You Can't Please God And Man

Matthew 11: 16 – 19, "But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying: 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned to you, and you did not lament.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' But wisdom is justified by her children." NKJV

I have discovered that some of the best teachings immerge from the hardest trials in life. Please take a moment to read chapter eleven so that you can get the full context of what Jesus was teaching and to whom He was directing His comments.

In the above scripture, Jesus is openly rebuking the cities that He had performed the majority of miracles in because the people refused to repent. Instead of repenting of their sins, the people who had witnessed and received miracles at the hands of Jesus turned on Him. When they should have been honoring Jesus as their Messiah, they tried to defame Him as a winebibber, a glutton, and a Friend of tax-collectors and sinners.

Jesus tells those who were present that day that John came to them neither eating nor drinking, and they accused him of being demon possessed. Jesus came eating and drinking, and they accused Him of many things as well. When I read these verses, the Holy Spirit spoke to me very clearly about the mindset or spirit that Jesus was confronting.

Even though the people had witnessed first-hand the mighty miracles of Jesus, they refused to submit to Him as their Savior and Lord. As a result of their rebellious ways, they tried to turn people against John and Jesus because they didn’t agree with the teachings of either of them.

As a pastor, I, too, have faced this type of persecution; people will try to kill your witness by attacking you on a “carnal level,” to create a diversion from the truths that are being taught. If you have experienced this type of persecution, then you know that it is futile to try and please someone who isn’t going to submit to the truth that you have spoken. It didn’t matter what John or Jesus did or didn’t do in their personal lives, they were never going to please those who had rejected the truth. Guess what? None of us will be able to please God and man. Therefore, at some point, we all have to make a conscious decision concerning whom we are going to please, God or man.

When the Holy Spirit revealed these truths that I’m sharing with you today, I better understood why Jesus began to rebuke the cities where He had performed His mighty works. He rebuked them because they had rejected the truth; and He let them know just how hard it would be for them on the Day of Judgment.

This shows us that God can heal anything but offense. The spirit of offense is very prevalent in the “church world” today. Offense isn’t a sickness or disease; it is a spiritual condition of the heart that must be brought before the Lord through repentance. Once a believer seeks forgiveness for becoming offended because of the truth, then they can be restored and reconciled with God through Christ.

We Can Only Serve One Master,
Pastor Asa Dockery

May The Lord Refresh You

Isaiah 40: 28 - 31, Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. NKJV

Today's devotion is about a prayer the Lord instructed me to pray for you. As I was seeking the Lord this morning, the Holy Spirit led me to pray for Christians who are weary from an ongoing war in their personal lives. Because of the intensity of the warfare, Christians have gotten weak and frayed by the attacks of Satan.

During the prayer time, I could sense that the Lord wanted His people to be refreshed by the wind of His Spirit. If this term seems strange to you, you can find it in Acts 2 when God released the power of the Holy Spirit upon the early church after Jesus' ascension to heaven. The Holy Spirit filled all those who were praying in the upper room.

God wants to increase your strength and give you power for your weakened condition. Make no mistake about it, Satan and his demonic regime has worn down the saints of the Most High through spiritual warfare. Nevertheless, God is still on the throne, and He is fighting on your behalf.

Do you remember the story in 1 Kings 19 where the angel of the Lord instructed Elijah to eat a cake after becoming weary from his battle with the prophets of Baal and Jezebel? Elijah was exhausted, and depressed, and prayed to die. Even so, God instructed him to eat the cake and drink the water. Because Elijah obeyed God's command, the strength he gained from eating that one cake lasted forty days.

These devotions go all over America and into many nations throughout the world. Over the past year, we have received hundreds of emails and messages from Christians who are weary and feel as if they're going to faint, if God doesn't show up in their situation. If you, too, are tired and in danger of giving up, then consider this your Word from the Lord. Begin to praise Him for both placing you on my heart to pray for and for hearing from the Lord on your behalf. God wants to restore, refresh, and renew your tired soul. Therefore, I pray for you; may God lift you to a height in Him that is far above the storms of life, and may He give you an impartation of His strength and power so that you're able to soar like an eagle. Receive God's strength in your heart and soul today and be refreshed.

