The White Stone Zone

Although Satan is a potent enemy, he has nothing left but the lie. He can't touch us, but he can lie to us about God, ourselves and our circumstances, but we only need to resist him and he will flee. We resist him because Christ is living in us and we live in Him. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; and that new creation lives in a sin cursed body in a sin cursed world. It is this sin cursed body that hides the real enemy--what the Bible calls the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. (gal.5) The Saint of God must learn to cope with this conflict on a daily basis if they are to know the abundant life Jesus promised. The flesh is totally self centered, self protecting and self absorbed. The impulse to act independantly of God relying on our own strength is constantly with us. The bad news is that it does not change--the good ne

20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth I don't know if it is half the battle, but I do know that not knowing your enemy in the Christian life is crippling, confusing and catastrophizing . Many Christians might say, "Yep, I know my enemy--it is that filthy devil...I rebuuuuuuuuuuuuuke you filthy devil." Yes, satan is a powerful foe to be reckoned with; however, he is not the real problem...he has been stripped of his power. All he has left is the lie. Lies, lies, lies, is all he has. He is not allowed to come near any believer unless God allows it. It always makes me angry when I see people getting all whipped up about the devil when the Scriptures simply say, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." That is it. The believer has been given "all the fullness" (col. 2) of Christ Jesus which includes headship over the principalities and powers. All we need to do is resist. The weakest of believers have this aut

The word repentance literally means to change one's mind. A change in thinking; aka, faith is the first step on our journey of discipleship with Jesus Christ. Repentance has been misconstrued through the years to mean changing one's behavior. To be accepted by God; therefore, one would have to change their behavior (turn away from their sins) and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This is a faulty view of repentance which can be damaging. We can not change our behavior--that is the problem and that is precisely why Jesus Christ came. He came saying, "Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Jesus followed up his command for repentance with the phrase "the Kingdom of heaven is near." If repentance is a change in thinking, why did he say, "The Kingdom of heaven is near?" Jesus said it because in order to recognize the Kingdom of God coming upon them, they had to change their thinking concerning the Kingdom of God. Israel's expectation of t

Everyone is familar with the "great love chapter," 1 Corinthians 13. Paul uses poetic language to drive home the fact that without love, even the most noble of feats is nothing. I was thinking about this passage, and I always read it from a performance oriented view; i.e., I took it to say that if I am not loving people, I am in dutch with God. The emphasis was always on my failure to love. This morning however, I realized that the emphasis is on what we possess-what we "have" or have not. This brought me to the realization that if I don't possess God's love for me personally, I can't love others; moreover, if God is love, we can easily replace the word love with God...see how this plays out in the opening verses: 1If I speak in the tongues[ a ] of men and of angels, but have not God, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mounta

There has been much controversy over spiritual gifts since the early church. The central point of our modern rub is whether or not certain gifts are "for today." Some say that gifts such as healing and speaking in tongues have ceased to exist, while others say that speaking in other languages is the only sign that one has been baptized with in the Holy Spirit. Since this controversy has existed since Paul's day, it can't be solved in a short writing; however, Paul does "bookcase" his instructions about gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 with two crucial prerequisites for any use of a gift. First, the gift must be exercised under the Lordship of Jesus Christ through the personal leadership of the Holy Spirit. Paul tells the Corinthians that the result of their previous style of worship was silence from their idols. He contrasted this with the truth that our God speaks to us and through us: 2You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influence

33 " 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. God is not a right winged conservative. Now, I can talk politics and air my opinions as good as the next guy, but when it came to the illegal alien issue, I always kept my mouth shut because I did not know where I stood. So, I decided to see if the Bible said anything about it, and this is what I found from Leviticus 19:33: " 'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. " I thought, "WOW!" Christians shoud be very careful how they approach this issue. God does not play by the rules of the USA. Some claim our Country is built on God's rules--well, what about this one?