You Are Coming Out of Lo Debar!

A couple of years ago I posted a blog called "You Are Coming Out of Lo Debar!", which received a lot of views. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to preach the same message at my local church, and I wanted to share it with you all. Here's the link to the sermon. Hope you enjoy it! You Are Coming of Lo Debar!

Body and Soul

We have all heard statements like “beauty is in the eye of the bolder”, “beauty is only skin deep” or “beauty over brains”. Although we say them and may even agree with them, they are not Biblically sound. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God made everything beautiful. God made EVERYTHING beautiful. So beauty is in the eye of God not the beholder, and, if He made everything beautiful, that means beauty runs much deeper than the skin. If God made everything beautiful, He made us beautifully intelligent. Beauty is brains.

We have allowed the world to redefine beauty for us. A world where beauty is only skin deep. Is she pretty? She has a nice personality. Oh that means she’s ugly. Never mind. I don’t want to meet her. That means that her beautiful personality holds no value over her beautiful face.

This is a world where we, humans, spend $24 billion on plastic surgery worldwide, $55 billion on cosmetics and $1.2 trillion on fashion. We are fixated on having our hair & nails “did”, face beat and clothes slayed. This is the world’s focus and definition of beauty, but God’s focus is more holistic.

Esther 2:7 describes Esther as fair and beautiful. The Hebrew for fair used here is yapheh (YA FE), which means handsome or beautiful. The Hebrew word for beautiful used here is towb (TOVE), which means as follows:

good, pleasant, agreeable

A.                pleasant, agreeable (to the senses)

B.                 pleasant (to the higher nature)

C.                 good, excellent (of its kind)

D.                good, rich, valuable in estimation

E.                 good, appropriate, becoming

F.                  better (comparative)

G.                glad, happy, prosperous (of man's sensuous nature)

H.                good understanding (of man's intellectual nature)

I.                    good, kind, benign

J.                   good, right (ethical)

This beautiful as defined here does not once mention Esther’s outward appearance. Why? Because God does not look at our outward appearance. He looks at our hearts. Why because He already made the outward beautiful. We make the inside beautiful. The Bible says that the heart (mind, will and emotions) is deceitful because of our sinful human nature. Therefore, we must renew our minds daily. Esther had a renewed mind. She wasn’t just pretty on the outside.

In Esther chapter four Esther learns that there has been a decree to kill all the Jewish people in the Persian Empire. Her adopted father Mordecai begged her to ask the king to have mercy on the Jews. Esther responded to Mordecai, telling him that going before the king without being sent for would result in her death. Mordecai responded to Esther with a very famous Bible quote. He warned her not to think that just because she was the queen that meant that she alone would be spared. Then he said who knows you may have been chosen as queen for such a time as this.

Esther then asked Mordecai to have all the Jews to fast and pray with her for three days as she prepared to go before the king unannounced. Esther’s response was let’s fast and pray because she understood something that Jesus said thousands of years after she lived. Faith for some things can only be built by prayer and fasting. Sounds like someone who had a beautifully renewed mind to me. Someone whose spirit was in tune with God’s spirit.

Then we see how Esther strategically orchestrated everything. She does not go before the king and tells him everything. She requested two dinners with the King and Haman, the man who set up the plot to have the Jews killed. At the second dinner, she revealed to the king Haman’s plan to kill her and her people. The king ordered that Haman be hung on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai and that the Jews would be able to defend themselves when the day came when they were to be killed. Esther had a plan. She had a strategy. She used her beautiful brain.

In this narrative of Esther we saw more of her heart and intelligence than we saw of her beauty. Dressing up, wearing makeup, getting your hair and nails done are not bad. They are good things, but they are not the only thing. We must focus on making sure our minds and our emotions are as much on fleek as our hair and nails.

Forgive. Let go of baggage. Get rid of toxic relationships. Pray. Meditate on the word day and night. Fast when you need the faith for something that seems impossible to attain and fast when you don’t need anything at all. Exercise. Exercise. Exercise. Eat healthy. Put down the soda, fast food and sugary foods. Read something other than Face Book. 

We only get one body, one soul and one spirit. God has taken care of our spirit man. Our spirits are saved. Our body and soul are where the working out our salvation with fear and trembling comes in. We have to give everything we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, of course, to make our bodies and souls beautiful.

