Isaiah 30:21 NET “You will hear a word spoken behind you, saying, “This is the correct way, walk in it,” whether you are heading to the right or the left.”

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Doesn’t it feel like the pressure has turned up since Covid-19? If you feel like this year has been tough when it comes to making decisions you’re not alone. A lot has happened since Covid. It’s as if another level of evil has been unleashed in the air along with the disease.🦠👽 Many have lost jobs, houses, cars, etcetera. Others have lost loved ones and brethren. The evil in the air has contributed to some turning away from folks they once proclaimed to love. (Matthew 24:10-13) People are losing their minds. They’re being robbed of their own identities. (John 10:10) The pressure has certainly turned up. The days are more evil than before.

Today’s pressures remind me of the game chess (only more deadlier). In chess your opponent’s job is to restrict your freedom or moves, and force you to make moves you don’t want to make. If your opponent is successful after so many forced moves your position becomes so weakened to the point you just wonna resign, or your king gets checkmated. In either case you lose. If you feel like you’re in such a struggle or you’re stuck and don’t know which way to move I believe this article will encourage you. Or if you’ve already made a bad move but you still want to fight and win I think this piece will edify you.😊

IT’S NOT ALL YOUR FAULT

The Devil and his angels love to play deadly games.👽 They cause troubling situations similar to hard to figure out chess problems. Then once we become troubled they whisper in our ears that we are sinning, “You don’t have enough faith,” they mutter. Basically when we feel anxious or fearful and don’t know what to do evil spirits love making us feel guilty for being stuck in the same troubles they’ve caused. How sick!🤮 But let’s take a closer look at something Jesus says so that we may dispel these demonic attacks:

John 14:27 KJV “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart BE troubled, neither let it BE afraid.”

Do you know what the that 2 letter word, “BE,” means? Look it up in a dictionary; it means, ‘to be equal in meaning with, to have identity with, or to exist as something.’ When Jesus said, “Let not your heart BE troubled, neither let it BE afraid.” he was saying don’t be equal in meaning with anxiety or fear, don’t let them be your identity, and not to exist in a constant state of trouble and terror. Will we get anxious and fearful sometimes? Yes. But GETTING anxious and fearful and BEING anxious and fearful are two different things. One comes and goes, the latter always stays:

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 KJV “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are PERPLEXED, but not in despair; [9] Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.”

The scripture clearly says we go through all kinds of pressure from this world and are hit on all sides. Do you know what the word, “Perplexed,” means in the original Greek in the text above according to STRONG’S Definition? “To have no way out that is be at a loss (mentally).” Is that not how you feel sometimes, perhaps even now? Like you don’t know which way to turn or what to do? This feeling is normal and not sinful. So don’t beat yourself to death over it. All believers get perplexed the scripture says. Remember there is a difference between GETTING and BEING something. These are highly unusual times. It’s much easier to become confused and make the wrong decision. But isn’t it great to know even if you have slipped up God is willing to forgive you?😊 So why not forgive ourselves? God has given us a giant eraser. It’s called repentance. As long as we humbly admit to Him our faults and repent He is more than happy to forgive us.😊 (Proverbs 28:13)

Though believers get beat down by this world and are even confused at times we are never forsaken by God or destroyed.😊 Our God is always with us, always protecting us, always guiding us. You know what inspired me to write this article? Like you I’ve been under unusual pressures lately and was about to make a bad move. It felt like a forced move just like in a game of chess. At the moment it seemed like the right move. Now I can see my opponent (the Devil) was setting me up for that move the whole time. I even made preparations for this move that costed me financially, mentally, and even physically. But who cares? I just thank God that it didn’t cost me spiritually! Right before I was about to do it God showed me, “Don’t move there.” Sometimes it’s not until we make the wrong choices or are headed that way God intervenes. Let’s be glad He does. Or how else could this passage come true?

Isaiah 30:21 NET “You will hear a word spoken behind you, saying, “This is the correct way, walk in it,” whether you are heading to the right or the left.”

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Commanded to Love

John 5:1-9 KJV “After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. [2] Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. [3] In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. [4] For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. [5] And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? [7] The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. [8] Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. [9] And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.”

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An angel would come down from time to time, stir up the waters in the pool of Bethesda and whoever got in first (if they were able) got healed? Hmmmmm.🤔 Those who know God know this healing process doesn’t sound like Him. First of all this healing is based on human effort (works), who can race to get in the pool the fastest, whereas God’s miracles work through faith:

‭Mark‬ ‭5:25-34‬ ‭NET‬‬ “Now a woman was there who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years. She had endured a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all that she had. Yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she kept saying, “If only I touch his clothes, I will be healed.” At once the bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Jesus knew at once that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” His disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing against you and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” But he looked around to see who had done it. Then the woman, with fear and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, YOUR FAITH HAS MADE YOU WELL. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.””

Mark‬ ‭6:1-6‬ ‭NET‬‬ “Now Jesus left that place and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue. Many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did he get these ideas? And what is this wisdom that has been given to him? What are these miracles that are done through his hands? Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” And so they took offense at him. Then Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, and among his relatives, and in his own house.” HE WAS NOT ABLE TO DO A MIRACLE THERE, except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed BECAUSE OF THEIR UNBELIEF. Then he went around among the villages and taught.”

