Even four weeks later, President Barak Obama’s Cairo speech is still reverberating in Washington, D.C. To his credit, the president used the speech to shatter an ugly myth when he confronted Holocaust denial.

But unfortunately, President Obama’s speech actually reinforced other dangerous myths about Israel’s history and the true obstacles to peace in the Middle East.

Last Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stepped up to set the record straight. And last week, two Democratic senators—Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey—added their voices to the chorus of correction. Taking on a popular president from your own party is never easy. It is therefore of great significance that these two Democrats felt the need to clarify that when it comes to the specifics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the president does not speak for the party.

Nearly two weeks ago, Democratic Majority Leader Sen. Reid, sent a letter to President Obama. Reid politely reminded the president of the real threats to peace in the Middle East. In Cairo, President Obama glossed over the long history of Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist. Sen. Reid wrote, “I believe that negotiations will be successful only with a renewed commitment from the Palestinians to be a true partner for peace.”

In Cairo, President Obama largely ignored the leading role of Iran in fueling the conflict with Israel. Sen. Reid wrote that the peace process must not “take away from your commitment to deal with the ongoing threat from Iran. Iran has continued to call for Israel’s destruction while repeatedly defying the international community with its nuclear program.”

The following day, Sen. Menendez went to the floor of the Senate to deliver a 13-minute speech on Israel. While not mentioning President Obama by name, he issued a powerful rebuttal of the myths that the president seemed to embrace. In Cairo, the president suggested that Israel’s right to exist is based upon Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

In response, Sen. Menendez walked through the over 3,500-year-old connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. “Let’s be very clear,” Menendez stated, “the Holocaust is not the main justification for Israel’s existence.”

While in Cairo, President Obama stated that Palestinian “dislocation” was a result of “Israel’s founding.” Sen. Menendez noted that, “the more than 700,000 Palestinians who left Israel were refugees of a war instigated by Arab governments bent on seizing more land for themselves. ” Sen. Menendez also mentioned that 750,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed by Israel, a fact absent from the president’s speech.

While the president downplayed the threat from Iran, Menendez highlighted it. Iran, he stressed, is not a just a “potential threat” to Israel’s existence—it is a present threat to Israel’s existence though its arming and funding of Hamas and Hezbollah. Sen. Menendez was clear that “under no circumstances whatsoever can we allow that conventional threat to become a nuclear one.”

We live in a time when Israel’s enemies are aggressively seeking to delegitimize her by rewriting both the history of the Jewish people and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In such a climate, even people sympathetic to Israel are sometimes swayed. It is thus good indeed to see Israel’s friends on both sides of the aisle step up and correct the record. Thank you, Sen. Reid and Sen. Menendez, for your leadership and your friendship on this issue. Your services to the truth and to Israel are deeply appreciated.

To watch the video of Sen. Menendez’s compelling speech on Capitol Hill, click below.

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Do you look forward to spending the rest of your life with your husband, or do you regret the day you ever said, “I do”? Marriage can be challenging, but God never intended for you to go at it alone. If you invite Him into your home, He will help restore your marriage. Click below to watch the video.

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Several years ago I regularly struggled with discontentment. I was so disheartened by my problems and life in general that I spent hours seeking God for answers. I would pray in my car, in the office, everywhere. But nothing changed.

The uneasiness I sensed was the last thing on my mind when I went to bed at night and the first thing to flood my thoughts when I awoke the next day. I started to concede defeat and remain unhappy when God spoke to me through His Word.

“For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with good things” (Ps. 107:9, NKJV).

At that moment I knew what God meant. I had experienced many highs in my walk with the Lord. I was used to the Father blessing me every time I sought His hand, so I became relaxed in my relationship with Him. But God wanted more, so He started prodding and creating in me dissatisfaction for spiritual mediocrity.

I cannot adequately describe what God did for me during that season of my life, but I can say I learned never to take His goodness, favor and presence for granted. Yes, God blesses us with earthly blessings, but He is the only person who can satisfy that deep yearning we have for Him because He is the one who creates it.

Don’t settle for business as usual. Step out of your comfort zone and let God move you to a new place in Him.

No matter where you are in your walk with the Lord, whether on the mountaintop of life or in the valley of hardships, stay close to Him and seek His face. He will respond and invade your mediocre walk with Him.

To catch a glimpse of the eternal God so impacts us that we are lifted from the mundane affairs of this temporal life and transported into the reality of the kingdom of God. We must ask God to heighten our ability to see into the heavenly realm. We desire this, first of all, because we have a desperate need for Him. Secondly, we need revelation, in order to see with our hearts the conditions of people to whom we are called as His servants.

