A Gathering in the Spirit of Christ

      A gathering in the spirit of Christ. I am not talking about a regular church meeting but something that is more than that. This gathering was just a thought, a glimpse within my mind. It is the best large crowd gathering that I could imagine. It is a gathering that I never had a privilege to be apart of or if it can even exist in this world due to our fallen nature. It is a large gathering of people coming together with unconditional love. A love without judgement, prejudice or bigotry. I was picturing a gathering of acceptance, where people were accepted without any fear of rejection. They were comfortable because they could trust the people that were around them. They had a feeling that they could relax and be themselves. There at that gathering of people with unconditional love, there was no one there who will hurt them verbally or physically.
     This gathering in the spirit of Christ people respected each other and they did not over step the boundaries of others. People's feelings were respected at this meeting. There was no mockery or insults aimed at anyone. There was no belittling of someone making them feel inferior and unwanted. There was only a unity of peace and goodwill. There was not anyone stealing or lying to each other. No one had ulterior motives to get you to believe in something for personal gain. There was no drunkenness or disorderly conduct. The spirit of Christ prevailed. In this gathering, people did not let their sinful nature take control but allow the Holy Spirit of God to guide their way.
     In this large gathering, there will be no one slandering you by gossip or talking behind your back to spread malicious rumors. In this gathering there is no upper, middle or lower class because they realized that we are all God's children. In this gathering, people are making a connection and finding the people who understands them and loves them. In this meeting if a person was lonely their loneliness would start to disappear. In this place, people who live by the spirit of Christ were helping each other to find their way. In this gathering there is unconditional love that reached people's hearts and healed their soul.
     It this large gathering it was not people coming together in a church meeting, setting in their seats and being on their best behavior for a few hours. In this meeting everyone was talking to each other in a friendly and kind manner as if they were all close friends. All these people in this gathering had love within their heart and the Holy Spirit within their soul. You felt like that you were welcomed and that you belong here. It is as if you were looking for this place all your life. It felt like a home to you all during the time that you were there. It was as if you saw the best of what people could be. As I said before this large gathering was just a thought within my mind and the most perfect meeting that I could have imagined. I just wanted to write it down so I would not forget.
     I do not know if such a large gathering like this could take place in our world perhaps if there were more people that were able to give unconditional love. If there were more people, who were in the spirit of Christ so that they can have the help of the Holy Spirit to control their sinful nature. I like to think there is a large group somewhere that can accomplish this gathering. I hope that we do not have wait until we go to heaven before we can find such a gathering of unconditional love. 

1 Peter 3:8 "Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind."
Galatians 6:10 "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."
Romans 12:16 "Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight."
Romans 12:18 "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all."

Our World Needs Believers to Become Followers

     I heard many people say that they believe that there is a God and a heaven. I wish that they were more than believers but also followers of Jesus. Our world can be a hard place to live and for some or even for the many who are working to survive their work can take up a lot of their time. Weary we have become that maybe all we can do is eat, sleep and work. I understand that we have so little time to spare and that we feel tired most of the time and that is why we let our worship of our God to fall short. However if we would take a good look around us, we can see our world is needing more than just believers it needs followers. It needs followers of Jesus Christ, people who have not let their hearts become so harden by the world.
     Our world is needing more followers who are living their lives by the teachings of Jesus and growing in numbers so to lessen the darkness that is upon our world. Our world is becoming more violent and people are losing their hope. We need the teachings of Jesus about his love, forgiveness, compassion and kindness. The world needs to hear about Jesus's sacrifice that took away our sins and gave us a hope to live in his kingdom. There is good tidings to the world for the Lord has come and will come again. We need his followers to bring us this good news of God's Kingdom.
     If we choose to become more than a believer, we would have a direction to go in and our mind and our heart would experience the joy of the Holy Spirit within. By becoming followers of Jesus, we would deepen our relationship with God and feel like we have a closer bond to him. We would feel more like praying to him and asking him for help and guidance. We need the hope that he gives so to feel that we do have a future upon this world. Evil is strong upon our world but God is stronger and he will one day cleanse our world from evil and bring us a lasting peace and happiness. Become more than a believer, become a follower and help other followers fight against the darkness that is within our world. Become strong in your faith and let the light of God guide your way.

