x) PRIDE is a deep rooted and poisonous plant from which grow many and various branches. One of the most damaging ones is selfishness. Here, we are not only hurting ourselves but also many others and also the Lord Himself! Selfish believers only look at themselves, how they feel, how they understand and whether they are satisfied, or not. They never look at others and they never look at the Lord, how He feels, how He understands, whether He is satisfied or not and what they do to Him!

And then, out of selfishness, there always grow other branch­­­es like envy, jealousy, self-righteousness, hatred and others. And jealousy and hatred may produce other plants, which shoot down their own roots, namely, bitter­ness often associated with malice. And one plant or root of bitterness in our heart is able to defile not only ourselves but many people around us. (Heb. 12:15) All these evil plants are like weeds. You do not have to sow them, they come from ‘nowhere’, grow by them­selves even in the most impossible places. And how quickly they multi­ply, every gardener knows very well. I have to fight for every blade of grass in my garden, water it, spray it, dung it, cut it to the right height, air the soil and do other gym­nastics just to keep it living until the next round of treatment. But weeds, well, they keep growing under any impossible conditions without any care and the war against them seems to be completely futile.

With bitterness, many believers may become “filthy” with­out any extra effort on their part! And if the situation persists and nothing is done about it, this plant of bitter­ness grows stronger and all these believers are becoming filthier by the day and thus riper for the Judgment. (Rev. 22:11)

I desire to bring this particular point up to show from the Scripture and from my own experience the deep danger and tragedies associat­ed with BITTERNESS and what process of deliver­ance it actually requires.

I do not believe that there is even one believer in the world who never lusted after something, who never desired to have something, go somewhere, do something, be some­­­body. If such a believer then sees the object of his desire or lust, which his heart loves, he immediately desires to have it. This is a natural reaction and the person may not even be aware of it. If he cannot have it, jealousy may start its deadly work without delay. And if the object is possessed by an­other person or persons, the jealousy is directed toward that other person or persons, as well.

It does not take a long time for jealousy to start pro­ducing a root of bitter­ness. And this root or plant starts to grow without any time wasted depending on the magnitude of the lust or value of the object lusted after. Yet, the object may be anything from a large new house or a new car to any small ridiculous item such as a collectible lapel pin from some football team worth a few pennies. There are no rules for our lusts and thus for our mani­fold jealousies.

Bitterness may also start rather quickly whenever any one tells us or does some­thing to us, which we may hate, be hurt there­by, offended, pricked or put to an open shame. At times, we may be an innocent party while others may be hurt­ing us by causing us a deep injustice, knowingly or unknowingly. But the bitter­ness is exactly the same with the same consequences. The great­er the in­just­ice, offence, shame, hurt, the greater the bitter­ness, ensu­ing insensitivity, loss of trust, faith, desire to pray and fellow­ship with the Lord. This also produces the “spirit of un­forgiveness”, which be­comes like an armour against the Spirit of God and His in­fluence on the heart of that bitter man.

What does your bitterness then do? It builds an unseen barrier between you and the other person(s), pro­duces poison, unrighteous judgments and builds within you hatred, malice, anxiety, anger and hypocrisy. If you do not open your heart to the Lord or disclose your bitterness to the brethren that love you, you can never be deliver­ed from it and its deadly effects. It first poisons you and then also the others around you and your rela­tionships. Its effects are the same whether you are the guilty one (with jealousy) or you are innocent and hurt by others.

Nobody seems to be able to figure out why your relation­ships are not open and friendly and trustworthy but rather awk­­ward, strange, something always “hanging in the air” between you and the other person(s). And quite often, the other person just cannot “put his finger on it”. In fact, he or she may be completely deceiv­ed about you. Or, you may be innocent and the situation may be reversed.

It truly takes the Lord to arrange your circumstances in such a way that your bitterness comes out pointing to your unfulfilled lust or your being hurt. From there, jealousy can be traced more easily, if the object of your lust is or was possessed by other persons that can be identified or if your specific hurt is finally confessed. It takes some pressures and quest­ioning of your heart. The Lord will then show you and your brethren the root of your bitterness, which was spoil­ing your relationships stand­ing as a barrier between you and the others.