Read 2 Kings 6:15-17, Is. 6:1-13, Matt. 5:8, Luke 10:21-24, Luke 17:20-24, 2 Cor. 4:17-18

Heart Issue

What concerns or unsettled issues are there that intrude upon your ability to receive fresh revelation from God?

Prayer Focus

Father, we realize how vital it is to live in the realm of heavenly vision. Free us, Lord, to not only receive from You, but also confidently release what You give us. We look to You for wisdom and instruction so that each one of us might effectively use our gifts to lift up Your name and edify Your church. Amen.

Brenda J. Davis is the acquisitions editor for Creation House and former editor of SpiritLed Woman magazine.

Acts 20:1-38 Fear is one of the greatest enemies of every Christian. Satan seeks to paralyze us with fear. Fear is Satan’s anesthesia that causes us to be frozen on his operating table where he can perform wicked surgery on our souls. One of the secrets of the early church’s success in the spread of the gospel is that those early believers loved not their lives to the death. When we read Revelation 12:11, we often skip over the last part. This verse reads, “And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

When we overcome the fear of losing our lives for the sake of the gospel, we become as bold as Paul was. Many had warned Paul that he would face much persecution and even death, but his response was as follows: “But none of these things move me, nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24).

Recently I read a poem written by E. H. Hamilton. This poem was found among the belongings of Betty Stem, who was martyred along with her husband in China many years ago. This poem expressed Betty’s total lack of fear. She did not count her life dear to herself. Here are a few of the thoughts expressed in this poem:

Afraid? Afraid of what?

To feel the spirit’s glad release?

To pass from pain to perfect peace?

The strife and strain of life to cease?

Afraid? Afraid of that?

Afraid? Afraid of what?

Afraid to see the Savior’s face?

To hear His welcome into grace?

The glory gleam from wounds of grace?

Afraid? Afraid of that?

This favorite poem of Betty’s expressed so eloquently her lack of the fear of death. She loved not her life to the death. Would you have such courage?

Lord, forgive me for ever being fearful of persecution or death for the sake of the gospel. May I overcome the devil because I love not my life to the death.

READ: 2 Kings 17:1-18:12; Acts 20:1-38; Psalm 148:1-14; Proverbs 18:6-7

In biblical times, a winepress represented joy, singing and rejoicing. Farmers would harvest their grapes, place them in a pit hewed from a rock called a winepress, and crush the fruit to get the juice. They would use the grape juice to make wine and serve it at weddings, dinner and other gatherings. But according to Isaiah, the winepress is also symbolic of God’s wrath. To learn more about the ancient winepress, click below to watch the video.

There is an indescribable quality about words, even when they are printed, but more so when they are spoken. Words are chariots in which the quality of the heart and mind ride forth to other souls.

The dominant heart-quality of a person will possess and accompany his words with absolute precision. If the spirit of a man is superficial, or narrow, or timeserving, or selfish, or trifling, these qualities will pervade his words, in spite of all the seriousness or sanctity he may try to put into them.

If, on the other hand, his heart is large and filled with the broad, tender love of Jesus and compassion for others, then the simplest expressions, which may seem commonplace, will be freighted with these qualities. All words are loaded with the quality of the soul out of which they proceed.

It is eternally impossible for God to utter one word that is not loaded with divinity; it is equally impossible for the devil to utter one word which does not, in some way, contain a lie.

Words are like eyes. Some eyes are inquisitive; others are pleading; others are brave; others are searching; others are mild and tender; and still others are low and mean. There is an invisible stream of soul-quality that flows out from people’s eyes, and there is no way in the world to change the quality of that stream except by changing the eye, and the only way to change the eye is to change the immortal spirit that looks out through the eye.

This same thing is true of words. Our words are the eyeballs of the heart, in which others see the quality of our minds.

The apostle Paul speaks of our words being seasoned with salt (see Col. 4:6), and Jesus tells us that we must “have salt in [our]selves” (Mark 9:50, KJV). Salt is a type of the indwelling Christ; and it is when we are salted through and through with the blessed Holy Spirit that our words will be seasoned with the real Christ-life.

Our words cannot be loaded with the Holy Spirit after they leave our lips. If God is in them, they must proceed out of a Holy Spirit element in us. The drops of blood or the tears that you may shed all contain salt; but that salt is in the stomach and the heart before it is in the blood-drops or the teardrops.

In like manner, if our words have a savor of life and power in them, they must get that quality from the inner depths of our spirits before they drop from our lips or our pens. Jesus teaches that our words reveal our heart-character and says: “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Matt. 12:37).

