinner would ever consider a Christian to be, is a person who has a great deal of liberty. To a heathen, being a Christian means bondage to rules; it means that they can’t do any of the things they love. Think about it: How can anyone that loves sin understand that it is bondage? They don’t understand that once a person becomes born again, their desires change. Some things they used to like to do, they will hate; some things they used to hate, they will love to do. This is the work of the Spirit, and this work, which is called sanctification, will continue in the believer’s life.

Only the believer in Jesus Christ can ever understand how a person can turn from living for their own ways and desires, surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and walk around totally liberated. A woman, who loves God, will experience much more liberty than any of the top leading ladies in the woman’s “liberation” movement. This world will never understand that in the Lord, surrender means freedom, and self-promotion means bondage. What can be awfully frustrating is when Christians don’t understand it either. The reason they don’t get it is because they don’t experience the liberty in serving Christ. The more we hang onto our carnal life, the more in bondage we are to it. The more we lay down our lives, the greater the liberty we will walk in.

Just like living in sin is not true liberty, religious rules are a source of bondage. Men have an attraction to rules. Liberty in the Spirit is what is missing in a lot of religious organizations. Some of these organizations started in the Spirit, but have since turned to the flesh. Paul rebuked the Galatians for the same thing; “Are ye so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3).

One thing is certain. According to II Corinthians 3:17, if the Spirit is present in our midst, there will be a liberty that frees us from being bound to manmade religious rules. I want to tell you a true story of an encounter I had with a group that had religious rules. This experience, though it had a form of godliness, was the worst demonic experience I have ever encountered.

Some years ago, a young man from my church, named Tim, and myself, were planning to go to Alabama for a camp meeting. Some men we knew here in Wisconsin, invited us to stop by their revival meetings they were having in Ohio the same week we would be making our way down to Alabama. They said if we would attend they would put us up for the night. We decided to head out the day before our meeting started so we could stop at their meeting. After the meeting we greeted a few of the men we had previously met back in Wisconsin, and we were greeted by others that were in attendance. We were then introduced to the family with whom we would be spending the night. We followed them to their house, which was quite a ways out in the country.

After we arrived we had a meal with them. There was some fellowship at the table, but not the real koinonia that Tim and I were accustomed to. Not long after we ate, we were shown the bedrooms where we would be sleeping. In order for Tim and me to have our own rooms, they had their two children share a room. Before I got comfortable I went into the room where the two children were, and I was talking and joking with them. Then I went back to my room. I was wearing a long sleeve dress shirt and a pair of dress pants. I took off my shirt and had a white T shirt underneath. I grabbed my tooth brush and tooth paste and headed to the bathroom, only to find it was occupied. So in dress pants and a T shirt, I went back to visit the two children. Upon entering their room their eyes got really wide. I said something like, “are you afraid of me now?” Then I went back to my room to wait until I could get in the bathroom.

While I was standing there in my room, the man of the house (notice I have not called him brother?) approached me with a very mean spirit and dropped this bomb on me. He said, “Listen, we don’t show our arms around this house. If my children see your arms they will be offended.” I was devastated when he said that to me. It was too late; they already saw my arms. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I can appreciate that.” I don’t know why I said that because I did not appreciate it at all. Why didn’t someone tell me they had this rule, which I never found in the bible? I could have either submitted to their rule or turned down the offer to stay at their house, but it was too late. I felt terrible. Every part of me felt like I violated their household.

Let me tell you, it was hard to fall asleep that night. Tim and I were up early the next morning and left without any breakfast. We headed out to the camp meeting in Alabama. Throughout the day, I was haunted by this event that took place. I felt a very heavy condemnation hanging over me. When I got to the meeting in Alabama that evening, I shared my experience with some other ministers that were there. However, condemnation was still hanging over me. Nothing changed by the next morning. After breakfast I called an evangelist friend and told him what happened. He told me that it was the spirit of heaviness that the bible talks about. “..the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;..”(Isaiah 61:3)

I immediately understood that this whole experience was demonic. It was as if demons had followed Tim and I out of that house in Ohio and traveled with us in my car. I went back into the church, had a few ministers pray for me, and the condemnation immediately left.

