Time to put your foot on it

April 17, 2021 Gaspar Anastasi

Getting past the past, Success & victory

If you think about it, you have probably experienced things through the years that actually reveal a pattern. Not only were these events similar, but they have impacted your life on a very deep level. They may have even gained some control over you.

These past events and circumstances create boundaries that limit our ability to serve God the way that He has called us to. We may not be happy about it, but as time goes on, many of us get used to the limitations. Sadly, we have come to just accept mediocrity as a way of life. I call it “living in the land of good enough”.

Good enough just isn’t

God has plans for your life that are beyond imagination (I Cor. 2:9). I’m here to tell you: It’s time to get out of the land of good enough! And the only way to do that is to put your foot on it! Take authority over the areas of your life that have hindered you from going any further in your walk with God.

Ephesians 1:22 & 23 put it this way: “And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Before we can take the first step of that journey, however, we need to identify the problem. It takes an awakening and stirring of our spirits to want to come out of the land of good enough. Desire to push past where you are today and make the maximum impact in life.

Trample the enemy

I pray that every one of us would recognize that it’s time to begin to step on the thing that once stepped on us. It’s time to exercise the dominion and authority that God has given to us. After all, He is the head and we are the body. And He has put all things under our feet. I repeat: It’s time to start walking on things that once walked on you!

“Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” (Luke 10:19)

In Joshua chapter 10, we read that Joshua sealed the cave where five enemy kings were hiding. He then brought out the kings and instructed his captains to put their foot on their necks. In other words, take dominion over them. “So it was, when they brought out those kings to Joshua, that Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the captains of the men of war who went with him, ‘Come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings.’ And they drew near and put their feet on their necks.” (Joshua 10:24)

This act is symbolic of God bringing the things that once controlled us to the forefront of our hearts and minds. He is delivering to us the enemy of our soul so that we can take authority over them.

Awaken your spirit

It’s time for us in the body of Christ to put past fears and defeats under our feet and walk in victory! We must go further in our walk with God than we have in the past. But it starts with an awakening of our spirit.

Secondly, we need an understanding of the authority and headship that God has given us.

Lastly, we must remember that Jesus already defeated the enemy. All we are doing is re-presenting Jesus and defeating our enemy in the power of His might. Today, I encourage you to put your foot on it! Don’t back down. Go forward!

If this blog has been a blessing to you, please take a moment to comment below.…

There’s no victory without a battle.

April 10, 2021 Gaspar Anastasi

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God's love, Relationship with God, Success & victory

Who doesn’t like to be comfortable? Nobody. While most of us believe God will comfort us, the question is “How?” I have noticed that most of us have a misconception about that. We think that God’s comfort means that we can totally avoid uncomfortable issues we face. Or that He will remove us when we find ourselves in trouble.

The God of comfort

Second Corinthians 1:3 & 4 says:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

The root of the word for comfort (parakaleo) in this New Testament scripture means “to call to one’s side; to encourage and to strengthen.” It never means to make it easy, take care of things for us or remove us from the struggle.

When we read “God of all comfort”, it means that God wants to see a number of things accomplished in our life. He is committed to walk with us. And He encourages us in and through tests just like He did for Meshach, Shadrach, and Abed-Nego. When they went into the fiery furnace, they didn’t get burned. But they did get a greater revelation of who God is!

The goal of trials

1. God wants us to know Him better and trust Him more. He uses the struggles we go through to accomplish that. Can you relate to that? I certainly can.

2. Godly character is developed in our lives to increase our influence in the world we live in….many more people would be drawn to Jesus because of us. John 12:32, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.”

3. When we go through our fiery furnaces with God, we will be prepared to glorify Him as overcomers and be equipped to face our future struggles and battles…leading to future greater victories.

So we need to settle in our hearts that something great will be accomplished in and through the daily struggles we face. It’s time to stop asking God to comfort us according to our misconceived notion of comfort. Instead of asking Him to take us out of our struggles we will pray that He comfort us by being with us in the struggles.

Oh yes. I almost forgot to mention another thing.

4. One way God promotes us in His kingdom is through the victories we win in battle.

Promotion on the way!

In other words, the struggle you face is proof that God is getting ready to promote you in His kingdom! The greater the struggle, the greater the promotion. Wow! That means some of us are on the verge of great promotions in God’s kingdom!

David proves my point. After he faced and killed his Goliath, he was promoted from shepherd boy to king over God’s people.

In conclusion, the struggle you face today is about the destiny of tomorrow. The bigger the struggle the more that’s at stake. The next time you ask God to comfort you, remember there’s no victory without a battle. Don’t circumvent your destiny by giving in to comfort.…

Believing is seen.

April 3, 2021 Gaspar Anastasi

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Success & victory

A paralyzed man had four friends who carried him on a mattress and let him down through the roof of a house where Jesus was preaching. Mark 2:5 makes an amazing statement: Jesus saw their faith. What did He see? The men took an extreme measure because they saw in their spirits healing for their sick friend—healing that did not yet exist in the natural.