There are several characteristics that can be attributed to “loaded” words:

1. Words spoken or written by the Holy Spirit will be loaded with light. There will be a transparency and straightforward simplicity in them like that of clear glass. They will not be spoken for ostentation, or for sound, or in guile, or with double meaning. Words spoken for such purposes are opaque rather than clear.

Many a sermon is so preached, and many a religious book so written, that instead of revealing the truth to the simplest understanding, it obscures it. The only proper end of words is to make a thought easily and perfectly intelligible, and when the Holy Spirit inspires them, they are like balls of clear glass, in which the very core of the thought can be known.

2. Words loaded with the Spirit have an inexpressible warmth and magnetism in them. They seem to quiver with a heavenly electricity; they vitalize the mind; they penetrate the understanding; there is a love-quality in them, like the pungent, penetrating heat of sweet spices and aromatic oils. A piece of cedarwood or sandalwood will give forth a sweet, pungent odor for hundreds of years; and so there is a hot, burning flavor in the words which have come from minds aflame with divine love.

It often happens that persons devoid of the interior flame of the Holy Spirit try to put a pathos or an unction into their prayers or sermons or conversations; but in spite of all their efforts, their words are insipid, milk and water, chilly and powerless, because they come not from an interior furnace but from a painted fire, which dazzles the eye and freezes the hearer.

The Holy Spirit alone can put into our words that burning, warming sensation that kindles other souls into fervor. Notice, when some person speaks in a religious meeting under the melting, burning love of Jesus, how their words strike the mind like a warm south wind in early spring; notice how the congregation listens to catch every word; how the fiery stream of speech will evoke a pleasant smile, or a flowing tear, or awaken conviction, or a sense of joy; every mind in the congregation that loves the truth will be wide awake; there is a warmth in the expression of the people’s eyes, and if you could see into their intellects, it would resemble a flower garden blossoming into bright and glowing thoughts, and their affections melted into sweetness.

Those burning words are being shot like red-hot bullets from a divine magazine of a fire-baptized heart. In comparison with such words, all human eloquence is like cold moonbeams on a frozen sea.

3. Holy Spirit-loaded words have a divine fitness in them with regard to time and place and matter. God often arranges to have His Spirit-led children speak words in a particular set of circumstances, or at a particular time, and in a particular tone of voice that were not premeditated by the speaker and that accomplish vast and everlasting results. The people they are directed to will later say, “You spoke a certain word to me years ago, under such and such circumstances, that made a great change in my life.”

Take the case of a young lady physician who has packed her trunk to leave a certain camp meeting. She is invited to lead a young people’s meeting. An evangelist standing by, in an unpremeditated way, simply says: “Sister, the Lord wants you here; go, unpack your trunk, and lead that meeting.” The words are loaded; they pierce the heart. The young lady leads the meeting, and from that time on becomes a holiness evangelist.

A certain man is holding a meeting in North Georgia. A brother steps up and says: “I met you 10 years ago in Augusta. When I was seeking sanctification and walking in the street, I asked you several questions. You simply answered me: ‘Brother, just leave yourself in the hands of Jesus, and He will answer all your questions.’ Your words were loaded, and in a few moments I was in spiritual liberty.”

There are millions of instances in which words have been spoken under the guidance of the Holy Spirit just in the nick of time to accomplish great results.

4. Loaded words are durable; they have in them the element of immortality. Commonplace words glide away from us by the million; but certain words, appropriate to our needs and charged with the Spirit, bury themselves in our memories and remain fresh with us throughout life.

If we want our prayers, or sermons, or testimonies, or written words, to abide in everlasting fruitfulness, they must be in the order of divine will and under the impulse of the Holy Spirit. Some persons try purposely to speak wise and appropriate and powerful words. But all such is a failure.

You can’t speak loaded words by trying to; it is only by having the very fountains of our being so melted and filled and united with the Holy Spirit that, without any premeditation, every stray shot and even our ordinary conversation will be just as full of holy gravity and fiery truth as our prayers and sermons. The power must be generic and continually flowing through us from the indwelling Christ.

A trifling preacher during the week cannot speak fiery and weighty words on Sunday. Let us in secret prayer bathe ourselves so long in the bright and warm presence of Jesus that when we go forth we shall unconsciously carry in our manners and words that imitable quality of life and durability which can come alone from the Eternal One.

If in the past our words have been lacking in the divine aroma of grace, let us go to the fountain and, by persevering prayer, get in such abiding relation with the real source of all holiness as to make our very words conductors of heavenly electricity. Our infinite, loving God will gladly utilize any little humble one on this earth as a channel of holy fire, if he will utterly yield himself up to His will and the current of the Holy Spirit.

