Awards Are Not Rewards

It is wrong that people believe they can determine who has had the greatest worship song of the year.

People can give affirmation and acknowledgments of accomplishments but

Rewards Are Given in Heaven.

These are carnal operations that divide the Body. This breeds competition and causes sincerity to leave the hearts because of ambition.

I bet there is a little girl or boy who whispered a song to God that was a sweet incense in the nostrils of the Father.

It wasn't recorded professionally by man but it registered in Heaven.

I am sure there is widow who uttered a cry somewhere in the world that moved the Father more than a prolific artist.

The worship of the poor from a place of brokenness pouring out before the Throne probably moved the Father in a way our professionalism never will.

David on the backside of the wilderness was taking care of problems that his brothers should have been dealing with.

His worship is still being read today. 

His worship being inspired by the Holy Spirit to the point He prophesied the Messiah.

His worship moved God in such a way He became empowered to conqueror lions, bears and Goliaths.

When did man earn the right to measure worship based on popularity instead of the impact it had on God's heart?

God alone determines the weight of reward on the worship offered.

Worship is intimacy with God. How can we measure one person's love language to God over anothers?

Only God can measure the sacrifice it required to render praise and worship.

Hebrews 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.

These offerings were peace offerings and not trespass offerings.

These offerings were meant to keep the established peace that had been attained through the sacrifice offered for sin already.

Meaning the Lamb had been crucified and the blood shed for our sin. I am now in a place of  peace with God.

Now we offer a praise to keep the relationship in place. How can any individual measure praise or worship as it is an offering rendered to keep the relationship intact?

In order to measure worship or praise we would have to also have the ability to measure the heart of the one rendering it.

This alone is Gods to receive and to reward the one offering it up to Him.

I believe strong delusion has prevailed over many in the spirit of pride without even knowing it.

I believe what could have started sweet and innocent can become tainted when this spirit of competition enters in.

The Word says in Isaiah 42:8

  I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to idols.

When we begin to exalt leaders and gifts in such a way as American Idol we make people into idols.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying, appreciating, honoring and blessing gifts that God gives to the church for her building up.

Yet to begin exalting these offices and talents in the same way the world does will eventually cause the once open Heavens over the lives of these anointed vessels to begin to close.

Many will produce music but it is no longer worship in the ears of God.

They will feel forced by industry to have to produce a number 1 seller or stay at the top of the charts. This is a syench in the nostrils of God. It does not come out of a sincere and genuine pursuit but out of performance and self recognition.

As the Body of Christ, we must constantly assess our priorities and reasons for doing what we are doing. Worship is for God alone.

Not a stage for men and women to be heralded on.

God visits altars not platforms and stages.

Worship must be offered as it was on the altar of incense that was started by the fire on the altar.

Everything else is strange fire.

In His Service,

Jesse Griffin

Men of God / Abstain

Men of God, the war for your soul is real.

All around us are things that are eroding at society and bringing more and more moral decay.

It comes to us, we do not have to look very far.

This Screenshot is from my SPAM account on FB. Just one click opens a portal and our eyegate.

It is trying to bring a collapse to the integrity, holiness and perseverance of the House of God and men of God. The enemy knows if the men go so does the order of God.

We must understand, this is a trophy hunt for the adversary.

The Good News is men of God, you do not have to lose the battle.

We are admonished

Rom 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us

Peter writes 

1Pe 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.

Learning to abstain is the KEY.

To abstain means to hold oneself off from or refrain.

 In order to learn to abstain one must also learn how to ABIDE. 

Jesus said in John 15:4 unless you ABIDE in me you can do NOTHING. 

We cannot bear fruit unless we abide.

 How do we abide?

1. Pray

2. Fast

3. Communion

4. Read the Word / Study / Meditate 

5. Worship

6. Fellowship with Believers

7. Serve somewhere

8. Pray for others

9. Healthy Hobbies

I know that this sounds easier than it actually is, but it is a necessary practice that each one of us men must learn to do.

