We hear so much about prayer, and how it is a blessing to be prayed over or prayed for. It is truly a gift given when we take tiem our of our day to pray for people such as those serving in the military, but is that all we can do? Yes and no. Although prayer is something that is our only way to help people, the Bible tells us that the prayer of the righteous man avails much:

“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16)

Let’s face it, some people’s prayers seem to be heard more than others. Let’s do all those that we are praying for a huge favor, and get into that category of those righteous men and women who’s prayers avails much. This is not a push into legalism, it is a challenge to put God first in our lives, and seek a deeper and more genuine living relationship with our savior. The closer we are to Him, and the more we put Him first in our lives, the more effective our prayers will be, and the more we can bless those that we are praying for.

Don’t feel bad if you’re prayers don’t seem to be answered though; this is not to lay a burden on anybody, or give them an excuse to beat up on themselves. There are times when I’ve prayed and haven’t seen any results, but other times I see very powerful results right before my eyes. To help tune and hone our prayer lives, I recommend visiting GreatBibleStudy.com and under the audio sermons (in the archives), find the teaching series on Keys to an Effective Prayer Life. They are so powerful and will change your prayer life forever if you let them!

I preach about how God is a good Father, who desires good things for His children. I also preach about how we are expected to endure persecution for the sake of the gospel. Did you know that even persecution is not the Will of God for His children? That would be saying that God, the good and loving Father that He is, desires to see His children beaten and killed brutally here on earth. Persecution is rather a natural result of our attempt to cooperate with God to bring His will here on earth. It’s not God’s will that we suffer, but persecution is something that we, like Jesus, must endure for the sake of the kingdom.

Unloving spirits are huge; they cause all sorts of problems in so many lives. Addictions? Likely unloving spirits are involved. Lust? Pornography? There’s a good chance unloving spirits are the root.

What does an unloving spirit do? It’s job is to make the person feel not loved. An unloving spirit can hinder a person’s ability to perceive and receive love properly, which starves them of an essential need that God has designed inside each one of us. We all need to be able to freely receive the love of God in our lives. The root to many addictions is the need to be loved, and by over indulging in something, we attempt to fulfill that need. Since we can’t fulfill it, we keep indulging but never find true fulfillment. That is why a person can wake up one day and find themselves weighing 500lbs. They are trying to fill a need that cannot be met with food, but since they don’t know how to get their need met, they are doing the best they can to meet the need in the natural.

Rejection can open the door to unloving spirits. Unloving and rejection spirits are very closely related. Unloving spirits make the way for lust, perversion, pornography, and so forth (as a means to find love).

What unloving spirits basically do is deprive a person of love. They make it difficult to freely receive love from others and God into your spirit. They may be there due to defense mechanisms which are intended to help block further harm, but at the same time it blocks love from being received into the person’s system.

Many of us would love to have more faith, but don’t know how to go about getting it. God’s Word outlines very specific guidelines that will cause our faith to grow. For example, faith behinds where the will of God is known, thus validating the verse which tells us that faith comes by hearing God’s Word (which contains His will).

But did you know that there is a linkage between love and faith? Becoming established in the love of God, and freely receiving that love is a huge key to faith. Let’s take the opposite of faith, which is fear, and look at it’s root. The root of fear is a lack of love. If a child doesn’t know that his parents love him, then there will be fear that the parent may abandon him or not be looking after his best interest. God’s Word tells us that he who fears has not been made perfect in love:

1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

So if love drives out all fear, then love feeds the opposite of fear, which is faith. If we knew without a shadow of doubt that God loved us enough to care for our well-being, our provision, health, finances, etc., then faith would rise up in our soul, and trusting God would be a synch!

Therefore, being able to receive God’s love plays a big part in our level of faith. Many times, there are strongholds, bondages, and roadblocks that must be torn down and removed before a person can fully receive God’s love. That is why the ministry of deliverance and inner healing, along with receiving God’s Word, are so important. They remove the roadblocks that stand in the way of our ability to freely receive the things of God. The Bible also tells us that we should all be rooted and grounded and understand the love of God, so that we can receive the fullness of God in our lives:

Ephesians 3:17-19, “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”

This is a question on the minds of many women who have had an abortion. I hope to ease some of your burden by showing you that in God’s Word, unborn babies are not guilty of sin, and therefore are not sent to hell. Besides, wouldn’t it be unlike a loving heavenly Father to send an unborn baby to hell for eternity? It goes against His nature of justice.

Romans 9:11, “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil…”

Isaiah 7:16, “For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good…”

And there you have it! I believe that these passages make it clear that the unborn child is not capable or guilty of committing sin.

