Seek First The Kingdom of God and His Righteousness

 Thoughts from  Isaiah 10:27   From Isaiah 10:27 we get the popular, but erroneous, sayings in the church, “the anointing breaks the yoke.” This started from the KJV translation of this verse.  Most of the other English translations have translated it as the anointing oil or fat that breaks the yoke.  The Hebrew word used in this verse is semen, pronounced sheh’-men, which means grease, especially liquid (as from the olive, often perfumed; figuratively, richness:-anointing,xfat (things), x fruitful, oil (-ed) ointment, olive, pine. (Strong’s definition). In looking at every verse where semen is used in the Old Testament it is speaking of the oil or the fat itself and not the specific act of anointing.   Now with a proper understanding of what the verse we can see the real meaning and depth of what it is saying to us even now.  To help with this I have included the verse here from 3 different English translations.    Isaiah 10:27NKJ Version It shall come to pass in that day That his bur

  The Essence of the Kingdom     Recently I have been doing a deep dive into joy.  As I was searching the Bible to see all that it had to say on the subject of joy I came upon this verse, Romans 14:17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. My thoughts then went to Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you In looking at both of these verses I see that, logically, what we need to be seeking first is righteousness, peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit.   Sadly, many today in the church are seeking after so much that is not the kingdom or trying by their efforts to produce a God’s kingdom here on earth through various means but really, they are building their own kingdoms. Luke 17:21, says, “nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”  God’s kingdom is not an earthly kingdom that can be made to come about by

  Covet vs Content   The word covet isn’t a word that is that common in our daily, American, vocabulary but it is something that we American’s are very familiar with.  Just reading the definition of Covet, -To desire inordinately; to desire that which it is unlawful to obtain or possess; in a bad sense, basically describes the majority of American’s life. A really good synonym for covet is LUST.   Sadly, this goes for those in the church as well as those outside the church.  All we need do is look at James 4:1-3 and then look around us.  Doesn’t it explain a lot of what is going on in our world? Even though James 4:1-3 doesn’t use the word covet we can see that its definition applies here. James 4:1-3 “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because

  Full and Less   During my time in the hospital the Lord showed me that I am lacking in Joy. As I meditated on this, I began to see some things. My definition of full and less weren’t God’s definitions.  To truly be full is not just to be at capacity but to be at capacity while it is flowing out at capacity. Anything short of that is less. Using these definitions if I am full of something it should be easy for people to use that as an identification of me. Question, how do we identify or label a person as joyful? Is it because we see a trickle of joy coming out every now and then or is it because we see joy flowing out of them in capacity? People identify us by what they see flowing out of us at capacity, good or bad.  This led me to some self-reflection and to this conclusion. I need to be more and more abiding in Jesus and Jesus in me. Each part of the fruit of the Spirit should be something people identify me by because I am full of the Spirit because I am abiding in Jesus. There s

  The Secret Place   Matthew 6:6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.   Today this aspect of the secret hit me out from this verse.  I believe that there is more here than just Jesus telling us to not be like those who pray out to draw attention to themselves.  I believe that He is giving us an invitation.  An invitation to something very special, the secret place.  When I think of the word secret other words pop to my mind, private, intimate, special, hidden, protected.  If I take these words and put them with the invitation that Jesus is giving, I get the following, pray to your Father who is in the secret (private, intimate, special, hidden, protected) place.  I believe that there is a connection here between us meeting with the Father in the secret place and all the way back to the beginning of creation.  In Genesis 3 we read of God walk

 Ireland-Count Down. Finances I felt that the number I needed to believe for was $10,000 with the majority of this being used to sow into ministry that is going on there and to help with getting new ministries started. I have also been believing and declaring 100-fold return for anyone who invests/sows/gives into this. Link for the gofundme  https://gofund.me/a904c595   or you can give in person. To borrow from Philippians 4:17 “ Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account.”  Itinerary  Departing Syracuse April 25  Arriving Dublin, the morning of the 26  Faith Mission Durrow, Co. Laois, Came to Believe 12step retreat 26 th - 29th.  29 th -5 th  of May  My plan is to visit different ministries of Living Waters (that Sean’s church) does throughout the week in different locations, Portlaoise, Kildare and Finglas. I am also going to visit some of the other Elim churches that are in the country and build relationship while taking advantage of the open doors t