The Esau Syndrome

May 11, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

Making positive change, Relationship with God, Success & victory

Esau, the first born, came in from hunting and said to his brother Jacob who was cooking pottage, “Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!” Jacob replied, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “Look, I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?” So he swore an oath, selling his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. The Bible summarizes this heated exchange with one cold statement: “So Esau despised his birthright” (Gen. 25:34).

Position, Privilege and Power

As the firstborn and heir to his father’s fortune, Esau was to come into Position, Privilege and Power. That was his birthright. However, he wasn’t willing to wait.

Every day the enemy tempts us to compromise future blessings to meet an immediate emotional need. How often we Christians fall prey to the Esau Syndrome! How often we sell our place of Position, Privilege and Power to meet a carnal craving, a lustful appetite! Yet, only God satisfies.

Just like Esau, we reason, “What good is my birthright? I’m hungry now! Why wait? I need someone to love me now!” We see an opportunity to get what we think God wants to give us…but our way. So we close our eyes and leap into sin, emptiness and spiritual death, trying to meet our need instead of relying on God. Thus, the Esau Syndrome has crippled the body of Christ and made us dysfunctional.

No Shortcut to God’s Best

In God’s house there are no elevators, only steps. You must go through the steps He ordains in order to inherit the blessings He has prepared.

I know so many Christians who have promises from God, but they are not willing to allow God to take them on His journey in order to receive them. How sad that is! They end up losing everything for a pot of beans.

It’s like the weight lifter who wants the bulging muscles, so he takes steroids. He looks good on the outside, but inside his body is being destroyed.

Exodus 13:17 says that God led the children of Israel “not in the way of the Philistines.” There was a way to the promised land that was quicker, but in the shortcut, they would have dealt with the lusts of the flesh and they might have gone back to Egypt and into bondage.

Stop Selling Your Birthright

God is re-training us to trust Him rather than ourselves. He wants us to be led by His Spirit and not by our emotions.

Church, stop living out of your soul. Stop selling your birthright. Any time you try to be self-sufficient rather than God-sufficient, you go right back into bondage like before. Allow God to take you on the journey that will mature you. Don’t fall for the devil’s counterfeit. No shortcut will produce a Christ-like result in your life.

Have we not yet come to realize that, unless God meets our need, we will be left hungry and thirsty? Have we not hit enough dead ends to know that God has to bring it to pass? It takes a mature Christian to say no to the lusts of our flesh and yes to Jesus. Let’s be disciplined. Let it not be said of us, “So they despised their birthright.”…

Take back control of your life!

May 4, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Success & victory

When a person who has offended and hurt you in the past suddenly comes into your presence, how do you react? For many of us, our mood immediately changes and we do everything possible to remove ourselves from their presence.

Past offenses left undealt-with make us vulnerable, allowing other people to control our life. We become slaves to our own feelings and emotions. If we don’t break free from the pain caused by those past offenses, our history will always show up in our destiny.

Living in the past hinders what God planned for our future, and also keeps God’s present and future blessings on layaway. Every time we react to emotions connected to those past hurts, its like eating dead things over and over again. Stop and release your enemies by forgiving.

Look at the birds

When you are constantly reminded and controlled by things that happened in the past, you are eating stuff you ought to be releasing. It won’t produce peace or joy. It just weighs you down.

Resentment makes us like a chicken that is earthbound because it can only fly a short distance. That’s because a chicken eats dead things (even its own feces) and is weighed down. In contrast, the eagle flies miles high and only eats things that are alive.

Holding on to offense does the same thing to us. We lose control of our life and give it to the person who offended us. It’s time to take back control by refusing to internalize what we ought to be releasing!

God gave us the ability to purge ourselves from offenses. His nature to forgive has now become our nature as Christians. It’s not unusual that the world struggles in this area. They are not equipped like we are.

Weakness vs. wickedness

Yet, why do Christians struggle? I believe it’s because we confuse wickedness with weakness. The person offending us doesn’t have to be wicked. Many times they’re just weak, unable to resist the temptation that caused them to make a wrong choice.

We should all sympathize because we all suffer from the same weakness. The problem is: Because we are the victim of their wrong decisions, we consider them wicked and hold on to the offense (and continually eat dead things).

The heavy price of unforgiveness

Our unforgiveness doesn’t affect them—but us. We want them to pay a heavy price for hurting us, but by dwelling on hurtful memories we are drinking poison. We are “stopped up”, spiritually hurting ourselves. Just like our natural body, when we don’t release what goes in us, our health is seriously affected. The solution? Purge ourselves by forgiving our offenders because we recognize their weakness is not wickedness.

God’s word says mercy will triumph over judgment. Sure, they may deserve to be punished, but so do you and I. But every day of our life, God’s mercy spares us the just punishment that we rightfully deserve!