Now please don’t use this as an excuse to have an abortion. It is seen as taking an innocent life according to the Bible (God’s Word is clear about the unborn person having a spirit). Women who undergo abortions pay dearly for it through the bondage, emotional damage, and demons that they have opened themselves up to.

But for those who have already had an abortion, it is comforting to know that your baby is in heaven with Jesus.

The Holy Spirit has been speaking to me recently about religious art, and it’s terrible affects on how we perceive God. I am convinced that the saying is true concerning a picture saying a thousand words. You can tell a lot about somebody just by looking at their picture, the expression on their face, etc. Many pieces of religious art, particularly of Jesus, are giving many people today a terrible picture of the nature of God.

When I look upon many pieces of religious art, particularly in the Catholic church, it gives me a very unsettling feeling. To my spirit, it speaks of a cold, religious Jesus, who is all about religion, rules and would be angry with me if I ever messed up. What does this do to a person? It causes them to draw away from an intimate relationship with Jesus, instead of run to Him. Who wants an intimate relationship with a cold, religious, and angry God? Not me!

Then I see some other pieces of “relationship” art, that speaks of a loving Jesus who is personal, merciful, and kind. This is the type of art that truly paints an accurate picture of the loving nature of Jesus! I want you to visit the link below, where they let you view several different pencil drawings of Jesus that, in my opinion, are anointed and paint an accurate picture of the true nature of Jesus.

http://www.schoolofabraham.com/pencilindex.htm

What kind of Jesus would you rather have a relationship with? A cold religious one, as portrayed in most religious art? Or a loving, personal, and merciful Jesus, as portrayed in those pencil drawings?

How we perceive the nature of God in our minds, is perhaps the biggest element that will either cause our faith and love for God to soar, or drain the energy right out of us, and instill fear and distance in our minds from Christ.

A lot of us love to receive Rhema from God concerning a passage in His Word. But did you know that if you don’t know that scripture in the first place, that God doesn’t have anything to give you Rhema about? A sermon could be written just on how important it is for us to be rooted and grounded in the Word of God. When we know the Word, and then a situation arises in our life, the Holy Spirit can then bring to our remembrance a passage in scripture, and give us revelation on how it applies to our situation. That’s Rhema, and it is so powerful when the Holy Spirit does that!

God is a GOOD God, and He desires to give us words, revelations, and Rhema based on His Word. But if we aren’t knowledgeable of His Word, then He has nothing to work with. This is yet another very good reason why we need to be spending time each day in the Word. I recommend reading at least a few chapters in your Bible every day!

I pray that as you dig into His Word, a spirit of revelation (the Holy Ghost!) opens your eyes that you may receive and understand, and receive Rhema from the Holy Spirit concerning the relevance of that scripture to your life today.

May God bless you!
Robert

Why does the phrase “faith healer” take such a beating by many Christians today? Does not God’s Word repeatedly tell us that healing DEPENDS upon person’s faith?

Mark 10:52, “And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.”

If that person (and many more in the Bible) had not the faith needed to receive, would have they been healed? After Jesus told them that it was their faith which saved them?

Now if that same person sought healing in today’s church and just happen to not have the faith needed to receive, I’ll bet the people would start saying that it wasn’t God’s will to heal them because nothing happened. What a crying shame! Does not a person’s faith have anything to do with their healing anymore? Such a belief is 100% unscriptural!

Matthew 13:58, “And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.”

If the people’s unbelief hindered Jesus Himself from doing miracles in their midst, then how much more is the same fact true today?

The reason why I tend to be very fond of many of the Word of Faith teachings from Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, etc. is because they are so solidly based on the Word of God. They eat up the arguments of the church today, especially when the signs and wonders are following them, confirming the Word of God that they are preaching!

Mark 16:20, “And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs [literally meaning, miracles, signs and wonders] following. Amen.”

Most of the church today doesn’t have signs and wonders following them. I believe it’s because they are teaching the raw Word of God like they ought to. If they would preach healing as the Bible tells it, they would start seeing people healed in their midst!

We get people coming to us on a regular bases who have an axe to grind with Bob Larson’s ministry. Now I’m not trying to say that everything he does is perfect, but I want to put things into perspective here on a couple of points. My life has been greatly blessed because of Bob’s ministry, and I know that his DWJD teams are helping people all over the world who desperately needing help and relief from spiritual bondage! I want to copy a couple of posts that I made recently in defense of Bob’s ministry:

Putting Bob Larson’s ministry into perspective

I just want to say that I am SO grateful for the ministry of Bob Larson. He is a leader in this area of ministry, and we owe him a lot of respect. He may not be perfect, but can that be said about anybody? I thank God that He doesn’t wait until we’re perfect before He uses us… or else we would have nobody qualified to stand up and minister! Requiring a minister to be perfect would eliminate even the best of us from the ministry!

