Fonda’s Class Notes

Now Lets talk about the Dog. He’s out running a rabbit or enjoying a great day in the sun just trotting along doing his own thing when he hears his name called. Here Dog, Here Dog. He immediately knows he’s needed at the dinner table. He knows it time to make a showing. He will show up and show out wagging his tail jumping up and down. Excitement will fill the air. But you can not see him yet. He’s not there. The Cat is there. Making his presence known, right in the way, just making funny noises and letting you know that what you see is what you get from him. You might move him over a little with your foot, to put the food on the plate for the dog, or even command him to get back a ways. But he just runs right back and you can see him. He’s there! He’s not leaving.

Now the Dog represents the things not seen. In the case of Healing, the Dog represents the Healing Manifested. The Physical Body made straight, the situations taken care of. In the case of financial needs, he’s the money coming that you can not see yet. He’s God’s intervention in your live in some way or another. I think you get the picture. The Desired Result. Mark 11:22-24, “What things soever ye desire when you pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them”.

Now getting back to our story, it takes faith to call the Dog.

In 2Cor. The 4th chapter Paul talks about the god of this world hiding the gospel of Christ by blinding the minds of them that don’t believe. Vs 4. He went on to say in vs. 13 that having the Spirit of Faith causes us to speak what we believe. And in verse 18, although often taken out of context, He said, “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” And in reading the 11th Chapter of Hebrews we find that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Everything that we now see was produced by faith through the words of God so the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. We can also read of many that lived and walked by faith in that 11th Chapter of Hebrews.

But getting back to the faith it takes to call the Dog. How many of you can call the Dog? It takes faith. Why does it take faith? It’s because the Dog is not here. You can not see him with your eyes. (Senses) According to your friends, if you can not see him he does not exist. Right? The world says, “seeing is believing”. It takes faith to call the Dog. It takes faith to call the things that you do not see as though they are here. Here Dog!

Now lets look at what happens when we do, by faith, call the Dog. Think about it! What happens? Answer: The Cat Runs! We did not have to tell the Cat to leave. We did not have to stomp our foot at the Cat. We did not have to rebuke the Cat. All we did was called the Dog. And when the Dog came the Cat left. Are you getting this?
This is where so many Christians miss it. We get mad at our situations and our circumstances and try to make them go away. Or we say something silly like, “this sickness or circumstance is not really here”. We think we can ignore them and they will leave or maybe we try to believe them out of existence. As with the Cat, we may even give it a name and get real friendly with it. After a while we grow accustom to it being around and start calling it ours. (My cancer, My heart problem, My high blood pressure, and so on) So when we do get rid of it for a while, just like the Cat, it comes right back. Maybe that’s because we’ve fed it a time or two and it thinks it belongs here. Either way the thing we need to remember about this story is that if we want to get rid of the Cat we must call the Dog.

Now let’s bring this all together and apply it to our lives.
If we are sick, instead of rebuking the sickness, call for healing. The sickness will automatically go. If we need a miracle over some situation in our life, instead of stomping our foot at the devil and crying about it, call for God’s miracle working power in our lives, and keep calling until it comes. If we need our kids to get saved, start calling the word over them instead of telling everyone how far from God they are.

Keep in mind the term, “Here Dog, Here Dog”. Just what does that term mean?
If we were speaking what was true in the natural we would say, “there Dog, there Dog”. Not, “Here Dog”. You must be dead Dog because I don’t see you. But the truth is the Dog is alive and just waiting for you to call him. So it is with the Word of God. It is alive and waiting to chase away your problems.

Speak the Desire don’t just pray over what you see. Believe “Out of Your Mind”.

I’ve seen people praying for God to take away their Cancer and when He does they end up dying from a heart attack or something. If they would have called healing (the desire) to their body not only would the cancer be gone but the whole body would be healed.

You see the things we desire are what we should be calling into our lives. (Healing, Miracles, Financial Blessings, Perfect Health and whatever you desire (in line with God’s word of course) then give no place to the thing that is there. It is for this very reason that many fail to get healed of all diseases and afflictions in their bodies. They just simply do not call for the healing, but rather try to fight with the problems, (the Cats, so to speak).
Many will say in their mind, the Cat is not here. Some will say, “I wish the Cat wasn’t here, but it is,” “This faith thing must not work, I called the Dog but the Cat’s here”. “What am I going to do because the Cat’s here and I wanted the Dog.” “How can I get rid of the Cat?

