Thursday, November 25, 2010

Highlights from Sandie Freed's Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty: Chapter 5

I continue sharing my notes from Sandie Freed's Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty. These are highlights and I strongly encourage you to purchase her book.  There is so much information. Check the archives for previous posts.

Chapter 5 Our Treasure is Where Our Heart Is

Sandie shares personal story about writing book and how many times she dealt with Mammon. She battled against demonic spirits of murmuring, complaining, selfish desires, lusts of the flesh, doubt and fear.

When Mammon is involved we have an ungodly need to compete with “Joneses”

Wherever our heart is, there is our treasure.

We can collect attitudes in our hearts: love of money, fear of not having money, greed, selfishness.  These “lay up” for a period of time and manifest into the “treasures”.  In  Greek a casket can be where our valuables are  kept, a true death structure!

Wrong heart motives about a treasure can bury us prematurely.

Achan

Achan took the accursed things, spoils that were to be dedicated totally to God. Motivated by Mammon, Achan took a Babylonian garment and Caannanite money and buried them.

Achan’s response shows us three things we should guard against with Mammon and Babylonian influence:
  1. Achan saw the spoils. Don’t focus on the worldly ungodly wealth of the world. If we see as good, we covet.
  2. Achan coveted
  3. Achan took the spoils and hid them.
Mammon deceives us into lusting after garments, things that should be devoted to God. We need to pray down this Babylonian God.

Achor
Achor means troubled.
The spirit behind the fear of future is Mammon.

Greek word for worry is merimnao (merizo) divide  and nous (mind) Worry divides our mind and we become double minded.

Spirit of Caanan
Works with Mammon. Trader, merchant, trafficker. Satan wants us brought low and under his subjection.  Mammon wrestles for God’s seat in our life.  Creates a cycle.

We worry about being poor so we hoarde, horde produces greed, greed produces poverty, poverty produces more greed.  Mammon keeps this cycle going so we don’t trust God for provision and count on the government to provide for us.  We look into trade and merchants as our answers for provision.

Matthew 13:44-45. As we seek His Kingdom we must be like merchants or traders seeking beautiful treasures or pearls.

We have to cast our provision every day on God.

Hosea 2:15-20, KJV promises that God gives us vineyards, turns our valley of trouble (achor) into a door of hope, make us sing as in the times of Egypt (Deliverance), makes covenant with us, marry us for all eternity in His righteousness and justice, cause us to know the Lord (intimacy).

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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Highlights from Sandie Freed's Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty: Chapter 4


I continue my series sharing my notes from Sandie Freed's life changing book Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty. Click on the image to learn more. Check the archives to read previous posts.  These are just highlights I found, the book contains so much more. I can't say enough about what I'm learning.



Chapter 4 Understanding the Deceitfulness of Riches

A disciple is a follower.  They hear and seek to understand.

God wants us to be like Solomon.  Ask for wisdom above all else.

The Body of Christ needs a spiritual heart bypass.  We have to “bypass” what we think in the natural and learn to respond from our hearts. Responding properly proves our heartfelt relationship with Him.

Jesus said if our hearts have good soil we won’t be easily offended. Trusting God for provision is a faith test and chance to examine the hardness of  our hearts.

Thorns are the worries of life and deceitfulness of wealth which choke out the word.  Mammon!

Many worries of life are caused by our concern over provision.

If we don’t trust God for our provision, the enemy comes in and chokes out the Word in us, causing us to stop believing God’s loving desire to provide for us. Every time we fight doubt and unbelief concerning provision, Mammon is involved.

Recognizing a lie concerning Mammon (money, provision, deceitfulness of riches)
-God is not big enough to supply my need.
-God provides for others but not me.
-I’m such a mess God quit caring for me.
-God won’t open doors for me concerning a job.
-I don’t trust God to show me the way for employment.
-I don’t need to tithe, the church has enough money already.
-I like to control my finances
-I don’t want to go to church, all they want is my money.
-God wants to withhold from me. He doesn’t trust or love me enough to bless me.

Good soil produces. Translation for good soil is virtue or dunamis which means “miraculous power of God.”  This was used with the woman and her issue of blood.

