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There is such a trend being pushed today for a form of transformation that can only be achieved through forced medical procedures and indoctrination of an ideology, and that transformation is indeed forced. Not just forcing others to accept those who take this route, but it is even a forcing by those individuals who choose that route for their own selves. It is a forcing of the flesh through the forcing of a mind until that mind is so forced, it becomes "seared with a hot iron." Paul addressed what apostasy--or "departing from the faith"-- looked like and how to identify fallacies--in the Body of Christ, not just the world--in his letter to Timothy. Paul's intention was to help Timothy minister a pure gospel and he couldn't minister it to others if he was walking in error himself. So, Paul guided Timothy to listen to the counsel of the Holy Spirit--who always guides you into the Truth of what the Bible says and will never guide you elsewhere! In 1 Timothy 4:1-2, Paul writes, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith" and why did they depart? Paul goes on to say that they departed because they gave "heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons" and the only reason this happens is when pure doctrine is not being taught or when you choose to reject it. This is "iniquity" or willful or even ignorant choices to sin that Jesus defines when dividing out the faithful from the liars, is found in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness [iniquity]!’"  When you pervert the Truth of God's Word and you seek a form of tranformation to meet a feeling or an emotion, an ache or hunger, a desire or lust, or even trying to answer a question that seems to fill you with distress on the inside. Know this, you will never find that answer without Jesus Christ. When we come to Jesus Christ and repent of our sins that the Bible so clearly defines, He begins His process of transformation by renewing our spirit and then comes to live within us through the Holy Spirit who abides in us and is with us. The key to TRUE transformation and the HEALING that comes to a battered soul or mind comes only through time spent with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. Only then can we experience LASTING transformation and not a fly by night feeling! God is so gracious and kind, so merciful and always ready to receive us back into His waiting arms! Come to Him today and let Him restore your soul, let Him heal your heart, and bind your wounds! Let Him transform you into the image of Jesus Christ through this process of submission to His Guidance. God Bless! Support the show

Whenever I hear the phrase "he made the cut" or "making the cut" I think of players on some sort of sports team or something where they had to go through a great testing period before they were considered acceptable enough to move on up to the final action, or be drafted. I tried to look that phrase or idiom up and apparently it is used a lot in golf lol. I couldn't seem to find the phrase origin but in my mind, I also thought of the early origin of the film industry when the editors physically cut out parts of a film and if your performance wasn't good enough, you might, as they say, "end up on the cutting room floor" and possibly even cut out of the movie's end credits! The fact is, that none of us want to be cut out of the action. None of us want to be cut out of the winnings and rewards that come from participating in the action either! And do you know that the Lord doesn't want to cut us out? But WE are the ones who are making a decision day by day as to whether we are IN Christ or OUT of Christ. That is a choice WE make. And John 15 goes over this and describes the results of not "abiding" in Christ. Disobedience to the Word of God is one way to not abide. Loving our idols and the things that take our heart or service away from Him is not abiding. Accepting the principles of this world and making them our truths and placing them above the stated Word of God is not abiding in Him. When we choose to sin. When we choose to not forgive. When we're "too busy" to go to church or to do something God has directed us to do. When we spiritualize disobedience, meaning, we say that "the Holy Spirit told me" to do this or that which is in direct contradiction to a command so clearly defined in the Bible but looks good to others when you say it. No that is called a slap in the Lord's face. What is it then? Is it through works that we make the cut then? Jesus spoke of having a confrontation in the future with these so-called "Christian" believers who were doing some pretty convincing works, signs as you might say of a believer: "Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matthew 7: 22-23) May God have mercy on us! Today is the day of salvation! Today is the day that we make a choice to repent and turn back toward the Lord, to KNOW HIM is to KNOW HIS WORD AND OBEY IT. "Working iniquity" is actively choosing to disobey God's Word or even claiming ignorance to it! We can break the law here on earth and still be fined despite claiming ignorance to it! How much more does God consider His Law holy?? We cannot plead the Blood of Jesus or come under His Wings of protection if we are actively disobeying Him. And we can only learn how to obey Him and do His Works with His help, with the Helper He gave us, the Holy Spirit. It is He who guides us into all Truth (John 16:13), and who is the Truth? Jesus said "I am the Way, the Life and the Truth" (John 14:6) and we know in John 15--apart from Jesus WE CAN DO NOTHING (John 15:5)! And the opposite is true!  With faith in God and obedience to His Word, we can do the impossible things that the Father tells us to do and that is the difference (Hebrews 11:6)! That is why we need His Word AND the Guide, His Holy Spirit. For when we choose to not "abide" in Him as John 15 describes, we are shriveled branches of the Vine --yikes!--and the Bible says that "men" will gather those branches up to be "burned". We may look good to others even as we walk in disobedience and the Bible warns us NOT to be those or associate with those who have chosen the religious "form of godliness but deny the power thereof" in 2 Timothy 3:5. Persecution does come to believers but Support the show

