"When the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them." (Luke 4:40)
BE ENCOURAGED!
Everyone Who Came To Jesus Was Healed
"When the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them." (Luke 4:40) BE ENCOURAGED!
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> A Little Bit of Heaven on Earth
"Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another...even as Christ forgave you." (Colossians 3:12-13) Living in a home filled with the love and the peace of God Himself is almost like living in heaven right here on earth. We all know that's true. And we long to live in such a home. Yet, time and time again, we shortchange our families. We spend our kindest words and our most winning smiles on those beyond our front door. Have you ever wondered why? The answer is simpler than you might suspect. Spiritually speaking, your family is under attack. You see, it is not only one of your most precious gifts, when it's operating in harmony, it's one of your most powerful resources. Satan knows that even if you don't--and he's out to destroy it. His battle plan is simple. He will do everything he can to create strife in your home. He'll stir up feelings of self-pity and jealousy. He'll encourage you to nurse resentments and harbor bitterness. And through it all, his purpose remains the same, to divide and destroy your home. When God's people get in harmony with each other, miracles start to happen. Their agreement creates an atmosphere in which God's supernatural, miracle-working power is free to flow! So Satan is constantly tempting us to spoil that atmosphere, to foul things up by being at odds with each other. All too often we fall prey to his tactics simply because we don't realize just how dangerous strife really is. One close look at the Word of God will solve that problem, however. James 3:16 says, "Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." Don't open the door of your home to Satan by allowing your family the "luxury" of a few quarrels. Stop the destruction before it starts. Anchor yourself to God's Word. Find out what He has to say about the power of agreement. Stop looking at your family from your own limited perspective and start seeing it as God sees it--as a powerhouse! That way you won't drift helplessly into an argument every time a gust of emotion blows through your home. Determine right now not to let the devil have your family. Instead, pray for them, support them and love them. Bring them together, so you can all enjoy a little bit of heaven on earth. Kenneth Copeland Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:49–52 NIV)
BE ENCOURAGED! A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind Him through the crowd and touched His robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch His robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. (Mark 5:25–29 NLT)
BE ENCOURAGED! > Dare to Take Your Place
"But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared...Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs." (Titus 3:4,6-7) A covenant of grace. That's what you and I have with Almighty God. If you could truly grasp the significance of that, you'd never be the same again. What exactly is a covenant of grace? It's a relationship of favor that gives you access to someone else's power. An illustration of a covenant of grace is the covenant the old Sicilian "family" members have with the "godfather" of the "family." In that group, a weak person might come in and ask the Don for a favor. The Don would say, "I will grant this favor and I will ask a favor of you, and when that time comes, I will collect it." Once that was said, the weak person would become excited. Suddenly he knew he would no longer have this problem because anyone who tried to rough him up would now have to face the godfather, the one with all the power. Suddenly, that little guy's attitude would change. He would leave the presence of the head of the family in the full assurance that he didn't have a thing to worry about. He was no longer small and powerless in his own mind. He had gained favor (grace) with the powerful. He'd walk out thinking, "Everything is handled. All I have to do now is whatever the Don asks me to do--and the Don knows I don't have anything, so whatever he asks me to do, he'll provide the wherewithal to do it." That's grace. God's willingness to enter into blood covenant with you and give you everything He has in exchange for everything you have. He took your sin to give you His righteousness. He took your sickness to give you His health. He took your poverty in order to meet all your needs according to His riches in glory. Whenever He asks you to do something, He provides everything you need to carry it out. The great Jehovah, God of heaven and earth, is your Father God. Can you understand that? If you're under the blood of Jesus, you've been made a covenant child of the most powerful being in the universe. Dare to take your place in the family. Kenneth Copeland And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Step forward.” Then He said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent. And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched [it] out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. (Mark 3:1–5)
BE ENCOURAGED! > Run Him Out of Town
"Stand therefore...having shod your feet in preparation [to face the enemy with the firm-footed stability, the promptness and the readiness produced by the good news] of the Gospel of peace." (Ephesians 6:14-15) Preparation. When it comes to fighting spiritual battles, that's a word you'd do well to remember. Most believers don't pay much attention to it. They don't prepare themselves in advance. They fiddle around until the devil makes his move, then they jump up and try to fight him with the Word... and they usually lose. I used to do the same thing until the Lord taught me differently. I used to wait until my meetings began to pray for their success. As Satan would come against them from one direction, I'd fight him there. Then he'd move around and attack them in another area, and I'd fight him there. One day the Lord showed me that by waiting until the last minute to take my stand, I was giving Satan time to build up his forces against me. And consequently, I was losing many of my battles. Then the Lord said something to me I'll never forget. He said, ""If they had kicked Al Capone out of Chicago when he was just a small-time operator, he wouldn't have been so hard to handle; but they waited until he became a first-class criminal with his forces built up around him. Then it took an army to bring him down."" When I heard that, I made up my mind never to be caught unprepared again. I started praying about those meetings weeks in advance, getting the stage set spiritually before they ever began. Instead of letting Satan get his forces entrenched, I started throwing him out before he got a single foothold. When I did, I saw more victories than I ever had before. Don't let the devil catch you off guard. Be prepared! Start praying and speaking the Word of faith now over your family, your business, your church. Get your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Then if Satan causes trouble, you'll be well equipped to run him out of town. Kenneth Copeland "Then great multitudes came to Him, having with them [the] lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others; and they laid them down at Jesus’ feet, and He healed them." (Matthew 15:30)
BE ENCOURAGED! > A Carefree Christmas
"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." (Philippians 4:6) Can you really have a merry Christmas even when you have a thousand and one pressures bearing down on you? Yes, you can--and you don't have to leave the country to do it. No matter how intense or how trivial the problems are that you're facing right now, you can have the most wonderful, most carefree Christmas season you've ever had in your life; and you can start having it today. As a believer, you're probably familiar with that scripture that says to be anxious for nothing. But, have you ever taken it seriously enough to put it into action? There's a good chance you haven't because you haven't understood just how dangerous those anxieties are. You probably haven't realized that they're a deadly part of the devil's strategy against you. That's right. Worry is one of the chief weapons of his warfare. If he can get you to worry about them, he can use the financial pressures and family pressures and scheduling problems that are just a "normal" part of everyday life to weigh you down and drag you into more trouble than you think possible. Medical science tells us that a high percentage of the people hospitalized in the U.S.A. are there with ailments caused by worry and tension. Yet, a great many believers worry without even thinking about it. They'll worry about being too short or too skinny. They'll stew over this and that and not even realize they've been sinning. "Sinning, Brother Copeland?" Yes! For the born-again, Spirit-filled believer who owns a Bible--worrying is a sin. So, even if the Christmas cards are late and 45 people are coming to your house for Christmas dinner, don't worry. Instead, do what the Bible says to do. Pray, making your request known to God...and praise Him for the answer. Then you'll have peace. Now, go ahead and have a truly merry Christmas, you carefree thing you. Kenneth Copeland …Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” And the man jumped up and went home! (Matthew 9:6–7 NLT)
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Shield of Faith Blog
AuthorBorn in South Carolina, Heather is happily married, and has three standard poodles and one shih tzu. Having travelled to over 14 countries, she has a great appreciation for living in the USA. She has a calling on her life to tell others about her healing and what Jesus has done for her. She is alive and well because of Him. Archives
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