Words of Life For This Generation

OUR WRESTLING WITH GOD AND THE DEVIL PART 3

Because, Jesus experienced this type of life while on the earth, we can be assured what Heb 4:12-16 tells us. We can now also go to God for our needs and wants. If I needed some wisdom I sure would want to go to some one who understands my dilemma rather then go to a novice in an authoritative setting who hasn't matured and knows the battles that I am going through in my walk to maturity.

These verses in Hebrews continue to say. "For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart. And not a creature exists that is concealed from God's sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him].

For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it]."

Jesus was the first born again begotten Son of God on the planet. He was born physically coming out of His mothers womb a born again believer because, Mary was impregnated by the Holy Ghost. We who are born again and God's children need two births. One is a physical birth and then we need a spiritual birth when we became born again from above by asking Jesus to become our Savior. This should all be basic stuff for us who have been saved for a while.
It is only by our meditating on the word of God night and day that gives us the vision of who we are in Christ and what God wants us to be and do in His service as a King's kid. In the Greek the word day means, when we are in a state of rest and there is no immediate trouble that we are dealing with. Night means, when we are coming under some attack from the enemy and these trials and attacks can become intense at times. So let me say that if you are poking at your kingdom walk with a stick in pursuing your kingdom living and not committed as a soldier going into battle with the word of God, you will make heaven you home after your spirit leaves your body however, you will never reach your potential and it is absolutely mortifying to waste your life on trivial pursuits that represent no eternal rewards in heaven.

A Christian that is hungering and thirsting after their righteous position in Christ recognizes the urgency of the times that we are living in and cries over the bruised and hurting people born again or not that they encounter because of the extreme bondages that people are living in today. We must if we intend to mature in Christ come to feel God's heart and the great concern He has to love people into wholeness. When a person lives in shame and guilt, they can not be transparent and the Holy Ghost can not expose, analyze and judge the very thoughts and purposes of their heart.

It is the word of God being meditated on that does the work as a sharp sword operating and showing us the thoughts that we have of leaning to our own understanding verses living by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. A born again believer will never understand spiritual wrestling without having a passion to be in God's word and having an intense relationship with the Holy Ghost daily. This takes spiritual training and discipline with patience and tender loving care just as a child in the physical world learns to trust their parents in learning how to grow up to reach their potential. This is the foundation that must be laid in church settings by leaders who are called by the Lord to tend the flock under their covering.

This can not happen in a one hour church service on Sunday or a Wednesday night teaching class. There must be ministry set in place as a hospital has different people on staff with different expertise or (Spiritual gifts in the church assemblies.) The army that God is raising must learn how to exercise their spiritual gifts in an internal wrestling warfare to produce physical manifestations of God's glory in the earth. If this wrestling is going to take place; their must be a foundation in place in our thinking with a intense purpose of understanding that Jesus not only saves us from a eternity in hell when we become born again but; He also sanctifies us in the maturing process as we become powerfully anointed ambassadors in His service. There is a difference of day and night between Jesus sanctifying us verses us living in bondage to doctrines of man made ideas of what they think sanctification means. The word for sanctification in the Greek is hagiazo: meaning, to mentally and with deep conviction know that we are holy, pure, blameless, and a saint in God's sight once we are born again. This is what I stated earlier.

If this foundation is not in place in our heart and soul; we will have no vision and strength to wrestle with the Holy Ghost. In most of the church assemblies their concept of sanctifying comes in the guise of condemnation and focusing on the lack in a Christian's life because they explain sinful behavior as a deliberate attitude of rebellion against God rather then a born again believer that has never grown up and matured and are still babies in their diapers struggling over this sin principle that Paul was struggling with and wrote about in Roman chapter 7:17-25 how he had to define the struggling going on with in him.

"It is not (I) who does these wrongful needs but the (sin principle) which has made a home in me and has possession of me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can make a decision to want to do what's right, but I cannot perform it. [I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.] For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing. Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer (I) doing it [it is not myself that acts], but the sin [principle] which dwells within me [fixed and operating in my soul].

