Lazarus Ministry

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. (Ezekiel 36:25)

A promise given to me by God on November 12th 2oo8. I thought I understood what this fully meant, but I now know there was so much more. The sprinkling with water was a ritual for cleansing those who were unclean as referred to in Hebrews 10:22, Numbers 19:18 and Leviticus 14:51. Being unclean here was a reference to being influenced by demonic forces or having them reside in ones soul, not spirit, due to open doors because of sin or a generational curse. I knew nothing of these things back then but I do now. God was prophesying to me that I would be delivered and set free from these forces that had taken residence in me from the time I was a child after being molested. This though was the first step of renewal on the inside and the second step was a new heart and spirit which God has given me. I say all this to share this hope with you. God is no respecter of persons, what He did for me, He will do for you. He will cleanse you from all unrighteousness if you confess your sins. Confession is not asking for forgiveness or repenting, it is admitting to God you have sinned against Him. Asking for forgiveness and repenting should then follow. God is faithful to His word and His amazing love and grace will encompass you and lead you through all the storms in life and bring you peace that goes beyond all understanding. The  musts before all this can happen are, you must confess and forgive everyone that you hold unforgivness towards, that was the key to my deliverance! God’s own words to you this day are that He will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall shall be clean.

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So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. (Acts 5:41)

Been rejected lately for the gospel’s sake? Been through trials and temptation that are heavy? Are you under an attack and you don’t know why? Does it feel like you are being come against at all sides? Rejoice! Tribulation works out patience in us. When you suffer for Christ’s sake, you are truly blessed. Every time you overcome temptation it builds strength and endurance in you and in Revelation it tells us that we gain a crown for overcoming temptations. Be of good courage and be strong in the Lord and know that our brethren throughout the world suffer the same trials. Without opposition how could we be strong? Strength resistance training builds muscle in our physical bodies and it is the same in our spiritual walk. Opposition builds spiritual muscle. The next time you have a fight with the devil, flex your spiritual muscle and watch it grow bigger and bigger. The devil hates when you fight him and he has to flee. It’s God’s word. No matter what you go through, count it all joy!

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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

The word new in the Greek here means new in regard to form or quality. When Jesus did the work He did in my life, I was transformed. My form has changed. All the old has passed away, everything has become new. When Jesus died on the cross, we died with Him. When He raised from the dead, we were raised with Him. When the enemy comes knocking on our door to remind us of our past, our response should be, O, that person died! Funny that this morning when I woke up, I was presented with photos of me by someone from years ago that proved who I used to be. The old man. I felt a sense of remorse at first but seconds later I rejoiced! The Lord said,” Michael, look at the work I’ve done in your life!” All those past reminders did was enforce the mighty, great transformation that Jesus has done in my life. What the devil meant for evil, God turned it around for my good. Whatever is in your past, it is the old man. It is passed away. You are a new creation. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit will change what needs to be changed. It was God’s Spirit that changed my heart to want to rid myself of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. If you are looking to clean up before you come to God, it will never happen. We don’t have the ability to be righteous on our own doing. Our righteousness is as filthy rags before the Lord. We are made righteous through the blood of Jesus. I am not saying we can continue in our sin, I am saying His love does change us so that the things we did before are not the things we do now. God’s word says,”If you steal, steal no more.”  So if you lie, lie no more. If you are in sexual sin, then do that no more. Whatever it is that needs to change,we don’t have to focus on that because all our help comes from the Lord. We are to focus on Jesus and know that the good work He has started in you, He and He alone is faithful to complete. Say it out loud, I am not who I used to be!