If God Be For Us,
Pastor Asa Dockery

The Tabernacle Of God

 Exodus 7: 15 - 16, So go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes down to the river. Stand on the riverbank and meet him there. Be sure to take along the shepherd's staff that turned into a snake. Say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say, "Let my people go, so they can worship me in the wilderness." Until now, you have refused to listen to him. NLT

God repeatedly spoke through Moses to Pharaoh commanding him to let God's people go into the wilderness so that they might worship Him. Eventually, Pharaoh seceded to God's awesome power and sovereign will, and he allowed the children of Israel to go and worship their God. However, as slaves, the Jews had no way of knowing what was about to transpire in their lives once they crossed the Red Sea. All the Jews had known was the Egyptian culture. They were about to embark on a journey that would stretch them in every way imaginable.

Since Moses used the word "worship" as it pertained to God, and since Pharaoh understood what that statement meant, we can conclude that the Egyptians had some form of worship... as well as a place to worship their gods. Therefore, when the children of Israel were far away from the borders of Egypt and in the wilderness, they began to have a reality check about leaving their old surroundings. The wilderness was nothing like they had been accustomed to or experienced. First of all, there was no "House of worship." Where was the place they would go to worship and offer sacrifices unto their God? It was about to be revealed to Moses and the people at Mount Sinai.

Ex 19:16-25, Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice. Then the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. And the LORD said to Moses, "Go down and warn the people, lest they break through to gaze at the LORD, and many of them perish. Also let the priests who come near the LORD consecrate themselves, lest the LORD break out against them." But Moses said to the LORD, "The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai; for You warned us, saying, 'Set bounds around the mountain and consecrate it.'" Then the LORD said to him, "Away! Get down and then come up, you and Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the LORD, lest He break out against them." NKJV

If we examine how God set up this event at Mount Sinai, we can begin to see the pattern or the concept for the building of the tabernacle. God instructed Moses on how to build a place where His people would be able to assemble and worship the Lord. The base of the Mount was where the priests and the people convened. The top of the Mount was where God met with Moses and Aaron, the High Priest. Moses set barriers between the people and God to prevent them from touching the holy mount of God, so they wouldn't die.

If we study the tabernacle that Moses built according to God's plans, we will see that there is an outer court or sanctuary where the priests prepare the sacrifice and serve the people. Within the outer court, there was an enclosed place (Temple) where the glory of God descended; this is called the Holiest of all (Hebrews 9). Only the High Priest was allowed to enter into the Holiest of all, once a year, to make atonement for the sins of the people. However, if the High Priest didn't explicitly follow God's instructions for sanctification before entering God's holy presence, he would die.

Our God is so great! He used a mountain to illustrate to Moses how He wanted His tabernacle on earth constructed, so that He could commune with His people. The boundaries at the base of the Mount taught Moses, Aaron, and the people how to respect the awesomeness of God from a distance (or without) and not be destroyed by His power. Nevertheless, God allowed Moses and Aaron to enter into His presence on top of the Mount. By doing this, God showed a distinction between the High Priest and the priests who served the people.

Since they had to climb to the top of the mountain, the people learned that God rests in a lofty or elevated place over them (Heaven). As a result of this particular encounter with God, God was able to reveal to Moses the plans for the first earthly Tabernacle for God's glory to abide. In order to prove further what I have shared with you today as the truth, there is a verse in Exodus that confirms today's teaching. Exodus 25: 40, And see to it that you make them according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain. NKJV

Nevertheless, under the New Testament, we, who believe in Christ as our Savior are now the temple that God has chosen to dwell, in order that He might commune with us by the Holy Spirit. We are always to remember to respect and honor God's temple so that no sin or any unclean thing will be allowed to defile His dwelling place in us.

Christ In You,
Pastor Asa Dockery

The High Priest And Prophet Of God

Exodus 19: 24 - 25, Then the LORD said to him, "Away! Get down and then come up, you and Aaron with you. But do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the LORD, lest He break out against them." So Moses went down to the people and spoke to them. NKJV

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul teaches us a very enlightening principle that gives us understanding as to why God does what He does. Paul tells us that even though God is Spirit, the natural comes first and afterwards, the spiritual. Why would God set up His kingdom in this manner? We must remember that God created us with a natural body instead of creating us as a spirit-being without a body. God created us as a human, bound to the earthly realm so that we could choose with our own freewill whether or not we would serve Him. In other words, He created us so that we could make the choice.