George Douglas Watson (1848-1923) was a holiness evangelist for the Wesleyan Methodist Church. He authored of several books, including Bridehood Saints and Soul Food, from which this excerpt was taken.

I will never forget the words spoken one night by the pastor of the church in which I was saved. He said, “A person may take 20 years to backslide” (referring to a complete apostasy from the Lord). This is a sobering thought.

You grow old gradually. Your hair turns gray gradually. You can backslide just as gradually. Before you know it, you have wasted your whole life.

Where is the present course of your life taking you? Are you moving toward the Lord or away from Him? If you continued forever on this path, would you wind up in heaven or in hell?

My Secret Backsliding

At one time in my walk—in the late 1970s and early 1980s—I began to backslide, though all the while I claimed to be growing and maturing. My prayer time and devotional reading of the Word decreased. My fasting all but stopped; my witnessing dropped off. I virtually never took authority over the devil. (I really couldn’t have done much anyway!)

I had less and less control over the flesh. I fell in areas I had never fallen in before. Don’t get me wrong: I never touched another woman or misused ministry funds or stole anything. But I slipped up a few times in ways I never had before. I even became addicted to video games!

I felt the presence and joy of the Lord less frequently and less abundantly, yet I preached with fervor and remained an absolutely committed believer in Jesus. I was engaged in many good and even sacrificial works—still, I was backsliding!

I will be eternally grateful to my sister-in-law who, without my knowledge, helped to pray me back on fire. How I praise God for miraculously intervening—for planting the first seeds on New Year’s Day morning 1982, lovingly rebuking me in March of that year, awakening me with a vision of a spiritual outpouring in May, showing me how far away I was drifting in September, calling me to lay everything on the altar in October, and then sending a visitation November 21, 1982. I have not been the same since.

Outward Vitality, Inward Decline

Tragically, we can have all the outward trappings of Christian zeal and service without having a vibrant relationship with the Lord. According to New Testament scholar Robert Mounce, “At Ephesus, hatred of heresy and extensive involvement in the works appropriate to faith had allowed the fresh glow of love for God and one another to fade.”

In other words, wrote Mounce in the New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans), “Every virtue carries within itself the seeds of its own destruction.” So, it could be that our very zeal for truth and purity coupled with our penchant for hard work and sacrifice could rob us of our love both for God and man.

In Revivals of Religion, Charles Finney asserted that it is possible for a person to be active in Christian service and maintain forms of religion and obedience to God—even with a backslidden heart. “But,” a troubled believers asks, “if I can seem to be on fire for God, keeping busy for the Lord and staying true to His Word, and yet be backsliding at the same time, how can I really know the state of my heart?”

A Self-Examination

Let me describe for you some tangible tests by which you can examine yourself. There’s no reason to be in the dark when it comes to your own spiritual life. Ask yourself:

Has my personal devotion to Jesus decreased? Perhaps your desire for intimate times with the Lord has waned, especially for prayer and worship, and your once-ravenous hunger for the Word is now lacking. (John G. Lake says backsliding begins with lessening hunger for the Word, while Leonard Ravenhill claims backsliding begins with decreasing prayer.)

Do you love Jesus today as you once loved Him before? You may enjoy the forms of worship—good music, singing, dancing, being part of an exciting corporate experience—but what about the object of worship? What about the Lord Himself?

You may have a message or a burden. Theology may intrigue you. The ministry may consume you. But all these things are mere idols and distractions in comparison with coming into God’s presence and fellowshiping with Him. You grow and bear fruit only to the extent that you abide in the Vine (see John 15:1-8).

Has my personal satisfaction in God decreased? Do you feel the need for things other than God to gain fulfillment? Are you increasingly seeking social orientation in place of private devotions? Do you desire recognition and acceptance by persons of flesh and blood?

The Word says, “The desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful” (Mark 4:19, NIV), and “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

At one time promotion on the job was not your primary source of satisfaction, nor was a big paycheck, a nice home, a new car, a special boyfriend or girlfriend, an exciting sports event, or even a happy family. (Yes! Spouses and children can take away from your delighting in the Lord above all.) Walking with God used to satisfy you.

Does it still satisfy you? Fully and completely? If not, you have left your first love.

Has my passion for spiritual work decreased? This will be reflected by a decreased burden for the lost (both at home and abroad), a decreased burden for revival (often replaced by good works, and more subtly by good spiritual programs), and a penchant for respectability in place of radicality. Holy zeal makes you uncomfortable, and you are becoming ashamed of Jesus and His reproach.

Witnessing used to come naturally, but now you almost avoid the subject. You simply don’t care about the ones Jesus died for. Or maybe you don’t fully believe that they are lost. Unbelief is always a result of backsliding somewhere, somehow. Do you find yourself spiritually numb?

