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Ras Robinson: "What the Lord is Saying
Today--
for June 15, 2006"
 Cry
out. Practice your shouting now. Be glad and shout your praises to the Lord. Be
militant and shout out the sure victory of our God and King. It is time to fly
your colors and take your stand for righteousness. Do not be weak and
double-minded. Rather, build up your most Holy faith praying in the Spirit.
Gather your courage and fight for the oppressed and the poor. Fight with all
your might against wickedness in high and low places. Let your presence be
known. Shout! I say unto you, shout to the upper limits of your lungs, from the
rooftops of your dwelling. Make a spectacle of yourself on My behalf. You can
make a difference with your voice. Cry out.
Revelation 7:10, "And they cried out in a loud voice:
"Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
Website: www.fullnessonline.org
Email:
rasrobinson@fullnessonline.org
June 16, 2006
Robert Ricciardelli: "The
Church Of
Wrongful Focus"
 Fix
Your Eyes on He Who is Worthy
Race
car drivers are taught early on not to focus on the wall as they come around the
curve. They must focus on the open pathways ahead and the tactical strategies to
winning the race. If they focus on the wall, many times they are going to hit
the wall. God's people are in walls and are hitting walls all the time that keep
them from advancing down His path and His steps for us. We must fix our eyes on
He who is worthy of our gaze.
One of the assignments the Lord has given
us at Visionary Advancement Strategies, is to build bridges in people and
organizations, towards fulfilling the Lord's Prayer in
John 17, to be one as He and the Father are one. I am a strategist by
nature, and a seeker of truth and reality. I began to ask the Lord how His
people have grown further away from realizing the will of God for unity.
One of the biggest challenges towards
the unity of His people is living lives of a wrongful focus.
The enemies of our God love to throw us off track by diverting and diluting our
focus. Amazingly enough, satan's main tactic is how much twisted truth he can
implement in a believers life. Satan knows that we are growing up, and most of
us will not fall for obvious lies from the pit of hell, so he mixes as much
biblical truth as he can with enough poison to throw us off the path of
righteousness. How much arsenic is needed to be deadly? The devil knows just how
much poison he needs to mix with truth to deceive us. Even most non-Christian
religions are filled with many truths you can find in the Word of God, but they
are missing the only true giver of Life, Jesus Christ.
If satan cannot take away the salvation of our redeemed spirit, he will surely
go for the next best thing, which is to take away our ministry to the Lord and
to others. He will do everything to keep us from fulfilling our purposes and
Spirit led living in Christ. The Word of God must rise up and renew our minds
daily. Jesus filled us with foundational Truth in His word. We are hindered
often in embracing and applying His truth in our lives.
Matthew 22:36-40,
"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: 'Love
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your
mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:
'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments."
This is the reality and standard we must live by, loving God and loving others.
With this reality in mind, let's examine some wrongful focuses steeped in a
religious mindset. Keep in mind that many of these are filled with truth, but if
it takes us away from Him, or each other, we really need to ask the Father why.
As you read these wrongful focuses below, please remember that I am talking about extremes--focusing on
things that can consume us, while taking our eyes off of Him and His Kingdom.
Focus on Spiritual Darkness
There are some in the body of Christ that seem to expend much energy on demons
and spiritual warfare to the extreme of that being all they see. Jesus never
made the enemy His focus. He knew His authority and dealt with wickedness in
high places only when needed, and it was a quick work. Spending time pursuing
the enemy should not be our focus, recognizing that there are times that prayer
and fasting is needed before engagement. Resist the devil, focus on the "Lover
of your Soul" and the devil will flee. When there is an issue, deal with it in
Jesus' name and move on.
Focus on Self
Jesus was so consumed with His Father's business, self did not get in the way.
He was selfless enough to give His life for the purposes of His Father. We are
also called to engage in the world as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to
the Father. We are called to die to self, so that the life we live is ever
emerging as Christ living through us to the world. He must increase and we must
decrease as we dwell in and build His Kingdom. This is a big one, and if by the
grace of God we live in Him and not in "self," most bondage will be unable to
remain. Continue to move self out of His way, and watch what He will do.