So I find it to be a law (rule of action of my being) that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its insistent demands. For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self [with my new nature]. But I discern in my bodily members [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action) at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my bodily organs [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh]. O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death? Thank God! [He will] Through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

Paul stated that he had the desire to do right but not the will power to do it. This caused him to hate himself because he came to realize that he had a soul sickness that had control of his will and he needed some one as a spiritual doctor to deliver him from this bondage with in himself. When leaders in authority do not discern by the anointing of the Holy Ghost the bondage in God's people and blame them as deliberately living in rebellion against God, they raise up their own concepts and agendas with a legalistic attitude of fault finding and continue to teach misinterpreted scripture that never lifts the light of God's countenance on people; but they harp on the sinful behavior of the saints sitting in the pews under their care. This is what the Levitical Priests did in the Old Testament when once a year by sacrificing goats and bulls for the sins of the people caused them to continually be reminded that they were sinners and stay tied to a sin conscience mentality.

When church assemblies teach this stuff, they bruise God's children and keep them focused on a shame and woe is me image of them selves and weaken their resolve by laying guilt and condemnation on God's kids and they have no power to learn how to wrestle because, they don't know what their rights are as a King's kid.

Leaders like these do not empower God's children to wrestle; but lead and herd them to be slaughtered as cattle.

Even though they are God's kids what a severe life imprisonment this represents when they live like illegitimate sons or daughters in their minds, in such physical and emotional poverty. This is why they have a co-dependent mind set and have never grown to become independent thinking people and know the freedom God gave them to approach His presence with boldness and directness with face to face eye contact. This stops them from getting what rightly belongs to them, so they can in turn function in the inheritance that God gave them. As a matter of fact; God's inheritance isn't hardly being preached in the born again assemblies of today; that we received from God our Father the day we became born again at all.

As Hebrews 4:16 tells us, "Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it]." This committed life style must be in place if; we are going to function as warriors in God's kingdom to do the works of Jesus our brother in the earth. Sin conscience people have no boldness to approach God's courts with freedom and thanksgiving because, they feel dirty and unworthy. This is the Devils main theme which is to put a lying wedge of doubt in the mind of mankind especially His children and having them think that they have to clean up their behavior and maybe then God might take the time to lend an ear and take an interest in their pain or trials. It is the old record being played in our mind and emotions (I think God may love me but I really know He loves me not.) Let's know define how Jesus wrestled with demonic forces when He walked the earth.

This example is found in Matt. 4:1-11 where we have the story of Jesus being led into the wilderness by the Holy Ghost. That's right; He was being led in His earthly walk by the Holy Ghost. Our wilderness walk must be led by the Holy Ghost and a born again had better believe and recognize this if, they intend to be successful in their kingdom walk. Psalms 23 tells us "even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil." All Christians walk through the valley of shadow of death in their thinking. The only way to overcome fear; we must be functioning in a Promised Land mentality and bring God kingdom into reality in our lives and the lives of others. Jesus was tempted by Satan in three areas and you will see that His response was always from an inspiration from the word of God not his personal opinion. I will comment between verses in parentheses.

The story goes. "Then Jesus was led (guided) by the [Holy] Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (tested and tried) by the devil. (We are living in our dispensation of time which is our wilderness walk and we are going to be tried daily by the Devil and we must resist him but this can only be done by the wisdom of the Holy Ghost with in us.) And He went without food for forty days and forty nights, and later He was hungry.

And the tempter came and said to Jesus, if you are God's Son; command these stones to be made loaves of bread. But He replied, it has been written, Man shall not live and be upheld and sustained by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God. (The Devils first temptation wasn't about Jesus hunger but about the fact that he tried to put doubt into His mind as to who He was, which questioned His security in God. This is a common testing to all of us in coming to believe that God our Father loves us enough to feed and clothe us in our daily needs and us learning to trust His provision and not lean towards our own understanding as to what's going on in our lives. The devils ploy here is to keep us focused on our needs rather than believe what our inheritance is as His children and His promise of provision. The second temptation started with the Devil again challenging His authority as to being God‘s son.

"The devil then took Him into the holy city and placed Him on a turret (pinnacle, gable) of the temple sanctuary. And he said to Him, If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, He will give His angels charge over you, and they will bear you up on their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, on the other hand, it is written also, you shall not tempt, thoroughly and exceedingly test the Lord your God.

Jesus knowing the word didn't fall for that trick and form another denomination with His own beliefs.) "Again, the devil took Him up on a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory (the splendor, magnificence, preeminence, and excellence) of them. And he said to Him, These things, all taken together, I will give you, if you will prostrate yourself before me and do homage and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan! For it has been written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve. Then the devil departed from Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him."