Take back control of your life and allow God to bring you into the great destiny He has for you. Stop living like a chicken and start soaring like an eagle!

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Begin at the end.

April 27, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Finding significance in life, Making positive change, Success & victory

What would you like your friends say about you when you die? That you were a person who loved God and loved people… that you were compassionate, always putting the needs of others before your own? Of course, you do! Unfortunately, for some of us that won’t be the case because we never planned the end from the beginning!

You see, when a Hollywood producer makes a movie, he or she always has the end in mind before they start production. They design the different segments of the movie, making sure they all lead to the desired ending. If one of the segments doesn’t fit the ending they planned, they pull it out and create one that does fit.

If you and I want our lives to have a great ending, we must likewise plan the different segments of our lives to produce the desired result.

Pay now and play later

I like to say it this way: If we pay now, we can play later. But that’s the opposite of what most people do! Good planning calls for great discipline and keeping the end well in sight. Like a movie producer, you and I get to control each act and dictate how it ends.

The key to a good ending is sticking to the script: the Word of God. Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith; He is also the Director of our life, as the Apostle Paul tells us in Hebrews 12:2.

An illustration

I heard a story of an old man who sat on a park bench every afternoon, reading the newspaper. One day a young man sat next to him and, after a few minutes, leaned over to the older gentleman and said, “Sir I’m sorry to interrupt you, but do you have the time?” After a long pause, the old man turned, said “No” and went on reading the paper.

The stunned young man interrupted him and said, “Sir, you have on a watch and I don’t understand why you would say ‘no’ to my request. Did I not ask you politely, or did I offend you in some way?”

The old man said, “Son, you seem like a very nice young man. If I told you the time, we may have gotten into a conversation. Then I might have come to like you and invited you to my house for dinner. When you came over, because you are a handsome young man, my single daughter, who is beautiful, probably would have been attracted to you and you to her. You’d ask her out and there would be a good chance that you would ask her to marry you. Well, I don’t want my daughter to marry somebody who can’t afford a watch.”

Keep the perfect ending in mind

Now that’s a little radical, but the truth is this: You’ll never reach your desired end unless you begin and arrange the rest of your life’s journey with the end in mind. God showed Jeremiah as a young man what his life’s journey was to look like, and Jeremiah kept that vision before him. Surely, our destiny can also be fulfilled if we keep our end goal in mind at all times.

Think about how you would like your obituary to read and the legacy you want your family to continue. Will the unfolding of your life’s script bring glory to God? Take the time today and plan your ending. Then begin at the end!…

Does a habit have you?

April 21, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Getting past the past, Making positive change, Success & victory

Everyone has habits, both good and bad. A habit is a behavior acquired by frequent repetition. An addiction, on the other hand, is a compulsive dependence on an object, an action or a feeling, resulting in major life problems.

Good habits reflect God’s character and strengthen our character. Bad habits lead us astray, drag us down and affect our lives in negative ways.

Scripture uses words like bondage, slavery and stronghold to describe what it means to be a prisoner of sin. Maybe you aren’t enslaved to something as destructive as drugs or alcohol, but you may be held captive to some seemingly harmless activity or attitude. “….For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him, (2 Peter 2:19b, NIV).”

Heart attitudes like anger, criticism, greed and prejudice can be just as damaging as hard-core addictions to drugs, pornography, gambling and eating disorders. Only when our habits move from pleasurable to painful, do we desire and maybe even get ready for change.

The first step

The first step is to acknowledge what’s fueling your negative habit. God created us with a desire for a loving, personal relationship with Him, one in which He meets all our deepest needs. Bad habits and addictions develop when we attempt to meet our God-given needs for love, security and significance through an unhealthy dependence on people, things and activities. With the help of the enemy, wrong thinking takes root in us and things become idols that take the place of God.

Satan uses shame and condemnation to keep us in bondage. He makes us think that God is fed-up and disgusted with us, so we won’t turn to Him for help.

No condemnation

In John chapter 8, when a woman caught in adultery was brought before Jesus, He didn’t condemn her. He showed her that even her would-be executioners weren’t without sin. He simply said, “Go and sin no more.”

As her sin lay bare before the Lord, I believe something supernatural happened in her heart. She sensed His love, forgiveness and acceptance and was set free from the lies she believed. No longer defined by her behavior, she received a new beginning. Get the picture?

Stop throwing stones at yourself and turn to Jesus, and keep turning every minute of every day. God brings conviction which brings repentance, rooted in right thinking and the power to change—not condemnation.

From bondage to freedom

How do we move from bondage to freedom? It takes faith and trust. Believe that God has not condemned you for your bad behavior. Trust His love for you, and the truth of His word. His truth sets you free!

Will power alone ultimately brings failure. But, if your desire is to surrender to God and let Him change you, you’ll find incredible peace, power and freedom.

