Regard Not the Iniquity in Your Heart
I am going to continue on with some things from last time that I shared with you. I thank God for his great mercy and grace upon all of our lives. This gospel truly does bring salvation (deliverance from every hindering influence) to those who believe (trust in, rely on and adhere to it).
In Psalm 66:18 it says, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: But verily God hath heard my; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer." When God, by His Spirit, starts bringing these iniquities up out of your heart, it can be quite miserable, and even several years back when I saw this in the Bible, it was hard for me not to consider my heart and how 'wretched' I felt when these things would come up. And it is not that you deny what is there, you just do not look on it - you look to the gospel and let the gospel set you free from whatever iniquity is there. I have learned that when the light of the glorious gospel shines on that darkness, that is the love of God, and that I should embrace it. (Not saying it is easy, but it has gotten easier over the years.)
I shared last time in "Overcoming Curses" how God was leading me to overcome, and setting my heart free from, witchcraft curses that were in my life from inquiring of the devil when I was younger. The Lord had me call my mother and older sister last week and ask what they remembered about all of this. When I called my mother and asked her if she knew who had bought the ouija board, she was very abrupt and said she did not remember. You could tell she did not even want to talk about it. She told me she had 'renounced' that years back at some bible study. But in the spirit it was right to keep pressing her about this and I did. The other morning I woke up and it was in my spirit to call her again and tell her that I had to be responsible before God for doing all those occult practices because they were an abomination to the Lord, but that she would also be held responsible before God for allowing those kinds of things to go on in our home. Those things have brought curses on our lives because they were of the devil and were in rebellion against God and His Word, even if they were done innocently. She never said much more and we hung up. Then I called my older sister and told her I believed it was right to tell her also what I had told my mother, and she did get mad. She told me she had been forgiven and this was the devil in me bringing it up. But this was not the devil bringing all this up, it was the Spirit of God, and I told them so. And when the Spirit of God brings it up, He will bring your heart to repentance and then there will be forgiveness. If there is anything in your life that you get offended and mad about when God brings it up, then you are still bound to it, and that is why they both responded the way they did. They both have had wrecks - not their fault either - over the past year, and I told them that these wrecks did not 'just happen', any more than mine and Travis' did not 'just happen'. In Proverbs 26 it says the curse causeless does not come. These were works of the devil that we did, and these works got into our soul (will, intellect and emotions). I told them that I had said to them what I believe God wanted me to say, and whether they accepted it or rejected it was between them and God. I have not heard any more from then since then. But I am overcoming, and I thank God for it. I am after the fulness of the blessing of the gospel in my life, and I am going to see it.
A verse that God has ministered to me on several occasions is in Job 5:17-18. It says, "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole." And Hebrews 12 says if we are without chastisement (correction), then we are bastards, and not sons. Who wants to be that? Sometime back I remember Doyle talking at church and saying, "If you do not have correction going on in your life, then you need to ask God why, because these are paths of correction that He leads us down, and if you are not being corrected, you just might be going down the wrong path." For the past 13 years, that is all that has been going on in my life. I will acknowledge, that even growing up I did not like to be corrected - I wanted to be the 'perfect little girl', and I tried my best to be - all self righteousness - all as filthy rags! Even after I got in this walk, I for sure did not like God to correct me. And that is pride! Correction hurts - in Hebrews 12 it says it is even grievous, but afterwards it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. And I do like that.
When the gospel shines on all that darkness in our hearts, beware, because the devil will make you feel like the scum of the earth and tell you so. But I have learned to fix my heart on the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and believe through those feelings. Just since these wrecks and the gospel shining on all this darkness of the occult still in my heart, the devil has tried to tell me that everything God has ever spoken to me was not even God. And I have humbled myself (as in times past) and told the Lord, "If I have missed hearing you in anything, then you need to tell me now." Jesus did say we were to try the spirits, whether they be of God or not. But the faith of God in my heart, and the death, burial and resurrection inside of me has pushed those spirits away and I overcome them every time they rise up against me. Even unbelief in your own soul will manifest, but you believe through your unbelief. I thank the Lord that in every situation He will give us the victory, if we will hold fast in our believing. He is for us, not against us.
This past Monday night I was in my car coming home from church. (Doyle had been talking about the ouija board, divination and the occult in general.) In my heart I was thinking about some things and the faith of God rose up inside of me and I said, "One thing I know, is that when Jesus was raised from the dead, He overcame the ouija board, seances and all occult practices." I could tell I was overcoming and putting some more of these things out of my heart right when I said it. That is the power of God working to those who believe!
So stand fast in your believing, and thank God for any and all correction that is going on in your life. That is what this gospel is about - the power of God to deliver us from every hindering influence. In the Psalms it says He will beautify the meek (the humble) with salvation! Praise God.