And what about revival and visitation? How would you feel if the Spirit fell in power? (Not necessarily in some cultured—and “containable”—way, but with intensity and suddenness and upheaval.) Are you willing to let Him be in control—of the service, of the leadership, of you? Or have you become satisfied with a comfortable seat in the theater while the show itself never goes on? Beware of a powerless spiritual sophistication. The world admires it, but it has no teeth.

Have my standards of holiness become lower? Perhaps you have permitted things into your life, family or congregation that would have been unthinkable when you were on fire. You now find you are able to engage in certain activities, watch certain movies, enjoy certain sports and forms of entertainment, and attend certain functions which the Lord at one time convicted you of—but now there is no conviction!

Beware! This type of backsliding is often done in the name of spiritual maturity. I warn you as one who once fell into this very error: It is a trap and a lie!

The fact that something doesn’t “bother you” may be the loudest warning you will ever hear. You are not experiencing the freedom that comes as a result of trust; you are experiencing the insensitivity that comes from hardness. Absence of divine conviction does not mean absence of divine displeasure. It may actually point to a withdrawing of His presence. In fact, if the Holy Spirit is dealing with you even now, cry out to Him right where you are for restoring grace.

Am I backsliding in spiritual authority and personal victory? Perhaps you are experiencing a lack of victory over the flesh, falling back into old habits and lusts, finding yourself unable to resist and drive out the devil from strongholds in your life or the lives of those to whom you minister.

Remember: You can fool others, but you can’t fool the flesh—and you can’t fool the devil. As Leonard Ravenhill often asked, “Are you known in hell?” Are you moving from victory to victory, or do you find yourself more and more entangled every day (or month, or year)?

Peter taught that “a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him” (2 Pet. 2:19). You must ask yourself if Jesus is your Master or if you are mastered by sin.

Choosing to Restore First Love

The Lord speaks of our first love as a height—a glorious, wonderful height. We forsake—not lose—our first love, meaning that we leave that place of spiritual passion by the choices we make and the lifestyle we adopt. Our first love is not something we accidentally misplace.

The Lord calls us to repent of the sin of forsaking our first love, meaning that we can be restored to that place of spiritual passion by the choices we make and the lifestyle we adopt.

What then are those choices and what is that lifestyle? Jesus gives us the answer: “Repent”—meaning make an about-face—”and do the things you did at first” (Rev. 2:5).

Have you ever read a Christian book on rekindling love in a failing marriage? Such a book would diagnose the nature of marital problems and give practical steps to correct them. It might give as an example the husband who, in the early days of his relationship with his fiancée or wife, called her several times a day, sent her flowers once a week, took her on a special date every Saturday and so on. He knew how to keep the home fires burning.

But five children, three apartments, one house, four moves, six jobs and about 20 pounds later, he’s forgotten what it takes. This husband needs to do the things he did at first. He needs to set aside time for his wife and love her again as his bride!

That’s exactly what we need to do when our love for Jesus turns cold. We must renew our relationship with Him!

How? We set aside blocks of quality time to pour out our hearts to Him in prayer, sharing our innermost thoughts. We lift our voices to Him in worship, singing the songs that have been so precious to us, expressing our love for Him with thanksgiving and praise.

We saturate our minds and hearts with His Word, meditating on His truths, learning of Him, growing in knowledge and grace. We think back to the wonder of those early days, and we seek to recapture that sense of divine nearness. And, whenever we feel prompted, we share our faith.

According to Matthew Henry in his Commentary on the Bible, believers who have left their first love must return and do their first works. They must go back step by step until they come to the place where they took the first false step. They must endeavor to revive and recover their first zeal, tenderness, and seriousness and must pray as earnestly and watch as diligently as they did when they first set out in the ways of God.

Then, over a period of time, as we do these things—not with a “time clock” mentality, not as a spiritual performance or out of religious habit, not to earn brownie points or somehow merit His favor, but rather because we love Him and long for Him and want to deepen our fellowship with Him—His Spirit will flood our hearts, and before we know it, He will once again become the most precious One in our lives. Then all our good works—serving Him, sharing our faith, giving sacrificially—will become expressions of love, the overflow of hearts enamored with the Master.

That’s what it means to “do the things we did at first.” That’s what it means to return to the height we abandoned, to repent and return to our first love.

Yes, God will abundantly pardon. The Lord will receive you again, no questions asked. He has promised to draw near to those who draw near to Him (see James 4:8). As John Bunyan quaintly put it, when we take a step toward God, He takes a step toward us—but His steps are larger than ours! Now is the time to pursue the Lord with all our hearts.

