Weekly Wisdom

March 17, 2008

“IT’S NOT OVER…TILL IT’S OVER!”

I’m believing that you will read this newsletter and be completely changed by the power of God. At times, we experience life threatening events which try to stop God’s destiny for us. We must not throw in the towel! DON’T QUIT! If you don’t quit, you will win. Now it doesn’t always happen overnight. No matter how long it takes, it is worth it to get up and put forth the effort to receive God’s destiny in your life.

Remember the race between the tortoise and the hare? The hare ran fast, but lost the race. The tortoise moved slowly, but reached the finish line first because he didn’t quit.

Discouragement is one of the most effective weapons the devil uses against people. He will tell you that you will never be able to get beyond the sin of your past. In fact, he is going to pound you with words like, “It could have been, but it will never happen now.” He will mix a little truth with a lot of lies! Satan knows how to keep people from fulfilling God’s plan for their lives. If you start moving to shake him off of you, he will try to keep you from doing what is right. He will try to get you to avoid the Bible way of restoration. He will tell you that in your case (of sin), God understands. He will tell you that God will grant you favor, because God wants you to be restored. We must recognize that God holds Himself accountable to His word. If we want to be free from the sin of the past and go on with God’s plan for our lives, we must do right actions. In Acts, Peter preached a message to those who crucified the Lord Jesus. In Acts 2:37-38 we see that they did the right thing:

“Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

These people were the ones that yelled, “Crucify him, crucify him.” They were now confessing Him as Lord and Savior. Whatever you have done wrong could not be worse than the wrong those people did to Jesus. God forgave them and gave them the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Remember, it’s not over till it’s over! Don’t quit, repent! Turn from a life of sin. Get the broken relationship restored. Get back in the race and win with Christ Jesus!

I love you,

Pastor Paul Craig

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March 3, 2008

“Holy Ghost, Spirit Living”

In I Corinthians 14:2 Paul writes,

“For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries.”

Notice that Paul said a person that speaks in tongues talks to God and not to man. In this verse, we see a whole new outlook on communication with God. We, as baptized in the Holy Ghost tongue-talking believers, can speak to God, spirit to spirit.

In I Corinthians 14:14-15 Paul writes again,

“For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.”

God has provided a way of communicating with Him that we lost through Adam’s disobedience. Many Christians attend churches that don’t teach on the baptism with the Holy Ghost and speaking with your spirit in tongues. This communication opens a vital, intimate relationship with God. It’s not that the Christian who speaks with tongues is better than the one who doesn’t, it’s that one speaks out of his spirit, and the other doesn’t. It is kind of like this, if I have a telephone in my house, it gives me the ability to communicate with people that are not in my house. When a person speaks to God with their spirit, they have the ability to have things revealed to them in a spiritual way that comes through spirit-to-spirit communication. It is sad to see so many Christians go without His precious gift.

I pray that strongholds will be broken down in denominational churches that stop the precious gift from being given to the people. You might ask, “How do people stop the gift from being given?”

In Romans 10:17 the Bible says,

“So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”

James 1:6-7 records that a man cannot receive anything from God apart from faith. When preachers do not preach on a certain subject in the Bible, they stop faith from coming in the people to receive all the Bible promises. It needs to be taught and preached. The devil knows that all he has to do to stop God’s salvation and gifts from coming into a Christian’s life is to convince the preachers that a certain subject in the Bible is not true.

The gift of speaking with one’s spirit has been denied to many people. The ministers that don’t teach on speaking with tongues are not bad people. They love God. It can be compared to the people that lived during the Wright brothers' time. The Wright brothers believed that man could fly. People believed that if God had wanted people to fly, He would have given them wings. They made fun of the Wright brothers. This is a good example of how many church leaders have 'put down' speaking in tongues. But, they can’t stop it; because God started it.

Years ago, before we had our own radio station, I ministered on another Christian radio station. Over and over they tried to stop me from ministering on speaking in tongues. They told me that speaking in tongues divided the body of Christ. Actually, satan didn’t want me to minister on the subject; because he doesn’t want believers to hear the truth and receive the promise of the Holy Spirit with the ability to speak with their spirit.

This communication with your spirit allows you to employ a new spiritual dimension. Even though there are those people inspired by the devil to stop the truth from being taught, God has promised this gift to every believer. They just need to hear the truth preached. There is no stopping what God has promised, because God will not be stopped.

Pastor Paul Craig