Man, just call the Dog. Believe “Out of Your Mind” for a moment and get a picture of the Dog showing up. Then Call Him and keep calling Him until he shows up. Call the thing that you desire, even the thing that you do not physically see right now. Do you get this picture? Call for Your Healing. Call for Your Finances. Call for the Salvation of Your Children. Do you get the picture?

The world, as we know it, was created by His Word and faith in those Words. It is by His word that we can bring our desires into existence. Speak His Word and By faith call the things that you desire into your life. You may have to, “Believe Out of Your Mind”.

Fonda Henson
http://www.pepastreasures.com

The Cats and The Dogs.
Now when I was a kid, just a few years ago, I remember an old Mouse chasing stray Cat our Cat chasing Dog and some things I’ve never forgotten about that mighty trio. One of the things I remember is when the Cat showed up the mice seemed to leave or disappear, and when the Dog showed up the Cat could not be found. I thought that was pretty funny and I guess my Grandpa did too because he would catch the Cat, call the Dog, and pitch the Cat at the Dog, just to further teach this lesson. Of course the Cat would hit the ground on its all fours, hump up at the Dog, and then break and run for its life.

I also noticed the Cat would be harder and harder to catch through-out that day. But it didn’t seem to bother the Dog much. I also noticed something else about this mighty trio. At feeding time the cat seemed to always be around the door, most cats by nature are lazy, but almost all of the time we had to call for the Dog. Now follow me on this: Why didn’t we call for the Cat?
That’s right, because he was already there. Because he was there, there was no need to call for him. But the Dog was not there so we had to call for him. He was out of sight to our natural eyes so we had to call him into sight. Are you still with me.
He was out of our minds eye or our natural sense of reasoning. So we had to Believe Out Of Our Minds and call the Dog. Are you getting this?

This is the way it is in the Spiritual Warfare’s that we fight concerning the situations in our Christian life.

The Cat represents the things that we see with the natural eyes. The things that come upon us and try to make us loose faith in the Spiritual Things just before the answer to our prayers or manifested. The Cat could represent a sickness in your life. Or a physical condition that you have grown to believe that you will never be without.

You have prayed and done everything you know to do to get rid of it but it is still there. You have pointed your finger at it and stomped your foot at it but it, still, will not go away. It looks like it is there to stay. That’s all you see when you start you day in the morning. It’s on you mind continually. You’ve sought the Lord about it confessed the word over it and rebuked the Devil for it. But it is still present in your life. In your mind now you cannot see it ever leaving. It’s time to “Believe Out Of Your Mind”.

The problem that most of us have is, even with all that we know about God and His Word, we really do not believe beyond what we sense with our mind and emotions.
God is asking us to Believe Out of Our Mind. Start thinking different. Think different thoughts. Paul said in Romans 12:2 for us not to conform to this world but to be transformed by renewing our minds. The Greek word for “transformed” is “Metamorphoo” we get our word “Metamorphous” meaning a supernatural change. It’s is a complete change, different perspective, a different mind set. A moth to a butterfly. It is “Out of Your Mind” to believe something like that could happen. Only God can do that. Right? Get the picture?

Fonda Henson
http://www.pepastreasures.com

The Buzzards: Gen. 15:8-11 The fowls, the meat eaters, the sacrifice stealers.

The Buzzards are the little things that hover over our prepared sacrifices looking for a chance to steal them before they get to their appointment. A sacrifice usually denotes a slaughter of some kind and an altar presentation. Rom. 12:1 Paul tells us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, and he calls it our Reasonable Service. He goes on the say in the next verse, 2; “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” So our sacrifices set the scene to prove the perfect will of God.

Paul talked about holding on to the “word of life” as a sacrifice and service of your faith and that act bringing joy and rejoicing. Phil. 2:16-18. He also talked about giving sacrificially in Phil. 4:18. Sometimes we give when we really do not have it to give. That is a sacrifice. Guard against the Buzzards. God will reward you. We are talking about “Believing Out of Your Mind.” The natural man will tell you that you need that gift (money) for your own needs, you don’t need to be giving it to someone else; but God will bless your sacrifice if you keep those Buzzards away from it.

