Hi, this is Bill Vanderbush. I am the executive pastor at Community Presbyterian Church, here in Celebration, Florida. Recently I got up in front of my church and I said something maybe a little bit radical. I said, “The other day I went into an occultic bookstore.” I have never been into one of those before I picked up a book and it actually had the word “spells” across the front of it. I looked at it and I decided I was going to flip through it and just see exactly what was in there. So I did and when I saw that, I thought, “Wow. That is really interesting. I would like to share that with our church.” So I bought this book of spells and I brought it to church with me and I told the church, I am going to go ahead and read you some of these spells today. You should have seen the looks on everybody’s faces. They thought I pretty much lost my mind. I had to calm everybody down and say, “Look. I didn’t go into a occultic bookstore and I didn’t buy a book of spells. What I actually had was just my journal in my hand. “But, what happened right now, is that some of you came into a partnership with fear. You got really afraid that if I was to actually read about some occultic of spells or incantations in this church, you’d think there would be some supernatural dark power that would be released into this room. And some of you wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. EVery single week we read out ot the word of God. It has come so common to us that you don’t expect anything to happen at all.
The Bible is no book of spells, there is no doubt about that, but it is a book of inheritance, it is a book of promises. It is a book that unveils our true identity, who God believes that we are. As we go through the scripture I think it is really a big deal that you grab what Gd is saying about us. How He is revealing His heart and His love to us. How He has revealed the plan of salvation to us. How He has revealed that He has given us His Holy Spirit and then what does the Holy Spirit do? He convinces us of our sonship. He actually is convincing us that we are righteous. That God and Christ on the cross and the resurrection severed us from the power of sin and death and now we can walk in newness of life. That you actually carry the glory of God upon you according to Ephesians 3:20-21. The power of God is meant to move through you. Jesus said, “The works that I do, you will do also, and greater works.” Do we read these things and don’t consider them to have any power at all? It is so much easier for us to have, I would say, faith in fear, than we do faith in God. Somebody walks up to you in public and says. “Bless you”, after you sneeze. You don’t think anything of it. We don’t really consider the power of a blessing. But, what if a totally random stranger said, “I curse you.” Well, my goodness. You would probably call your pastor and ask for prayer and gather the intercessors together. So often we have more faith in fear and the power of a curse than we do in the power of a blessing.
My encouragement to you today is to let your eyes see the word of God in a new light. That you see it as the power of God and to salvation to everyone who believes and as you read those words, may you consider them to have far more power than a defeated devil and a darkness that doesn’t have the power to threaten you anymore. I declare the victory of God over your life and in every situation and circumstance that you are facing, that you would find a promise of God, and that you would hold on to it and you wouldn’t let go. In Jesus’ name.