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Posts by Gaspar Anastasi

Would Jesus call you ‘hypocrite’?

February 2, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi
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Making positive change

Sometimes I read the word of God and it just hits me with a 2 x 4. Ouch! That’s what it’s like reading through the Sermon on the Mount. Right off the bat, Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:20, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

What was wrong with the scribes and Pharisees? Jesus called them hypocrites because their example and teachings kept people away from God.

The word “hypocrite” was used at that time for stage actors in Greece and Rome who wore masks to reflect particular moods and emotions. The audience never saw the real person. They witnessed only what the mask portrayed.

In the same way, scribes and Pharisees wore “holy masks,” while underneath they were anything but holy!

You and I need to ask the Holy Spirit to examine our hearts. Ask, “Holy Spirit, am I hypocritical in any way?” In some ways, we are all actors and, for that, we need to repent and ask the Lord to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

However, it’s not hypocritical to be nice to someone you don’t like. That’s obedience. God tells us to “love the unlovely,”and we don’t go by our feelings. On the other hand, if you are nice to that person’s face and tear them apart behind their back, you’re a hypocrite. If we act one way at home and another at church, that’s hypocritical.

A true Christian should be kinder to the person no one likes than the person everyone is falling all over. Why? Because he or  she needs their kindness more.

We sing songs in church like, “I Surrender All” but do we? Do we even want to, or are we happy the way we are? We read verses like “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors,” but do we really?

Have you forgiven those who have wounded you or offend you on a regular basis? Jesus didn’t call the adulterers, the thieves, the drunks and liars “hypocrite.” No, He saved this harshest criticism for the religious church people of His day! I ask myself, “Don’t we all wear masks sometimes? Is it realistic to think that our heart can match what we portray on the outside? Can we truly be righteous inside and out?” And the answer is ABSOLUTELY YES!

If it weren’t possible, Jesus would never require it of us. What He requires He supplies. How does He do it? By coming to live inside of us, by filling us with His Holy Spirit, filling us with all righteousness. The Sermon on the Mount is only an impossible standard for us to live by if we refuse to let Jesus be Lord of our lives.

I don’t know about you; I can only speak for myself. I know there are a number of areas in my life that He isn’t Lord over because I haven’t let Him be. But I long for that to change, and I’m working on it.

I want the qualities found in the Sermon on the Mount to be a reality in my life and even in the areas I don’t think I want it. I’m willing to pray, “Lord make me willing to be willing.”

We love to hear from you! If this blog post has been a blessing to you, please take a moment to let us know by commenting below.…

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A dwelling place for God

January 5, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi
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Relationship with God

We see in the very beginning that our God wanted specifically to have fellowship with man, His highest order of creation. You could go so far as to say that God created man so that He could have fellowship with him.

The Book of Genesis is the Book of Beginnings, the seed plot of the whole Bible. In other words if something is presented as a principle in Genesis, it’s a principle that God intends to keep throughout the whole book. It’s called the Law of First Mention.

So from the beginning of time until this day, our main purpose as God’s people is to have a close, intimate, personal, on-going relationship with God. I’m talking about a relationship with the tangible presence of God, not just the “idea” of God.

Yet, for the most part, that has not been the primary focus of the Church today. We have been so committed to serving the God of our salvation we forgot about walking in the cool of the day with Him. That’s equivalent to the Old Testament priests who spent all of their time in the Holy Place right next to the Holy of Holies (the raw presence of God). They lost focus of their whole purpose of being priests, which was to dwell in the presence of God.

If we satisfy ourselves with just serving God instead of dwelling with Him, we will miss the whole purpose of our existence.

It’s not that serving God is wrong. It’s just not the end result. It is just one of the steps along the way in our journey as Christians. Ultimately our direction and purpose is to become a dwelling place for God’s tangible presence. It’s in His presence that everything we hope for, everything we need, and  everything we desire is fully met.

It’s in the Holy of Holies or the tangible presence of God that He equips us to overcome Satan and all his evil forces of darkness and bring the kingdom of God to bear in our lives and the places that He appoints us to.

Let’s look at the tabernacle once again, since we are the New Testament tabernacle of God today. When the priests went into the Old Testament tabernacle, they first entered the outer courts. It was there that the animals were sacrificed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Today, this is the place where we deny our flesh and praise God and give Him thanks. It’s a beginning and not an end. It is a starting point—not a destination.

Yet so many Christians never get beyond developing a life of praise. It’s good but not the finish line. The whole purpose of the tabernacle was to continue on past the outer courts, then into the holy place, and ultimately into the Holy of Holies—the tangible presence of God. God is longing for us to dwell in His presence and to build Him a place that he would be comfortable to dwell in, not just visit. If you build it, He will come.

Who today will go back to the first principles that God laid out in the Book of Genesis and make His presence the focus of his or her life? Who will build a resting place for the Lord God Almighty? Let our answer today be a resounding “I  will, Lord!”…

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Mustard Seed Faith

December 22, 2018 Gaspar Anastasi
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Faith

Matthew 17:20, “So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

In this passage Jesus is speaking to His disciples and a father who is in great despair because his son is bound up with evil spirits that caused him to be epileptic. The father was frustrated because although the disciples prayed for the young boy, they were unable to set him free him from his bondage and see him healed.