When we choose to obey the Holy Spirit, we become a fountain of the Life of the Lord Jesus into the earth. This fountain can turn into a great river if we submit to Him! Jesus said, "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being [our Spirit man] will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38). When we choose to believe in Jesus, we are choosing to be in agreement with Jesus, who is the Word . Therefore, agreement with Jesus is agreement with what the Bible says--and vice versa. Most of us focus on the agreement but fail to realize what happens with disagreement. Whenever we permit sin in an area of our life, we have allowed the devil to place an impediment in our river of the Life of God flowing out of us. The more we engage with darkness, the muckier our water gets, and soon we are down to a trickle of the life of God coming out of our walk because we are effectively constipated by the rocks. There should only be one Rock in our river and that's the Lord Jesus, and the water flows from Him and through Him. But when we permit unforgiveness, lying, fornication, and even when we reject areas of the Bible or try to twist it to the world's thinking--which is basically perverting the Truth. Then we come into dangerous waters, as the saying goes. Just look at the Aral Sea in central Asia. It used to be the world's 4th largest inland sea but due to water being rerouted from it, it has nearly dried up completely. Dams work the same way. I saw the effect of this very thing overseas in Nepal. A great river was utterly dried up with only a modest trickle in places, all because of people greedily taking its flow for themselves instead of managing it better for all to enjoy. That's what can happen to us when permit ourselves to make choices without submission to God's Word or the guidance of the Holy Spirit. All sin is based in selfishness and when we demand our own way, we are not heading onward in His Way but in the broad way that leads us into more destruction and hell. We are to go on to life and life more abundantly, as Jesus says in John 10:10, and that comes with choosing His Way of doing things on a day to day basis. Then and only then, with our Helper the Holy Spirit, can we address the rocks in our river---or even better, let a gusher Holy Ghost river bust through all the impediments in our way as we spend time praying in the Spirit. God bless you friend! Support the show

Teaching out of Colossians this morning! The Lord wants us to know He desires that we come after Him with the help of the Holy Spirit so that we can truly discover the "riches" of His presence! We work so hard for a paycheck in this life. Then we buy up treasures, store them, lock them up, label them for others to see, take pictures and share them on Facebook, buy houses or barns to put them. And if you do all of that and sit back and feel safe and comfortable because we have so much, or we've done so well for ourselves...Jesus tells us we must beware of this attitude and action. Not only did Jesus talk about this and the TRUE riches we should be seeking in Luke 12:13 and onward, James also warns about the danger of storing up treasures for our own pleasure and comfort versus giving ourselves over to God's service in James 5. There's truly a fine line to walk and all of us must make a choice how we're going to behave in this life, and ultimately who the Master is in our life--ourselves or God? Jesus wants us to receive rewards. He wants us to be blessed now and in Heaven for all eternity. But that blessing should never be our goal, its mainly a result of obedience to God's WAY, His Word and Way of doing things. God bless you and Have a great week! Support the show

It's amazing the number of comforts available to us in the Western world. I did not know just how many until I lived overseas in third and fourth world countries that had little to no comforts due to their poverty. And yet. It was always amazing how a family that had nothing, lived in a shack made out of reclaimed wood, somehow would manage to have a TV and a satellite dish with free programming. To think that they had worked so hard to buy that equipment and yet still struggled to feed and clothe their children! Maybe it was more obvious, less hidden, in these places compared to the States. I know the same goes on here only it looks a little like this: you say you can't pay your rent but you won't fail to have money to buy your cigarettes. Some of our "comforts" that we say we cannot live without are just plain sinful addictions, strongholds that need to be broken! Some of our comforts aren't that bad--that is if you eat just one lol. But when we eat them in excess to fill an emotional hole in our life, or to try to heal a hurt in our soul, then these simple items seem to direct our whole life, to where we are eating when we're not even hungry! Sometimes its just the body wanting more control, and then the mind chirps in. One or the other is usually in control of our decision making when we come to Christ. One or the other is the one driving our comfort decisions. It is only through the help of the Holy Spirit that we can come to discover the REAL Comforter is Him! And the real comfort is coming to know Him and letting Him heal us from the inside out through prayer, worship and the Word, fellowship with other Christians, and accountability with our church leaders. If we want to see greater liberty in our personal walk, we need to quit accepting the counterfeits comforts, and pursue the Holy Spirit who can lead us into all Truth--the real truth of Jesus found in His Word! And praying in the Spirit is so important! How else can we let Him help us in an area we're struggling in? Romans 8:26-17 says, "Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." God bless you! Have a great week in your walk with the Holy Spirit! Support the show