Seeable faith

Jesus said: “…when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8)” Faith that can be seen is the kind of faith for which Jesus is returning.

Can I tell you that most believers do not operate in faith? They confess what they see, what they feel and what they hear; they complain and doubt. But they never step out into the unknown and show that they believe what God says is true.

Yet, nothing ever happens in the kingdom of God without you and me acting in faith. It took faith for the men to climb up onto the roof of the house carrying their friend. It took faith for the paralyzed man to believe they would not drop him on the way up. It took faith to risk looking foolish before all the people and to believe that Jesus would make their efforts worthwhile.

Embrace His promises

You need to embrace God’s promises for your personal life. However, you won’t know that you’ve embraced His promises until your faith can be seen, until you step out into the unknown realm. Faith is bringing the (unseen) heavenly realm down here into the (seen) earthly realm. Faith is the believer’s medium of exchange. Faith is the deed that buys you real estate in heaven.

When you have faith, you see with spirit eyes what can’t be seen naturally. But your faith becomes seen when you walk it out. As believers, we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. People who don’t walk in faith do not understand a faith walk. They criticize it; they make fun of it.

Walk, act, speak faith

If you are a believer, yet you base all your decisions on what you see with your eyes, you are deceived. Everything that is not of faith is sin.

You must learn to stand with God alone. As you walk it out, act it out, speak it out, God’s Word will not return void. It will produce fruit in your life.

You can’t expect the truth you receive in a Sunday service to sustain you. You must stay in the Word. Study to show yourself approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed (2 Timothy 2:15). Faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing… the Word of God.

Agree with the Father’s plans

Here’s another important point. Unless your faith is tied to the purposes and plans of God, it will never produce life for you. We may want things for ourselves, but it’s not to further the kingdom of God. Ask yourself: Why am I believing God for such-and-such? …Is this going to fulfill God’s purpose or just mine? He wants to heal you, but so that you can go out and give testimony to others, so they too can be healed.

Faith opens up your spiritual eyes to see, so you’re able to move in a dimension of great power. It’s like Elisha in 2 Kings 6, who saw by faith that the hills were filled with the host of heaven. He did not fear the natural enemies they faced (and neither did his servant once Elisha prayed for his spirit eyes to be opened). Elisha didn’t fear because he had already seen the outcome. If you HAVE faith, it becomes SEEN as you walk it out. If you can see it, you can have it!…

Refuting the 3 BIG LIES

March 27, 2021 Michele Anastasi

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Success & victory

LIE #1: I am what I do.

Every day, our culture fosters the belief that our value is based on what we do. However, the Bible says just the opposite. Our value is based—not on what we do, but—on whose we are!

Before Jesus performed a single miracle or did anything noteworthy, His heavenly Father said of Him: “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17).” He was well pleased simply because Jesus was His Son.

I’m so grateful that God’s love for me and you isn’t based on our performance. That’s a fact we each need to remind ourselves of several times a day. As children of God, He loves us just the way we are—the good, the bad and the ugly! Yet, churches are filled with people performing religious duties, longing to earn God’s love, acceptance and approval.

LIE #2: I am what others think about me.

People’s opinions can affect our behavior until we lose sight of who we really are. We end up burying the real us, the authentic us created by God, and we live a false identity.

We do everything we can to become who the important people in our lives think we should be. You and I may live a big lie, never truly satisfied and fulfilled. Living life based on other people’s expectations is stressful and sets us up for rejection and failure.

When each of us lives to impress other people, we behave like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day. They performed rituals to gain honor among the people and to attract attention to themselves. How empty!

God’s opinion of you is the same as His opinion of His Son. You are His beloved son or daughter and He is well pleased with you. Whether or not you’ve done anything significant, His love for you is unshakeable.

LIE #3: I am what I own.

The American dream says that the more stuff I have, the more valuable and successful I am. In that case, the reverse is also true. If I don’t have the big house, two cars and the latest electronic bells and whistles I am an absolute failure, because our self-worth is based on outward appearances.

How to defeat these three lies:

Admit that you have been influenced by these three lies, but have the courage to resist them. Soak yourself daily in the knowledge that God loves you just the way you are. Throughout the Bible, He expresses who you are in Him. Find some of those scriptures and read them every day until you believe them for yourself and not just believe in them.

To cultivate self-awareness of who you truly are and who God truly is, worship Him for one minute three times a day (without music). You can’t know who God is until you know the authentic you and the depth of His love for you.

Remember the words God said to His Son Jesus in Matthew 3:17. In Jesus, you are His son or daughter too, and He is well pleased with you!…

How to get out of debt, pt. 1

February 20, 2021 Gaspar Anastasi

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Making positive change, Success & victory

The way the economy is going, life is getting increasingly difficult and the financial forecast doesn’t look very promising either. It’s obvious that things are about to get worse, but, how does God weigh in on all of this? Does He care about finances and does He offer any practical solutions to the problem of debt? Well first of all, Jesus spoke more about money than any other subject in the Bible. I know that’s shocking, but it’s true.

