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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Covenant of Fatherly Fellowship

EMIC Morning Men's Meeting @ Hutton Financial 7 AM

Covenant.

What is a covenant? Someone said it's an unbreakable contract. We also discussed that there are many types of covenants. There are housing association covenants, marriage covenants, business covenants...

Websters 1828 Dictionary defines Covenant as:
covenant

COVENANT, n. [L, to come; a coming together; a meeting or agreement of minds.]



1. A mutual consent or agreement of two or more persons, to do or to forbear some act or thing; a contract; stipulation. A covenant is created by deed in writing, sealed and executed; or it may be implied in the contract.
2. A writing containing the terms of agreement or contract between parties; or the clause of agreement in a deed containing the covenant.
3. In theology, the covenant of works, is that implied in the commands, prohibitions, and promises of God; the promise of God to man, that mans perfect obedience should entitle him to happiness. This do, and live; that do, and die.
The covenant of redemption, is the mutual agreement between the Father and Son, respecting the redemption of sinners by Christ.
The covenant of grace, is that by which God engages to bestow salvation on man, upon the condition that man shall believe in Christ and yield obedience to the terms of the gospel.
4. In church affairs, a solemn agreement between the members of a church, that they will walk together according to the precepts of the gospel, in brotherly affection.
COVENANT, v.i. To enter into a formal agreement; to stipulate; to bind ones self by contract. A covenants with B to convey to him a certain estate. When the terms are expressed ti has for before the thing or price.
They covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. Matthew 26.
COVENANT, v.t. To grant or promise by covenant.


Leviticus 26:9
9 "I will look favorably upon you and multiply your people and fulfill my covenant with you.

Covenant In Business
I have a covenant of blessing. That covenant allows me to succeed in business despite what my competition does. If fact if my competition is not a believer I will take over that business and those clients just like the Israelites drove out the sinful inhabitants of the land God promised them. If my competition is a believer than I am able to pray for his success and God will bless us both with more than enough business. In fact the competition of believers will only serve to make us sharper and more cutting edge. The bible says that as iron sharpens iron we sharpen each other. So just like Microsoft and Apple sharpen each other and feed on each others innovations, my business whatever it is, will only be sharpened and enhanced by the presence of believers in my competition.

Covenant Promises are Conditional
Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26: 9 and 14 say that Obedience causes Blessing and Disobedience causes Curse.

Having conditions; Does the new covenant override/supersede the old covenant?

We have a better covenant with better promises. The gentiles were told repeatedly by Paul not to enter the old law but embrace the new grace. The Apostles of Jerusalem instructed believers to only focus on four things and not all the issues of the Law. Jesus fulfilled the Law. God has placed his law in our hearts now. Therefore the law is still being obeyed, but it's a natural outgrowth of the Love in us, not a forced ritual from the outside.

Because of the new birth we get stuff because he loves us as Father. Under the New Covenant we do not DO to GET, we DO from LOVE. 

Who is the New Covenant with? It is between God the Father and Jesus Christ. We enter through Jesus as substitutes, literally as him. Separate from Jesus we have no covenant. We live in his stead on earth and reap his reward.

Do VS Receive
As men, we are very production oriented. In sales we have a do, do, do mentality. We are told over and over must make/receive X amount of calls in order to get certain results. But in Christ we must come to terms with the fact that we were blessed before we DID anything. We cannot carry that do mentality over into our relationship with God. In fact, the do mentality may hinder our sales at work too if we don't first allow the grace of God to lead us in our work. In Christ we don't have to knock on 100 doors before lunch, we have to pray and knock on the doors he tells us to. Then we'll get better results for less superfluous effort.

Joshua 1 shows us to meditate on the word and do the word to get results. Genesis 1 shows us that God blessed mankind before man ever had a chance to speak a word. The very first words spoken between God and man were not man speaking to God but God speaking to man. God blessed man before man said or did anything. God is still blessing us before we do anything.

God is our source.
There was a man from, ORU Dr Thomson Matthew, that was speaking on a video for the ministry of helps team and he said that we must come to think of our work paycheck as a bonus not as our main source. We are cared for as kids by our Father in Heaven. We use our "Paycheck" as seed, it is our bonus not our income. God is our income and he can provide a million dollars a billion ways.