A virtuous heart will press for the breakthrough but not pressure God with endless prayers for riches. A virtuous heart trusts for God’s best, seeking Him first and trusting Him to pour out His blessing in His timing.

Deceitfulness of riches blocks the harvest.

Unless there is cleansing and fire there is no blessed fruit.

Repentance is absolutely necessary for healing, deliverance from strongholds and yielding fruit.

One strategy of the Jezebel spirit is to block repentance.

Being blessed is being spiritually prosperous.

Thanking God for good soil, repenting over bad fruit (name fruits of spirit you need help with)  Proclaim John 15 (?) where we must abide in Him.


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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Highlights from Sandie Freed's Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty: Chapter 3

I continue sharing my notes from reading the life changing book by Sandie Freed.  Click on the image to learn more. These are just my  highlights, there is so much more. I believe the content here is key to unlocking issues that has held me, others and communities back for years.

Chapter 3 Iniquity, Tyre and the Seats of Authority

Iniquity began in the heart of satan. His iniquity was to distort, be perverted and unrighteous.

If we bow down to an idol of any type, we are cursed again with inquity.  Inquity is linked with idolatry.  If a man bows down to a graven image there is a curse of inquity on the man and his descendants to the third and fourth generation.  If you notice a family bent or pattern like perversion or addictions, these are generational iniquities.

Iniquity causes us to be separate from God. If we know inquity is there and we do nothing or encourage it we are opening doors to the demonic attacks and bondage and we are closing the door to the Lord.

Pergamos was wicked, a place where satan was able to establish his reign. It was a city of great wealth but the wealth was used for lavishing temples and idols.  If money is used in ungodly ways, Mammon is active.

Tyre---an island so wealthy it was the Wall Street of its day.  To maintain their wealth they worshipped Baal. Tyre founded on idolatry, false beliefs, antichrist thinking. Tyre meant rock and attached to the rock was selfishness, pride, arrogance, jealousy, covetousness.  Tyre is the ungodly king of trade, wealth and commerce.

Anytime we are feeling we can fend for ourselves without God’s help we are committing idolatry.

Wall Street: Satan influences “kings” of the world to build abominations: centers of economic powers that serve as idols.

The King of Tyre was brought down because his love of money was greater than his love for God. He trusted Mammon.  We have been seduced to trust money more than God.

Revelation 2 gives keys on how to unlock doors of victory against perversion of Pergamos and Satans’s seat.
  1. Repent
  2. Speak God’s word. Proclaim. This unseats satan from his misplaced position of authority.


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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Highlights from Sandie Freed's Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty Chapter Two, Part Two

It's not very personal but I still feel led to do this. I'm reading Sandie Freed's book Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty. I'm learning so much. These are my notes, just highlights I made. All words are Sandie Freed's, not mine. I'm only highlighting, there is that much to absorb. If anything here grabs you I can't say enough about buying the book.
 
There is so much to this chapter I split it up. The prayer of repentance at end is my summary, she has a specific prayer in the book.  I just hit key themes.  Again, buy the book!



PART TWO
History of Babylon: Kingdom of Satan

Nimrod: had a desire to lord over others and build great kingdoms out of selfish ambition laid great foundations within the kingdom of Babylon. His foundation of selfish ambition would support death structures for thousands of years to come.

Matthew Henry on Nimrod: He thought himself a mighty prince but before the Lord he was a mighty hunter. Great conquerors are great hunters. Satan attempts to hunt us as prey and conquer.

Nimrod named Babylon.  He named it “The Gate of God” but later became Babylon, which means confusion. He named Babylon after the god he worshipped.

Nimrod’s primary idol was Ammon Re, a Cushite god whose name means hidden.  In Egypt this god is known as Ra, the father of all gods, tied to creation and reproduction.  All of this is highly tied to the occult.  They operate in hiding.

The key to releasing godly wealth is to repent over idolatry and embrace truth.

The City of Shinar---Babel was the capital of a country named Shinar (later called Chaldea).  When Lot chose the best land, Sodom and Gomorrah, a confederacy of kings came against the land and overtook it. The King of Shinar, or Babylon, was one of the kings that took the land.  In essence, a spirit of Babylon stole Lot, his family and possessions.  When Lot chose Sodom and Gomorrah, he willfully submitted to a sinful and defiled country and government.  By doing so he opened the door to an evil spirit and future captivity by Babylon.