This is a typical case of overcoming when you finally decide to con­fess it to the Lord and to your brethren. After your deliver­­ance, you will experience a new and true freedom, which you may have never known be­fore. But the time to bring you to your confession and deli­ver­ance may be quite long, and the pressure upon your heart to confess relentless.

Now, the worst and most dangerous kind of bitterness grows in you when some other person is doing to you or in your presence things, which your heart hates. This kind of bitter­ness may increase your hatred, may paralyse your thinking and reasoning, may poison you more by bringing malice into your heart and may increase your hypocrisy tenfold!

Typical examples of this type of jealousy and ensu­ing bitterness, hypocrisy, malice and uncontrolled hatred were the Pharisees, not all, but most of them. They so hated what Jesus did and spoke and were so bitter against Him that they decided to kill Him – their Messiah and an abso­lut­ely innocent Man! Their hearts kept refusing to seek truth, ponder or me­ditate on what the Lord was saying to them.

Do we have to search more to see, understand and hate any jealousy or bitterness in our hearts? Do we need more to perceive the great dangers coming from our selfishness, or jealousy, or bitterness, or hatred or malice? In the mean­time, we may be praying to the Lord to “guide us, bless us, prosper us” and wonder why He is not answer­ing us at all! The Lord never guides, blesses or prospers hypo­cri­tes in any way, He hates them! (Mt. chpt. 23) We first must be delivered, then we may be blessed.

We may not be the same cases with the same depth of jealousy, hatred, malice and hypocrisy as the Pharisees were, but the principle is the same. The Lord will answer our prayer when and if we ask Him to take out that root of bitterness from our heart, deliver us from jealousy and self­ishness. That prayer would be answered instantly!

BUT THE LORD WILL NOT ACCEPT FROM US ANY OTHER PRAYER OR WORSHIP OR FELLOWSHIP WITH HIM BEFORE WE FIRST DEAL WITH OUR JEALOUSY AND BITTERNESS AND BE­FORE WE OBTAIN FORGIVENESS ALSO FROM THE OTHER PERSON(S). (Mt. 5:23,24)

The pro­cess of deliverance might take longer, but the prayer would be heard and acknowledged positively by the Lord in the same hour when it would spring from our heart and lips. Our Father knows our true needs before we ask Him. (Mt. 6:8)

And let not any believer tell me that he is not aware of his bitterness. He would be lying because our “heart knows his own bitterness;” (Pr. 14:10) You must start being honest first with yourself, then with God, then with those that you may hate or be bitter against. May the Lord help you in it.

Do you see and believe the above facts? Are you one of many, many victims of this poison that can kill the human soul the same way as cancer kills the human body? If so, the Lord is your only hope. I pray to the Lord to deliver you from this dangerous poison.

y)    I now want to present to you a rather unusual fact of our spiritual life and development. I started to notice it and penetrate its meaning after many years of my ministry. Now I can see it and appreciate it as “the way of the Lord” which is higher than our ways. (Is. 55:9) The fact is rather unusual in that one would not expect such a phenomenon to exist in deliverance ministry or in cleansing one’s soul.

The essence of this fact is that the Lord may be waiting for another person’s deliverance before He delivers you or be­fore He completes your deliverance. The practic­al outcome of this is that the Lord may not meet your expectations or inter­ces­sions for another person before some spiritual work or goal is achieved in you first.

Suppose that you were a proud hypocrite harbouring  bitter­ness or jealousy in your heart. As a result, your heart and mind were producing unrighteous thoughts and judg­ments. Being a hypocrite, you kept them for yourself and outwardly you portrayed a completely different person. No one could tell what was in your soul and what you were hiding, but the fruit of your works was not good.

One day the Lord began to show these things to your brethren through your fruit. It could take one, two or more years before someone might start to clearly see your pride hidden deeply within your soul. You slowly started admit­ting to the bitter­ness and jealousies in your heart, even to your pride. The Lord started leading you to repentance and a gradual deliver­ance. After some time, you started en­joy­ing new freedoms and blessings (like spiritual discern­ment). Your New Man started growing even though you were still weak in spirit. And then, another believer is found in the same spiritual misery where you were 2-3 years ago. You can now see it and are sure that you can help him since now you under­stand him and his condition because you went through it all yourself. But nothing goes according to your prayers or plans or desires. Finally, you start wondering how can this man be like that forgetting that you were in the same position not long ago. The truth is that the Lord starts giving you through that other person “your own medicine” so that you may start seeing “your old self living in front of you”.

