Traveling around the US and Canada the last three years I have talked with thousands of church attending people and one of the biggest concerns that I have heard is that their local churches simply do not teach the meat but water down their messages to placate the ears of their patrons. They are not learning the key things in their spiritual walks that really make an impact in one's life such as how to walk in the authority of Christ daily, how to hear the Lord’s voice and how to stop hearing from the enemy’s tormenting thoughts, and how to best handle their relationships in life and walk in peace. Unfortunately when you are not taught the deeper spiritual things of God you suffer greatly in your mind, spirit and body.  Some churches will teach that you should live a godly life according to the Bible but few teach you how to actually do it. Many churches teach you that you are a Christian so you can’t possibly be influenced by demons in your mind and then recommend their people to go to their local doctors to obtain their advice for their mental anguish instead of teaching them how…

Matthew 4:17 New King James Version (NKJV) 17 From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Many Christians around the globe have been crying out for revival for many years.  Unfortunately the main issue is that without true repentance we will not be able to see lasting revival and that starts with the church leadership.  We need to see church leaders who humble themselves before the Lord by repenting for their sins and pursuing righteousness in their hearts, and living a life of holiness. When people grow up they get wounded in their souls by their mothers, fathers, step parents, siblings and others.  They get sexually violated, emotionally and even physically hurt.  Every time we get hurt by other people our soul gets wounded and then demons are able to legally attach to us by tormenting our thoughts.  Then when we get married and relationships we tend to get into arguments and strife with the person we initially used to love.  Then we become married and miserable and often go through a divorce and then get remarried and unless we get our soul wounds healed and delivered from the demons tormenting our thoughts,…

The bible says that we will face storms in life and have situations that will be sad and hard to walk through. Some of the storms will be created by other people who will come against us and cause us pain and tears. Often they come from people who we love. Some of the storms we create for ourselves from the decisions that we choose to make. John 16:33 New King James Version (NKJV) 33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” The enemy often  speaks into our thoughts to cause us to live in fear as to what could possibly happen to us if we choose to do something or don't do something. FEAR is often known as False Evidence Appearing Real. Then when bad things actually do happen to us the enemy will try to speak into our thoughts to remind us of all the injustices that others have done to us so we will have unforgiveness and bitterness in our hearts, blaming us for our own bad decisions, and trying to condemn us…

How should you handle emotional abuse in marriage & relationships? Emotional abuse in marriage is unfortunately more common than people would want to think and is also equally as challenging to decide just how to address it and with whom.  Most times when two people get married for the first time they expect their partners to love on them and to allow them to make decisions that bring the greatest level of satisfaction to them.  They both expect to be able to do whatever they want to do that will bring them the greatest level of enjoyment.  Often times shortly after the wedding (and some times longer)  one of the spouses will usually place demands to make most of the decisions in the marriage and begin to control and manipulate the other spouse who usually has more of a giving heart.  Over time it begins to cause the spouse who is being controlled to feel less valued, dominated and no longer feel loved.  The more demanding spouse wants even more control, will behave very proudly and talk more condescending with disrespect to their mate.  Eventually the controlled spouse will feel sick to their stomachs frequently because of the consistent arguments…

The enemy knows if he can get enough people to believe lies about a godly person then the effectiveness of what the godly person is trying to accomplish for the Lord will be greatly diminished.  This is how the enemy works throughout the world is to create a false narrative, often about the character of godly people, in order to render them to be completely ineffective. The people who have the heart of the enemy within them also must appear to have a good heart with good intentions in order for their false accusations to be at least partly believed.  If the general populace know that a person has evil intentions then they will never believe the evil that they are trying to portray about the godly people could possibly be true.   For many of us it is like we are living a real-life spy thriller as we don’t know who we can completely trust.  Many times those with evil intentions will act like they are our best friends and even try to marry us but over time (sometimes a year or longer) we will finally start discerning that they do not have our best interests at heart and…

So last night I returned to Denver from tending to the funeral of my oldest brother Keith from Indiana. I love to go for runs, walks and hikes and the weather was perfect in Denver this morning for a long run, walk and hike on a trail that I had not ventured on before. I went about 90 minutes in one direction towards the Rocky Mountains. On my way out I noticed something I had never seen on any of my hikes before that were not around any body of water (stream, creek, river, pond, lake, ocean). I saw 3 large fish that were about 18-24 inches long. It seemed strange to me as the nearest stream, creek and river was over 10 miles away and there were no ponds around that would hold fish that large nearby as I was near the high point of the area. I then hiked another 90 minutes and realizing that I did not bring any water with me, decided to return as the temperatures were warming. I had noticed a sign warning me about rattle snakes in the area that I was hiking in. About half way back to home I saw a…

Why are so many people in the church struggling to have peace and see the fruit of the spirit evident in their day to day lives?  Why are so many people living in either miserable marriages or experiencing painful divorces?  Why do so many people have sickness and disease in their bodies? Why are so many children angry at their church-going parents?  Why do so few people in church truly love each other like Christ? Romans 7: 4-25 New Living Translation 4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature,  sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law,…

Have you ever considered what you say to your children can haunt them the rest of their lives if you speak negative words of death over them?  Conversely, if you speak positive words of encouragement and life that they will blossom like a flower that receives sunshine and water and will see blessings in their lives.  How often do you think and take inventory of exactly how you speak to and treat your own children?   Those who spoke negatively every day to their children as they were growing up will see children who are largely affected in a negative way for the rest of their lives.  Unfortunately the parents will then blame their children and speak out words of condemnation over them causing a huge chasm to expand throughout their lifetimes between them.  Their children will naturally distance themselves from their parents - wanting to stop the onslaught of death words over them.  Then often the parents will blame shift the reasons that their children want nothing to do with them onto their victimized children causing their children to feel hurt deeply and rarely wanting to ever speak to them as their parents need to own their abuse over…

What are soul wounds?  We are made up of three parts.  We are a spirit that has a soul and we live in a physical body.  Our souls are comprised of our minds, freewill and emotions.  Both Satan and God want our souls.  We have a freewill to choose to serve God or Satan.  When we are hurt growing up then demons have a legal right to attach to those wounds.  The demons then give us thoughts in our minds and remind us of the pain that we went through, the injustices, the violations, the rejections, and when we listen to them we will not be at peace. We will have challenges sleeping at night as the enemy torments our thoughts. We will make bad decisions that will hurt us and others.  We will have more fruit of the flesh then fruit of the Holy Spirit.  We have to discern which thoughts are from the enemy and which are from the Lord and reject all thoughts coming from the enemy. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 New King James Version (NKJV) 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling…

In prayer today the Lord showed me the state of the church around the world and how so many have been playing church without true repentance for their sin. They have walked in pride and arrogance coming against those who are godly because they are able to speak louder and make threats if anyone dares comes against them. The spirits of Jezebel and Leviathan have infected many of those in the church at all different levels. Jezebel wants to pursue leadership so they can control other people and come against the true Holy Spirit and shut down the Lord in people’s lives. So many are sexually impure, controlling, manipulative, prideful (Leviathan – Job 41), lie and come against their own godly spouses trying to stop them from doing the work of the Lord, coming against those who are in godly ministries operating for the Lord, wanting to promote themselves, take money from people who are hurting and use them, and they have impure motives in their own hearts. God said He is going to expose those who have ungodly minds and impure hearts like never before. He has given them time to repent and they are thumbing their noses at…