Focus on Experience
We all want open Heavens, dreams, thrills and frills in the Holy Spirit. These
are all good to desire, but never should be a focus. It should be a byproduct of
love, obedience, and intimacy with the Father. Yes, an experience can change a
life or change a direction, but let Jesus bring the experience as we worship
Him. We have many church and conference hoppers looking for the next goose bump
experience. I don't mind goose bumps, but if it is not changing me to do the
will of my Father, then no thank you.
I desire greater gifts and greater levels
of glory by His Spirit, but it is Him that I seek and not the experience. We
have so many that seek the experience, rather than labor to impact the harvest.
We all need to be transformed and it comes by revelation from the Father as we
seek Him and Him alone. As transformed ambassadors in His Kingdom, the "least of
these" in the world will be a focus birthed through our revelation of Him.
Focus on Mammon and Materialism
We all have been captured by this in one form or another if we are part of the
western church. This sadly has become a focus in parts of the third world as
well, from the western influence. We have seen it all in the western church,
including the name it and claim it, blab it and grab it focus on money or
material gain. It is a harmful focus and grieves the heart of God. The sowing
and reaping principles of God are truth, but should not be used to manipulate,
as to why people should give. Offering sermons, many times, end up sounding like
the next best thing since the stock market in some of our churches. People need
to be taught the truth. God wants obedient and cheerful givers that give without
concern to what reward they will get for obedience to His Word.
Giving is holy. Giving with the sole motivation of receiving is not holy and
pleasing to God. I thank God for the Word and for faith preaching, but if it
takes us off focus, we need to get back to the Cross and the will of the Father.
Prosperity should never be a goal, but a byproduct of hard work and obedient
lifestyles. When money is the focus, it is most likely the master, and Jesus
says the root of all evil. We need to rid ourselves of the lures of mammon and
material focus. Our Father knows what we need, to fulfill what He has assigned
for us. Some will steward billions, others will steward thousands and some even
hundreds.
Focus on Hearing from Man
I thank God for the prophetic. We are a prophetic people as He dwells within us,
and desires to speak to us and through us. As leaders, we must train others to
hear the voice of God for themselves. We see many that continuously seek after a
word from the Lord through another. This is a person who is not seeking to hear
from God on their own, or even be accountable for their own decisions. Even the
best of prophets only hear in part. We have people packing their bags and moving
because they heard from a man or woman. They did not seek God for confirmation
of the word, as they had been taught to hang on every word from the human
oracles of God. They seek after prophets to see what God wants for their lives,
and yet do not seek God many times to hear from Him directly. We need each other
and we need to speak life to one another, but ultimately, the Lord wants to
direct our steps.
Psalm 37:23, "The steps of the Godly are directed by
the LORD. He delights in every detail of their lives."
He delights when we are led by Him, and He delights in every part of our lives.
We must hear from Him if we are to be faithful and pleasing to Him. He will use
others to bring revelation, but ultimately we must seek His face and His
direction for ourselves.
Focus on End Times
 Does it really matter when the end is
coming if we live each day like it is our last?
There are thousands of scholars that cannot agree on when and how the whole
thing will happen. We are to seek after truth, but it has to be
applied truth to make a difference in our lives and the lives of those we serve.
We get caught up in when and where the next earthquake
and tsunami is going to strike, and how many more years until He comes back.
He is here now, in all the glory we need. So we need to focus on the harvest.
Jesus did! There will be another earthquake and there will be another tsunami.
God knows where and when, and we must let others know that they must live in
readiness and obedience now, for whatever may come their way.
Focus on the Differences of Others
We have 30,000 denominations that have a worldview that could be one jot away
from unity. As the Lord continues to blur the lines of division, we begin to
have an expanded and inclusive worldview. When we become exclusive, watch out!
We think we have the right interpretation, the right order, the right stuff of
the Kingdom. If we have it right then they must be wrong.
