This word is submitted by Bill Randall [Truefast@aol.com]

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                      Do the First Part First 


My children, I love you with an everlasting love. I care for you, 
and My Spirit is your assurance that My power will rest in and with 
you. 

Many of you truly have a zeal to do My will. I have noted it, and I 
am pleased that you want to know Me in a deeper way. But you have 
found that you occasionally encounter a stumbling block in your prayer 
requests, and don't understand why your petitions seem to go
unanswered. You have forgotten that I, the Lord your God, will never 
violate My Holy Word, nor its precepts and principles. For in these, 
you will have the true authority to do exploits in the spirit realm.

I will never empower or give approval to a child of disobedience. 

So when you are tempted, you claim the promise in My Word to 'resist 
the devil and he will flee.' But when you succumb to the temptation
anyway, you grieve in agony and shed a multitude of tears because 
of your failure amidst the test. In that case, you have entered the 
battle without your armor. 

Prior to the trial, you forgot that the first part of the promise 
says: "Submit yourselves therefore to God." That, My be loved, is 
the first part. It is only after doing the first part that you can 
claim and appropriate the second part: "...resist the devil and he 
will flee from you." 

When you desire something or want a situation to turn around, you 
claim the promise in My Word to "...ask what you will and it shall
 be done unto you." Yet, when your desire falls short, you withdraw 
in disappointment, or dismiss it altogether that it must have not 
been My will to make it happen. My dear child, I say unto you...do 
the first part: "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you..."

The key is your abiding in Me. As you walk with Me, I will share deep 
and rich secrets that the world cannot receive. You cannot walk 
contrary to My Holy Word and yet expect the same anointing and 
blessing to abide with you. But if you yield unto Me, and die to that 
rebellious self-serving tendency of the flesh, you will open the door 
to a new dimension of faith that I, the Lord your God, will have 
manifest in your life.

Remember that I love you. And whosoever I love, I correct and chasten.
If you allow my correction to take hold, then afterwards it shall 
yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness in your life.