SAM HONIBALL BLOG

We all have broken areas in our life. We carry around grief and pain that can be devastating. If we carry hurt long enough we identify with it and become a victim. To escape pain we use alcohol or drugs or we try to control those around us with anger. As we proceed on the road to recovery we will come face-to-face with truths about ourselves that we have been trying to hide all along. CS Lewis said: “God whispers to us in our pleasures… but shouts in our pain.” Pain is God’s megaphone to let us know something is seriously wrong and needs our urgent attention: - What pain has God been using as a megaphone in your life to alert you to your need for help? - Who or what have you blamed for your problems – either partially or completely? - What pain have you been denying? - In what areas do you feel stuck in the pain of your past – powerless to change? - What area(s) in your life are you now ready to allow God to start helping you? - What are you still afraid to turn over to God? - How are

Since the beginning of time men and women have searched for true happiness – usually in all the wrong places, doing all the wrong things. Jesus gives us eight keys to happiness in the sermon of the mount. Let’s have a look at the first one, Matthew 5:3 (AMP) Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous—with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the poor in spirit (the humble, who rate themselves insignificant), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven! Do you ever do any of the following things? o Do you ever stay up late when you know you need sleep? o Do you ever eat or drink more calories than your body needs? o Do you ever feel you need to exercise but don’t? o Do you ever know the right thing to do but don’t do it? o Do you ever know something is wrong but do it anyway? o Have you ever known you should be unselfish but were selfish instead? o Have you ever tried to control somebody and found them uncontrollable?

Effective confession is like firing a gun. A gun that fires blanks sound the same as one that fires real bullets. If you have a snake in your garden you can fire blanks at it all you want and it will never kill the thing. However one real bullet will take care of the slimy creature in no time. That is one reason why so many Christians get frustrated with this confession thing – They are firing blanks and get no results. Again and again when God wanted to create something we get the phrase “And God said”. Last week we heard “The worlds were framed by the words of God”. So words are creative and powerful but they must be based on an underlying faith. (Rom 10:10) Consider the order, with your heart you believe, then with your mouth you confess. If confession is the gun, words based on an already present inner reality are the bullets and the gunpowder that propels those bullets is the substance of faith. So before shooting off your mouth load the gun with bullets (a clear inner image), fil

Why are there so many faith failures and frustrated Christians? Because over the years there has been a lot of good teaching on faith but very little on God’s prescribed order for using faith. Everything you see around you is the result of faith filled words. Think of God’s words as spiritual seeds that have the ability to produce physical things like trees, plants, planets and money. That is why the Bible is such an enormously powerful thing. It contains from cover to cover God’s faith-filled words empowered to produce whatever you need in your life. When you pick up your Bible you hold in your hand the seeds to produce finances, salvation of loved ones, healing, restoration of a marriage, a sound mind or anything else you could possible need. Many are too lazy to pick up the Bible. A farmer’s seed does him no good as long as it lies dormant in the sack. But when he plants it he gets a harvest. THE SEEDS OF PROVISION IN GOD’S WORD WILL NEVER PRODUCE FOR YOU AS LONG AS YOUR BIBLE GATHE