Praise can be offered as a sacrifice especially when we are Believing Out of Our Minds. Ps. 116:17 calls it a sacrifice of “thanksgiving”. Don’t let the Buzzards steal it from you. Give God Thanks even before you see with the natural eyes. It may take some real doing. You may have to pull away to a place by yourself. You may have to withdraw from your, even closest friends, in order to make this sacrifice of “thanksgiving” because your friends will think you are nuts for thanking God for something you can not see yet in the natural. But, remember, you are Believing Out of You Mind”. So you are giving God Thanks for something you only see in the spirit right now. And if you can keep the Buzzards away from you sacrifice, you will see it come to pass in the natural.

I think you understand where we are going with this.
Praise, Time, Gifts (sowing Seeds) and speaking God’s Word out loud are all sacrifices. But they all produce results.

Now let’s move to our next and last two points of this message.

Fonda Henson
http://www.pepastreasures.com

The Ants- Prov. 6:6-9, 30:25. We read that the ants are a people that prepare; that do not sleep when they should be doing something. Most things that happen to the Christian come when you least expect it. It is that way in just about all things in our life. Accidents are called accidents because we do not expect them. Right?

As a Christian we must be and stay prepared. How can we do this? Pray, read and do God’s word. This keeps us in a prepared state for what the enemy throws at us. It keeps us in a right attitude to receive the answer to our situation in life. In order to receive anything from God we must first know what God said about it; then we must believe that he will perform His word in our life.

Sometimes our mind, which is filled with our education, sight, or senses, tells us it is not possible, we cannot obtain this, it is too big of a problem. The world system teaches us to run to man for help. But God tells us to trust Him.

That is when we must, “Believe Out of Our mind!”

The Answer to our situation can always be found in the written word of God. Find the answer. Find out what God says about your situation in His Word. Know the answer before you start trying to do combat with your situation. A good teacher will know the answer to a question before he asked the question. Jesus gives some examples of this in Mark 8:27 when He said, “Who do men say that I am? Or in Luke 18:40-42 when He ask the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you”. Questions are always asked at the end of a test, but answers are learned before the test.

I used to say the Answer is in God’s Word. But I’ve gone one step further in that now and I have found the Answer is really in you or me speaking God’s Word, over, in and through our situation. You see, we can know that God’s Word says we are to be saved, healed, filled, prosperous, sanctified, cleansed, righteous, and the suchlike; but if we do not speak or make a confession into our lives, relating to our situations, if we do not speak his word concerning our situation, then the answer, although it is in God’s word, it is never transferred to us.

I found this to be true, as a student and a teacher. The answers to the test are always in the books being covered. God has given us our lives; He has given us our books for life, The Bible, so the answer to the test in life, can be found in the Book. So you see, just knowing the answers are in the book is not enough until we learn how to apply them to the test. Merely reading the answer is not enough! You have to get the words off the pages and into a memory bank or a place where you can recall them and apply them when necessary. That’s what makes memorizing and quoting the word of God so effective in our lives, it builds faith to pass the test. That is also why Satan fights each of us when we try to memorize God’s Word. He does not want us to know that little secret.

One well known writer said this about words.

Our words are containers. They carry faith, or fear, and they produce after their kind. Rom 10:17 Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Then if faith comes by hearing-can we say then that faith comes more quickly when you hear yourself quoting, speaking or rehearsing the word of God. And you will more readily receive God’s word in your spirit when you hear yourself speaking or saying it than when someone else says it.
God’s word is creative power. But so are fear filled words. That creative power is produced by the heart, formed by the tongue, and released out of the mouth in word form.

Let me take that one step further. It is then heard by the natural ears processed in the mind and dropped into our spirit (heart) to create faith or fear. Then the cycle starts again. That is why it is so important that we make sure that it is God’s word being processed.

I could teach for hours on this one subject but let’s move on to the next example in Believing Out of Our Mind.

Fonda Henson
http://www.pepastreasures.com

In Part 2 of our Series, “Learning to Walk in the Word” we left off by talking a little about, “Meditating on the Word”. In this session we will discuss another step in Learning to Walk in the Word which is, “Obedience”.