Adapted from Go and Sin No More by Michael L. Brown, copyright 1999. Published by Regal. Used by permission.

“The computer made a mistake!” Have you ever said that? Most of the time, you eventually had to admit the truth: The computer didn’t make the mistake—you did.

Entering bad data into a computer produces bad output. Faulty assumptions deliver flawed conclusions. Our minds work exactly like computers do. The quality of what we feed our minds produces the quality of the results we achieve.

Input controls choice. Choice drives actions. Actions determine results. Garbage in, garbage out.

Your mind is a storehouse of facts, figures, images, beliefs and opinions. The supply in your storehouse has been collected since childhood, added to by parents, siblings, teachers, neighbors, friends and acquaintances. Your storehouse is further supplied by what you read, what you watch and what you experience.

What you have stored in your mind creates the assumptions that drive the decisions you make and the actions you take.

So how do you know you have the right stuff in the storehouse? How do you know the right data has been entered? If thoughts produce results, how do you know you have the right thoughts to create the right results?

Garbage Check

One way to know is to do a garbage check. Ask yourself: Do I have areas of repeated failure in my life? Am I:

* always broke, existing from paycheck to paycheck?

* constantly entering or leaving a painful relationship?

* continually worried about my weight?

* dependent on alcohol, food, cigarettes, work or drugs to give me momentary relief from that gnawing feeling inside?

If the answer is yes to any or all of these, then the voice in your head—which I call the High Priestess of Guilt and Condemnation—has set up a community in your head and populated it with thugs assigned to enforce wrong ideas. The High Priestess and her little friends strive to focus your energy on taking action, knowing that focusing on actions produces defeat.

The answer isn’t in the actions; that’s the end of the pipeline. The answer is in the assumptions that create the actions—the beginning of the pipeline.

I Needed Drano

I used to work 60 hours a week, convinced that work gave me my identity. I smoked cigarettes until my office looked as if a dragon worked there. I was overdrawn at the bank and in debt up to my ears.

I thought the next promotion would be the answer, the next diet would be the ticket, the next raise would get me out of debt, the next cigarette would be my last. Yeah, and the tooth fairy pays off in hundred-dollar bills.

My life was filled with promises to myself that always ended in failure—followed by shame, frustration and a solemn promise to try again. I figured God was trying to teach me something to build my character.

Here is a news flash: God is a good God. He wants only the best for us. He doesn’t put us through turmoil to teach us something.

God loves us more than we love even our own children (see Luke 11:11-13). His Word is a manual for life. The problem is that most of us were never given the owner’s manual. It sure missed my mailbox.

God doesn’t create an obstacle course for us to see how well we perform. Want some proof? Look at James 1:17: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (NKJV).

Does that sound like somebody who’s putting you through trials to teach you something? No way. So where does the bad stuff come from? Simple—check out John 10:10. We enter into error because we don’t do what our Maker tells us in the owner’s manual.

Here’s the Deal

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2). That’s the bottom line.

The patterns of this world are driven and reinforced by you-know-who in your head. She’ll point you to the world for answers, but the world doesn’t have the answers. In fact, the Bible tells us not to be conformed to the patterns of this world. Instead, we must be transformed through the renewing of our minds by the Word of God.

We have a choice: We can follow the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of the Word. One produces failure, the other success.

Easy choice. I know which one I want! But wanting it and having it are two different things. I had to want God’s wisdom enough to pursue it—and study it—to find out what was mine.

It wasn’t until I stopped resigning myself to a life of consuming carrot sticks and lettuce leaves, a life of working 60-hour weeks and being overdrawn, that it occurred to me I had a head full of misinformation that was driving me to overeat, overwork and overspend. Only then did I see the necessity of calling in the Roto-Rooter man to flush the garbage out of my head and replace it with truth.

Truth Prescription

Take out a sheet of paper and list your areas of failure. Create two columns. Label one column “The Lie” and the second “The Truth.” Under each failure area, write down all the lies that the High Priestess tells you.

Then run, don’t walk, to a Christian bookstore and invest in a concordance, a rich storehouse of truth that will help you understand the Bible. Look up words that pertain to your area of weakness (such as lack, bondage and discipline) and write down the scriptural truth about that weakness.

Select a few Scriptures to write opposite each lie. Confess the truth daily. Over time, the truth will transform your mind and push out the lies.

I promise you, this procedure works. I followed it, and I’m out of debt, with a savings program under way. My weight is stabilized at size 10. The cigarettes are gone. And, oh yes, I work 40—count them—only 40 hours a week.

You see, I finally figured out how to use the owner’s manual. OK, so I’m a late bloomer. How about you?

What’s Your Source?