Unfortunately, Adam made the wrong choice. Nevertheless, God made us as flesh first, so that we might be able to redeem carnal man from sin. After the natural order of things was set in motion by Adam, God sent Jesus to earth in the form of man to redeem us. As a result of His great love, we can now make the choice to become like Him through our faith.

Most of what is contained in the Old Testament was written with the understanding that God had a plan. His plan would begin in the natural realm, but would later be transformed into the spiritual in the New Testament. Jesus taught the Jews in His day by using a method called "parables." These stories helped the Jews understand spiritual principles based on physical things that they could grasp. In much the same way, God designed the Old Testament to be based on the physical realm to represent or to reveal what He wanted to occur in the spiritual realm on earth.

When God uses natural "things" in the Old Testament to teach us spiritual principles or to reveal prophetic utterances that can be understood by humans, it is called "typology" or a foreshadow of things to come. Now let's get to the purpose of today's word for you.

In today's scripture, we read that Moses was alone with God on Mount Sinai. Later, we see that God commanded Moses to leave His presence on the mountain and to come back up with Aaron. We know from scripture that Moses was the greatest prophet of the Old Testament. We also know that Aaron represented the order of the High Priest. We see Moses, the prophet, being sent down by the Lord from God's holy hill only to return with Aaron. Once again, God is using symbolism to show us something prophetic that would be fulfilled in the New Testament. When Jesus came to earth to redeem fallen man from sin, He descended from God's holy hill as God's prophet to proclaim the "Good News" to the lost.

However, after Jesus completed the work of His Father on earth and reconciled man and God through His cross as High Priest, He ascended back to the Father in heaven. When Jesus returned to the Father, He wasn't just the prophet; He was also the High Priest, who would pour out His blood upon the heavenly tabernacle for our atonement. It happened in the spirit just as God had planned it the day He sent Moses down to bring Aaron back up on the Mount. Moses and Aaron were a typology of Jesus.

If God is this meticulous, and He is able to plan situations that far in advance and they be fulfilled in perfection, then this tells us that He can take care of us when it seems like we're at our wits' end. God is in control, whether men want to admit it or not. We can help Him be in control of every area of our lives, if we will only submit ourselves to His will. Today, if you feel overwhelmed because your life is in turmoil, begin to cast all your care on Him and watch as He moves those mountains out of your way.

Give It To God,
Pastor Asa Dockery

If

John 15: 10, If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. NKJV

How much do Christians love the Lord? According to Jesus' teaching in the gospel of John, we will abide in His love IF we keep His commandments. However, if we don't seriously keep His commands, we really don't love the Lord. It all comes down to obedience doesn't it? Jesus obeyed His Father's commandments and, therefore, demonstrated His love for the Father.

How can we say that we love Jesus or the Father if we only obey the commands that we agree with in our hearts? Scriptures such as this one from John 15 have a way of getting down where we live, and they make us confront our own hearts. Anyone can say they love Jesus, but He is looking at our actions, not just the words we've spoken. James teaches us that faith is dead apart from obedient actions. The Apostle John instructs us in 1 John 3: 18 - 19, My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. NKJV

When we say we love the Lord, but don't keep His sayings, we won't have confidence when we come before Him. Please hear what the Holy Spirit is revealing to His children. There is a direct connection between a Christian's disobedience and our struggle with a lack of confidence when we come into God's presence. If we aren't bold in our hearts because we have kept His sayings, then we will feel "less than" whenever we have a need, and we enter into the Lord's presence to petition for that requirement to be met.

Disobedience will adversely affect our faith because it is based in selfishness and not in love. Faith operates through love. Consequently, if we love God enough to keep His Word, then we will have the faith that is necessary to enter into His presence with boldness. We won't be hesitant or apprehensive when bringing our prayer needs before the Lord. Many Christians struggle with guilt and condemnation simply because they choose not to obey the Word of God.