Rather we should seek out the beauty in
others and even in other organizations, and thank God for Jesus Christ, the
foundation of all of our faith. We can pray for the blind spots they may have,
as they pray for the blind spots we most certainly have. We can come together in
Jesus' name and begin to work together recognizing the diversity of gifts each
one of us has. I love the diversity of God's people, yet that does not mean we
compromise truth.
Whoever Is Not Against Us Is for Us
Mark 9:38-39,
"Teacher,' said John, 'we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told
him to stop, because he was not one of us." 'Do not stop him,' Jesus said. 'No
one who does a miracle in My name can in the next moment say anything bad about
Me."
We need to stop judging those who may do it a different way. There are many
streams leading to the River of God, and God loves each of them. He desires for
each of us to continue to grow in our revelation of Him and His ways.
Focus on the Negativity
There are many things that we do not understand. There are wars, rumors of war,
sickness, catastrophes, and death all around us. They have been a part of this
fallen world since the beginning. We are called to reconcile the world back to
the Father. If we focus on the death around us and the fear that can creep up on
us and do not move past it, we can become numb and ineffective.
Philippians 4:13, "I have strength for all things in
Christ. Who empowers me (I am ready for anything and equal to anything through
Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's
sufficiency). Amplified Bible
We do not need anything more than what He has given us. We must be content, and
be focused on all of the possibilities of God in and through us.
Focus on Doing
We are human beings not human doings. We need to be in Him, and in Him we will
do. We can get caught up in hyper religious activity or just plain activity in
our pursuit of pleasing Him. We think the more we do, the more we are loved.
Wrong! The truth is, the more we love Him and seek after Him, the more we can
hear from Him on what we are to do in obedience. We must fix our eyes on Him. It
is in those quiet times in the Word or just basking in His glory, that we hear
His plan for us. We can fill our lives with such speed of movement and noise,
that we can be months or years down a path that He never chose for us.
Focus on Programs, Preaching, and Preferences
So many people rely on a program or preacher to take them where they need to be
in their relationship with Christ. The program and preaching may help in
facilitating what God wants to do in their hearts, but there is such a heavy
reliance on these things, and they can never fulfill what people expect from
them. They will move from church to church looking for the right program,
pastor, or worship service. People then get disappointed when the pastor or
worship leader leaves, or changes are made to the programs. They must be taught
to look to Jesus, hear from God, and be obedient to what He desires, regardless
of preaching and programs.
Focus outside of "Now"
Today should be our only concern. When we are living in yesterday, and dragging
our yesterday's highs and lows with us, we can miss living for today in "real
time," by the Spirit of God. Looking ahead to when "such and such" happens, then
"I will such and such," can be a problem too when it is consuming us, and not
having us live for today to the fullest.
Philippians 3:12-14, "I don't mean to say that I have
already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection! But I
keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved
me for and wants me to be. No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I
should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the
past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the
race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up
to Heaven."
The Church of Righteous Focus
As God's people continue to die in order to live a Spirit-led life, we will
watch the fruits of His Spirit abound in us. We will see greater results in our
communication to Him and others. The manifested glory of God in our lives will
set captives free. Signs and wonders will be a byproduct of obedient and
intimate lives in the Holy Spirit. We will not have to seek after results of the
past (Asuza Street), but begin to have results now because of Him.
Our Christian museums and religious
unfruitfulness will be transformed to Kingdom productivity bringing glory to the
Father. Seek first the King and His righteousness and watch what He will
accomplish through you.
Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, and God-provisions. Worship Him,
love Him, talk to Him, and most importantly, listen to Him! Don't worry about
missing out, rest in Him. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be
met in Him.
We have Him to cast our eyes and hearts
upon, and being led by Him, we can reap a mighty harvest for Him and His eternal
glory!
Robert Ricciardelli
Visionary Advancement Strategies
www.vision2advance.com
Robert@vision2advance.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Robert Ricciardelli's Upcoming Itinerary:
June 21 - 24, 2006
Apostolic Women Arising Conference- Not for Women Only!
Seattle, Washington Area
Contact:http://www.vision2advance.com/calendar_view.asp?scheduleid=49410
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by Chuck D. Pierce/Rebecca
Wagner Sytsema
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