John 8:12 "Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
1 Peter 2:21 "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps."
John 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  

A Boy who Saw His Dad and Jesus in Heaven

     I saw a copied TicTok video on YouTube about a boy named Kason, who saw in a vision his dad and Jesus in Heaven. Kason was skateboarding and he fell down breaking his forearm. He had to go to the Hospital to have surgery to set his bone. After the surgery, he was taken to a recovery room to wake up from his anesthesia. When he woke up, he had a vision of his father in heaven with Jesus. His mind was totally fixated on his father and Jesus. He was looking up and talking to them in his vision. His mother was in the room touching him and talking to him but he did not notice her.
     I believe in what he saw was real. I wanted to share this video because I was emotionally moved by it. I thought other people would be moved to and maybe even start to believe in Jesus and Heaven. I posted two videos, one of Kason in the recovery room and the other of his mother being interviewed by her friend, who posted the videos on her TicTok account. It is up to you whether or not you believe what he saw was real but I believe his vision is true. If you want to watch the videos remember to click on the screen and not the red button below the screen. 

@blancacervantes2013 #visionofJesus #visionofdad #jesusisbeautiful #emergencyroom #christiangirl #christiankids #pov #fyp #parati #jesuslovesyou ♬ original sound - Blanca Cervantes

@blancacervantes2013 Hi everyone! Here is the Kason Update 🙏🏽 Please follow Kasons mom, Kaylin @Kaylin gray for any questions regarding Kason! He currently does not have any social media and we kindly ask for you to respect the families privacy. I have received tons of messages asking if there’s a way to give towards Kason and his family, we created a GoFundMe for them. The link is in my bio! All funds will go directly to Kason and his family! We thank you for your love and support, God bless you ❤️ #Kasonupdate #kason #Godencounter #fyp #fy #paratii #JesusisKing ♬ original sound - Blanca Cervantes

Our Worship, Devotion and Love for Our God

     Our worship for our God. Revelation 11:17 "saying, "We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty who is and who was, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign." Revelation 4:11 "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created." Psalm 95:6-7 "Oh, come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." Hebrew 12:28 "Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,"
      Showing our devotion to our God. The apostle Paul told us in how do this in Romans 12:1-2 "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Philippians 3:12-14 "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
     How to show our love for our God. John 14:23 " Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." John 14:21 "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." 1 John 4:7 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God." 1 Corinthians 16:14 "Let all that you do be done in love." Jude 1:21 "keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life." 
     In this hard to deal with world of ours, our worship, devotion and love for our God provides us an anchor, when we are experiencing a storm in our life. Jesus is our refuge in our times of trouble. God's word the Bible gives us some light and hope in these dark times. There is not much to believe in, in today's world but we can believe in the coming of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom. Our worship, devotion and love for our God can get us through our hard times and give us a hope for our future.  

Resist The Devil and He Will Flee

     In a physical fight we will defend ourselves in order to resist in being hurt. If we have a spiritual fight we need to resist the devil in order to protect our minds from his influence. James 4:7 "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 1 Peter 5:8-9 "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world." In our spiritual fight, we must stand firm in our faith and resist the devil for he is trying turn us against God.
     The devil and his demons cannot read our minds like God can. 1 Kings 8:39 "....(for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind)." However after thousands of years in dealing with the human race, Satan knows how to tempt us and cause us to doubt our faith. The devil was able to make someone who was close to Jesus to betray him. John 13:2 "During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him" Satan caused Ananias to sin by holding back charitable money. Acts 5:3 "But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?"
     Satan and his demons can influence your mind from the outside. They can plant thoughts within your mind making you think that their thoughts are yours. Satan planted thoughts of betrayal within Judas's mind as well as putting thoughts in Ananias's mind to hold back money. In 1 Chronicles 21:1, Satan put the thought in King David's mind to take a census of Israel and he did as Satan wanted. It was against God's will so the nation of Israel was punished for what he had done.
     Our minds are so vulnerable to Satan's spiritual attacks. In my own personal experience I fought against one of those spiritual attacks. I was up late at night while others were sleeping. I was watching Christian music videos on YouTube. I like to watch them because their lyrics about Jesus Christ is so uplifting and positive. To counter this negative world of ours, the videos that I watch brings me peace to my soul. Even during the day, I found singing Christian songs can lessen my worries and anxieties.
      When I was watching these Christian music videos at night, bad, hateful and vile thoughts were slowly entering into my head.  I know they were not from watching Christian videos that was about God's love and the salvation we have from Jesus Christ. I could not understand why this was happening. All I was doing sitting in a chair and listening to the wonderful music. I could not understand where these thoughts was coming from. I was asking myself were these some unresolved thoughts that had not dealt with before. I just could not identify with them. The bad thoughts that I was thinking about did not fit the person that I am.
     Then something happen another thought cross my mind. The words resist the devil and he will flee came into my mind. I suddenly realize that I was under a spiritual attack. The Holy Spirit within me was warning me that I was under attack and need to do something about it, Now! I realize that the devil or one of demons was in my room standing right next to me emptying his vile disgusting thoughts right into my mind like it was his own personal trash can.
     In this time of my distress, the Holy Spirit of God was helping me to do what I needed to do. I remembered that the whole armor of God had a piece that I needed to use, the sword of truth which is God's word. I remembered the words that Jesus said to the apostle Peter in Matthew16:23 "....Get behind me, Satan! You are a hinderance to me For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man." Zechariah 3:2 "And the LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, O Satan!....." I also said in the name of Jesus Christ, Be gone Satan!
     After about ten or twenty minutes of saying these words in silence. Why, because it was the middle of the night and people were sleeping. The words that I was saying in silence was just as effective if I were saying them out loud because those bad words from that evil demon was no longer in my mind. In fact, my mind felt like it was washed clean by the clearest water. My mind felt like the verse in Psalm 51:7 "....and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." My mind felt whiter than snow purged of all the evil that was there. It was a ten out of ten good feeling that I was experiencing after the encounter.
     I have learned from the encounter that you cannot accept all the thoughts in your head as yours. You have to be cautious because the devil and his demons are looking for someone to devour. I did not know I was under a spiritual attack until Holy Spirit warned me with the words resist the devil and he will flee. In a physical fight you will know immediately that you are under attack but in a spiritual fight you have to rely on the Holy Spirit's help. So be careful, if you think you are being spiritually attacked then do something about and do not just stand there and take it. Defend yourself with God's word because God's word backed by the power of the Holy Spirit is a powerful combination that no devil or demon can withstand.
         