SATAN’S CHARACTER

I bet there were many fights over who was first in line at the pool of Bethesda. Think about how wickedly demonic this is; making the physically impaired compete in a physical contest, a race to see who can get in the pool FIRST to be healed. No second place consolation prize you had to be FIRST. Some folks who waited by the pool were blind, some were crippled like the man Jesus healed. So unless they had someone pick them up and rush them into the water FIRST (when the angel supposedly stirred the water up) they couldn’t get healed. God does not work like that. The entire Bible shows this is not His character. (Ecclesiastes 9:11 Matthew 19:30) But this is the character of Satan the Devil: 

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🤡“Too bad you didn’t get here first. You’re not fast enough hah hah hah hah!”

😥“I know, I can’t walk, so I definitely can’t run. Isn’t that why I’m here, to be healed?”

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Whether people actually got healed at the pool of Bethesda or not is debatable. But it wouldn’t surprise me if counterfeit miracles did take place. The Devil is more than happy to perform miracles to keep people from worshiping God in spirit and truth. (Exodus 7:8-13) Think about it: if every now and then someone got healed at the pool of Bethesda wouldn’t this cause people to put their trust in the worship of angels and other things instead of God?🤔

Colossians 2:18 LEB “Let no one condemn you, taking pleasure in humility and the WORSHIP OF ANGELS, going into detail about the things which he has seen.”

ARE CHURCHES LIKE POOLS OF BETHESDA?

We find the same evil practices done at the pool of Bethesda in some churches today? People put their trust in the power of angels and worship them over God. You even see statues and pictures of angels in these churches everywhere, something that God commanded us not to do:

Exodus 20:4 KJV “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or ANY LIKENESS of any thing that is IN HEAVEN ABOVE, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

People place their trust in physical objects also in these churches like phony anointing oils, prayer cloths, prayer beeds, man made altars, etcetera. People are taught without the use of these objects in worshiping God no miracles can take place. This is all idolatry and witchcraft!

Some of us just like the folks at the pool of Bethesda have believed in wrong things for many years. Waiting by a pool to be healed for 38 YEARS😳 at first sounds like a long time. But when you think about it how many of us did or do the same thing? How many seek to be healed in false churches for many years?🤔

THEN JESUS SHOWED UP!

One day Jesus showed up!😃 This poor guy who waited for 38 long years got a gift from heaven. No angel came down and stirred up the waters in the pool. The Creator Of Heaven And Earth; the ruler of all the angels came down and healed the man!😊 (Psalm 146:6 ) This tells me a lot about God’s heart. God though so high and holy looked down, saw the pitiful man’s state, and helped him. He didn’t tell the man how stupid he was for believing the wrong things. He simply showed the man how to believe in the right thing by helping him.😊 (John 3:16 John 14:6) No physical contest for the physically impaired (survival of the fittest😳) was necessary to be healed by Jesus. How wickedly demonic that is!👽 All the man had to do is accept Jesus’ free gift.😊 

Has not God done the same for so many including us? Many of us too believed in witchcraft for our healings. We did some silly things hoping we would get what we want. We were putting our trust in powers that are not of God. (Ephesians 6:12) Sometimes we did get those things we desperately sought after. But when it is obtained through witchcraft a whole lot of sorrows come with it: 

Proverbs 10:22 NET “The blessing from the LORD makes a person rich, and he adds NO SORROW to it.”

I’m glad that God is so merciful and loving.😊 There is no one like Him. Let’s not forget where we come from. We are no better than the man at the pool of Bethesda. ALL are in need of God’s healing, love, and forgiveness. ALL have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. (Romans 3:23-24) But sadly not all will receive Jesus Christ’s free gift; the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.😞 Not all will receive Jesus as Lord and Savior of their lives. This will be to their eternal detriment. How sad. Let’s pray that those who are misled like we were wake up. Let’s pray that Jesus shows up in their lives too just like He did in ours and the man at the pool of Bethesda. 

THERE ARE MANY POOLS OF BETHESDA

There are many pools of Bethesda in this life. Some have been anxiously waiting by the pool for years hoping to find the right man or woman to fall in love with and make their life whole. They believe life can’t be joyful, complete or fulfilling without that special someone.❤️ Though desiring a mate is not sinful but normal there are some who will do ANYTHING to get it, and here is where the problem lies. Others believe they won’t be made whole until they become rich and wait by the pool for years in search for that. They will do ANYTHING to get money. This too is a false healing. (1 Timothy 6:5-10) There are many things in this life that resemble the pool of Bethesda where people will search for years and do whatever to get what they want. DON’T BE FOOLED! To complete your life you must go to the source of life: GOD! You must establish a strong relationship with Him through His son Jesus Christ. You will eventually find that He is all you ever need.😊 Other things are added blessings. Jesus is truly the miraculous healing everyone is looking for. They just don’t know it yet.

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