We see the ultimate temptation. The Devil used this temptation to make Jesus doubt who He was. This type of testing caused Him to trust His Heavenly Father's word verses the Devil influence. This made Him stronger and able to handle the second temptation because it showed Him to not lean to His own understanding but speak to the devil with the inspired word of His Fathers leading. Finally the devil tried to bribe Him by showing Him all the pleasures of sinful behavior He could participate in which is a temporary season of his existence of power in the earth.

The Devil's tactics have not changed. This idea of a holy city in the physical sense was Jerusalem where during the one thousand year rule Jesus will come to govern the earth with us being His ministering servants to the people of the earth. In the spiritual sense it is the place where God wants to sit in our hearts where He becomes the final authority that gives us (Rest) while we let Him rule. The Devil intent is to confuse our thinking and give us a fleshly thrill from time to time by giving us a prideful dart to tempt us to build our own concept of kingdom living but not according to scripture. This is what a large majority of the denominations have fallen for and what they have done is tempted God by telling Him they have a better way to build His house then He does.

In the Old Testament we have a person called Moses who had a relationship with God and wanted to fulfill his calling and constantly sought his fathers presence all of his life. It states in Exodus 34:27-28 that Moses was with God on Mt Sinai getting the Ten Commandments and it says. "The Lord said unto Moses. Write these words: for after a tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." And Moses was there for forty days and forty nights and he didn‘t eat or drink water and he wrote on tables the words of the covenant which was the Ten Commandments. This word tenor in the Hebrew is peh: meaning in the mouth as a blowing that totally envelopes the entire being of a person.

This represents the yearnings of the Holy Ghost to so totally bond with us so when we do go through our testing's and trials as Jesus did; our initial response is " thus saith the Lord" when the Devil shows up to tempt us to do it his way. Scripture tells us that God wants to write His laws of life on the fleshy tables of our hearts which is in contrast to Moses writing God's laws on cold lifeless stone tablets.

The Israelites were constantly complaining to Moses because they had needs and they held him accountable to mediate for them to God for their needs and wants. There was no independent thinking and a commitment with in themselves to petition God on their own and become tenacious and warrior like in their pursuit of righteous living. Being a part of church fellowship is necessary if, God is building this house of believers. Now being a part is one thing however, church membership was never meant to be a constant sitting in a pew and belonging to one denomination all of your life like chicks being fed week in and week out. Church was meant to be like a nursery where God's children can be loved and taught not judged into wholeness by God ordained leaders who will disciple and nurture God's children to become a mighty force of independent thinking people; who get to know the voice of the Holy Ghost and; go forth in the arena of life to do the works of Jesus.

The devils testing of Jesus by offering Him all the pleasures if life is summoned up in in 1 John 2:16 as, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life." Jesus told His disciples that His kingdom was not of this world. As a born again believer's we are in a spiritual battle that it is going to take a complete yielding to trust the Holy Ghost in us so we can use His strength to wrestle in the spiritual world. This is going to take a decisive commitment of knowing who we are as God's children if; we really intend to take back and rule over what Adam and Eve surrendered to Satan in the garden. As long as the body of Christ stays on the milk of the word and does not start eating deeper truths of God's word, they will never really come to know the devil's cunning behavior intended to persuade somebody to do something, especially in the form of insincere charm or flattery.

In 1 Peter 5:8 he says, "Be well balanced and live in self-control. Be sober and sound minded or be rational in your thinking. Be alert and watchful for danger at all times, for that enemy of yours the Devil, roams around like a lion (in a fierce hunger) seeking someone to seize upon and devour." If we put the Devil in a physical form and he decided to go after one of our children. Unless we were watchful and grown up enough in ourselves to protect them, what chance would they or we have. You've seen National Geographic I presume, how they show the lions going after the calves and sickly wildebeests and killing them for food. When are we going to come to grips that this Christian life that Jesus gave us is not something to be abused and taken lightly because of our own pleasures of life and our own comfort zones????????

1 John 2:14 he says "You young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you, you are now able to overcome the wicked one." If we as born again believers are not strong in the word, there is no way to use Jesus as an example of how He wrestled with the Devil and overcame him in His wilderness walk.

Continued in part 4