Live in The Spirit of Christ

     Live in Spirit of Christ for his death and resurrection took away our sins and made us righteous in the eyes of God. Romans 8:9 "You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." If we have the Spirit of Christ within us, we are accepted by God to be washed clean from our sins. Adam's disobedience to God made us all sinners whereas Jesus obedience to God made us righteous in his eyes. Romans 5:19 "For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous."
     Jesus saved not only us from our sins but also from the wrath of God. Romans 5:9-10 "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life." Jesus Christ brought us closer to God by shedding his blood upon the cross that washed away our sins, making us look sinless before God. This act of Jesus Christ's sacrifice justified us, meaning to be declared righteous before God through faith in Jesus Christ. This is why I say to live in the Spirit of Christ and receive God's blessing instead of his wrath. Put your faith in Jesus and be looked upon as God's friend rather than he seeing you as his enemy.
     How hard it must have been for God to allow his only begotten so to hang upon the cross. He brought his son into our world to free us from the wages of sin which is death and to give us eternal life in his Kingdom. Death has no power over the resurrection that we received through Jesus Christ. The devil lost and Jesus won for we now have a way into heaven. Sin cannot hold us captive anymore for in Jesus name our sins are forgiven and by his example, we have a new way to live our life. Live in the Spirit of Christ and you will be accepted into God's Kingdom and there you will have eternal life.

Our Spiritual Warfare

      In our spiritual warfare, we our not using physical weapons but spiritual ones against strongholds which are false reasonings, arguments and opinions. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ," We do our best to use God's word so to open people's eyes to the error of their ways and lead them to repentance of their sins. The apostle Paul told us we should correct our opponents with gentleness. 2 Timothy 2:25-26 "correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snares of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will."
     Jesus at the very beginning of Paul's ministry, he told him to go to the gentiles and open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness. Acts 26:18 "to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." In our spiritual warfare, people's minds are becoming open to the truth and starting to see Satan was the one who hid the truth from them. Why did Satan try to hide the truth because he is the father of lies. John 8:44 "....He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies."
     In Revelation, Satan is called the deceiver of the whole world. Revelation 12:9 "And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world--he was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown down with him." This is why our warfare is a spiritual one because Satan is a spirit and so are his angels. Ephesians 6:12 "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
     The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:11 to fight against the devil, we need to put on the whole armor of God. In Ephesians 6:14-17, he tells us what those pieces of armor are, the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of readiness, shield of faith, helmet of salvation and sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. He tells us also to pray and keep alert with all perseverance. 
     Even though our fight against the devil is an ongoing one, there will be a time when the Lord will return and have the devil cast into the abyss. Revelations 20:1-2 "Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years."