"Wax on, Wax off." Do you remember that statement? Well, its something I remember as a kid growing up with the TV and movies of the 1980s. That was a statement that Pat Morita's character Miyagi, a karate master, said to his unlikely karate pupil Daniel, played by Ralph Macchio in the 1984 production The Karate Kid. Daniel wanted to learn karate, and Miyagi taught him but started him out with waxing his classic car, a  1948 Ford Super De Luxe. In fact, Daniel was given a lot of household duties by Miyagi and grumbled through a lot of them. We can be a lot like Daniel sometimes. We want to hurry to be a superhero of faith, but we don't want the simple exercises or positions that God is giving us now, whereby the faith muscles are grown. Faith muscles are grown by day to day application of His Word in action. A choice to commit our trust fully to Him without question, like Joseph had to trust God when moving his family from Bethlehem to, of all places, Egypt. Maturity comes through a series of continuing levels of commitment to the Lord and to His Way. His Way of doing things, saying things, thinking things and service to His Body. Remember, Jesus said what He considers to be the most important thing we can focus on in Matthew 22: 34-40: "But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying,  “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” What is it that everything, all the Law and what the Prophets said, what does it hang on? Loving the Lord in the Way He tells us is love--obedience to His commands, and loving our neighbor as ourself--which is a dying to self. This cannot be achieved overnight, just like Daniel wasn't a karate guy overnight. He had to submit to Miyagi and trust him, and do what he was told, and he got rewards for his obedience and trouble when he messed up. But the point is, plug yourself in somewhere in your church where you can start to learn the basics, not just a class to attend, but an area to serve in. Don't seek to lead in an area that you have no foundation in. Serve serve serve. 1 Peter 5 offers some additional reading on humbling ourselves. But remember, God does have a purpose and a plan for your life! And you may be in the middle of it right now! So embrace where you're at and do everything as unto the Lord, as He is our true Master and Commander and we answer to Him ultimately in ALL that we do and say. Let's embrace the character of the Lord Jesus today and allow Him to help us come into a greater level of Maturity IN Christ! God Bless!! Support the show

It's funny, I always refer to the Parable of the Sower as the Parable of the Soils lol (see Luke 8). I live in an area of the United States that is 98% farmland--loads of black dirt! I don't go out and farm any physical fields myself, but I am directly impacted by the activity of it around me. Right now it is May, and the farmers have been working the last several weeks on their fields, prepping them for their planting. They've turned over the hard soil after the winter thaw. They've also burnt off fields, getting the weeds off by setting them on fire. Recently, they've been running great sprayers to prep the fields with chemicals as a pre-planting action. And lately, I have seen  huge plastic crates full of seed or sacks of seed laid out on beds of trucks, parked alongside the fields.  The farmers roaming about in their great tractors hauling the planter apparatus behind them. It's amazing, they're already planting their corn and soybeans! There is so much activity everywhere!  And just think about what is going on in the Spirit right now? You know, we are like that field and we have to take responsibility for it if we expect to bear a healthy crop. Over the years I have witnessed terrible fields of crops, not because of poor weather or an unhealthy lack of rain. No, poor because the one who managed the field did not tend to their crop. Mixture. Tares mixed in with the crop. Failure to prep the soil in the beginning, failure to purchase the healthy seeds, failure to manage their planting apparatus so the result is a mixed crop because of old seeds stuck in the machinery. Failure to manage the weeds or pests. Mismanagement. It all ends up with the ugliest final crop you have ever seen, if you could even call it a crop! I've seen more weeds than soybeans sometimes in a bean field!  And having seen these, I've always wondered how their end harvest looked in regards to profitability. Per my own investigation with some of my friends who are farmers, these mismanaged crop harvests would get rejected at the grain elevator when a farmer would try to turn them in for sale. Rejected by the elevator storage, lest they ruin the greater harvest. I have seen the inside of a grain elevator operations office. Before they'll ever take the seed into that greater elevator storage, they will sample it. They will send an arm down into the semi or wagon where the harvest has been placed, and draw out a sample. If its unsatisfactory, they will refuse it. If its so so, they will lower their buying price. Why do we think God is any less about His harvest? He wants us to bear fruit in keeping with His Ways. He has addressed in scripture how He feels about trees that don't bear fruit, both with Christ's cursing of the fig tree in Matthew 21, Luke 3 when a threat of taking an axe to a fruitless tree is given, Luke 6 when a tree laden with thorns or briars is rejecting the harvesters ability to gather its fruit, and Luke 13 when a landowner comes to inspect his vineyard and the tree that has failed to produce fruit.  We must be tender toward the Lord. We must let Him prune us so that we can bear much fruit. He corrects those whom He calls His children, so if we want to walk with Him, we have to be open to His Word, and let it instruct us with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Only then can we really experience a fruitfulness that will bless the Lord and allow Him to minister through us to help bring His healing to those hurting around us. God bless!! Support the show

