OVERCOMING THE SPIRIT OF OFFENCE
Sanita Ioapo Tuala shared Part 4 of her series on PURPOSE KILLERS. With a message centered around the spirit of offense and pride, she shared the detrimental and debilitating effect of harboring offense in our hearts and explained the cycle of sin that starts with undealt offense.
“Some of the things that the enemy is using against the Body of Christ today is the spirit of Offense and prayerlessness as an attack. Did you know that offense is like a trigger point, and like all trigger points, all it needs is for someone or something to compress or press the spot and it will automatically cause the pain to resurface?”
“We need to understand that there will be a greater attack from the enemy through the spirit of offense these days than other times in history. What does this mean? It means that we are truly in the last days and the enemy knows that his days are numbered. He is using every little thing against us, and offense is one of them.
Matthew 24:10-12 NKJV [And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.]
“The spirit of offense leads to division. It will eventually lead to disunity and discord. See, if satan can keep us mad at each other., then he can have his way. When we are offended by each other, we cannot stay in unity. In unity, God commands a blessing. But once we are offended with each other we have opened up to the work of the enemy – disunity, and discord.”
“When you harbor offense in your heart, even if that person genuinely does something for you – you will continuously feel that they are doing it with a wrong motive. When you are offended by that person, they can never do anything right in your eyes. If that is not dealt with, that door will lead you to bitterness, unforgiveness, and division. And if you cannot let go of offense, it means that there is pride in our heart. Most of the time when we are wounded and haven’t allowed ourselves to deal with that pain or rejection, all it takes is for the enemy to press the trigger point which is the spirit of offense and the whole injury resurfaces.”
“Going back to the Word, if a sign of the last days is that ‘many will be offended, that means that many are wounded, that means we are too proud to ask the Lord for help or are just being disobedient to the Word of God.”
“Have you seen an offended person? Once offense is triggered, resentment surfaces. You will never see the best in what that person does, whatever comes from them offends you, even everything they do and say annoys you!”
“Take Saul, for example, he was offended when people were singing that David killed 10 thousand and he killed only thousands (1 Samuel 18). When they said that, it hurt Saul’s ego. Saul took offense and it led to his resentment and bitterness towards David which opened up the door to hatred and got him scheming to kill David.”
“It’s not like the people were lying, David did do them a favor, but Saul refused to acknowledge that and was offended. The offense is difficult to identify because pride will keep us from exposing the offense in our lives. Pride tells us that we are ‘always right’ and don’t have offense in our life.”
“When we get offended, our hearts are exposed. Some of the things exposed are Entitlement and Pride. “
“Entitlement is when you feel or think that you deserved something over others. Entitled people feel that it is their duty and responsibility even though it isn’t. If they don’t receive whatever it is, they get offended and rejected.”
“We live in a generation where everyone thinks that they are entitled and honestly it’s a setup for offense in our lives.”
“Pride- prideful people are self-reliant, instead of God-reliant. When pride attacks, it does not allow us to see the entire picture. Lucifer was prideful and it was the root of his fall. Pride causes us to fall, however with offense, people don’t see their fall as their own doing, and instead, put the blame on others.”
Proverbs 16:18 NIV – [Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.]
“God corrects those he loves. Don’t be offended when people correct you. Don’t be offended to be corrected by those who genuinely love you – those people God put in your life to help you with what He has called you to do.”
“The Pharisees were so offended with everything that Jesus did that they hated Him enough to plot to kill Him. They were too proud to say that Jesus, the son of a carpenter and born and placed in a manger – was their KING which had been prophesied.”
“If you read the conversations between Jesus and the Pharisees, you see that everything Jesus said, they attacked and hated it. Even the good things that Jesus did, they could not see itas a good thing! They always saw it as an offense, why?”
“Because they were too proud to acknowledge that Jesus was their King. All they did was try to find fault with everything that Jesus did.”
“See, the moment that someone offends you – pride will drown your life and you will not be able to see the best in that person. All you will look for is what they did wrong to feed that demon in you which will cause you to hate and even more…that is what they did to Jesus! Because of offense, it led them to scheme and murder Jesus.
You can watch this complete message here – https://www.facebook.com/supernaturalfellowship/videos/3048740015208748/?v=3048740015208748
24/06/20
THE ROLE OF LOVE IN PURSUING PURPOSE
Sanita Ioapo Tuala shared Part 3 of her message on Purpose Killers, where she posed the question, “Why do we do what we do?”. Sharing about the need for all to reassess and check their heart and motive for why they do what they do, she added, “You can speak in tongues, roll around in the Holy Ghost BUT if you lack love, you and I are nothing!”
