In your own strength?

 Dear Dad’s (Randall Hartinger) Church Challenge and its BLESSED!

💥🔥✅📖🔊⬆️☝️🏹🎯🛡️⚔️🙏💯⌚🍯✝️👑🕛

You were marvelously helped, UNTIL YOU WERE “STRONG”!!!!

12/01 Daily Exhortation (Matt.6:11; Luke 11:3; Heb.3:13; 10:25, etc.)

This 12/1, let’s DELVE SOME into the following 12:1...

2 Chronicles 12:1 (KJB) And it came to pass, when Rehoboam had established the kingdom, and had strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the LORD, and all Israel with him.

Ah. The Primitive Problem of Pride. “I don’t need help. I don’t need the local church. I don’t need those that discipled me. I don’t need my father/ my mother. I have the flesh rather than the Spirit…” I, I, I, I, I… Satan said “I” five times (Isaiah 14) as did the proud Pharisee (Luke 18) as did Goliath (1 Samuel 17). Five is DEATH in Bible Numerics. Hmmm...

Note that Rehoboam STRENGTHENED HIMSELF. In so doing, he forsook the law of the Lord and influenced all Israel to do the same!!!

Proverbs 29:12 If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.

Watch the commentary later in the chapter: 

2 Chronicles 12:13-14 So king Rehoboam strengthened himself in Jerusalem, and reigned: for Rehoboam was one and forty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, to put his name there. And his mother's name was Naamah an Ammonitess.  And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD.

There are Pretending/Playacting People who “Purport” to be walking in the blood/light/strength of the Lord, but they have sinned against Jesus’s Body (the church) without repentance. Disjointed from the Head (Christ), they are merely strengthening themselves. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through CHRIST which strengtheneth me.” Breaking off from His body, they hope to be magically connected to His Head. We call them “Halloween-Handed Harbingers.” Why? They are a bloody, disjointed hand running around “warning” folks against Jesus’ body!!!! And most fall for their lies. 

2 Chronicles 12:5  Then came Shemaiah the prophet to Rehoboam, and to the princes of Judah, that were gathered together to Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Ye have forsaken me, and therefore have I also left you in the hand of Shishak.

Our focus passage is a 12:1 construction. This reminds me of the opposite of what Rehoboam (Solomon’s son) did. Watch this 121…

Psalms 121:1-2 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

 My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

God should be OUR STRENGTH (Psalms 18:1). It’s easy to tell when somebody begins to STRENGTHEN THEMSELVES:  

There is something that has been called “The Grandfather Spirit.” 

Basically, it goes like this. A man has strong convictions, a strong call, and is growing in convictions. He raises up his children in such. When he becomes a grandfather, he lightens up on the convictions with the grandchildren. This is a gradual lessening and lessening of conviction coined “the Grandfather Spirit.” When a person starts to STRENGTHEN THEMSELVES, their convictions weaken and are lost. When a person is walking in the strength of the Holy Ghost, they get stronger and stronger in doctrine, conviction, zeal, scaffolding upon the STRONG foundations of scripture, etc. We’ve personally observed this over and over and over for three decades now… 

Self-Strengthened House of Saul Spirals Southward in Self-delusion. 

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. PERIOD. And in every single time period. 

Indeed and in very deed. 

2 Chronicles 16:9 For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him….

2 Chronicles 26:15-16 And he made in Jerusalem engines, invented by cunning men, to be on the towers and upon the bulwarks, to shoot arrows and great stones withal. And his name spread far abroad; for he was marvellously helped, TILL HE WAS STRONG.

But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense.

Note that burning incense is Emblematic of prayer. Oh, folks will still be praying, IN THEIR OWN STRENGTH, fortifying THEMSELVES, with a LIFTED UP/PRIMITIVE PROBLEM OF PRIDE heart! This is imputed as a transgression and not good. Selah. 

Don’t look at Brother Randall at the Judgment(s) and say you WERE NOT WARNED… *You were. *

Will you be STRONG IN THE LORD and the power of HIS might today (Eph.6:10)? Will you be STRONG in the grace which is IN CHRIST in HIS BODY (2 Tim. 2:1)? –r <3