Before we begin with the lesson tonight I want to thank God in the midst of thee for placing this blog post on your minds. I want to thank Him for blowing on the Tabernacle of Your person. And thank you as well for making yourself available to hear and understand the word of God. It is a delight to know that God chose you and me to meet at this place in order to Glorify His Son, Christ Jesus. So, with that said I offer you a warm welcome back.
The one thing that the Lord has laid upon my heart is to allow Him to influence us. The word of God is tried and it is true. And the bible is without fault. We must allow the Spirit of God to meet us at the place where we find ourselves without understanding. And we must allow Him to minister His sweet understanding down the canal of our eyes. And allow the truth to beat like a drum in the chambers of our heart. Before we start digesting the word of God, lets pray.
Dear Lord, Our Creator, and the Mastermind of our existence. We humble ourselves before you and We lay every weight aside. We ask that if we have done anything wrong against you that you would forgive us of our sins, iniquities, and our trespasses. We ask that you clean and purge us of all unrighteousness for your namesake, that we might be living vessels of your holy doctrine. We offer ourselves to you as living sacrifices, and we lay side every sin that so easily besets us. We offer the fruits of our lips to you in praise and thanksgiving, and we thank our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for His unfailing Love toward Us. We give you all the glory and honor in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
As the Lord would permit I want to continue talking about the beginning of time. But, tonight I want to take about INFLUENCE. The Online Webster dictionary defines the word as follows:
· An ethereal fluid held to flow from the stars and to affect the actions of humans
· An emanation of occult power held to derive from stars
· An emanation of spiritual or moral force
· The act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command
· Corrupt interference with authority for personal gain
· The power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways : sway
· One that exerts influence
But, according to the word of God influence is anything or anyone who turns you away from serving God. If you have your bible let’s look in the book of Genesis 3:1-6 (the scriptural references are listed below). As you look through these scriptures you can see that God told Adam to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And as soon as the Lord spoke that to him earlier on in Genesis 2; the serpent came into the Garden to sway or influence them to believe otherwise. See, it has always gone this way from the beginning, and because God is the same today, as He was yesterday, as He will be forever. He demonstrates to us that the consequences are still the same when we allow the serpent to influence us. We must stand firm on what God says, and when temptation arises we must know that the serpent is only tempting us to do the opposite of what God actually said.
(1) Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
(2) And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
(3) But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
(4) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
(5) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
(6) And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
We are so close people of God. We must draw near to God, and allow only the word of God to influence us. If the Lord spoke it, He knew why He spoke it. I ask you today. No matter what the temptation, allow the word of God to change your mind. Regardless of who the devil is using run to the word of God to make sure that you are doing what the Lord would have you to do.
Allow God to guide you through His word. Don't look back and question the validity of the temptation. You don't need one more bite, or one last taste before you decide to obey God once in for all. Stop in the middle of whatever it is that you are doing, and allow the word of God to coach you out of any bad situation. Because once He leads you out; the only one deserving of the thank you is Him. See you next week. EBH
