Blood in the Water

In the story that God’s telling, this great epic story that has spanned eons, with it’s heroes and villains, battles won and lost and joys too many to describe along with as many sorrows that have filled countless hearts, one thing has stayed true so far, and that is that for those of us in the story, we have an enemy and he hates us with passion that possibly has never been matched except by the love of our Creator and Father.

The most interesting thing I have found in this story is that while the enemy is vile and does not play by the rules, he really isn’t after me. As a Christian, that is a bearer of Christ, I represent to the enemy the Savior who saved me, Jesus. The devil tried his best to destroy Jesus numerous times, and at each and every turn he was defeated. Culminating in his greatest defeat at the cross and resurrection of the Lord. Scripture states that had he known what was to happen, he would have never crucified the Lord of Glory. (1 Corinthians 2:8)

Since the devil was unable to destroy Jesus, and consequently through his actions actually helped to facilitate the one thing that had to be done in order for God to set things right with the human race. (Oh how that must gall him.) He changed his tactics and set upon those that bear the image of Jesus, his full out assault. Now as I write this, I realize that it may actually try to bring fear to the reader’s heart, but be of good cheer, this is information for us to celebrate. For you see, once you realize that the attacks are not at you personally, you can begin to walk in the ways that Jesus has wanted us to have walked all along.

In Luke chapter 8, Jesus is explaining to His disciples the meaning of the parable of the soils, in verse 11 & 12 we see this, “¹¹ “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. ¹² Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.” We are unable to acquire anything in the Kingdom of God if we first do not believe, then confess. (Romans 10:9-10) So the devil will come immediately according to Jesus’ words here in Luke, and take away our means of believing God and acquiring faith, which without we cannot please God. (Hebrews 11:6)

One of the most diabolical things that I have seen the enemy use against God’s children is their very own mouths. They will read in the Bible and see a promise of God, or hear a friend or minister talk about the goodness of God only to say the opposite of that is true in their life. With their own mouths they are digging up the seed, and without the seed of God’s Word in our heart we cannot believe. And if we cannot believe, then we cannot receive. It’s a legal situation, plain and simple.

God wants the best for us. He’s promised us all we need can be found in His Word, but He will not bring it to pass in our lives if we disregard the principle found in Romans 10:9-10; “⁹ If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” Obviously this passage of Scripture is talking about how you get saved, but did you realize that this is also how you appropriate every promise of God as well? Let me show you what I mean concerning healing, “If you declare with your mouth, “By Jesus’ stripes I am healed, and believe in your heart that God will heal you from your disease, then you will be healed.” “For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are healed.”

This is the principle by which we receive everything that God has for us in His Kingdom. Now, don’t get mad at me, I didn’t write it, God did. But see here is the thing, whose words are you believing, God’s or the devil’s? You see the opposite of faith is doubt. If you doubt, you are putting faith in the devil’s words over God’s. You are in effect saying, “God Your Word can’t be true, because of this or that reason.”

When we speak things other than what God’s Word says about us, we are what I like to imagine, putting blood in the water, and drawing the enemy to us. We see in Scripture that the devil is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. (1 Peter 5:8) Now God used Peter to pen this phrase for a reason, and I believe if we will look to nature we find out what God was getting at. When lions hunt, they never go after the strongest or biggest animals. They look for the weakest and slowest ones. Why is that do you wonder? It’s because they are not stupid, the weakest and slowest ones are the easiest to catch, and the lions are not looking to prove anything, they’re just looking for lunch.

Just as the lions are attracted to weakness, so is the devil. Look at the story of Jesus going into the wilderness; when did the devil come and begin to interact with Jesus? It was after the forty days and Jesus was hungry, when He was at His physically weakest moment. That’s when the devil showed up, and he is certainly not looking forward to going up against a Christian who is speaking and believing God’s Word. This is not to say he won’t do it, but he’s not stupid either, he knows what the easiest prey is and therefore they make the easiest targets. So let’s watch what we are speaking out of our mouths, and do our best to make the words that we speak, faith filled words of belief in what God has for us in His Kingdom, and not help the devil to defeat us by saying what think or feel. After all it’s God’s Word in us, coming out of our mouths that make us a success in life.

Hope Deferred and the Steward of Gondor

I found myself watching The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King tonight, I know, I know I own the movie, but there is just something that makes me stop whenever it is on the television...I don't know why. Anyway, as I was watching it, I had a strong desire to pay attention to the character Denethor, Steward of Gondor. There are so many things that can be learned from a study of Denethor, but for tonight the thing that really jumped out at me was his stewardship of Gondor.Denethor was the 26th Steward of Gondor. The men who were the Stewards sat in the seat just below and to the right of the King's throne. These men had served Gondor ever waiting for the King to return. I don't know if you have ever waited very long for something or not, but as I watched this show tonight and pondered the fate of Denethor, the Holy Spirit quickened a verse to my spirit.

