Spirit of Christ and Antichrist 5-19-10

Good morning, Lord Jesus. Give me Your grace to start this new day centered in Christ, embraced by my Father, and filled with Your Holy Spirit. … “Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour…. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge…. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; everyone who confesses the Son has the Father also…. And this is what He has promised us, eternal life. I write these things to you concerning those who would deceive you…. But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He is revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame before Him at His coming” (1 John 2:18-28). There is only an antichrist because there is first the true Christ. There is only a counterfeit because there is first the Truth. The enemy of our souls comes to confuse and deceive. He even “disguises himself as an angel of light” and “his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). He tells us what we want to hear. He offers us his false promises to our perceived needs to subtly lure us away from the Truth and the One who is the Answer to all we need and the fulfillment of every true promise of God. He comes to distort the truth and disrupt the timing of the plans and purposes of God, while seeking to defile and defame the name and the nature of our One True God (Daniel 7:25). And though he may seem to prevail against us and our God for a season, he will not prevail forever (Daniel 7:26-27). The antichrist spirit is the opposite of the “Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9). He tempts us to grow impatient for Your promises and skeptical of Your truth, confusing us and causing us to forget that “through faith and patience (we) inherit the promises” of the Kingdom of God (Hebrews 6:12). So he comes to offer his false promises, tempting us to compromise with the truth and accept without discernment the “blessings” of his false “power and signs and lying wonders” which are always out of Your true timing and never of Your true nature (2 Thessalonians 2:9). In this last hour of this final season of this age before Your coming to receive Your Bride, we must have Your discernment. Open our eyes to see what is real as well as what is false. Sensitize our spirits to sense what is righteous and true as well as what is unholy and wrong. Strengthen us in our resolve to settle for nothing less than all that You have for us, but always in Your time and in Your way, with the faith and patience You provide to all who will humble themselves to ask and to wait. “And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of His mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of the glory of His coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8). Come, Lord Jesus. Abide in me this day and every day. One day You will come again in Your glory in the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:16). But every day between now and then, You want to come in the glory of Your manifest Presence in our hearts by Your Spirit. As we abide in You and You abide in us, You make us sensitive to the leading of Your Holy Spirit and You teach us the spiritual discernment we must have to not only endure, but to flourish, into the fullness of all You have prepared for us in these last days before Your coming. Whether we have seven years or seventy years to wait for Your coming in Your glory to receive Your pure, spotless Bride, may we be found faithful and ready to receive You (Ephesians 5:27). On that day, we will praise and shout with all of heaven: “ ‘Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure’—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Revelation 19:7-8). By the power of Your grace, we will be ready then because the true Spirit of Christ is at work within us, making us ready now. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen. Be encouraged today! In the Love of Jesus, Tommy Hays Welsh Revival at The Fountain this Friday Night May 21! at 7 pm. Our good friend Heather Butler from Wales, a greatly anointed prophetic psalmist will share her ministry of singing prophetically over the people and the land. Please come join us and spread the word. The Fountain is our Messiah Ministries' monthly citywide gathering for prayer, praise, and healing worship, as we come together from the various streams and traditions of the Body of Christ in our city to experience and encounter the Presence of the Lord together to worship God freely in spirit and truth. Come drink deeply from The Fountain of His Living Waters and be refreshed and renewed in His Living Presence. Hosted by Messiah Ministries in the chapel of Centenary Church in Lexington, Kentucky, where our ministry home is located, 2800 Tates Creek Rd. Contact Marilyn Walker, our Director of Ministries for details: DirOfMinistries@aol.com or 859-317-1591 All are Welcome! Come and Spread the Word! Please share these morning prayers with anyone who may be interested. Subscribe by email to Tommy Hays at Messiah Ministries: MessiahMin@aol.com -- "Preparing the Way of the Lord ... Ministering the Healing Love of God" www.messiah-ministries.org To order my books and our ministry resources or contribute to our ministry on-line: www.shop.messiah-ministries.org Messiah Ministries; 2800 Tates Creek Rd; Lexington, KY 40502 God bless you!