The devil is very protective of one of his greatest deceptions: RELIGION. He gets awfully angry if you don’t obey his rules. I learned two things that day: the difference between conviction and condemnation, and that the demonic forces are very protective over their religion.

Saint of God, understand this, God convicts, the devil condemns. Religion is demonic bondage, but the Spirit is liberty. Not liberty to sin, but liberty to not have to obey sin. If the devil can’t trap you in sin, he will try to trap you with religious rules. Your deliverance is in the presence of the Spirit of God; “..where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)

Jan 30 2015
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Speak The Same Thing

By | Articles

“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” I Cor. 1:10

“Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: 6That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.” Rom. 15:5-7

The testimony of the early church, taken right from the bible, is they were in “one accord” in the upper room. Even after about a ten day span, they were still in “one accord” on the day of Pentecost. I wonder how united my church would be, if we spent ten days together. Anyway, the early church had a unity that is not seen today, not because we can’t have it, but because we don’t believe it can be. Often our idea of unity, is for us all to share the same cause or all belong to the same denomination or all agree to the same creed written by authors other than those who penned our bible. These things can bring some degree of unity for some people, but then another group forms that has their own cause and creed. That is why we have so much division today in the church. Add to that, the lack of love and concern for one another, and it is easy to see why the church doesn’t get along with each other.

The reason the early church had such a unity is because they were fully surrendered to Christ. He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit. So, they all waited together. While in that room, there were no saints determined to carry out their own agenda. They were not jockeying for position, but willingly came under Peter’s leadership. They were praying together and were holding to the Old Testament scriptures, so much so, that they were literally fulfilling scripture by appointing someone to take Judas’ place. You can’t believe the word of God much better than that. We see this true unity in the early church, but true Christian unity has escaped our generation.

How is it, that millions of Christians, can all read the same book called the bible, declare that it is the unadulterated word of God, insist that it holds the highest authority over their life, and yet there be so many disagreements amongst us? I know there are many saints that really want unity. If you don’t want unity there is something desperately wrong with your spiritual man. God created us because He wants to share His kingdom with us, He created us because He wants to have a love relationship with us. When Christ entered us upon salvation, the desire of God came with Him. The desire for love and unity came with Him. As we mature in the Lord, so does our love for God increase, and as our love for God increases, so does our love for mankind, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.

When I met my wife Joy, I thought she was pretty. She was willing to let me date her, and I did. I found out she was a nice girl too, but I just liked her in those first several months of seeing her. One day I realized I loved her and wanted to be with her more, so much more that I asked her to marry me. We got married and 6 years later we got saved. Joy gave birth to 3 sons who all married and gave us 9 grandchildren. You know what? I still want to be with Joy, even more. I want to be around my sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren too. This is the nature of families. Even more, it is the nature of God. Adam didn’t even finish his first assignment, of naming the animals in the garden, before he was asking where his companion is.

It is only natural for Christians to want unity, and because of that desire for unity, many prayer meetings, conferences, workshops and such have been held for the main purpose of uniting the body of Christ. Who can hold it against those that try such things? I commend them for their effort to bring unity to the body. However, they are going about it the difficult way. Unity is much easier to achieve than one might think.

First you have to believe that we really can have true unity. Paul would never had told us to speak the same thing if we couldn’t; he would have never told us that there should be no divisions amongst us, if it weren’t possible for it to be so. I Corinthians 1:10 is one of those verses in the bible that it seems many Christians really don’t believe. They have shrugged off the possibility that we could have true spiritual unity in the church, years ago.

As I said, to have unity is a very simple thing. Romans 15:5 holds the answer. It says, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:” It is right there as plain as can be; our unity must be “according to Christ Jesus.” It is not according to Terry Fischer, it isn’t according to The Church In Wisconsin, it isn’t according to you, or your church or your creed or your denomination. I am not asking you all to think like me, or for us all to think like one of you. I am asking us all to get the mind of Christ. However, for this to happen, we all have to be teachable. You and I cannot be stubborn in our hearts and say, “this is the way I always believed and I am not changing.” Let’s be honest church, with all the different doctrines we have, someone has to be wrong. Are you willing to change the way you think if the scriptures and the Spirit of truth prove you wrong? My mentor told me, “You don’t look to the bible to prove yourself right, you look to the bible to prove what’s right.” If you and I have a contrary interpretation of a verse in the bible, either I am wrong, or you are wrong, or we are both wrong. We can’t both be right. The Spirit of truth would never teach opposing views and leave us confused and divided. So with that said, it is up to us to be teachable, no matter how long and how well trained we may be. Let’s not agree to disagree, let’s agree to get the mind of Christ and have unity according to Christ Jesus. I am one that believes we will have it. I plead with you to determine in your heart that we can have unity, and that you will cooperate toward that end.