Jesus told them that the reason this boy wasn’t healed; the reason that mountain of sickness was still in his life wasn’t because God wasn’t able to do it or that God wasn’t willing to do it. No…. God was able and He was willing, but because of their unbelief His disciples lacked the ability to apprehend the power of God for this boy.

I am convinced that a deep root of unbelief within our hearts is still a major obstacle that we face in receiving miracles from God. Whenever there is a discrepancy in what the Bible tells us about how God sees something or what He wants to do about something and what we are actually experiencing in our life, the problem isn’t on God’s side. When circumstances don’t line up with what it says in God’s word; it is because of us… because of our unbelief.

Unbelief can be buried so deep in our heart that we don’t even recognize it.  Sure; we can mentally ascent to God’s word but deep down in our heart; where it really counts, we don’t truly believe it. The author of Hebrews knew that there were consequences when God’s people fail to mix His word with their faith as we read in Hebrews 4:2b, “….but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard.”

Jesus said something very important to His disciples in Matthew 17:20. He said if that one mountain was removed, nothing would be impossiblefor us. Can you imagine that one mountain in our life being removed and taken out of the way? Maybe it’s a sickness, maybe it’s a marital problem, maybe it’s a financial problem or maybe we have an emotional issue; but if that mountain was removed we would have the freedom and the ability to go forward and fulfill God’s destiny.

We need to get the seed of God’s word. It can be as small as a mustard seed but when it is planted in our heart it becomes a belief and that belief will produce faith. We will begin to see God’s word greater than we see the circumstances…. when we speak it to that mountain, it will be removed.

It’s time to examine our heart and realize that if we take God’s word (which is the seed) and mix it with our faith, we can say to the mountain that is before us…”Be removed!” Let’s remove mountains in our lives today and walk in God’s possibilities rather than being constantly hindered and defeated by the impossibilities that surround us in life.

God loves you…. God loves me… and His desire is that we succeed. He redeemed us by the precious price of His son’s life so every promise that comes from heaven (through faith) could be ours!!!…

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God’s Amazing Love

December 15, 2018 Gaspar Anastasi
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God's love

God’s love is amazing because it is unconditional… it is unmerited, and we can’t earn it. You and I don’t deserve it… we can’t lose it and, believe it or not, there is nothing we can do to turn God’s love off in our lives. It is so amazing! Don’t you agree?
Look at what God says in Exodus 20:6 NLT:

“But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.”

His mercy and His love are so enduring and so real—in other words, “unending”. Now, that’s an amazing love!

It is easy to identify God’s love because it stands head and shoulders above the kind of love we are all used to. The truth is that our kind of love usually has a motive behind it; it is for self-gain; it’s always looking for something back. We can all agree that many times man’s love is manipulative, controlling and turns out in the end to be hypocritical and false.

But God’s love is an amazing love! He actually looks at us as being valuable and precious. Wow! Even from the very foundations of the world we were God’s special creation and we were accepted by Him. I am confident about that because in Revelation 13:8 it says that Jesus was the Lamb slain for our sins since the foundation of the world!!!

You know, when we truly begin to see that amazing love, we recognize that it is so radically different from every other love we’ll ever experience in this world. It’s something we are automatically drawn to because when we’re around it, we feel whole; we feel clean and it makes us feel accepted. Isn’t that we’re all looking for—acceptance?

Aren’t we all longing for God’s love, acceptance and unconditional mercy in our lives? The great news is that this is exactly what He wants to give us because He knows it will release healing and wholeness to our spirit, soul and body. Once we receive that amazing love into our life we can then be a vessel that God can use to pour out His amazing love to others around us.

I want to encourage you to search for that love in this season. I know you will find it because God has His servants all around you. His amazing love is free and it is available to all who desire it. When you find it you can drink out of that unending wellspring of love. Call upon the name of Jesus and ask Him to come and live in your life. He will fill you with His love and no matter how much loneliness and despair you might be facing or rejection and fear that you may be dealing with, that amazing love will wash it away. The bible says in 1 John 4:18a that there is no fear in love and that God’s love casts out fear.

For those of us who have already accepted Jesus into our life, let’s be the outstretched hands of Jesus; let’s be the eyes of Jesus and even the mouthpiece of Jesus. We need to let His love flow through us to a lost and dying world. Only His amazing love can bring the healing and deliverance to a world that is hurting and seems to be fading away quickly. People are looking for the real thing. God’s amazing love… IT TRULY IS AMAZING!!!…

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woman looking out of window

When It Seems Like Life is Against You

October 27, 2018 Gaspar Anastasi
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Making positive change, Overcoming depression, Success & victory

If you’re like me, sometimes it seems like everything is going wrong and even life itself is working against you! Stress at work is off the charts; your financial problems are getting worse and your marriage and family life is in turmoil. And to make matters worse, it seems like God has turned a deaf ear to your immediate, desperate needs.