Have you ever gone through a cleansing? I have had to take medicine in my time that has done a pretty good job of removing things from my system! I've even heard of people who have gone through detox sessions or have had to get special injections from doctors to get chemicals out of their system. Yikes! My personal thoughts regarding cleansing make me think about going through a fast. When you go through one, you begin to pull away from what you have made familiar to your taste buds through routine or comfort, and you take away everything but the basics, you know like you just drink water and eat fruits and veggies. The first couple of days are rather crazy. I've been flat out sick the first couple of days just getting sugar and junk out of my system. Now I kind of give myself a lead time with caffeine because that one on top of sugar, when you pull them both out of your system at once...wow. But about three days later...and it always seems like it takes 3 days--funny, a resurrection analogy--you feel so good!! I always start to sleep better by day three. I need to do another one of those sessions again soon...but my point is, there is also something even bigger about a fast than just denying yourself food delights, its about drawing near to the Lord. When we do, we effectively are getting cleansed, did you know that? If you have trouble in ANY area, when you come close to the Lord, it gets exposed. Then we have a choice, do we repent and let Him burn it out of us, or do we retreat back into darkness further. I don't know about you, but I would rather go on to greater liberty in Christ Jesus, and confront the ugly, rather than cover it up and act like everything is okay. Jesus's motive is always to heal us and move us forward, not strip and beat us and shove us behind. He is always looking to restore and even resurrect that which you thought could never be. How wonderful He is to us!Let us ALL draw closer to Jesus every day with the help of our friend, the Holy Spirit, who helps to guide us into more of Him, Jesus our Way, our Truth and our Life. God Bless! Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bachtold)

Many times I think about the Old Testament when I meditate on the question of what ushers in the presence of God. I think of the worship that went on, the worshipers that went before the armies and how God's presence came in and took care of the enemy's armies before God's people even got to the battle! Worship itself is not what's incredible though, its not the powerhouse. And yet so much of worship music has become focused on the art of delivery and not on the Lord at all. I'm not against your smoke machines and laser lights in worship.  No, I'm just saying that its not worship that brings the greatest outpouring of the delivering power of God. It's repentance combined with worship. Just read some of the Psalms and you will see how much King David repented before he began to worship! You don't read about Job getting free from all of his struggles until he repents and acknowledges God's holiness and magnificence, and then he gets his breakthrough. We desire to experience God's power and deliverance in our situation in life, but yet we want it all without repentance. The Kingdom doesn't work that way. We have to be willing to let the Lord have His Way in us! Remember the prayer that Jesus directed us to pray in Matthew 6: 9-13, "‘Our Father, who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. (Worship) Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. (Submission to His Will!) Give us this day our daily bread (Daily reading the Bible/Jesus the Bread of Life). And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Repent & Forgive) And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'" (Deliverance comes when the prior is done!) You see Jesus is showing us His Way through this prayer! And His Way is the way of Life and He desires for all of us to experience His fullness in our walk with Him. God bless you ! Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bachtold)