Jan 30 2015
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We Are In This World

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“I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” John. 17:14-18

A half mile down the road from my house is a Muslim Mosque. I remember when they bought the building, it was a Kingdom Hall. The building went from one false religion to another. Anyway, one thing I have noticed about the Muslims is that they do not associate too much with other Americans. They send their children to Islamic schools, and I often see groups of them together at the stores. I rarely see Muslim girls, with the head dress on, hanging around with other girls in their neighborhood. I have even noticed that many Muslims are buying up certain neighborhoods close to their Mosques. The same with the Amish / Mennonite communities. They go through great effort to disconnect from American society. This is understandable that they should be this way. They are trying to preserve their culture, traditions and religious beliefs. The less they mingle with those of other religious beliefs and cultures, the less impact it will have on their people.

I am in hearty agreement that we Christians must be careful who we associate with and who and what we allow into our children’s lives. This world is a dark place, and the darkness is increasing by the day. However, one of the major differences between Christianity and other religious groups is that Christians are the only people that are promised that they can be in this world and not be overcome by it. Instead of being on the run or go in hiding, we can go out into this world and make an impact on its citizens. As other religious groups fear being impressed and demanded upon, to conform to this worlds system, the Christian can walk amongst it with confidence and boldness.

Jesus did not pray for the Father to take us out of this world, He prayed that God would keep us from the evil of this world. We must never go out into this world with the hope we can be satisfied by this worlds delicacies, nor shall we partake in her evil, but be encouraged to know that the devil can do a surprise attack on you with all kinds of evil and yet you can stand strong. You can even do more than stand strong, you can overcome him. “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.” (Revelation 12:11) What makes it hard for a believer to overcome in this world is when he loves this present life. If we love not our lives unto death, this world will have no pull on us. You don’t have to fear it.

We are given the ability to overcome this world, we are blessed with peace in the midst of a world filled with tribulation. We can overcome because Jesus overcame this world. “These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John. 16:33)

“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1John 4:4)

We have more than the ability to be in this world and not be overcome by it, but we are demanded of, by Jesus, to go into this world and make disciples of all nations. John recorded these words of Jesus, “even so have I also sent them into the world.” Jesus sent us into the world, not as lambs to the slaughter, but as bold proclaimers of the gospel of truth. “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

Imagine if Jesus went and gathered Himself a few disciples and then went and found a little place in the wilderness to hide out in. Lazarus would have never had his grave clothes removed. Blind Bartimaeus would have remained blind Bartimaeus. The lady with the issue of blood would have never been emboldened to burst through the crowd to get to the hem of Jesus’ garment. The woman from the city, known by all as a sinner, with broken alabaster box in hand, would have never heard those precious words, “thy sins are forgiven.” As long as the devil can keep the church fearing this world, he will not have to deal with the church impacting this world. We’re not lost, the world is; we don’t need to hide, sinners are the ones who hide in darkness.

I don’t advocate that we take young believers and thrust them out into this world. They must sit at the feet of Jesus for a season, so they can grow in the grace of God. However, once they have been grounded, they too must make their presence known in this world. Another very important factor, which is so imperative if the church is going to affect this world; we must be filled with the Spirit. “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;” (Ephesians 5:18)

Jesus would not let His well-trained disciples leave Jerusalem until they received power from on high. When they did receive it, the world couldn’t handle them. Church, we need power from on high if we are going to be true witnesses who can overcome this world. The mistake isn’t letting the church go into this world and witness the evil for themselves, the mistake is in sending them out there without that baptism of power. I used to belong to a religion that had no power, this religion was accepted by the world because it did not confront the world.

Saint of God, understand that you will not be accepted, you’re not supposed to be. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” (1John 3:13) Receive the Spirit, become full of God, and then go boldly into this world.