If the enemy gets you, it fragments the home.

Home is to be your paradise, your garden, oasis where you provide and protect your family.

No one is going to protect us if we do not want to be protected.

Single men, you must learn how to war against those things that pull on your flesh. Find some stronger men in the faith and get filled with faith, strength, wisdom and power.

Let them pray for you and don't deny the battle.

Instead realize what the battle is for and make a choice.

Submit yourself FIRST TO GOD

James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

8  Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.

Ask the Lord to give you singleness of mind and focus. Don't just have the knowledge of Heaven but desire the world.

Married men.  Change the way you see your wife. Years ago I knew my wife is not a ball and chain. She is an anchor that keeps me from being pulled out into dark and dangerous waters.

If you view your helpmate as unable to help you, you will despise her and become more gravitated to what you should be running from.

Do not despise your good thing and then sell out for a morsel of meat.

My wife and I have an understanding about the war on men. When we first met I told her if you hear me praying against adultery, pornography, fornication, and perversion it is not because I am doing it.

It is a constant reminder that I refuse to come into an agreement with something that will ruin my walk with God, my family,  my wife and marriage, or my soul.

If you struggle with lust and its affects, you are not alone. 60% plus deal with this issue from the fall.

The good news is you do not have to go through alone from defeat to defeat.

We have a High Priest who was tempted in all areas, yet without sin. 

He understands the pressure. 

We can talk to Him!

1. Submit to God

2. Resist the Devil.

3. Renounce the temptation immediately

4. Cleanse your hands

5. Purify your heart ❤ 

Here is a process that  helped me be victorious.

At times as a single man, I would lay on my face a cry out to God because I was alone but my flesh was rising up.

I walked celibate for 13 years. It is possible if we take the right steps. We must see the value in why the word tells us to avoid youthful lusts and fornication.

Why is pornography wrong? Why is fornication wrong? Why is adultery wrong?

It goes completely against the nature of God who is not perverted but Holy and Righteous.

He does not break a Covenant He instituted.

These perversions destroy the institution of marriage, makes room for idolatry and promotes selfishness. Not only is it carnally based but it is demonically inspired.

In many cases there is more at work than just a persons flesh.

Here is a true story. A Man of God went to a porn site. The people logged his IP address and got his info.They BLACKMAILED HIM!

 He paid once but then they insisted on more. They would tell his wife, friends, oh and yes... his church.

The only way he could break free was to tell his wife and  get help from the church.

The DEVIL is a professional at extortion.

The only way to be free is to break completely free and break the power of His influence. 

You must cleanse your heart of what he is able to tempt you with.

Don't open the door. ABSTAIN. Get help 🙏 

In His Love,

Jesse Griffin

Be PERFECT

A person looking for a perfect man or woman of God to serve or follow will never find them in the sense of a person who is flawless.

Instead, one should look for those who are mature and still allowing perfection to happen.

The commonly used verse "be perfect as your Father is perfect" means be mature.  

Matthew 5:48

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

It means to allow completion. Allow for the culmination of the expected end which is to become fully grown. To fully mature and exercise virtue.

It does not mean one is instantly perfect on the spot. It is a continual forward progress until we become like our Father. 

We are becoming.

Jesus prayed in John 17

22  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

23  I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me

In John 15:4 Jesus said to the Apostle, you cannot bear fruit unless you abide in Him.

If we see a lack of fruit or character it reveals a lack of abiding.

The Apostle Paul said "follow me AS I follow Christ"

One challenge is discerrning between a preacher, teacher, a called one and a FOLLOWER.

Christ had this to say in regards to those who taught but lived contrary to their teachings.

Matthew 23

1  Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,

2  Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

3  All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

Easy English Version

Jesus talks about dangerous teachers

Matthew 23

 1  After that, Jesus spoke to the crowd and to his *disciples.

 2  ‘The teachers of the *Law and the *Pharisees have authority to explain the *Law of Moses.