God uses our brother Bob in awesome ways, and as a result, many hurting, bound, and tormented people have found help and deliverance. He has broken up ground that needed to be broken up… the American church NEEDS to realize that there really are demons, and that Christians need to have them cast out!

And I can assure you that Bob undergoes much persecution, and likely receives SCORES of death threats. Just ask Jay Bartlett what kind of attacks he receives because he’s busy doing what God has called him to do!

Not only does Bob operate in the deliverance ministry, but he also has worked very hard to rise up a whole network of DWJD team of trained deliverance ministers around the world. Deliverance ministers who have went through Bob’s DJWD training program are prized members of our network. They are able to work through cases that many other ministers cannot touch.

In Christ,
Robert

As far as Bob charging for his DWJD training program, here’s my response:

What about all those Christians who write books and “sell them”? Or all of those Christian artists who “sell” their music on CD for a whopping $15 per CD? Or those Christian artists who charge you if you want to attend their concerts? Shouldn’t they be giving it all away since God gifted them in those areas of ministry?

I just paid to enroll in a class on inner healing. The people who are putting on the class have invested a TON of time and resource into these classes, and I feel the price they charged was below-cost for them. I was overwhelmed at what they put into their program.

So what is the difference if Bob sells a book which is meant to train people, or if he takes time out of his busy day to train them? Is it alright to earn money off of selling a book, but it’s not okay for him to charge when he has to spend a lot more of his time to train them personally?

I think why Bob charges, is to cover his costs and keep the training program afloat.

I want to point out that when Bob has public conventions, which I KNOW costs him to put on, he does not charge a DIME for it! If he was so money-hungry as some people make him out to be, then why would he be putting on public educational seminars and not charging for them?

It’s like with Benny Hinn. He writes books, makes CD’s, just like any other minister today does. But then he puts on public crusades, where thousands of people come and are blessed and fed by God, and they are not charged a DIME! I assure you that those crusades are EXPENSIVE to put on too… we’re talking tens of thousands of dollars easily!

If ministers shouldn’t be able to charge for training programs, then colleges and seminaries shouldn’t be charging either when it costs them thousands and thousands of dollars to people for the ministry.

What’s the difference if I were to pay Bob Larson to train me, or if I went away to seminary (which would cost a LOT more than what Bob’s charging)?

It doesn’t make much sense to me.

In Christ,
Robert

I am forever grateful for Bob’s ministry, and I know that scores of others have been very grateful for it as well. There is such hostility towards Bob because he charges for his training. I myself, offer my materials on my site FREE of charge, but just the same, if Bob is wrong for charging for his training, then so are all the Christian seminaries wrong as well. They should be giving it away for free, and so should all Christian artists and book authors. They shouldn’t be selling God’s work.

So carrying that same train of thought, if you are against Bob’s charging for training, then you need to burn all of your favorite Christian CD’s, books (except the Bible!), and have nothing to do with those other forms of ministry as well. And you also shouldn’t support your pastor, who paid good money to go away to seminary!

If you think I’m being irrational, then I want you to stop and think about what you’re really doing here. Bob labors hard in the kingdom, and faces many terrible threats and persecution, but he presses forward because he wants to see people liberated in Jesus’ name. I just watched a recent exorcism that he did, and afterwards the man was leaping for joy, and Bob made it crystal clear that it was JESUS who freed the man! Bob took no credit, but gave all the glory to Jesus for what happened.

And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed [literally meaning that he looked with jealousy upon] David from that day and forward. And it came to pass on the morrow [the next day], that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul’s hand. And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.
1 Samuel 18:7-11

I was reading my Bible today, when this passage really stood out to me. First, we see the women praising David for slaying his ten thousands, but Saul for slaying his thousands. This rejection made Saul angry with David, and jealous of him. The very next day, an evil spirit came upon Saul and caused him to become exceedingly angry, to the point of attempting to murder David!

The same thing happens today. A person can experience rejection, which leads them to other emotions such as rebellion, jealousy, anger, and so forth. As a result, they can make themselves available to unclean spirits, which will take advantage of these sins of the heart and take up residence.

That is why our reactions to what is done to us is so important to subject to the obedience of Christ. Whether it be rejection, theft, abuse, molestation, etc., which is done to us, our reaction to it is what opens the door to the enemy. Rejection can come from our parents, siblings, friends, family, teachers, peers, or even ourselves (self-rejection).

Many times, when dealing with cases of jealousy, anger, hate, rebellion, and so forth, the root is often rejection. Rejection is one of the biggest, and well known roots in the ministry of deliverance!