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A night of freedom! Lazarus Ministry presents EJECTING REJECTION. We will be dealing with the spiritual aspect of rejection and how to rid of it once and for all! Come out on Friday June 15th at 7 p.m. sharp at The Meeting Place, Word of Christ International Church. Come expecting great freedom. Come and bring those wanting freedom too! If you have any questions please email me at michael@lazarusministry.com

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that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. (Deuteronomy 30:20)

O, the blessings of returning to God! What a blessed assurance. There is no place for doubt with the God we serve! He is faithful and true and kind and generous. I have learned that in this life when we are presented with such blessings and love and there is an enemy ready to steal it if we let him. Know this day that the Lord your God is in control of your days and He sees all that you encounter. Nothing is hidden from Him and what is done in secret will be brought to the light. He will reward openly what is done for Him in the hidden places. Love Him and obey Him out of a pure heart and no matter what comes against you, cling to Him, for He is the rope of Hope, cling to Him!!

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For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts. (Isaiah 57:15 , 2 Corinthians 7:10)

So do we need to repent or is repentance works based and not grace? Let’s look at it this way. If we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and confess Him, God’s word says we are saved. Simple enough. Now if we choose to stay in the very sin that had us bound, do we lose our salvation? Were we ever saved? I don’t believe one loses their salvation unless they renounce Jesus but their life on earth will be plagued with things that God never intended them to deal with. If you remain in  a known course of sin and do not repent then you open up the door to the devil to come in. Through my own experience I have learned that allowing and agreeing with sex out of marriage  and allowing and doing drugs and having  no respect for the things of God, opened up my home for every demon that had been invited in through rebellion. We can plead the blood of Jesus all we want against the enemy, but if we ask the enemy in by our actions, then we are fighting a losing battle. My people perish for lack of knowledge. This life has rules to go by that are spiritual and physical. If we break them, there are consequences. Jesus did everything for us on the cross, but if we live according to the world, then we will reap what we sow. God still loves us, we can still be saved, but we risk losing our destiny in this life through disobedience and we rob ourselves and family and those that our life should have touched through our relationship with God if we are walking out of God’s will. I was raised in the church and I accepted Jesus at a young age, but I rebelled after years of being molested as a child. In my rebellion I left the call of God on my life. He never left me but my life was terrible and filled with sorrow and pain because I allowed Satan to have his way with me through my rebellion. When I repented, my life was restored, my body healed, my wounds bound up and now I share the love and grace that God has poured on my life with others. I also preach repentance. Not all respond the same. I share out of my Damascus experience because it saved my life out of an impossible situation. God is looking for those He can work through in the times we are living. When we look back in the Bible to the characters that God used who sinned greatly, we look at king David, a murderer and adulterer. True, but he killed, then repented and he committed adultery, then repented. He didn’t continue in his sin. Saul had an experience with Jesus and became Paul. After that he did not continue to murder, but he repented. I was a homosexual and a drug addict and many other things that were against God. I had an encounter with God, I repented, and now my life will never be the same. So to answer the question, is repentance necessary? For me it was, for king David it was and for Paul it was, so what makes it any different for anyone else? David was under the old covenant, but Paul wasn’t. Some things never change. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Repentance is an act of love, not of works.

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Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life. (1 Timothy 6:12)

We can all look back and see the wonderful miracles that Jesus has done for us as we are here to tell of His power and love. We must also remember that we are a work in progress, we are masterpieces being sculpted day by day into the image of God’s Son. We are precious in His sight, after all He gave His all for us. Could there be a greater love? No. He did it all. On this road of life, we must lay hold on eternal life and see the bigger picture. We are part of a master plan and as you commit your ways to the Lord, He will cause your plans to be established and succeed and during this succession we must fight the enemy and the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds. Whatever giant you are facing right now, know that your God is greater and God calls you a David and tells you to trust in Him and war against the enemy and your situation, however big,  will bow before God. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Fight the good fight of faith, don’t give up!