Proverbs 13:12 NIV says: "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Hope deferred; deferred means postponed or delayed. Denethor's heart had become sick, partly because of the delaying return of the King of Gondor. And this is something that we must be on guard about in our lives as well, especially with our families.

As men, we tend to pour ourselves into every area that makes us look better. It's no secret that men don't like to look stupid. So to minimize our amount of looking stupid time, we focus on the areas of our lives that we understand or know the best. It should be no surprise then that we put off our family time, or time with our spouse; after all we don't really understand what all we should be doing there right?

Saying things like, "We'll do that one day, or maybe next time.", is not doing our families any good at all. We don't have to be the wisest, or the best looking we just have to be there for them. They just want us, they want our attention, and our time and for us to just be involved, and that is not too hard. We just have to make the time to be there.

So let's not waste our lives by waiting for the right time, let's jump in there and get in the middle of our families and not let them have hope deferred. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Just When I Thought I Was Out... They Pull Me Back In.

I've been walking with Jesus now for close to twenty-five years and it still amazes me that with all the He has brought me out of, I still get pulled back in to the old ways every now and then. It's at times like these that I feel like Michael Corleone from the Godfather movies.
Michael: "Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."


And it's the little things, subtle things that most people would overlook and dismiss saying, "Hey Dave, you are a good person, this one little mistake doesn't really matter." And all at once, to pull an image from another movie, I feel like George Bailey after he shook hands with Mr. Potter.

I want to scream, to shout and to confront the entity that tempted me to sin in the first place. I'd love to place the blame squarely on it's shoulders, but I do understand that when I sin, it is because I chose to do it, and there is no one to blame for that but me.


While I do believe that there are influences constantly coming in the form of various temptations, we do not have to succumb to them. I think that is why it bothers me the most, because I know better. Yet there is a Scripture that comes to mind; Song of Solomon 2:15a "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines..."

It's the little things that generally trip us up. It's not the big major things in life where we find ourselves failing. Our enemy, the devil wants to cause us to stumble in our walk with the Lord. To that end, he doesn't usually show up in a big major way though. It's subtlity that he uses, and he is a master at it. Now this is not to give him any more credit than he deserves, he is after all just a fallen angel, and destined to spend eternity separated from God.

If the devil showed up in your face with something, you would use the Name of Jesus and command him to leave, and he knows this. Instead, he will bring something into your life that will cause just a little compromise, something you might think is really nothing too important, yet that one little thing can cause the relationship you have with Jesus to be compromised. And in that place, we will find ourselves in a mess.

So this Christmas, let's find ourselves in the best place we can be with Jesus, and don't let your family, or the hubbub of the season be one of the "little foxes" that the enemy can use to bring your relationship with the Father into a bad place...don't let them pull you back in. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

The Word Euphoria Doesn't Even Begin To Explain It

The definition of the word "Euphoria" is: "A feeling of great happiness or well-being." I experienced this word in spades yesterday when my son called to tell me that the Pastor of my church had been located, and that he was okay.

Just two days earlier, my Pastor had turned up missing. He left to go home and get a book, only to not return. It was strange, and not like him at all to do something like this, so I along with the rest of my friends at church were bewildered to be sure when we heard the news.

Thursday night, we had a prayer vigil at church, and the outpouring of love and support that could tangibly be felt there was amazing. Yet as I awoke on Friday, and began my Bible reading and prayer time I had to fight the negative thoughts of what the day would bring. I was challenged to believe anything good for sure, but forged on ahead with the knowledge that my God is a good God, and that they prayers we had prayed would be answered.

When my son called to tell me the news, my heart was elated! To say that I was euphoric is an understatement! I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry and I wanted to dance; all at the same time. You just don't know how amazing it was to be hearing that my Pastor was okay.

In the next few minutes, all across facebook, word began to go from person to person, and electronic shouts of praise could be read all day long. Yesterday was one of those days that I will remember for years to come; the day that my God answered the prayers of my church family in a big way, and like my Pastor has been telling us all year long, "God wants to show Himself strong!" And boy did He!

Do You Know The Jesus Of The Bible?

This came in my inbox this morning from Joseph Prince. This was so good, I had to re-post it:

John 14:77“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
Someone once told me that just because you ask God for something, it does not mean that He will give it to you. Quoting 1 John 5:14–15, he said that we first have to ask according to His will before He hears and gives us what we ask of Him.