Fellowship not Checklist
Good fathers want fellowship with their sons. This is especially true of the father-son relationship as they are both adults. We must remember that our heavenly Father wants fellowship with us. We must not treat prayer time as the part of our checklist saying, "OK... prayed for ten minutes... what's next?" We must spend time fellowshipping with the Father and having a TWO way conversation with him. Only then will we be prepared for our day and the trials that lie ahead.

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us that His plans for us are GOOD plans. Not plans to harm. We must not be scared of his will. His Covenant is here for us. We are in Covenant through Him. Put that Covenant to work, trust Him to meet your needs. No matter what life throws at us, we can overcome through the Blood of the Lamb and the Word of OUR Testimony. We put it to work by putting His Word in Our Mouths.

Fellowship Defined:

fellowship

FEL'LOWSHIP, n.


1. Companionship; society; consort; mutual association of persons on equal and friendly terms; familiar intercourse.
Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Eph. 5.
Men are made for society and mutual fellowship.
2. Association; confederacy; combination.
Most of the other christian princes were drawn into the fellowship of that war. [Unusual.]
3. Partnership; joint interest; as fellowship in pain.
4. Company; a state of being together.
The great contention of the sea and skies parted our fellowship.
5. Frequency of intercourse.
In a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship which is in less neighborhoods.
6. Fitness and fondness for festive entertainments; with good prefixed.
He had by his good fellowship - made himself popular, with all the officers of the army.
7. Communion; intimate familiarity. 1John 1.
8. In arithmetic, the rule of proportions, by which the accounts of partners in business are adjusted, so that each partner may have a share of gain or sustain a share of loss, in proportion to his part of the stock.
9. An establishment in colleges, for the maintenance of a fellow.



Good reminder:
Pray for your parents and your relationships with your kids. See them how God sees them and ask what He wants for them.


Darrell G. Wolfe

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Stir Up the Gift of God! Part 2


2 Timothy 1

Vs 6-7
Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Stir up the gift of God BECAUSE... he has not given us a spirit of fear...

Apparently there is a fear that will come against you and your calling. Fear will try to prevent you from fulfilling you destiny and reaching your destination. One of Timothy's fears was that he was too young to be holding his office of pastor.

There are many common fears/excuses that the devil feeds people about their calling. Some of those are:

I'm too young, too old, too inexperienced, too far down a different track, not enough time to get it done, too much time to go that way now (I'm too old to go back to school that would take 5 years)... etc etc

Part of the reason you must stir up the giftings in you is because fear will try to prevent you from using them.

You hear things in your head like: "You can't be a pastor after all you've done! Just the other day you did XYZ..."

I can't be a musician... I'm not as good as person a, b, and c that I know. I don't know where to start, I can't go back to school, I don't have a teacher to help me learn, etc etc....

Fear is the reason you are not pursuing all you are called to do. I can't leave that job, I can't move from that house, I can't... I can't... I can't.... 

BUT GOD CAN! GOD WILL!

Rather than meditating on the fear you have been fighting (or indulging) about why you can't... stir yourself up regarding your call and gift. God knew me before the foundation of the world. He called me for such a time as this. He called me before I was born to do the things he called me to do. I recognize and embrace that he has called me to writing, teaching, music, and more. I say that if GOD called me to it, than he has a purpose and a plan. His plans for me are for good and not for harm. Therefore I say "Here I am Lord, send me!".

Like David seeing fear prevent the Israelites from conquering their giant enemy, I must say I'll do it!

Darrell G. Wolfe

























Stir Up the Gift of God! Part 1

Part 1
2 Timothy 1

Vs 6-7
Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

I've read and heard these versus separately at least a hundred times. I have often wondered what it was to stir up the gift. Apparently they are connected though. I hadn't ever paid attention to the fact they these two verses go together.

You stir up the gift of God which is in you BECAUSE God has not given you a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. 

What does it mean to stir?
Websters 1828 Dictionary for "Stir"

  1. To Move; to change place in any manner
  2. To Agitate; bring into debate
  3. To Incite to Action; To Instigate; To Prompt
  4. To Excite; To Raise; To Put into Motion

Thought Exercise:
(Per whatever directions for contents on the box) Pour a store bought cake mix into a bowl, open two or three eggs and plop their contents on top, then drizzle the required amount of oil onto that... Now ask yourself this question: Do I have a cake batter yet?