The name of King of Shinar was Amraphel which means sayer of darkness.

Babylon only speaks darkness and defeat.

Most of us are at war against the evil effects of the Babylonian spirit. The stronghold is like an octopus, wrapping its demonic tentacles around businesses, school systems, corporations, governments, churches and families.

We must be like Abraham and cross over and fight for future generations to be freed from this bondage and slavery to the enemy.

We can’t enter into enlargement unless we go through gates.

We must take the wealth of Babylon through prayer, warfare, repentance and returning to God. We should pray that the world system of Babylon bow its knee to God.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Tower and false god

Neb. Was also a king of Babylon and prideful architecht. His temple of Nebo was built on the foundation of an old tower of Babel. Nebo was an idol of both Babylon and Assyria and considered their guardian god and their god of learning, education and wisdom.

As long as the devil has a seated position in our economy, during this same time of year a demonic confederacy declares that satan is the king of Babylon and king over us as well.

Cyrus
Cyrus was a foreshadow of Jesus Christ, the great deliverer who led people out of captivity and into a place of blessing, freedom, promise and wealth. Isaiah 45:1 the Lord calls Cyrus His anointed.

Through Christ and His blood we are anointed to be modern day Cyrusus who will conquer Babylon, tear down fat foundations of idolatry and Mammon, and rebuild altars of God in our businesses, economy and culture.

Cyrus was given a supernatural power to defeat his enemies. We have that same power.

Pray repentance over sin of idolatry, fear, love of money, lack of trust in God, murmuring, rebellion, and any gates you have opened that allowed entrance to the enemy.  Ask forgiveness for ancestors who took part in the same sins named above. Repent for not protecting heart and concerning our part with Mammon and Babylon.  Thank God for the righteous blood of Jesus---name His attributes and the freedom for you and future generations.  AMEN!

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Friday, November 5, 2010

Highlights from Sandie Freed's Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty: Chapter Two

It's not very personal but I still feel led to do this. I'm reading Sandie Freed's book Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty. I'm learning so much. These are my notes, just highlights I made. All words are Sandie Freed's, not mine. I'm only highlighting, there is that much to absorb. If anything here grabs you I can't say enough about buying the book.
There is so much to this chapter I split it up. In the book she has a prayer of repentance, so at the end I summarized the key points of her prayer.



CHAPTER 2 Babylon and Wealth
PART ONE
Babylon has nothing but evil attachments to it and the Babylonian world system is detestable to God. We are born into this demonic system and it is familiar to us.

Money is neutral but the love of money and power imprisons us. Satan seduces our value and seeks to ensnare us into compromising our trust and faith in God.

If we buy into the system of Babylon, embracing its idolatry, whoredoms and evil, then we are prey to a “destroyer spirit” that seeks to devour us. The destroyer spirit is looking into an open door into our lives. We must plead the blood of the Lamb, Jesus, over the doorposts of our hearts.

The destroyer also desires to annihilate our belief in God’s desire to bless us.

Babylonian thinking is a false belief system concerning provision. One way to exit out of this system is to trust God and His word. According to 1 Corinthians 10:10, the destroyer has an open door to attack us if we murmur and complain. Murmuring and complaining is a big deal to God.

When we murmur against God concerning our provision, we actually are permamently stopping in our advancement in Him and actually living in the camp of the enemy.

Part of our trusting God for our daily bread involves our heart attitude towards giving and tithing.

Witholding from God (hoarding) due to fear of lack opens the door to the destroyer, who desires to destroy our fruit.

When we complain about how others are more blessed than we are we are going into agreement with Mammon and Babylon. If we maintain a poverty spirit and murmur against God we are actually erecting a death structure about us.

Death Structure: Whatever is not releasing life must be recognized as possibly releasing death, so we call these death structures.


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Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Sandie Freed's Crushing the Spirits of Greed and Poverty Notes on Chapter One

Lately I've felt a God tug to study "Mammon" and how to be a prayer warrior in this area. Sandie Freed has a great book out on this very subject and I'm learning so much. I think the whole Mammon issue is behind so much our country is dealing with--apathy, poverty, materialism and more.