Go To Grow

Luke 10:1 says, “After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.” (KJV)

After what “things” did Jesus send out these seventy disciples? If we go back to Luke chapter eight we will see which things the author is referring to. Luke eight starts with a synopsis of what the chapter is about. It says, “Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him…” (NLT) The preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God entailed parables, healing and performing miracles. This chapter shares the parable of the different types of seed and the parable of the lamb. We also see Jesus perform the miracle of calming the storm, He cast out the legion of demons out of the man, He healed the woman with the issue of blood and He raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Yes, He did all of this in just one chapter of the Bible!

I believe that during this tour Jesus was showing the twelve apostles how to do ministry. Through His demonstration He was saying preach, teach, perform miracles, cast out demons, heal the sick and raise the dead. Do it just like this. He also showed them how to finance their ministry. Luke 8:2-3 talks about female disciples who used their own resources to support Jesus and His disciples while they were on these ministry trips.

In the very next chapter Jesus then sent out the twelve on a ministry tour. “One day Jesus called together his twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all demons and to heal all diseases. Then He sent them out to tell everyone about the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” Luke 9:1-2 (NLT) In the remainder of chapter nine Jesus continues teaching, healing the sick and performing miracles. Then in chapter ten Jesus sends out 70 disciples just as He had sent out the 12. Jesus sent them out ahead of Him in pairs to the towns He was going to visit. [Jesus did not send them out individually. He sent them out in teams of two. I believe that this is God’s design for this journey in life and our Kingdom assignments. Life is not meant to be done solo or single, and neither is our Kingdom assignment. I believe that our spouses (not in every instance but in most instances) is the person that we are paired with for God’s assignment. We do not often think about it but when God instructed Abraham to leave the land of his fathers and go to the promise Sarah was with him. As his wife, she had to be instrumental in his assignment. The same goes for Joseph. He was Mary’s partner for the assignment of birthing and rearing the Savior.]

When the seventy disciples came back (Luke 10:17) the Bible says that they were very happy. They reported to Jesus that the demons even obeyed them when they used Jesus’ name. Jesus responded to them by telling them that He saw Satan fall from heaven like lightening, meaning that Satan is already defeated. Jesus went on to say that He gave them power that is greater than the power of the enemy, but He warns them that they should not be happy because evil spirits obeyed them. They should be happy because there are saved!

Jesus’ ministry lasted three and a half years. I believe that His ministry’s mission was to prepare His disciples to spread the message of the Kingdom. In those three and a half years He had to get the disciples ready for the work of taking the message of the Kingdom to the world. In Luke 8-10 we see that the disciples are at the point where Jesus is testing them to see if they are ready to go out. He sent them out and they come back kinda surprised by the things they could do. Perhaps they did not think that they were ready to go out. Maybe they had to go out to be able to grow to the place of doing the types of miracles, signs and wonders that Jesus performed.

Sometimes we may feel trepidation about a task or even lack confidence and the only way to grow past those feelings is to just do it. We may think we’re not ready. I can even use the example of Jesus first miracle of turning water into wine. When Jesus’ mother brought the situation to Jesus He responded by telling His mother that it was not his time (He was not ready). His mom’s only response was telling the servants to do as He said. Well, you know the rest of the story. We may think we’re not ready and it’s not until we get into the situation or it’s presented to us and we must act or are forced to act that we realize that we are ready. We are capable.  Sometimes we have to go ahead and do a thing to grow in that area.

Hiding God's Word In My Heart

David wrote, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and enter His courts with praise (Psalm 100:4)." I have said before that the key to God's presence is thanksgiving and praise. Thanksgiving and praise gets you an audience with the King of kings. When you worship Him He reveals His glory. Thanksgiving, praise and worship allows us to have an experience with God.

Philippians 4:8 says that we should think on things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, good, vitreous and praiseworthy. When I woke up this morning the devil whispered in my ear all kinds of things that are opposite of what the apostle Paul instructed the church at Philippi to think about. Things that I was not feeling thankful for, but the Kingdom of God is an upside down kingdom. It's a last shall be first kind of kingdom.

I said, "No, devil! I will bless the Lord at ALL times and His praise will ever be on my lips." I started to meditate on all of things in my life that are pure, lovely, good, vitreous and praiseworthy - all the things that I am thankful for. As an old church song says, "When I look back over my life and all He has brought me through my soul cries hallelujah."