The answer is no. I do not. I still have three separate contents/ingredients sitting on top of one another. If I pout that bowl, as is, into a pan and bake it at 325 degrees for 40 minutes, I still don't have cake. I have a burnt set of dry contents and an over concentrated mess on one side.

In order to have cake mix I must take those ingredients and stir them together. I must agitate them, incite them to action, excite them, put them into motion, move them around.

Then of course even after I have thoroughly agitated the mix I must pour them out and put them under heat for the mix to create the desired result.

Real Life:
So in life God has placed gifts inside of me. Some were brought to the surface and even placed inside by the laying on of hands of various men of God. Others were placed in me before the foundation of the world, giftings and callings that I was put on earth to explore and fulfill.

Each of us had gifts inside. Some are the gifts the whole body of Christ has, each individual, such as:

9 FRUIT of the Spirit:
Galatians 5:22-23
Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.
9 GIFTS of the Spirit:

1 Corinthians 12:5-11 The same God who works ALL IN ALL...The manifestation of the Spirit is given to EACH ONE for the profit of all:
Word of Wisdom, Word of Knowledge, Gift of Faith, Gifts of Healings, Working of Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning of spirits, Tongues, and Interpretation of Tongues
Full ARMOR of God: to withstand the Devil, having done all to stand, STAND!
Ephesians 6-13-19 
(Belt) Girder of Truth, Breastplate of Righteousness, Shoes of the Good news of Peace, Shield of Faith, Helmet of Salvation, Sword of the Spirit (The Word of God), and Prayer.

We also have giftings and callings in us as individuals:
Jeremiah 1:5 Before you were born... I ordained you a prophet...

Ephesians 1:4 He chose us in Him before the foundation of the World
1 Timothy 4:14 the gift in you... by prophecy and laying of hands
2 Timothy 1:6 the gift in you... by laying of hands

The holy spirit thought it SO important to note that this calling/gifting came by the laying on of hands through the leadership that it was mentioned twice to Timothy.

So how do I stir up my gifts?
How do I stir up the common gifts like love, joy, peace... miracles, tongues, etc...? How do I stir up the specific gifts like Father, Husband, Pastor, Teacher, etc?

There is something to be said about confession. Confession is often something I've misunderstood. It has many functions, Charles Capps wrote a GREAT book on that subject called Faith and Confession.

Stirring is part of confession. Or many I should rather say Confession is part of stirring. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. But how do I create abundance? I need to stir.

I need to use words to agitate, mix, move, instigate, incite to action, excite, raise, and put into motion. It helps me to move around physically too. Pace the floor, preach it to myself, repeat it, ponder it, talk it out aloud. As I begin to do this I find more revelation underneath I hadn't thought of before. I find myself stirring up other things. I find things that fit together I hadn't put together before.

I can guarantee that a person who is depressed in any way is NOT doing this. You cannot confess the word, and stir yourself up, agitate and put into motion the truths of God in you sadly. You may start of sad or not feeling like doing it, but you won't stay that way. If you do you either don't have enough word in you to stir, so you need to get some preaching tapes and open you bible and read and take notes and get some word in you, or you have a spirit that needs to be cast out.

Darrell G. Wolfe

Sunday, October 2, 2011

120 Years...or more...

Lives cut short:

Our lives are cut short by so many things in this sin cursed world. Drugs, lifestyle, overeating, toxins, lack of body health care, murder, and many other things threaten our lives and the productivity of our lives today. There are more classified diseases today than one could have imagined 100 years ago. They aren't just being discovered they are mutating and increasing.

Not just 80 years:
Among the many things we CAN control about our lives is our words. The bible says life and death are in the tongue. (Prov 18:21) People in the church world for years thought of this as a biblical cut off time. People should live to be 70-80. This is not only false but very false. This is referring to the children of Israel living in disobedience. God needed them off the scene to move the next generation into the promise land.

Psalms 90:10 says: The days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of strength they are 80,...

