Transcript: 40 Spiritual Lessons from Modern-Day Proverbs for Christian Growth

Here are 40 spiritual lessons or modern day proverbs, which will help you grow in your Christian faith, build your understanding of God and avoid the traps of the devil. Number one We are forgiven by the blood Saved by grace Changed by the spirit Rewarded by our deeds And disqualified by rebellion This is the gospel in its simplest form And incidentally, if you don't believe the last line Disqualified by rebellion Then you will start believing In the once saved, always saved doctrine The sins you refuse to conquer will eventually conquer you. This lesson also applies to the churches. The sins that the churches refuse to preach about will eventually take over their cities. Don't tell God how big your problems are. Tell the problems how big your God is. Either praise will break your chains Or your chains will break your praise One generation's ceiling Must be the next generation's floor In order for the church to be everything it's called to be Each generation must go farther Higher and attain more than the previous generations The first church in the book of Acts was not the perfect model church. It was simply a starting place. And Jesus said we would do even greater things than he did. There are three misunderstandings that all false religions are based on. Who Jesus was, the authority of his word, and his finished work on the cross. the distortion of any one of these will lead you seriously astray. The God of heaven is looking for sons and daughters, but the God of hell is looking for slaves. I saw this after talking with many Muslims and realizing that their God is simply looking for slaves. Also note that the Lord wants to cover you But the devil wants to leave you naked And in order for the Lord to cover you He must first remove your fig leaves Satan can only attack the parts of you That are not on the cross Therefore the safest place to be during spiritual warfare is on the cross because Satan can't influence, scare, or hurt those who are dead to this world. A good man wants to do great things for Jesus, but a wise man wants Jesus to do great things through them. You can't serve God wearing flesh, so don't just do ministry for God. Do ministry with God. And don't forget, you can be running towards ministry and away from the Lord's presence at the same time. Atheism is the byproduct of a church that shows no power. If your church has no healings, no deliverances, no miracles, no spiritual gifts, no prophecies, no visions, and no encounters, then it won't take long for the people to realize that the supernatural God of the Bible isn't working there. Many times, the larger a church gets, the less responsive they are to the moves of the Spirit. and the more they rely on man's established systems of success. The false church spreads by acts of coercion, but the true church spreads by acts of sacrifice. So if you want to truly advance the kingdom of God, then you must never use the enemy's tools. Many Christians use this expression. His will, His way. The blood of Jesus was shed to get people free from sin. Not to make them comfortable and stay in their sin. So this is how you detect a false gospel. By seeing if it actually gets people out of sin. Sin is the dare of God's justice. the rape of his mercy, the mockery of his patience, the insult of his power, and the contempt of his love. So don't take sin lightly. It is often a form of worshiping the devil. Without God, you can't. But without man God won Like it or not God uses people for his plans and purposes So when people refuse to follow God calling it slows down the progress of his kingdom First deal with a problem in the spiritual realm before you try to fix it in the physical realm. Some preachers say it this way, first go to the courts of heaven to deal with an issue before you go to the battlefield. And this is why Jesus tells us, first bind up the strong man, then take his goods. First, we overlook evil. Then we permit evil. Then we legalize evil. then we promote evil, then we celebrate evil, and then we persecute those who still call it evil. This is how cultures fall into darkness. The spiritual worship the God I am, but the religious worship the God I was. It's easy to know what God did in the past But only a few will know what God is doing today Therefore, religious people will see Goliath and panic But the spiritual will see David and rejoice God loves the most impossible challenges when the enemy has every apparent advantage and everything looks hopeless. But then, right before defeat, God turns the tables and wins a great victory. We see this all over scripture where God wins these impossible situations. One pastor said it this way, In order for God to show the immense tidal wave of his glory, he will permit Satan to build sandcastles on the beach. There are seven spheres of influence that guide and shape a society. Religion, education, family, business, government, arts entertainment, and the media. Christians must drive the enemy out of these areas, otherwise the whole culture will go into darkness. When the enemy occupies the government, he is able to persecute the righteous and defend the wicked. When the enemy occupies the business sector, he is able to fund the corrupt and bankrupt the righteous. When the enemy occupies the media, he is able to promote wicked ideas and silence godly counsel. When the enemy occupies the education system, he is able to corrupt the next generation. So Christians need to fight for these seven mountains. Otherwise, millions will perish. And it's been shown prophetically that in the future, most people will get saved by what will be done in the marketplace. Your spiritual maturity is measured by how much of your life you're willing to put on the altar for God. Sacrifice is still a major part of the Christian walk. Just remember it's for building the kingdom, not for redemption. that sacrifice is complete and finished. You can't convince a good man that he needs to repent to a bad God. You can only convince an evil man that he needs to repent to a holy God. So when sharing the gospel if the person is not convinced that he has done evil and that God is holy then they won't understand their need for repentance. When a believer falls into sin, a Christian will reach out their hand to restore, but a religious person will reach out their sword to condemn. A Christian's primary focus is on redemption, not condemnation. Though we may pray for God's judgment, we never pray for God's wrath onto a person. Prayer is not limited by distance, and the blood of Jesus is not limited by time. You can pray for things on the other side of the world, and the angels will get there before you even finish speaking. And you can apply the blood of Jesus to incidents that happened centuries ago. and the blood can go back in time and bring atonement to those events. The most prolific demon possessing Westerners in these days is the Jezebel spirit. And the most prolific activity that gets Westerners possessed and cursed is Freemasonry Witchcraft occultism and idolatry always lead people into spiritual bondage And remember, you can't be totally free until all