“Why do you want to prophecy? Why do you want to pray for healing? Why do you want to get a word of knowledge? Why do you want the spiritual gifting? When we lack love in pursuing the gifting then we end up pursuing it for different motives!”
1 Corinthians 14:1 – [Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.]
“You know the spiritual gifting is no question, it is freely given! In James 1:17 it says ‘every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. All these giftings are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. (1 Corinthians 12:11)”
“So why do we do what we do? – let’s do a heart check tonight!”
“Why do you pursue purpose? There’s danger when we pursue purpose without love, without God – is that we end up pursuing it for our ulterior motives such as fame, money, attention, or even to please people. God is love and love is the foundational motive of why we do what we do. Without it, do not do it!”
“When we lack love we become self-seeking – we seek for what satisfies our interests and our selfish ambitions.”
“Are you patient? Are you patient with people around you? Your spouse? Are you patient with yourself? Are you kind? Are you giving out of love or do you want something in return? Are you giving because its beneficial for you? There are so many questions we could ask but it all goes down to motive – the why?”
LOVE HONORS
“Real Love honor others. Honor is such a huge character to the Lord and can only be birthed out of LOVE. One time the Lord spoke to me so vividly in church, he said, ‘Sanita, honoring your leaders mean that you will protect and defend them, even when they are not even there.’”
“Sometimes we only honor people when they are sitting right in front of us, but when they turn their back, we back-stab them. Loving your leaders means you confront them in private but defend them in public. It means if you have disagreements with leaders or people, you deal with them privately, but you do not gossip about them with other people. Christians do this thing where we say, ‘Oh, I am only sharing it for prayers’, but really I’m sharing it so we can gossip about what they did or said.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-8 –[ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ]
“This scripture applies to relationships and marriage- if you really love the one you are with, or the one you are dating with intention – you won’t dishonor their body or their purity even if you break up with them. You will not dishonor some of the sensitive things they only told you. We can give way to the spirit of gossip when we lack love. The danger of gossip is how it tears people down, it destroys unions & it demeans people.
LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF WRONG
“1 Corinthians 13:5 says that love ‘KEEPS NO RECORD OF WRONGS’.”
“True love wipes the accounts clean. Do you need to give someone a clean record in your heart today? With God’s help, it can be done. Forgive them, let it go and be blessed. Things that people did to us years ago can hold us hostage in our own heart when we keep records of the wrongs.”
“If you were to be given a jail sentence, you might be getting like 5- or 6-years imprisonment, but some of us have been in jail for 5, 10 or even 20 years. What records are you keeping? Some things in life are meant to be for a season not a lifetime sentence!”
“Love always hopes & always perseveres – we always hope, we always see the best in people. I remember what Joyce Meyer said once –“If you love a hard person long enough, they eventually will become soft.’ Love is when we choose to see them from God’s eyes, to see past their shortcomings & we bear with them in love. When we choose to hope we choose to see the best in everything, no matter the opposition.”
LOVE DOES NOT COMPETE
“One area where the Lord really had to deal with me was with COMPETITIVENESS. At the time I may not have looked competitive from the outside, but I was! I wanted to have the highest marks in class, have the prettiest dress in the room and be the smartest kid at school.”
“See, a healthy competition is not competing with your brother or sister, or anyone else for that matter. Its about competing with yourself to become the best version of who God created you to be. When you are so focused on God developing you into the best you – you will not have time to look around and focus on others and what they are doing. Be your own competition.”
“God gave you a purpose is for you to be a blessing to others, it is for you to become the blessing to the ones around you. When you are overflowing, the people around you are overflowing. Envy is shifting your focus from God to YOURSELF.”
LOVE NEVER FAILS
“Love is your weapon! “
“For every miracle that Jesus did, He was moved by LOVE and compassion for the person. He raised the dead because He loved, He healed the sick because He loved, He rebuked and corrected because He loved people, He fed the multitude because He loved them, He preached the Word because He loved the people and want them to be saved. JESUS WAS LOVE. He was MOVED BY LOVE.”
To watch this complete message, watch the LIVE replay here – https://www.facebook.com/supernaturalfellowship/videos/2679581135588271/
17/06/20
PURPOSE KILLERS
Did you know that FEAR can cripple your journey to PURPOSE? Sanita Ioapo- Tuala shared the first part of her message on PURPOSE KILLERS, explaining the detrimental effect the spirit of fear can have on our lives, our callings, and our God-destined PURPOSE.