Not just 120 Years:
Then some have taken the scripture in Genesis and increased our thinking to believe God for the 120 years marker...(Genesis 6:3)

However I submit that even THAT marker is not refering to man in general or even to lifespan at all, but rather an actual time frame given by God to a specific group of men, those living in the preflood times with Noah. He says that there will be 120 years from the time he declares he will rid the earth of sinful men to the time he does it. This gives him time to reach Noah and get him building an ark. Have you ever been called of God to do something and then delayed, doubted, stopped and started several times... etc... I imagine with preflood tools and an entire earth population against the idea he took a while to complete this massive project. Infact I don't doubt that Noah could have taken between 100-120 years to complete the project. He was 500 when he had his third kid and 600 when the flood came. Why not more kids? I submit that he started that ark project shortly after kid 3...

Study here:
Genesis 6 tells us another interesting fact about life and even then people are looking to use it as a cap on life. People are so quick to make the infinite finite...
 Verse 3: And the Lord said: "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years.
Verse 13: And God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Genesis 5:32 Noah was 500 years old when he begat his three kids
Genesis 7:6 Noah was 600 years old when he entered the ark and the flood waters hit the earth.

120 Years and beyond:

Since there is no real cap to our lives, and many tales are told of people in recent times living beyond 120 years I imagine it's entirely up to you and God. I have determined that, should the Lord wait long enough, I will live to 150 years old, strong, healthy, full of vigor and then decide how much longer I want to go. I will be stronger and healthier then than I am now. No sickness, feebleness, perfect eye sight, and full of the Holy Spirit. Like Moses who died at 120 years old (Deut 34:7), also due to disobedience by the way (Numbers 27:12-13), I will remain strong with perfect vision.

Hmm... How long will you live?


Darrell G. Wolfe





Eternal Perspective

EMIC Sunday 10/02/2011

If you get a truly eternal mindset you can never again be discouraged by life here on earth. Bills, Problems, even death of loved ones cannot disturb you. The death of a loved one is not the end of their life and your relationship it is a pause in connection. They are still completing their assignment just as if they were here. There is MORE in your future together than there is in your past. They are waiting for you on the other side...

The Blessing of a new Creation.


I AM a new creature and I can and should do, through the Holy Spirit miracles every day… How can I have depression when I am a new creature? How can I not be filled with all Joy?

John 14:12-14
12 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.

Matthew 17:20

20 So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

Mark 16:17-18

17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

2 Corinthians 5:17,21

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.



The Blessing of the Lord Makes me RICH with no sorrow. If I have sorrow, toil, pain, anxiety about my richness I am doing something wrong. STOP, pray, praise, be still before God and find out what I’ve been doing on my own strength or trying to MAKE happen separate from His Word and inspiration. If I do what I see Him do, Say what I hear Him say, believe what He says to me… I can’t fail. Only MY ideas separate from him, me trying to MAKE something happen, feeling in a rush to provide more can fail.

 

Proverbs 10:22

22 The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, And He adds no sorrow with it.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

In Christ Confession

In Christ:

I am a new creation and His workmanship.(2Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15, Eph 2:10) The veil is taken from my mind so I see clearly! (2 Cor 3:14) I am anointed and sealed, triumphant and called with a holy calling. (2 Cor 1:21, 2 Cor 2:14, 2 Tim 1:9) I am abounding in the knowledge of Christ and every good thing is in me. (2 Pet 1:8, Philemon 1:6) God's will in Christ for me is to rejoice, pray, and be thankful in all things. (1 Thess 5:18) There is NO condemnation in me! (Rom 8:1) I am made alive, even if I die I should rise again! (1 Cor 15:22, 1 Thess 4:16) The Lord will perfect that which concerns me! (Psalms 138:8

Reading Lately.... (read <> endorse)

Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought
The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living
This Present Darkness
By Grace and Banners Fallen: Prologue to A Memory of Light
Knife of Dreams
A Memory of Light
The Path of Daggers
He Who Fights with Monsters 10
He Who Fights with Monsters 9
He Who Fights With Monsters 8
He Who Fights with Monsters 6
He Who Fights With Monsters 7
He Who Fights with Monsters 5
He Who Fights with Monsters 4
He Who Fights with Monsters 3
He Who Fights with Monsters 2
He Who Fights with Monsters
[ { ENDER'S GAME } ] by Card, Orson Scott (AUTHOR) Oct-31-2006 [ Hardcover ]
J.R.R. Tolkien 4-Book Boxed Set: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
The Horse and His Boy


Darrell Wolfe's favorite books »

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