evil spirits inside are removed. People learn more from your scars than your trophies. Every ministry is eager to talk about all their accomplishments. but they often neglect to share the mistakes they made getting there. If you don't tell the people behind you about the pits you fell into, they'll fall into the same ones. When judging others, use a velvet glove. When judging yourself, use an iron fist. And remember, you can't get people out of a prison when you're locked inside of it. When a sheepdog who protects the flock acquires too many unhealed wounds, he slowly turns into the wolf. If you don't get your wounds healed, you will cause more and more damage to the people around you. Hurt people hurt others. But remember, true worship can heal the deepest wounds. The more you advance spiritually the easier it will be for you to fall to pride and the easier it will be for others to idolize you. One pastor said it this way the things you can get away with in the outer court can get you killed in the holy place. The goal of a Christian is to open as many portals to heaven as possible and shutting as many portals to hell. That's why it's good to leave on anointed worship and praise music because it brings God's presence into an area. But this principle works both ways. As rivers of living water come from the belly of the righteous, So do rivers of death come from the mouth of the wicked. And these rivers of filth can be inhabited by the demonic. Don't forget in the dark what you learned in the light. It's easy to obey and follow God when you feel his presence. It's much harder when you can't feel him. The enemy's most powerful army is in the church waiting to betray any move of God. Remember, none of the disciples recognized Judas until he made his move. The enemy has his agents in the church and we often don't know who they are until it's too late. Another pastor said it this way, When God starts a movement on earth, it will often be resisted by the people who are in previous movements, because the unanointed persecute the anointed. If a Christian focuses more on the corruption of the world than on the work of the Lord, then they will become more and more cynical and pessimistic. If a Christian has more faith in the devil to deceive than in the Lord to give revelation, then that Christian will blindly reject any message from the Lord. God is not done with Israel. The church has not replaced Israel. The covenant land belongs to Israel. and those who bless Israel are still blessed and those who curse Israel are still cursed. This sums up a lot of teaching on Israel. And the reason that Satan so vehemently hates Israel is because his final defeat will come from the Jews. Don't finish a race with a big head and a small heart. If you put more focus on study than service, you may be headed for this mistake. When the full message of the cross is removed from the pulpit, the preaching will often turn into the prosperity gospel. In the prosperity gospel, the whole purpose of God is just to please man. And the whole purpose of becoming a Christian is just for self-advancement. In a nutshell, that's humanism cloaked in Christianity. The crossless gospel states that Jesus picked up his cross, but you don't have to pick up yours. It comes from the Verbalist Bible. In that Bible, every responsibility and commandment that God has given us is seldom mentioned. And because this message only focuses on having a blessed life, the recipient will often fall away during hard trials. You need to go through many easy doors to get the same spiritual growth as going through one difficult door Because some things are freely given to us by God but other things and positions need to be attained and earned So don skip difficult and challenging assignments by God. They'll get you to your destination much faster. And the more you overcome, the more you can help others overcome. But don't forget, between a promise of God and its fulfillment, there is often a wilderness that you'll need to go through. Many Christians fall right after a great victory because they let their guard down. If you ever get to a position that is so prestigious that you must never be seen repenting, then you're headed for a fall. The atmosphere of expectancy is the breeding ground for miracles. The more people expect miracles to happen from God, the more likely their faith will draw it. don't have shallow friendships if your friendship can be broken by a heated argument a loss of money or a political disagreement then it never had a solid foundation I once had a pastor tell me that five minutes of anger has often destroyed 30 years of marriage Now rage and anger can destroy a lot of things But make sure that all your relationships are thicker than five minutes Baptism is not a symbolic act It literally washes away the enemy Like the Red Sea washed away Pharaoh's army Baptism can even be a form of spiritual warfare so never skip it in a believer's life. It took three dead people until I realized this. I would baptize a person and then that very day one of their family members would die or even commit suicide. It was how the enemy was threatening them not to get baptized. And I realized that baptism was not just some symbolic Christian tradition. Satan wouldn't fight so hard if it was just a symbolic act. Now I always cover a person's entire family in prayer when I baptize them. And number 40. Through scripture we see that God's highest aspiration is to be one with his children. This is why worship is so important. so we could be one with God. In fact, it was the main reason God created our physical universe. And here are a few extra lessons in Proverbs to add to the list. Number 41. When the enemy attacks you, he reveals his position, techniques, and his motives. By noticing the people an attack comes through, or when an attack happens, or what an attack interferes with, you can learn a lot about the enemy's strategy. Many times I was alerted to the seriousness of an issue, only after I saw how fiercely the enemy resisted it. The body of Christ needs to go from the defensive to the offensive. From complaining to declaring. From run and hide to occupy. From just existing to reigning. From begging God to praying with authority. God didn't create this world just to hand it over to Satan. Anywhere devils and demons exist on earth is illegal. They have no rights. They're all criminals and they're all condemned. And Christians must take an aggressive posture against all their evil activity. And finally, number 43. Truth without grace is what the devil brings when he comes as an angel of light. So don't just focus on the facts. Sometimes you need to see the true motivation behind every statement. Because a good lawyer can present to you all facts, yet still mislead you. I hope you enjoyed these 40 plus lessons, principles, and proverbs. Each of them could be made into an entire sermon. All the materials are online for free. and none of this is copyrighted. In fact, so much of the work of the gospel is just redoing what other Christians have already done because they copyrighted it. So you may take, edit, upload, or translate anything you wish. I bless you in Jesus' name. you