If this word has described you, then there is a simple solution. Just submit more of your heart to the Lord by obeying more of His Word every single day. Love puts the Word into action in our lives as believers. For example: God so loved the world that He gave His only- begotten Son. Love moved God into action. What do you suppose would have happened if God had only said He loved us, but He didn't follow through with action? We would all die in our sins. It's just as important that we obey as it was for God to act on His love for us. IF we obey, we will be blessed by our love for God. You can do this! It will make a huge difference in your faith walk and in your prayer life.

Obedience Is Better than Sacrifice,
Pastor Asa Dockery

Fellowship

1 John 1: 5 - 7, This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. NKJV

In today's scripture, John is teaching believers in Christ why we have fellowship with one another. Simply put, it is because we have believed and obeyed the truth. God's Word brings us into fellowship with the Lord and with each other. As long as we walk in the truth, we are walking in the light and will have fellowship with other believers.

Paul teaches us in 2 Corinthians 6: 14 that we are not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. He goes on to ask these questions: For what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness? What communion does light have with darkness? Fellowship and communion have similar meanings- in that we aren't to be partakers of unrighteousness and darkness. Therefore, as believers in Christ, we're not to allow sinners to influence us, so that we begin to partake of their evil ways.

I'm writing this word today on fellowship under the leading of the Holy Spirit to shed some light on the subject of Christians crossing cultural barriers in order to share the gospel with the lost. Let me begin by addressing an issue that many Christians will face at one time or another in their faith walk. Have you had a friendship with someone who was a believer, nevertheless, they decided to go back into sin? Whenever you discovered their choice, how did it affect the dynamics of your friendship? More importantly, how did it affect your fellowship? Did you notice that their decision to sin brought a barrier into the relationship that didn't exist previously? The barrier of sin should have caused you both to feel uncomfortable in each other's company.

Sin kills fellowship! The book of Amos asks us the question, "If we don't agree, how can we walk together?" Without agreement in a friendship about what truth is, how can a saint and a sinner agree and/or walk with each other in fellowship? It can't happen unless the sinner repents or the believer compromises their convictions about the Word of God. However, having stated the obvious let me ask an important question. How can we, who walk in the light commune with sinners and reach out to them for Christ's sake? Since we are of the Light (Jesus) and sinners are of the world, there can't be true communion or fellowship. Therefore, when we reach out to a lost person, we will sense a barrier. In the body of Christ, this barrier has prevented Christians from sharing the love of Christ with sinners, and this ought not be. It has also caused believers to "kill their witness" or "influence" with sinners because they have treated the lost with disrespect.

One day, Jesus went to the house of Matthew (Levi) who was known to be a tax collector for Rome. Matthew was a newly appointed disciple of Christ, who had invited Jesus to his house for dinner (communion) along with some of his friends, who also happened to be tax collectors and sinners. Nevertheless, when the scribes and Pharisees heard that Jesus was having fellowship with sinners, they accused Him of befriending them. Why? The scribes and Pharisees knew that "their law" didn't allow them to eat (fellowship or partake) with sinners. Consequently, they accused Jesus of becoming a friend of sinners. What they didn't know was this: Jesus wasn't "trying to become like the sinner" at the dinner table; Rather, He was there to offer the "sick" hope and eternal life through evangelism.

When Jewish believers sat at a table with publicans and tax collectors, sharing the meal meant that they were entering fellowship or communion with darkness. However, although Jesus was eating with sinners, He wasn't communing or partaking of their unrighteous ways. Instead, He was evangelizing them around a meal. In other words, Jesus broke down the wall that separates us from evangelizing sinners by showing us how to reach out to the lost without compromising our convictions.

In His day, Jesus was a "Friend of sinners." He is still a friend to sinners; however, today, He chooses to operate through us as His ambassadors in the earth. Therefore, we must show the same love toward sinners that Jesus did that day when He sat to eat with them in Matthew's house. There is much friction between the body of Christ and certain sects of society. Consequently, today's teaching can empower the body of Christ to overcome the barriers and reach out to the lost in love without fear of compromise. Let's love the sinner and hate the sin. Isn't that the method that Jesus used when He saved you and me?