Most of us give far too much attention to the television set. The morning local news is a festival of fires, stabbings, drug busts and city council scams. The evening national news is a celebration of Ebola virus outbreaks, terrorism threats, economic deficits and the whining of special-interest groups. It’s enough to make you want to lock yourself in a room filled with nothing but Archie and Jughead comic books.

Like it or not, we all define reality based on those things we give our attention to. Recent research indicates that the average American watches 6.5 hours of TV a day, a horrifying thought. Think what’s on television these days!

So What?

What’s wrong with this stuff? We believe it! Faith comes by hearing.

Hitler knew that. Quotes From Thinkers on the World Wide Web credits his minister of “disinformation,” Joseph Goebbels, with saying: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” At the other end of the spectrum, the Bible says, “Faith comes by hearing” (Rom. 10:17).

If you define happiness based on input from friends, co-workers and the entertainment industry, you’ll live your entire life feeling trapped and hopeless. I know. I took every test in Cosmopolitan for a decade.

I flunked every one. I never could get the hang of decorating rooms so they looked like the ones in Better Homes and Gardens, dinners that tasted as if Martha Stewart prepared them or closets that didn’t look like a habitat for small animals.

My friends told me things would never change. Television told me things would never change. And my own experience, aided and abetted by the High Priestess, cemented the pattern. But when I got sick and tired of the pattern, I was ready to do anything to break the mold.

Silencing the High Priestess

Here’s a foolproof way to replace the lies told by that negative voice in your head with life-changing, positive thoughts.

1. Turn off the TV. Ask yourself, “Is what I’m watching building me up spiritually, mentally, emotionally or physically?” If not, pull the plug.

2. Read. Thousands of new books are published every year, books on every conceivable subject. In our age of ever-increasing knowledge, performance experts tell us that if we do not choose to read two books a week, we choose to fall behind.

3. Listen. Most of us spend more time in the car than we’d like. Why not turn your car into a traveling library? Audiotapes on every subject are available. You can put lots of good stuff into your head if you’re willing to turn off the traffic report. Isn’t it worth it?

4. Write down the names of the four people you spend the most time with. Then ask: “Do these people support me, nurture me and encourage my creativity and ideas?” If the answer is no, get rid of those people.

OK, so they’re your family. You can’t blow them away. But if those four people drain you, you must augment your list with others. It’s a matter of life or death.

People you spend time with frame your world and influence your ability to make decisions. If you’re surrounded by the Bad News Bears, make some new friends.

More importantly, forge a relationship with the One who loves you best. The Lord Jesus Christ paid a price for you. He laid down His life so you could live. He paid the price for your bondage so you could be free from it. Spend time in His presence. Find out who He is through His Word.

“In Your presence is fulness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). Who needs garbage when you can have this?

Jane Pierotti is the founder and president of her own consulting company, Counterpoint, Inc. She is the author of Super Charged Living (Creation House.)

The book of Nehemiah says that “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10, NIV). Do you wonder how that can be true when you find it hard to maintain your joy for five full minutes? Do you think this is a biblical truth that applies to everyone but you? Think again.

The joy of the Lord is our strength. It is God’s will for our lives. And what He wills, He is able to accomplish in us—even in the midst of a bustling holiday season when we feel pulled in every direction.

If the joy of the Lord is our strength, then it stands to reason that joy would be a major focus of attack by the enemy. He wants to weaken us in whatever way he can. In order to fend off his attack, we have to be aware of the joybusters and strength-zappers he uses against us. Here are seven of them:

Resentment. Resentment is nothing new; it was evident even in Moses’ family. His sister Miriam and his brother Aaron envied him and began grumbling against him. They resented his leadership, his wife and his relationship with God.

The Lord heard their grumbling, and He called them into His presence. “‘[Moses] is faithful in all My house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?’ The anger of the Lord burned against them, and He left them” (Num. 12:7-9).

In essence, Miriam and Aaron were questioning God’s call on Moses’ life—much as some of us do with our own or others’ calls. We must realize that we have been called to our particular ministry for a purpose. No single ministry is better, more important or more valuable than another.

Still, some believers grumble about their places in the body: “Why can’t I be like that person? Why have You given me this ministry? Why am I stuck at home with the kids when so-and-so gets to go out there and be on TV?”

If there’s something you resent, take a moment right now to repent before God and say, “God, I’m sorry I got my focus off You. I give up my resentment.” Keep in mind that God does care about our words and the condition of our hearts. There is no joy in resentment. Get rid of it.

Bitterness. Bitterness also will zap your joy in a heartbeat. But it doesn’t affect only you. In Hebrews 12:15, the Lord says, “See to it bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

Bitterness doesn’t zap just your energy and strength, steal just your joy, and defile just you—it defiles many, those around you. Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who has allowed bitterness to grab her joy and tear it down? It’s almost impossible to feel joy in that person’s presence.