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The Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord raises those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. (Psalm 146:8)

The greatest miracle to ever happen in my life was the salvation of my soul. To have the torment and mental anguish taken from me was an impossibility. God is the God of the impossible. God has healed my body of many sicknesses and diseases but the greatest was truly my mind. Torment is something you can’t put your finger on, you can’t put a bandage on it and you can’t put it on the side while you deal with life, it is always there. Things are different now, the power of Jesus Christ has taken a tormented twisted mind like mine was and turned it into a renewed and holy place for God’s word to wash and have control. Peace is abiding where turmoil lived, song is heard were weeping was a constant, hope has residence where damnation lurked before. In my spirit man I have been cured of blindness for the Lord has opened the eyes of this blind man. O my Jesus, He is the eye opener!

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I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me. I say to you in as much as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it unto Me. (Matthew 25: 36,40)

We must be instant in season and out of season. We must be ready and willing to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to go to the prisoner, to feed the hungry, to give drink to those who thirst. I remember when I was naked and there was no one there to clothe me but Jesus. I remember when I was in prison and no one wanted to see me and I remember when I was sick and no one visited me. The pain of rejection was feeding  the spirit of rejection deep inside me and through that experience I have learned what the underdog feels like and how much Jesus loves them. We need to be Jesus’ hands and feet in this world to touch those in muck and mire, the undesirable and the unwanted.  I was one of them and Jesus loved me to life.I experienced being the outcast of society and through it the Lord let me know that He was making me become the very person that I needed in my life to help me. He was turning me into a mirror image of Himself, a man acquainted with sorrows who loves much. I am forever grateful for His mercy and kindness to a wretch like me. Truly, I once was lost but now I’m found, I was blind but now I see. If you know someone in need of help in any way, don’t just say that you’ll pray for them, do something for them. We have enough sayers and hearers. We need doers! Remember when you do this unto the least of them, you do it unto Jesus!

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If you love Me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15)

My whole life I told Jesus and everyone else that I loved Him, but yet I didn’t obey Him. I tried to get “that loving feeling” but it never manifested. I always lived in the soul realm, the realm of my emotions and it brought me nothing but heartache. The soul realm is the area that the devil works in while God works in the spirit realm. God is a Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. If you worship something, you love it. When you are not worshiping God, you are worshiping something else. You are either for Him or against Him, there is no in between. When I was using drugs and living a homosexual lifestyle, I was worshiping the demonic forces that I was obeying by doing what they wanted. I was in agreement with my sin. Whatever you obey, you love. Again, if you love Me (Jesus), you will obey Me (Jesus). Do not be fooled, whatever you bow down to through obedience, you are loving because you are a partner with it and you are in agreement with it. It is like a marriage. We are the bride of Christ and we are betrothed to Him alone and He is a jealous God. He will have no others before Him and rightfully so.He paid the highest price for His bride, His Blood! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all of your strength. Love God’s Word. Remember, love is not a feeling but rather a state of the heart to obedience. This relationship all comes about when an experience takes place. We can not love or accept love out of  law. The law does not save us but rather it points out our sins and shortcomings. In having a relationship with Jesus you will find that you no longer do the things that you used to do. You will not steal or commit adultery, etc.. and if you do we have an advocate to the Father for our forgiveness. Grace is not a license to sin but it is an empowerment to a life of change that enforces the truth that we are new creations in Christ. If there is no change in our lives after we have accepted Jesus, then was there truly an acceptance of Him? Did Paul still murder after his conversion? Did the woman who Jesus said go and sin no more continue to prostitute herself? Knowing Jesus in truth, truly changes a person. The evidence is clear between those who know Him and those who do not. No we are not under the law as far as salvation but if a society or even a family throw the commandments away, then where is the moral code to life? It is written on our hearts, for in Hebrews 10 it says so. If the commands are written on our hearts not to be saved because our salvation is from the finished work of Christ, then why is it written on our hearts now? For a moral code. There are still guidelines to live by for safety reasons. God loves us and our safety is His concern. Be free in knowing that if Jesus is your Lord and Savior, salvation is yours and that should compel us to be dead to ourselves and alive in Christ. If we are dead to ourselves, we will no longer live as the world. Do it out of love. You must do love.

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