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has launched an evangelistic outreach in America and Canada, and they want all Christians to participate in it. This could be the largest revival for sinners in our nation's history; however, it will require your assistance. To learn more about MyHope with Billy Graham, you can click on our website at www.whcnorth.org. From our website, you can go the MyHope link and learn how you and your church can get involved. Let's bring Christ to the lost in America and Canada like never before. Won't you join us?

Now Let's Eat,
Pastor Asa Dockery

Going Stealth

Matthew 16: 13 - 15, When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" NKJV

There is a very good reason why Jesus commands us to keep His sayings. Our heavenly Father wants us to be protected from our adversary, the Devil. You may be thinking, "Doesn't Psalm 91 teach us that God protects us from the enemy by keeping us under the shadow of His wings?" Yes, He does; however, if you read that psalm, you will learn that there are a few things you and I have to do in order to bring God's protection on our lives.

The Lord wants us to follow His leading so that He can give us wisdom from above. When we speak according to God's will, and then obey the instructions of the Holy Spirit, God empowers us with the ability to outsmart the enemy, who by-the-way is invisible to us. We are given several examples in the gospels of when either Satan or people tried to figure out who Jesus was... even though they knew He was the Son of Joseph and Mary. There was something very special about Jesus that caused His enemies much discomfort and curiosity.

There were also times that both Satan and men tried to "trip or tempt" Jesus. Nevertheless, He ALWAYS outwitted them. He never fell prey to their deceptive and manipulative lies. Whenever the scribes and Pharisees felt their power was threatened by the miracles and wisdom of Jesus, they would devise plots to destroy Him. However, He would mysteriously escape from their trappings. What made Jesus "stealth" or undetectable to the enemy?

In Luke 4, we see that Satan is tempting Jesus. Satan was trying to discover Jesus' spiritual identity; he wanted to know if Jesus was the Son of God. However, because Jesus didn't give into Satan's seductive offers, the enemy left in defeat; he didn't learn anything that gave away Jesus' identity.

There are two points that you must take away from today's word: Number 1, Satan and the enemies of Jesus didn't know Jesus' identity; and Number 2, they couldn't form any weapon or trap that could stop or kill Jesus. (Until it was time for Jesus to die on the cross) Even then, they still didn't know who Jesus was. Even so, why is this important to you as a believer in Christ? When you and I operate under the direction and authority of God's Word, and His will, we are shielded from the weapons of Satan. Neither Satan nor the religious rulers could apprehend, prevent, or distract Jesus from doing God's will. Because Jesus did only those things that pleased the Father, He couldn't be detected on the enemy's radar.

Likewise, when we only do those things which please the Father, we, too, become stealth. No weapon that is formed against us shall be able to prosper; and every tongue that rises up against us in judgment, we will condemn by our righteousness in Christ. Now let's compare Jesus' ability to overcome all that the adversary plotted against Him with what happened to Adam. Adam didn't obey the commands of God; neither did he choose to obey God's purpose for placing Adam in the garden. Consequently, it wasn't hard for Satan to figure out a way to get to Adam. Through Adam's disobedience to God's commands, Satan was able to lock on (radar term) Adam in the natural. In other words, Satan knew what would work on Adam... what would cause him to sin.

We have a choice every single day of our lives. We can choose to obey the Lord and "fly undetected" by Satan's radar, or we can choose to serve the lusts of our flesh and fall prey to Satan's devises and his arsenal.

Our military in America uses stealth technology on some of their airplanes. These planes have flat surfaces and hard edges. They're not designed with the same curvature as commercial airplanes because they serve a DIFFERENT purpose. When you accepted Christ, you were enlisted into the Lord's service for a specific purpose. The contractors who build the stealth planes also coat the fighter planes with a material that absorbs radar signals. If the enemy's radar doesn't receive its signal back, they will believe that there is no aircraft near a specific area. This technology allows us to hit without being detected prematurely and therefore, escape before the opposition knows what has hit them. In this same way, God has clothed us with the righteousness of Christ; nevertheless, we must choose to walk in the ways of Christ in order to remain undetectable to our enemies in the spirit realm.

If we will choose to live and walk in the Spirit, Satan won't be able to define us by our human identity; and he won't be allowed to keep us from our destiny in Christ. It's time to go stealth on the Devil!

Undetectable in Christ,
Pastor Asa Dockery