I'm sure you've caught at least one home renovation TV show in your lifetime...or maybe you're in the midst of one in your home right now! We all know that there are things to evaluate beforehand, plans to look at, budgets to weigh and so forth. We take so much into doing a home renovation and for what reason? At least what I have witnessed, the reason people do them is for a joyful outcome...people renovate their homes to have a place that feels less chaotic, more comforting and a place that accommodates their pursuits--family and hobbies and careers and passions.  So much of a home renovation is similar to the renovation desires of the Lord Jesus where our mind is concerned. His, though, is much more of an Extreme Makeover, something we couldn't even imagine how good it could be! We can all quote, "I have the mind of Christ," from Galatians 2:20 and make it our meditation and indeed, we can see ourselves come into a transformation over time with the help of the Holy Spirit. But there are sometimes things that just don't want to budge. Doors we keep locked and have confrontations with the Lord when He asks about that area of our mind or heart. Avoidance is something we can get into trouble with, just as much as you would if you were renovating your home and came across a busted sewer line under the floor. You can be embarrassed and quickly try to hide it, secretly patch it up your own way and then later on down the line, your home experiences a rupture of this terrible sewer line and suddenly that beautiful and abundant "new" area is now a stinky mess. This is unfortunately what happens to us when we fail to do what the Holy Spirit directed us to do early on--repent and deal with it and let Him tear it out. It's not too late if you're still willing to let Him put His hands into the renovation of your mind. He's got some wonderful plans for us--He's the great carpenter after all, right? Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bachtold)

Have you ever looked at that old couple who celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary and you marvel at their commitment, or you say, that's what I want to be some day! And yet, they had 80 years of being together.  And for all the sweet smiles, there were stormy days and sunny days, losses and gains, multiple deaths to their self will, deaths and sicknesses and financial collapses and children and all that comes with it! Let's see, that's 80 years, and 52 weeks a year is 4,160 weeks together. That's 29,200 days of commitment to one another. We don't know the ins and outs of it but they stayed together, right?  Now most people see an old married couple and say ooh, aah, but go back to the way they are doing things right now in their own relationships and don't change anything they do daily to produce the long term outcome they want. That's the little foxes that spoil the vine, as the Bible says. Though this isn't a podcast on marriage counseling, this is a podcast on marriage counseling as we ARE married to the Lord Jesus when we ask Him to come into our hearts. If we expect to experience a long relationship with Him, a healthy and happy marriage full of the intimacy of knowing Him deeper as the years go by,  we have to be willing to let Him have His Way in us--aka, we lose OUR life to gain HIS life in us. That requires our submission to the Holy Spirit and His directives which initiate from our Father in Heaven. The Holy Spirit, our Guide into all Truth, can't guide us if we don't value His guidance to begin with; if we don't value the Word of God or submit ourselves to its direction and correction through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, then we come under fire from the world's system. John 15 details this with the directive from Jesus Christ, when He commanded us to "Abide" in Him, the "vine".  Those who didn't abide in Him dried up, and were plucked off the vine to be burned--yes burned. We cannot be transformed by the Lord, which means by definition: "given a completely different form or appearance" if we do not first abide in Jesus = The Word, and let the power of the Word Renew us or give us His NEW Life!  Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bachtold)

In the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 40:3-8, we read: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; The crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth; The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Of course, if you heard it then, you might not know what Isaiah was talking about. Prophets often proclaim what God tells them and that generation may never see it come to pass in their lifetime. We, however, have the amazing capability to travel to the past and examine this word and see its fulfillment in Matthews account of John the Baptist. Matthew 3:1-3 we read: "Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight!’” What was John's job to proclaim? Who was he announcing? Why the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of Israel, who had been prophesied of for generations! In verse 11 he says, “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He (Jesus) who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”And then John baptized Jesus, "After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” And then yet another wilderness was entered into by Christ, one of testing in which satan would tempt him and Jesus would defeat him over and over again with the Word. There is the wilderness of testing that Jesus purposed to enter, fasted and walked through for 40 days. There is the wilderness that the Israelites passed through after separating from Egypts (the world's) system and learning to submit to God's ways--and those who disobeyed God and failed Him stayed walking around that desert for 40 years. Before we can go on to greater things in the Lord and more manifestations of His glory and power working through us, He's looking for our decision to submit to His leadership and to His Word and His Spirit. Apart from Jesus we can do nothing. But sometimes we forget that we need Him, that He's with us, and that He's victorious when faced with the wilderness tests. Don't give up! God has wonderful rewards for those who persevere and endure for the sake of Christ!  Support the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/bachtold)