We do not live—or worship God—in a vacuum. When we allow the enemy to come in and steal our joy, our loss is contagious.

But the opposite is also true. If you breed joy and thanksgiving, your attitude will be infectious. Make it a point not to let bitterness creep in. Put an axe to the root as soon as you see it growing.

The longer you allow resentment to lodge in your thoughts, the more energy and power it acquires, giving rise to bitterness. Remember what James wrote regarding the tongue: “How great a fire is set by such a small flame!” (See James 3:5.) The flame of resentment can lead to a forest fire of bitterness—and eventually anger.

Anger. That’s another joybuster—anger. The Word tells us, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph. 4:26, NASB). Like bitterness, anger can “defile many.”

There is such a thing as righteous anger. Jesus got angry. God the Father got angry. But such anger does not lead to sin.

If you hear someone curse God or notice him working against God’s plan, you have reason to get angry—with a holy, righteous anger. But you can’t allow the anger to have to act on it and get over it.

Matt. 5:22 reads, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell” (NIV).

Jesus obviously sees anger as a very big deal. He says that any person who speaks ill of his brother deserves the fire of hell. We may feel we have a reason to be angry, resentful and bitter toward another person, but when we allow these wrong attitudes to take up residence in our hearts, we are liable to judgment.

Unforgiveness. Eph. 4:32 says, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Forgiveness sets us free—free to work in God’s army, to be powerful in the joy of the Lord. Unforgiveness, on the other hand, steals our joy.

It also disqualifies us from receiving forgiveness ourselves. Jesus said, “‘If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins'” (Matt. 6:14-15). God will forgive us as we forgive others, but if we refuse to forgive, then God withholds His forgiveness.

Eph. 4:31 tells us to “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” Once we do that, we are supposed to move on toward forgiveness.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Don’t give up your power to the enemy.

Fear. Sometimes we hang on to joybusters for protection, not fully trusting God to take care of us. Lack of trust is actually fear—a huge joybuster.

The Word says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God hath not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (KJV). The only fear we are to have is fear of the Lord, which is awesome reverence for Him, His majesty, His magnificence, His omnipotence, His power of creation, His power for salvation, His power for victory over the enemy. But we are not to be afraid of anything.

Fear causes us to be timid and lose the power and the sound mind that God has given to us. 1 John 4:18 tells us that “there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (NIV).

No one is greater than God, and nothing is more powerful than His love. If you are afraid—afraid you’re not going to get that promotion, afraid someone is not going to like you, afraid of death, afraid for your children—remember, perfect love casts out all fear. God knows all, sees all, can do all and can heal all. There is no fear in love.

Offense. We will find opportunities to be offended everywhere we go. But if we choose to be offended, then we allow Satan to take away all the joy that is our strength.

Ps. 119:165 says, “Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.” To stumble means to be offended.

We don’t want to stumble over anything. We want to be as sure-footed as the deer, to have hinds’ feet in high places. We want to ascend to the heights with God. If you’re offended, if you are stumbling, then you cannot climb, sure-footed, to the heights.

In the parable of the sower, Jesus told his disciples, “[Some people] hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away ” (Mark 4:16-17). In other words, they stumble.

Jesus tells us that in this world we will have trouble and persecution. He essentially says, “Trust Me, you’re going to have tribulation and persecution. You’re going to have trouble. Don’t be offended. Don’t fall away because of it.” We want to be like the seed sown on good soil—those that hear the word, accept it and produce a crop yielding 30, 60 or even 100 times what was sown. We cannot waste our time and energy on offenses.

Disobedience. Sometimes we know what God wants us to do, but we just don’t do it. Then we wonder why we lose our joy. We must acknowledge that disobedience is a major joybuster.

Remember when Jonah disobeyed God? God told Jonah to go to Nineveh because He had a message for the people there, but Jonah boarded a boat heading in the opposite direction. He endangered the lives of many because of his disobedience.

There is a ripple effect to sin. We don’t want to hurt people through our disobedience, but we do hurt them when we allow Satan to steal our joy.

Jonah experienced no joy in his disobedience. He was hiding out, living in fear. When you’re joyful you want to celebrate: You’re powerful, productive and strong.

Jesus Christ came that you might have life and have it abundantly. But the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy. Don’t let him get your joy. If you have never turned over these joybusters—resentment, bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, fear, offense and disobedience—to God, now is the time! Repent and be healed.

Marianne Clyde is a licensed marriage and family therapist in Fairfax, Virginia.