BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

********** ADVERTISEMENT ********** Superkid Academy Children’s Church Curriculum Putting the Word Into the Hearts of Superkids! Vol. 1: My Father Loves Me! #S190301 Vol. 2: The Fruit of the Spirit in You #S190302 Vol. 3: The Sweet Life: Living in God’s BLESSING #S190303 Vol. 4: The Heart of a Superkid: God’s Character in You #S190304 Vol. 5: The Superkid Creed #S190305 Vol. 6: The Superkid Creed II #S190306 Vol. 7: The Superkid Creed III #S190307 Each 13-week volume includes: ● Weekly, progressive lessons ● DVD with video messages ● Complete teacher preparation CD ● Original praise & worship music ● CD-ROM full of resources and more! Visit SuperkidAcademy.com for free samples. Risk-Free, 60-Day Guarantee $119.95 each | reg $249, $229 or $199 superkidacademy.com 1-800-606-4190 (U.S. only) FREE standard shipping included. Offer prices valid until March 31, 2019 ********************************************* * * * * * article continues * * * * * Dealing with weights is a little trickier than dealing with sin because weights differ for each one of us at different seasons in our life. Something that qualifies as a weight to you where you are right now in life, might be entirely legitimate to someone else where they are. Or something that was OK for you a few years ago, might need to be set aside as you progress and grow in God. Back when I was first born again, for example, it didn’t occur to me for a while that I should stop smoking cigarettes. I just thought that was a normal part of life. As a baby Christian, when I first heard about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, I actually went outside after the service to smoke a cigarette and pray about it, because I wasn’t sure that speaking in tongues was of God. Can you imagine? I wasn’t even thinking about whether or not smoking cigarettes was of God. The Lord hadn’t yet dealt with me about that. A short while later, however, He did, and I stopped. Praise the Lord, I’ve come a long way since then! But even so, the Lord is still calling me upward, to greater degrees of holiness. He’s still speaking to me about things He wants me to do and adjustments I can make that will help me go higher in Him. Growing in holiness is a continual progression. God never expects any of us to become perfectly holy on the outside in just one jump. He takes us through a developing process. We are changed into His image in stages, over time, “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18), as we keep our eyes on Him and His Word and keep obeying His leadings. Those leadings may not be dramatic. They may not come like writing on the wall or a burning bush. But if you’re a serious Christian, they’ll always be coming up in your spirit. You’ll just sense on the inside that the Lord is leading you to lay some things aside so you can go to a greater place of glory. What kinds of things might He speak to you about? I don’t know. As I said, it can be different things with different people. It depends on where you are in your walk with Him. One area He’s likely to speak to you about is your love walk. Since love is our foremost command, He might bring to your attention certain unloving habits or behaviors you hadn’t previously noticed. He might deal with you about changing them or laying them aside. Another area He might speak to you about is how you spend your time. He might lead you to increase your time in the Word and in fellowship with Him and decrease the amount of time you spend watching secular television. In our generation, I think, apart from outright sin, secular entertainment is probably the greatest depleter of the power of God in our lives. Just think about how television and movies are designed to desensitize us to right and wrong. Think about all the sitcoms that portray sin as funny and harmless. That’s the spirit of the world! As believers, we don’t want that spirit coming through our television sets into our homes all the time. We don’t need to sit around and watch adultery and listen to profanity. That contaminates our minds. God has so much for us in this hour! He doesn’t want us to waste our time on that kind of carnal, pitiful stuff. Compared to the glory He has in store for us, that’s nothing but garbage. Why would we waste our time grubbing around in the garbage of the world when we can be walking with God in heavenly places? Why would we spend our lives catering to the desires of our flesh and letting our carnal nature rob us of the manifestation of God’s power in our lives? That doesn’t even make sense. We’re the last days generation! We have the opportunity to reveal the glory of God to a greater degree than it’s ever been seen before in the earth. So, let’s do it. Let’s lay aside the weights and the sin that so easily besets. Let’s become famous once again for being holiness people and become the glorious Church God has called us to be! V 30 : BVOV

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