The moment you see it and understand it in this way, you start living also another Word of God, which says: “Iron sharp­ens iron; so a man sharpens the counte­nance of his friend.” (Pr. 27:17)

This simply means that the Lord is using us to DELIVER ONE ANOTHER. Without one another, our full deliverance and cleansing and with it our full freedom may never be achieved during our earthly lives. Another reason for this way of the Lord, as I believe and under­stand it, is that you have to start dealing with the deliverance of that other believer and thus learn and grow stronger in your own spirit. By thus working on the deli­verance of the other believer, you are being delivered from the weak­ness­es of your own spirit and soul. Had the Lord delivered the other believer “unilaterally”, you would have surely missed your opportunities for completing your own deliver­ance and spiritual growth, increasing the strength of your own spirit and soul.

z)    In this last point, let us take time to consider and also ponder one of the most effect­ive weapons of the devil – FEAR. It has many tentacles and forms and covers many areas of our life and activity. We may fear anything at any time, we may have good reasons for our fear or none what­soever. Fear is thus very unpredictable, but may be easily detectable when it is sometimes “written all over our count­enance” or displayed in our behaviour.

I believe that as hypocrisy “guards” the door of our heart because of pride, so fear “guards” our soul because of its self­ish­ness. Most of our fear is there because of our self­ishness when­ever there is danger that our self would not be satisfied or left in peace or whenever our image might be in danger of being exposed! We could write another book just about this one fact. Let us be brief and focus on this weapon of the devil in the spiritual area of our life.

I also believe and have many living experiences that there are multitudes of believers who do not move or do what they know they should do because they are gripped with fear and ensuing doubts and uncertainty.

FEAR TAKES AWAY OUR FREEDOM AND PUTS SHAKLES ON OUR LIMBS AND ON OUR HEART, MIND, WILL AND TONGUE.

I have already mentioned fear among the leader­ship where­by many genuinely fear anyone who might stir their “religious nest” with a prophecy or preaching the Word of God, which would not fit their form of religion. But the same applies to multitudes of believers who might be ex­posed to a prophesy or Word of God they never heard or understood before or they kept resisting for a long time.

Any “breath of fresh air”, any change in the formal life and doctrines of any denomination is absolutely “taboo”. I believe and have living experiences that many believers may only get a “breath of fresh air”, which is the undiluted and full Truth and Freedom of the Spirit of the Lord (2Cor. 3:17), outside of their particular denomination or other religious organization.

I am now speaking to those believers that the Lord is stir­ring up from their long sleep and “religious dreams and naivety” bringing them to the real­ity of His Word and His Spirit. I am speaking to those that do not have to be thrown into dark­ness, weep and gnash their teeth (Mt. 25: 30) in order to finally “wake up and hear the Voice of their Lord”.

I give a glaring example to those who are not entirely spirit­ual­ly dead. Suppose you were attend­ing an Orthodox congre­ga­tion and the Lord had granted you the light that you should repent of your sins, be baptized in water by im­mersion and receive His Spirit accord­ing to His Word. (Acts 2:38) Are you going to find a priest who would baptize you by im­mersion without blinking his eye? You may sooner fly to the Moon. So, how are you going to DO what the Lord has shown you? You must be baptized OUTSIDE of that place and over­come all your FEARS what will people think, how they will look at you, judge you or gossip about you! Either you will be following the Lord or people! It is your choice. And if they would not fellowship with you after your act of faith, you must LEAVE that place! Is it a drastic step? Perhaps, but this also proves that you have to become “violent” against the forces stacked up against you. (the question of “violence” will be discussed later on)

Now, you may believe that water baptism is not ne­ces­sary for you and that you feel “fine” as you are and that your religious life goes on fine, as well. It is your flesh that feels fine, but re-reading some key verses in the Word of God should change that feeling very fast. All believers not baptized in water by immersion (buried) should realize that they are not baptized into Christ Jesus! And if they are not baptized into Christ Jesus, they are not baptized into His death. (Rom. 6:3,4) And if they are not baptized into His death they are not “dead with Christ”. And if they are not dead with Christ (in their own experience and by their own decision) then THEY SHALL NOT LIVE WITH CHRIST. (Rom. 6:8) HELLO?