Obedience to the Holy Spirit is one of the most important steps to Learning to Walk in the Word because without it we have no direction.

      In Learning to Walk in the Word (Part 1) we likened this walk to our learning to walk and depend on others as a child in the natural. Today I want to take us a step further and talk about a few things, in the learning process, that keep us going forward in the Word.

     The First is Commitment. A word which many of us have heard all of our lives. I am sure, if you have been in a business or church for any length of time, you have heard this word mentioned, at least once, relating to sticking to the job until it is done. We should also relate the word “Commitment” to “Learning to Walk in the Word”.     To be committed is to be steadfast, loyal, dedicated, devoted and faithful. If we are to walk in the word we must purpose in out hearts to look at the Word of God that same way in our lives. We must recognize that God’s Word is integral in itself, steadfast and sure. His word is eternal and we must also learn to commit ourselves in His Word if we are ever going to walk in it. We should also note that when we commit to something often we dwell on it and it dwells in us. Colossians 3:16(a) says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; ….. Paul mentioned in verse 15 of that same chapter to “let the peace of God rule in your hearts”… I have noticed when I really commit to doing something that I usually have peace about it. It gives one great satisfaction to see a job through to the end.   God’s Word will always bring about peace in our Hearts but we must first learn to Commit to reading and meditating on His Words.     The next thing I want to talk about is, “Meditation”.     The Lord spoke to Joshua in Joshua 1:8, and said, “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”      We all want to have good success in our lives, do we not? Well, here are at least two clues given to us on how we might have good success. One of them is Meditation in the Word or God.

We have all met someone who said they were a Christian but because of the way they acted we questioned that validity. How can someone who loves God and believes in His Word still be mistaken for a non-believer?

I think the answer to that question lies in a learning process that we will call, “Learning to Walk in the Word”. The operative word here is “Learning”. Something, I think, many so-called Christians fail to realize is that when we get born again we do not get born again in or mind, but in our spirit as Nicodemus learned in John the 3rd chapter. Our mind has to be renewed and that takes some effort on our part. We have to learn to walk in the word much like a new born baby learns the necessary steps that it takes to stand by themselves and finally walk on their own.  

Learning to Walk in the Word is an easy and natural thing for us as a Christian if we first learn to rely on others to help us. Of course the first one we should learn to rely on is The Lord Jesus Christ Himself. We can be sure that He will never fail us nor let us down and He will always be their for us.

Next we should rely on our Pastors and Teachers to train us in the right ways of life.(The Righteousness of God). I like to think of our Pastors and Teachers as our Parents, the ones who instruct us in righteousness. Then comes our Brothers and Sisters. A lot can be said about the influence of a brother or sister in ones life. From them we draw strength, comfort, honor and power in numbers. This is the reason it is so important to come together in  a Church relationship, especially in these last days. Hebrews 10:25.

A sheep alone is easy prey for any old wolf but when we learn to stay in commune with the Family of God we will not be as subjectable to the tricks of the enemy.

Often I have ran across Christians that have been Saved for a while but still their lives do not show forth the love of Christ as exemplified in the scriptures. They live miserable, double minded lives always in and out with their Christian walk and never having the peace of God in their lives. After brief conversations, I have found, in most cases that person has broken fellowship with the Family of God and isolated themselves from the learning process.

You see we must maintain our relationship through fellowshiip, the reading of the Word of God, and obedience to that Word in order to stay in the Learning process. When I was a child I wondered if I would ever get out of school. I found that I soon got out of school but the learning process never stops.

This is the way it is with Learning to Walk in the Word. Our early years of our Christian life are the school years and from then on we have to apply what we have learned in those early years while adding new knowledge along the way.

Don’t be a drop-out! Do not quit learning. Stay in the Word of God on a Daily basis and apply what He teaches you through His Spirit, His Preachers, Teachers, and the Church Family Members.

It is important, in these last days, that we join together as a family unit and Learn to Walk in The Word together drawing strength from God and each other as we make our journey. It is a great thing to have a family on this earth but an even greater thing to be a part of the Family of God. Come, join in, and be a part of God’s Great Family and we will all Learn to Walk together in His Word.

With Love,

Fonda Henson, Adult Bible Study Teacher, Abundant Life Family Church, Farmington, MO. April 25, 2007