Of course, we do not ask for things that are against God’s will or Word. But what is normally implied in the earlier statement is that we don’t always know what God’s will for us is — “what will be, will be”. But didn’t Jesus say, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”? (John 14:9) This means that if you want to know what the Father’s will, mind, heart or attitude toward you and your family is, just look at Jesus in the Gospel stories.

So if your child is sick, is it God’s will to heal him? Well, look at Jesus and see how He ministered to children who were sick — the Syro-Phoenician’s daughter who was demon-possessed (Mark 7:24–30), Jairus’ daughter who was dead (Mark 5:22–24, 35–43), and the widow of Nain’s only son who had died and was about to be buried. (Luke 7:12–15) Jesus cast out the demon. He raised the dead. He healed them all!

Beloved, don’t say, “We can never know God’s will. Sometimes He heals, sometimes He doesn’t. He may prosper us, but He may also take away our prosperity.” The Jesus of the Bible never made anyone sick. He never made anyone poor. He made the little become much with 12 baskets full of leftovers. (Matthew 14:20) He gave a net-breaking, boat-sinking load of fish to fishermen. (Luke 5:6–7)

My friend, the Jesus of the Bible loves to heal, deliver, prosper and save people. This Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) And He says to you today, “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” So you can know God’s will for you. You can see what He will do for you when you know the Jesus of the Bible and what He did.

It's The Most ???? Time Of The Year

Today is the 16th of December, 2010. Drawing near is the close of another year in my life, and I have to be honest, this one's been the toughest of my forty-seven years on this planet. The Christmas season is in full swing for most people, yet for me it is just another series of days to get through. Don't get me wrong, I'm still so very thankful for the birth of my Lord Jesus, because without Him, me and my family would not be in as good a shape as we are.

For years I've heard how hard the holiday seasons can be for people who have lost someone to death, and truthfully I've not given it much thought. Not because I'm a callous person, but you know how it is. If you're not having to deal with that type of thing, it really is hard to realize what others go through and even harder to empathize.

This year at the Felts household there has been little joy in the holiday season. As a family we decided that we would not do our traditional Christmas decorating. (Having Micah not do the Christmas tree skirt dance will be missed though.) We have however trimmed our windows with garland along with some new L.E.D. Christmas lights. And when I say "we" I mean my bride has. And in lieu of our traditional Christmas tree with all the ornaments we've collected over the past twenty-two years we purchased a Charlie Brown tree, and put it on top of our television. It does make us laugh a little.

I want to celebrate Christmas; I want the big, old fashioned family Christmas as bad as Clark Griswald wanted one in "Christmas Vacation", but my feelings are raw and putting on the "happy face" isn't as easy as it once used to be. This is not to say that Jesus hasn't showed up and rescued me, He has on numerous occassions, often through my band of brothers & sisters in Christ that have continued to lift me and my family up in prayer.

And while this year's festivities may be lighter than in years past, my family will survive this Christmas holiday, and make it through. We are about to reach a hurdle, probably one of the hardest next to the actual anniversary of Noah's death, and I am thankful that my Lord Jesus has continued to walk with us every step of the way. So even though this is a difficult time in my life, I will make the best of it, spending as much time with friends as possible and loving my family a lot. Because truthfully, it's the people that you will take with you into eternity, not the presents. Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!

Don't Let Disapointment Get You

Disapointment is a large hole that will try to suck you into it and lead you to sin. I am reminded of the Sarlac pit in the Star Wars movie "Return of the Jedi". It was a large, gaping hole in the desert in which lived a creature call a Sarlac.

This creature had long tentacles which would reach out and grab any unknowing creature, pulling them down to its waiting, cavernous mouth to be eaten. Well, disapointment can be just like that. With it's tentacles of self pity, sadness and many other forms of selfish emotions, it can entangle your spirit and pull you towards it's cavernous mouth of sin.

Unlike what was portrayed in the movie, (Jabba the Hutt feeding his enemies to the Sarlac), the way a Sarlac obtained it's food was by feeding on any creature unaware that it was there. Any creature that didn't know better and travelled too close to the edge of it's pit would end up as a tasty morsel for the Sarlac.

As Christians, especially Christians who read and meditate in God's Word, we should really realize disapointment for what it is, an emotion, that if left unchecked, will get the best of us every time. Even though I encountered some disapointment today, I will not fall prey to it's wiley ways. Instead I will give it a wide berth as I pass it by and avoid the sin that it would try to bring me to.

Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!