I believe Jesus highlighted the money issue because He knows that debt and poverty are manifestations of the kingdom of Satan. They are curses that are often carried down from generation to generation. Through money, the enemy attempts to control and hinder our lifestyles and ultimately our destiny.

It’s amazing how many of us are scrambling every day just to get enough money to live on, leaving us very little time for God. How ironic, since God is the true source of our lives! Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

Let’s look at a few God-inspired principles to help alleviate debt and poverty in our lives. They are not in any particular order, but they point the way to apprehend God’s plan and strategy for us.

1. Believe He is a debt-canceling God. Mark 11:24 says,”Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” He cancelled all of our debts on His cross two thousand years ago. In other words, believe that God wants to deliver you from poverty and cancel your debt. Nothing happens unless we believe.

2. All poverty and debt originates from sin. Any time you or your ancestors trusted in money and wealth to meet needs instead of God—that’s sin. First Timothy 6:10 says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”

Identify with the source of that sin, repent in the place of your ancestors and then repent for personal participation in that sin in your own life. Debt and poverty must be cut off at the root in order to break that cycle in your life. These two steps of identification and repentance are foundational to getting out of debt. For further explanation of this, please go to our website www.BreakingFreeCC.com and contact our office.

3. Review your spending habits: Is God in the decision-making when it comes to your spending habits? Many of us don’t allow God to be Lord over this area and we spend according to the lust of our flesh, not the leading of the Holy Spirit. If we examined our spending habits every day, we’d learn some shocking truths about our own heart.

List all of your spending for seven days, bring them before the Lord in prayer and ask Him if there needs to be any changes. If you’re sincere, you will probably see that radical change is necessary. That’s a good time to ask God’s forgiveness for your idolatry (putting money ahead of God).

These steps reveal your true desire to have poverty and debt broken over your life. A lot of us talk a good talk, but when it comes down to it, that’s all it is—talk. Getting out of debt requires a radical change in our view of money and our understanding of God’s desire to be God (the only source) in and over our lives. We will continue this series next week.

We love to hear from you! If this post has blessed you, please let us know by leaving a comment.…

Seven times hotter

February 13, 2021 Gaspar Anastasi

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Success & victory

Over the years, I’ve told a sad story about a doctor who took his wife and son on an African safari. After an exciting day, they did what they had done previous nights. They started a camp fire, intending to add wood in the middle of the night to keep the lions away.

However, exhausted from a long day, they never awoke to stoke the fire. As you can imagine, tragedy struck when the fire went out! A lion entered the camp and killed the son as he slept.

The lesson is this: Lions feed where the fire has gone out! In America, satan the roaring lion is ravaging our lifestyle and culture. Why? The church has lost her fire, passion and hunger for God’s tangible presence. And, as we sleep, Satan is wreaking havoc in our midst.

The answer is not in politics

We, the church, have lost the cutting edge that’s needed to make a difference in today’s world. We opted out of the mandate to influence our culture by our Christ-like lifestyle. Instead, we’ve left the influence that should be ours to politics and politicians.

You and I can’t expect the government to legislate morality, but we should expect morality to be lived out by the church, those who have been given the nature and power of Jesus Christ. We need to rekindle the fire of our passion and live for God. This fire must burn bright enough to keep the lions out of our camp!

I’m talking about the same fire that burned inside the three Hebrew boys, Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego when they refused to bow to the culture in which they lived. That fiery passion kept them from accepting the status quo. As a result, they were thrown into a furnace that was heated seven times hotter than normal.

Off the charts passion

Run-of-the-mill, on-again-off-again love for Jesus won’t cut it in the gross darkness surrounding us. We must exhibit a passion that surpasses weekly “rah-rah” church services and our longing for the things of this world. Our passion for God must be off the charts!

Let’s stoke the fires seven times greater than we ever before experienced. We can’t work it up by ourselves, but the Holy Spirit can. (I strongly believe He is doing that even now.

Our human helplessness to change things is evident. We can’t stop perfect storms from devastating the nation. You and I can’t change our culture through politics. We can’t even stop the church from backsliding. The only thing that will prepare the way for Jesus’ second coming is our passionate fire burning seven times hotter! Yours and mine.

Expect a suddenly

Let’s start praying with abandon for God’s passion to consume us now—not tomorrow. Let’s not leave the upper room until a “suddenly” happens and we recognize God’s tangible presence in our midst.

His presence is the only answer to the ills America faces today. The church must say, “We will arise and shine for our light (Jesus) has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon us (His church). Darkness shall cover the earth, but the Lord will arise over us and His glory will be seen upon us (His church). (Is. 60:1)” Now remember: YOU ARE THE CHURCH!…