She said, “Purpose is your God-given calling. Every single person breathing on the face of the Earth has a purpose and a God-given calling! To clarify there are two kinds of Fear- the Fear of man and the Fear of God. Here, I am speaking about the fear of man, which can manifest in many forms.”
“It could be a Fear of not being enough, Fear of not having enough, fear of not knowing enough, there are so many things that you could fear – and these are things that at some point in my journey I had to face personally.”
“What fear does is belittle you and completely stop you from pursuing anything in life. Fear is a monster that can be disguised as our own feelings – crippling every potential seed that was placed in us by God.”
2 Timothy 1:7 –[For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.]
“So according to the Word of God, fear also makes you ineffective and unable to make sound judgment. When we decide out of fear, the result is always damaging, not just to ourselves, but everyone besides us.”
“In the Spiritual Realm – Fear is a DISABILITY. When we define disability, it means ‘put out of action’ or disease, injury or accident that limits someone in their movement or limits someone in their actions, senses, or abilities.”
“The word DISABILITY is connected to the words DEACTIVATE, DIFFUSE, DISARM, DISQUALIFY, PREVENT, or INVALIDATE. As long as you have the spirit of fear in you, you are spiritually disabled and spiritually disarmed. You may be physically capable but being spiritually disabled does more harm to your movement, senses, abilities, giftings, and talents than you’d realize.”
“A few months back, did you see how people fought over toilet paper in the supermarkets? Well, the root of that was fear! It gets you out of control and messes with your mind! Looking back to the Book of Acts, we see that Jesus told the Disciples to say and wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came down to give them power. Fear works to limit the work of the Holy Spirit – not because the Holy Spirit is powerless, but because the person who is supposed to have Holy Spirit is not tapping into the power that lies in Him.”
1 John 4:4-[You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.]
“If we do not deal with the root, we will wither away unless we tap into the power of Holy Spirit who lives in you and I. We can end up going through life unable to live the fullness that God has for us when we choose to fear.”
“Choosing to live in fear is choosing to live at the lowest ability level possible as God’s most powerful creature ever created. You and I are a Masterpiece, which means that out of everything God created, we are the most effective and powerful creatures living on this planet.”
Looking at some people in the Bible who faced Fear during their journey, Sanita spoke about Joshua Son of Nun.
She said, “In Joshua 1:6 – God told Joshua to be strong and courageous. In fact, in that same chapter, God told Joshua to be strong and courageous three times! God knew that He made Joshua a leader who would finish what He started through Moses, by leading the Israelite’s to possess the Promised Land. God also knew the spirit of Fear would not leave His son alone!”
“In verse 9- God’s question is obviously reminding Joshua of what He said earlier. “Have I not commanded you?” As I looked at this verse, I could almost hear the intensity of God’s voice. It is almost like He was irritated by Joshua accepting the spirit of Fear. The Lord knew that when we settle with fear, every gift, every call, and every promise that He put in you will be forfeited simply because we chose to settle for less than what we were made for!”
“Settling because of Fear is like telling God, ‘Oh I cannot be your Masterpiece that you made me be, I choose to settle for less.’”
“Joshua had to choose between Fear or Faith – Faith to trust God at His Word! Joshua chose to ARISE and take hold of the PROMISED LAND. Did you know that excuses can keep you from the potential in yourself and walking out the fullness of our purpose!”
“In Exodus 4:10 – Moses said, “I am not eloquent Lord” – The Fear of not ‘knowing enough’ almost kept Moses back from fulfilling his purpose as a Deliver for a nation. How many times have we pushed back from our fear that we are not educated or gifted enough? How long have we been torturing ourselves with the same thoughts? I believe that it is not the lack of knowledge but the excuses that keep us from going further or climbing higher.”
“Don’t live your life wondering how it would be if you chose to soar; if you chose to fly. What a disgrace for the creation to even think that our God could not enable us to do every good work. What a disgrace to the creation to even think that God created my mouth but could not enable me to speak!”
“I encourage you today to believe that God made you and when He made you, He knew how you operate. If He called you to speak, go assured that He will speak. If He chose you to write, He gave you a perfect hand so go and write it down! Don’t dwell on the worldly fear but be someone who fears God!”
Watch this complete message here-
https://www.facebook.com/supernaturalfellowship/videos/293764128481789/
03/06/20