3  You must obey everything that they teach you. But you must not do the same things that they do. They teach you what the *Law of Moses is. But then they themselves do not obey these rules.

The Lord did not have a problem with what the teachers and Pharisees taught.

His issue was their heart condition, motive and that they themselves did not obey what they taught.

What they teach is correct, but the character in which they live is not.

If you obey what they say (because it is still the Word "Law") it will benefit you.

We will get lost when we begin to analyze, scrutinize and then criticize every action a person in ministry makes.

The question needs to be asked. Are they teaching right? 

Are they living in right?

Do they live what they preach?

Can it be seen with evident fruit that they are not just teaching Christ, but that they are LIVING CHRISTLIKE?

Then pick up not just their teachings, but their example of character as well.

We must not allow pride a place to set up its Throne on our hearts to the point we cannot find, follow and serve someone somewhere.

In His Love,

Jesse Griffin

Snares To The Soul

Healing Anger and Bitterness/ Mara

SNARES TO THE SOUL.

There are times we must face the facts that we have caused problems or have been problematic in our lives, 

As believers, as we come out of sin and bondage, we can almost guarantee we hurt people.

We make it right and we determine to be part of solutions instead of problems.

On the contrary,, some believing individuals, for whatever reason, never get delivered, healed or mature. Something hinders them from receiving.

Instead, they leave a continuous wake of destruction behind them.

They are so bitter, angry, critical and unforgiving, that nobody is good or right enough.

If ninety-nine things go right, but one thing goes wrong, they park on the negative.

They just can't stay grateful, thankful and joyful.

Something always is happening. 

They are at the epicenter of victimville (my word).

They live somewhere different in their mind.

Everyone is against them.

Noone understands them.

The enemy is always at work.

They see devils and enemies more than they see God and friends.

They go on a journey of self sabotage and sabotaging others as they rampage about everything that is going wrong.

Pride fuels anger and instead of a full inspection of the heart, they blame everyone they ever knew. The people that are closest to their inner circle are about to feel hurricane force winds.

Nothing stills the turbulence of the unsettled emotions and feelings of poisoned waters.

Mara sets in.

They are tainted by the gall of bitterness.

Wormwood rules their life and brings them a false sense of strength and independence.

They are entitled to be the way they are as they identify as a victim. They, after all, are always right.

Humility runs away as they target their victims in the cross hairs of their scope.

When we have people in our lives that continuously belittle, degrade, devalue and undervalue people, the Spirit of love and honor is missing.

We must make a choice on what to do before it gets ahold of us too.

Eventually it can poison us if we allow it.

Pro 21:19 It is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman.

Pro 22:24 Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man you shall not go: 

25  Lest you learn his ways, and get a snare to your soul.⁹

Pro 29:22 An angry man stirs up strife, and a furious man abounds in transgression. 

Let us become the wise Bride and not destroy what we should be building.

Pro 14:1 Every wise woman builds her house: but the foolish plucks it down with her hands.

As Moses led Israel into the Wilderness they at one point found no water.

 Exodus 14:22  So Moses brought Israel from the Red sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water.

When they did find water it was undrinkable.

23  And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah.

This is how many people are. The water in them is poisoned. No one can drink.

Blessings and Cursing cannot come from the same well.

 24  And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink?

 25  And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them,

A TREE 🌳  YESSSSS. He threw in a TREE and the waters were healed.

I am here to say Jesus hung on that TREE at CALVARY. The wood of the cross makes all bitter waters sweet. Let Him throw the completed work of the CROSS into our lives and watch the HEALING FLOW.

BITTER WATERS MADE SWEET!

Then as we drink and are refreshed He speaks His Promises to us.

 26  And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.

1. Listen to His voice

2. Do right in His Sight

3. Give Ear to His commandments

4. Keep His Statutes

5. Receive His protection

6. Be Healed

OH HOW SWEET IS HIS LOVE TOWARDS US.

NOW BE HEALED in Jesus Name!

In His Service, 

Jesse Griffin