Yet I am not only thankful for the past blessings. I am also thankful for future blessings, the promises of God and prophetic words spoken over my life. And I am not just thankful for blessings. I am thankful for grace. I know without a doubt that I am only because of God's grace and mercy. There is no way that I am because of anything that I have done. It is truly God's unmerited favor operating in my life. And I am not just thankful for grace. I am thankful for salvation. I am thankful for His protection. I am thankful for His faithfulness. I am thankful for His revelation. I am thankful for His truth. I am thankful for His healing power. I am thankful that He is God and has chosen me to love, nurturer, empower, disciple and send out.

Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17)

So the devil's plan to depress, stress and regress my thinking this morning did not work! He didn't get the memo that I cleanse my mind with the washing of the Word of God. Moral of the story is that we battle the enemy with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Your sword should always be accessible to you to battle with your enemy. Now I know that your Bible will not always be accessible to you. For this reason we must hide God's word in our hearts. Your heart is your soul. Your soul is your mind, will and emotions. We must hide the word in our minds so when the attack comes our swords are ready and accessible to decapitate the devil and any demon from hell that tries to attack. Always have your sword battle ready. I will.

Kendy Ward
Kingdom Warrior

No Other gods

"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:3) This is the first of the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.  In a time when idol worship was prevalent this command would make sense. Today, though, we may tend think that no one worships idols any more. The dictionary defines an idol as an image or representation, but really an idol is anything that we place above God.

An idol in our lives could be a spouse, a job, a hobby, money, or a fear. If  we turn to any of these things before we turn to God, it has become an idol in our lives. It must be removed from first position, and placed in its proper position, which is after God.

The Key of Thankfulness

The Key of Thankfulness

In Matthew 16:19 Jesus says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom…” The Greek word used here for kingdom is basileia. Translated in English it means rulership or authority not a geographical territory. Jesus goes on to say, “…the things you don’t allow on earth will be the things that God does not allow, and the things you allow on earth will be the things that God allows.”

Jesus said these things right after Simon Peter had the revelation that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus said I give you these “keys” and these keys give you access to the authority of heaven. I believe that one of the keys that allow us to access the authority of heaven is thankfulness.

A few chapters before in Matthew 14 we see the story of the feeding of the five thousand. It says in verses 19-20, “Then he told the people to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish and, looking to heaven, he thanked God for the food. Jesus divided the bread and gave it to his followers, who gave it to the people. All the people ate and were satisfied. Then the followers filled twelve baskets with the leftover pieces of food.”

Jesus thanked God before the miracle took place. His thankfulness gave access to the supernatural. This is the principle that Jesus was teaching us. David said in Psalm 100 that we enter “His gates with thanksgiving”. Access to the glory and presence of God is thanksgiving.

Thankfulness is a form of praise. We see in the book of Joshua that the Israelites shouts of praise brought down the Jericho wall. Our thankfulness gives us access to the supernatural power of the kingdom of heaven. In adverse form, the opposite like complaining, bitterness and ungrateful takes us out of the realm of the Holy Spirit. It puts a barrier between us and the supernatural.

Too often we wait until we receive something to say thank you. Jesus gave thanks before the miracle, and to the observer of the day that may have seemed odd or maybe even crazy to thank God for five loaves and two fish when there were 5,000 men not including the women and children that needed to eat.

I challenge you for the next twenty one days keep a gratitude journal. Daily write down ten things that you are thankful for. A friend told me that a study showed that people who daily wrote down things they were thankful for had better health than the people in the study who wrote down their complaints. See if being thankful will improve your quality of life and give you access to the power of kingdom.

In His service,

Kendy Ward

Kingdom Ambassador

In Everything Give Thanks!

When we truly understand who Jesus Christ is and what He did for us on the cross everyday becomes a day of Thanksgiving. David said in Psalm 100, "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and enter His courts with praise." Our access through the gates and into the Holy of Holies is our thanksgiving.

When Jesus healed the ten lepers only one came back to thank Him. For every ten things God does for us we only thank Him for one. Today let us thank Him for all that He has done for us, and even if God never does anything else for us, He has already done the most. He loves us unconditionally, unequivocally without restraint or stipulations.

"Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." I Thessalonians 5:16-23

In His Service,

Kendy Ward
Kingdom Ambassador