I did not write the Word of God, I am just bringing It to you to consider It in your heart and mind and conscience. Will you still follow your own reasoning or understanding or traditions rather than the Word of God? It is your choice the same way as it is your choice to stay in your old place or leave it. God will neither force you to do His Word, nor will He decide for you. BUT, He will give you the power to do His Word and OVER­COME ALL FEAR, if you decide for Him and His Word in your own heart. And if you have decided to leave the place and do the Word of God, another FEAR may come to you when you realize that you may have no other place to go to. What will you do? The faith that enables you to overcome all forces stacked up against you may be described as follows.

The Lord knows EXACTLY where you are and what problems you are facing IN EVERY DETAIL. He also knows that your heart decided to do His Word. He has thus pre­pared for you IN ADVANCE ALL that you will need now and in the future including your new place! If the Almighty God could not take care of His own children that desire to do His Word, He would be a rather “poor” God. (I speak foolishly for your sake) So, what is your faith about Our God?

Leaving your old place would, in fact, afford you a living experience of the Word of God in Lk. 9:23-25, which other­wise you would never have. You cannot get rid of your FEARS without deny­­ing your SELF. True? And if you cannot deny yourself by yourself, then you will be able to do it “through Christ which strengthens you” (Phil. 4:13). And if you need Christ to strength­en you, you have to ask Him. And when you ask Him, you shall surely receive (Mt. 7:7,8) because you are asking according to His Will and be­cause you have first given yourself to Him, that is to say, to His Word. Is not the Word of God beautiful and sufficient for all our needs? So, where is your faith at this point?

What do you value more in your heart, your future Life Eternal or opinions of people? Do you value your old place, old ways, old habits, old doctrines and old form of religion more than your future in the Kingdom? And whom do you desire to please in your heart, the Lord, your own self or people? Whom do you fear and obey in your heart, the Lord or people? Your own heart and conscience will tell you. (1Sam. 15:24-26)

Your choice may not be easy, but it is clear and it is yours. You will also begin to “feel” and experience the power and strength of hell within you, which, so far, you may have never truly ex­pe­rienced at all since the powers were satis­fied with your state and, there­fore, had no reason to resist you or even attack you!

In order to complete this paragraph, I have to tell you in all simplicity and honesty that if you do not believe in your heart that you need to be baptized as commanded by the Lord, then, please, do not “get wet” just because somebody tells you. It would serve no purpose. In fact, you would be going against your “current faith” and thereby you would be sinning! Why? Because, “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” (Rom. 14:23)

On the other hand, if the Word of God brought faith into your heart, THE LORD EXPECTS YOU TO DO WHAT YOU HAVE BELIEVED lest your faith should become dead. (Jam. 2:17,20,26)

I desire to note that the above points (a-to-z) I have seen, witnessed, experi­enced and understood at various stages through­out the past 36 years of my ministry.

*     *     *

I am concluding this chapter with one very important testi­mony on my part.

I HAVE FORGIVEN FROM MY HEART all the persons mentioned, described or even named above who have be­come my “enemies” and I have nothing in my heart against them! I have compassion, understanding and love for them. Should they ever see and repent to the Lord for all their iniquities, trespasses and unrighteous actions toward Him, toward their brethren and toward me, I would be truly happy to em­brace them and es­tab­lish, or resume, a right relationship with them in the Spirit of Our Gracious Lord.

THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IS MY TRUE WITNESS TO THIS TESTIMONY AND I AM VERY GLAD THAT HIS SPIRIT LED ME TO IT AND ALLOWED ME TO DECLARE IT AT THIS PLACE.

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To be continued next week in chapter 4 – part 1 

brother Hanola

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