If you’re feeling defeated, put down your stones and turn to Jesus. He loves you and He alone can give you the power to walk away from anything that holds you in bondage. Let go and take His hand!

If this blog post has been a blessing to you, please let us know by leaving a comment below!…

Discover the real you

April 6, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Success & victory

For so long, our lives have been driven by the desire to please others and gain their acceptance. Unfortunately, that lifestyle causes us to lose sight of our true identity (who God created us to be).

Not knowing our identity results in joylessness, depression and lack of fulfillment in our jobs and relationships and ultimately an overall unhappy life!

This issue often starts in childhood. With good intentions, our parents try to mold us into the people they want us to be. They reward behaviors that fit their expectations and punish what doesn’t.

This sets the pattern early in life of denying the real person inside and living the “big lie”. We eventually alter our personalities and behaviors to fit in and gain the acceptance of whomever we’re with.

The price of self-denial

We pay a price for living the big lie, because not knowing who we are is a tremendous loss. As Christians, when we read “Put off the old man and put on the new,” we reject the wrong person! We miss out on being transformed into the likeness and image of Jesus.

That’s why we experience chaos in our inner world: fear, anger, jealousy, inferiority, to name a few. We hide and deny that world even exists inside us. Or we cover it up with religious activity like joining the choir and going to church all the time. Or we blame others or circumstances for our discomfort and emotional instability.

Yet, just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He called you and me out of the grave and brought us into new life. Jesus came to set us free from slavery to Satan, so that we are free to live the life for which He created us. It’s high time that we shed the grave clothes!

The road to self-discovery

Here is how the Holy Spirit can lead you on this journey of self-discovery:

• Don’t deny your feelings. Instead, discover why you feel the way you do. Your feelings reveal the hurts, the wounds and the many times you’ve exchanged your true self for the person everyone wanted you to be. Invite Jesus into your inner world to transform you.

• Let God reveal His love for the real you. You’ve often crucified him or her instead of recognizing how valuable that person is to God. Remember, the first commandment is to love God with all our hearts and then to love others as we love ourselves. Ask the Holy Spirit to help in this. Stop believing Satan’s lies about your true value.

• Cultivate lost and forgotten dreams and passions buried in your heart. Don’t deny them any longer. Be strong enough to say “no” to things you used to say “yes” to. People-pleasing eventually disappears when you discover and consistently live the life God created you to live.

In conclusion, the first step to a successful Christian life is to discover the real you. But it doesn’t end there. Secondly, let God transform the real you into a mature Christian. Aren’t you tired of living the big lie? Start the journey to discovering the real you today. You won’t be disappointed!

We would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment if this post has been a blessing to you!…

Jesus: Made in America

March 30, 2019 Gaspar Anastasi

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Making positive change, Success & victory

Whatever became of the Jesus we read about in the pages of the Bible? And who replaced Him with the modern American version?

Many still believe “Jesus is the way the truth and the life and there is no other way to the Father except by Him (John 14:6).” Yet many Christians have mistakenly embraced the heretical belief that God’s grace has done away with His laws.

Jesus Himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).”

We’ve made grace a license to do whatever pleases us instead of the ability to do whatever pleases Him! Some seem to believe that, when we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, there’s no need to repent since sin is no longer an issue.

Belief in these heretical doctrines results in acts like:

1) Marking, cutting and defiling our bodies with tattoos. The word clearly says it is an abomination to mark our bodies with tattoos like those who follow other gods. It also tells us our bodies are not our own; they are the temple of God.

2) Walking away from strong committed relationships because of offense, ignoring the mandate to resolve differences and to love one another as Christ loved us. Meanwhile, our love and honor for one another is proof to the world that the “Bible Jesus” is real and alive in us.

3) Failure to attend or commit to a local church and using our time, talent and treasure to help advance its God-given mission for our community. God hasn’t changed His mind about having a prosperous church. But we ask our church to serve us instead of serving others in the body to manifest God’s kingdom to our local community. So we come and go from local churches, shopping for the best deal to help us build our kingdom, instead of committing to build God’s.

4) Refusal to submit to godly authority and be spiritually fathered. Some see any spiritual authority as a hindrance to advancing their own agenda. Maybe one reason there are so few spiritual fathers today is the lack of sons and daughters willing to submit to godly authority. Please note: There are times when the “Bible Jesus” will say no and stop us from doing what feels and looks good to us.

What does Jesus say about all this?

The “Bible Jesus” says about His word: “Heaven and earth will pass away but my word will never pass away.” And in John 14:21: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” First John 2:3 says, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.”

There is no tension between God’s grace and His laws (His word). God’s grace (defined as His ability given to us to do His will) makes it possible to obey God’s commandments, not do away with them.

What a great deception Satan has sown! And he has covered it up by offering us an alternative Jesus. Don’t fall for that lie!

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