Jacob in the Bible experienced the same thing. It started in his mother’s womb, having to fight with his twin brother Esau, then being forced to leave home as a young man because he took Esau’s birthright. He also had to work 14 years for his wife Rachel because Laban tricked him into first marrying Leah, her older sister.

Jacob’s heart broke when Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin. Later on he thinks his favorite son Joseph was killed by wild animals as reported by his eldest son.

During a severe famine his finances are devastated and the Egyptians take his sons Simeon and Benjamin hostage in exchange for food. In Genesis 42:32-36 he makes this summation of the state of his life, “All these things are against me”. In other words Jacob is saying, “life itself is against me; how can I survive?”

These important steps will help you if you find yourself in the same position as Jacob:

#1. Don’t let your problems impress you more than the God you serve. Idolatry is when you have more fear and respect for something (your problems) than you do for your God. 1John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love”.

When you truly comprehend God’s love and protection in the deepest part of your heart, fear of failure and destruction will lose its long-term hold on you.

#2. Create an atmosphere of faith by rehearsing what God has done for you in the past, believing He will do it again. We are our own worst enemy when we create a negative atmosphere by complaining and saying our situation is hopeless.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “It’s impossible to please God without faith”. It pleases God to deliver you from your current struggles. Give Him an atmosphere where he can work on your behalf. You have the ability to invite God into your impossible circumstances.

#3. Stop talking with the snake. Yes you heard me correctly! Many of us talk with satan and his gang more than we do with God. You can tell whom you’ve been talking to by your negativity, complaining and hopelessness.

Come into and agreement with what the Lord says about your circumstances…. not with what satan wants you to say. Matthew 18:19 says “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven.” What an amazing promise! Let’s start agreeing with God from now on.

#4. Don’t judge a thing too soon. Don’t make a permanent decision on a temporary circumstance because God says that what you face today is temporary.

Maybe you didn’t have a good start but your finish is what counts. With God’s presence in your midst, temporary circumstance you find yourself in can suddenly become a blessing.

#5. Remember, God is working in it so don’t quit no matter how it looks or feels. Don’t grow weary in planting good seeds during trials. Galatians 6:7 says, “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows that he will reap.”

#6 Know that the trials and tests we go through releases God’s glory. So don’t give up, give in, or back down. God’s deliverance from life’s problems is guaranteed. Jacob had Joseph, Simeon and Benjamin restored to him when it looked like life had defeated him. He also was restored financially.

He had moments of weakness but he finished strong in faith. God even named Himself “the God of Jacob”.

When all looks lost and it seems like life itself is closing in on you, remember it’s not over till it’s over and you are on the winning team. There is nothing you and God together can’t overcome.

Put these simple but profound principles into action and watch life turn around for you today.

We love to hear from you! If this blog has been a blessing to you, let us know by leaving a comment below.…

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smiling woman

Don’t Wait Until Things Get Better

October 20, 2018 Gaspar Anastasi
1 Comment
Finding significance in life, Overcoming depression, Success & victory

Many of us live negative and discouraged lives, hoping that things will get better one day. You may not like where you are. You might not like your job, your house, your location or even the people in your life.

You have a choice. You can waste years trying to change your circumstances. Or you can let God change you!

It’s easy to stay focused on the few negative things we face instead of the many positive things with which God has blessed us. When we do, we miss out on enjoying this great gift of life that God has given us.

As long as we continually murmur and complain about what we don’t have and how bad life is, God will allow us to stay right where we are. It’s sad to say it, but some of us spend over 40 hours a week depressed and discouraged over the negative things in our life.

God doesn’t promote negative, complaining people with bad attitudes. So the quickest way out of where we are today is to celebrate the gift of life and choose to be happy. Yes, it’s a choice!

Choose to have a good attitude and become the best that you can be right where you’re planted. Learn to prosper right there, even though you may be uncomfortable. Don’t make the mistake of waiting until everything gets better before you get happy and positive.

Start believing God for the best, right where you are. God’s miracle power is not limited by your circumstance… only by your negative and hopeless attitude. Become the best Christian you can be, right where you are.

Remember, you’re the light of the world and your light shines the best and brightest in the darkness. God wants to mature you and build His character in you, so your lifestyle will draw people to Him.

Are people being drawn to God or chased away from Him because of the way you live and your attitude? Look around. How many have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus in the last year because of you?

It’s in the rough places, the difficult and uncomfortable places that God reveals your heart. When we are in those tight places and feel like our lives are on hold, God reveals our corrupt, selfish heart… our it’s-all-about-me-and-nobody-else attitude.

Like David prayed in Psalm 139:23 and 24, ask God to search your heart. The truth is: It is not about you, but about how God can advance His kingdom through you. And, there are times that God keeps you where you are so you can be a blessing to someone else. That’s why we must be willing to be uncomfortable for a season and learn to encourage ourselves during that time.

Stop trying to fix everything and everyone in your life. Simply be fruitful where you are planted! True contentment isn’t having everything you want. It’s not wanting to have everything (Philippians 4:12 &13).

We love to hear from you! If this post has been a blessing to you, please leave a comment below.…

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