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Weekly Wisdom Winnows

    by Lisa Mendenhall

You Don't Have Rights!
Date Posted: February 22, 2009

Do you realize that you DO NOT belong to yourself? That you are the property, (spirit, mind, will, emotions, body and everything else) of God. You do not have the right to tell God what you will and won't do. The Word says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 The Message Translation Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

We were bought with a PRECIOUS price, the blood, the very life of Jesus Christ. That is the price that God thought you were worth. He bought you. You are now HIS property. And we have no choice but to do what He says. If we choose to continue doing our own thing then we are renegades and rebellious. We need to change our thinking about our rights and our way. We don't have any according to the Word of God. I believe God when He says He can't lie, what about you?

I believe part of the problem with Christian's is that we teach people wrong about being born again. We need to explain to people that when they accept Jesus as their Savior that they have changed their whole world. They no longer have the right to do what they want when they want. They have become the property of Jesus Christ. We teach people that they can get born again and then go their merry way and just have a ticket out of hell. That is not true! Nowhere does the Bible teach us that we can be set free to do our own thing. We don't have any rights except for the ones our new owner and master gives us. We have given all rights away to the one who created us. The truth is that we have never belonged to ourselves anyway. Before we became Jesus' property we belonged to the devil. He had the right (because of the fall of Adam) to be our task master. And he was a hard, relentless master. He wanted us to die and go to hell. He had no good plan for us.

Our new owner and master wants only good for us all of our days. He says that His burden is easy and His yoke is light. The good news is we have an AWESOME owner. An outstanding master, and His sole purpose in telling us what to do and what not to do is FOR OUR SAKE. Not for unwholesome purposes and not for selfish motives of His own. Everything He leads us to do is for us and for our good as the body of Christ. We can trust in a master who is unselfish and thinks only of others good. Our new owner loves us with everything in Him and He desires to be pleasing to us the same way we desire (or should desire) to please Him and make Him proud.

Try speaking this out of your mouth today;
Father, I realize that I am not my own. I don't have the right to make my own decisions. Help me to change my way of thinking to conform to the truth. That your way is the only way I have the right to go in. Lead me today into your will and purpose and help me to snuff out any pride and rebellion that tries to rise up and usurp authority over me. Thank you for your strength to do this in. In Jesus name,

Your flesh may not like it but the Lord sure does! Be blessed! Lisa

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Biography Information:
Lisa Mendenhall lives in Smackover, Arkansas with her husband of over 28 years, Chris. She has 4 grown children who also love the Lord, each serving Him in some capacity. As a teacher of the Word, Lisa, believes that she has a responsibility to use her God-given gift to teach those who have a desire to live victorious in Christ how to do so. She believes in order to live victoriously, one must get to know God and His character. His character is love. Therefore, Lisa has a heart-desire to bring people to a greater understanding of God's love. Her teachings explain that when His love is activated IN His children, it will motivate them to give just as His love motivated Him to give 'His only begotten Son', Jesus, to the world. God's wisdom does not always flow with the world's system of wisdom and His Word says, 'my people perish for lack of knowledge'. Lisa states, 'During meditation one day, I heard the word 'winnows'. With great curiosity, I learned it to mean,

'To separate the chaff from (grain) by means of a current of air. To rid of undesirable parts. To separate or get rid of (an undesirable part); eliminate: winnowing out the errors in logic. ...separate grain from chaff...separate the good from the bad...examine closely in order to separate the good from the bad; sift...' (www.dictionary.com) 'This study gave me direction and focus for my teaching.  God had placed a longing in my heart to teach the body of Christ how to separate from carnal thinking and rid themselves of old ways that hinder their Spiritual growth. I desire to see them live victoriously, by the 'higher ways' of God's wisdom.'
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