This book is important enough to me that I plan to jot down my notes and share them here.  Please, please, please get the book. I'll only highlight key points that spoke to me.  It's a rich (pun intended) book filled with life changing information.

Here are the notes from the introduction and chapter one.

 Purchase here


Sandie Freed Crushing the Spirit of Greed and Poverty


Introduction:

Mammon is simply not the love of money; rather it is a demonic spirit that attempts to set itself up as equal to God. God is God and the opposite of God is mammon. If you are not serving God, you are serving Mammon. It is a choice.

Mammon is the name of an ancient idol, and since demonic spirits are behind every idol and every form of idol worship, we can conclude Mammon can also be an evil spirit.

In writing this book Sandie prayed Psalm 94 over readers.

Chapter One: God and Mammon

Have we allowed anxiety, worry and stress to turn us away from God? Do we trust in riches more than God? If so, the false god Mammon is tightly strapped to us, and we must become disentangled from him in order to follow God and serve in His kingdom.

Deuteronomy 28. This is not about money being the root of all evil. God wants us blessed. He simply doesn’t want money to be a false god in our lives.

Proverbs 12:24. This is also not about the name it and claim it gospel. Prosperity can be taken to extremes. This is about money as our source rather than God. That is evil.

Godly prosperity is not having wealth for the sake of being wealthy, but rather having enough to fulfill our purposes in God. We are to use the prosperity God gives us to promote His kingdom and bless others along the way so they can fulfill their purposes in God.

God’s intent for you is for you to understand the evil, repent for your involvement with it and become properly positioned for your inheritance and blessing.

Mammon is name of Syrian god who presided over wealth. Not just money but time, talents , opportunity and authority are all wealth. Mammon of unrighteousness means the god who the unrighteous worship: wealth.

Satan attempts us to depend on money to meet our needs more than God, who is our Provider. If we don’t believe God is able to meet our daily needs, we are “bowing down” to a false image concerning God.

If we listen to the voice of the enemy concerning money and provision and we honor the lie over the truth concerning the Lord’s ability to provide for us, we are basically bowing down to the enemy. If we imagine God doesn’t care if we are able to pay our bills or that He won’t bless our tithes and offerings, we have a false image of God.

Evidence of Mammon at work.

1. Giving above tithe. This isn’t bad at all…it’s the follow through. People prayed for a promotion or windfall to bless the church. In the middle of the money coming into possession, a spirit of Mammon came in their hearts and corrupted them. The people didn’t follow through and in fact, ended up leaving the church every time. Overnight the most faithful church members left the church defiled and seduced.

2. A Death prayer. Many believers want to give to a church addition/building project and came to leadership saying they had a lot of money coming to them through inheritance. Before long people are praying for death to fulfill the project. That’s Mammon attempting to pray for a quick release which in truth was a sudden death to a family member. A true prayer is something specific for the family and for God’s will to be done in the situation. Most of the time after the family death the person who promised the money suddenly heard from God not to give to the addition and again, they end up leaving the church altogether.

3. Businessmen in the church not guarding their hearts. They stand up and make promises to deliver big bucks when projects come through. They mean it. Prophets warn them that the enemy is setting a trap and they need to guard their hearts. Business leaders ignore the advice, get the money, won’t return calls, never give the money and they also leave the church.

4. The trap of pastors praying breakthrough to have a debt free church. Again this is not evil. In the pursuit of being debt free the pastor developed a lust for money. The church received a million dollars and the pastor spent it on his own use—drugs, prosititues, he literally took the money and ran, leaving the church in worse debt, and devastated.

Mammon attaches itself to all. Leaders, parishioners, all.

Read Psalm 111:5, AMP

Out of fear we neglect the tithe and close our pocketbooks instead of giving joyously.

When money masters us, servanthood is required.

Money itself is neutral.

Worry-distraction, anxiety. Rooted in the word merizo, and that means to divide, differ and disunite. This is how we become double minded.

Bondage is a lack of liberty. Our main problem is we don’t know who we are or whose we are.
Pray about any areas you can identify with spirit of bondage. Ask forgiveness and seek repentance. Proclaim you are the Lord’s and you want to live free indeed!

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