Words of Life For This Generation

WRESTLING WITH GOD AND THE DEVIL PART 4

Jesus tells us in Matt 6:33, "To seek first the kingdom of God and His Righteousness." I have said this hundreds of times. This verse of scripture must be taught, massaged, repeated and roll modeled and; a Christian must be deep rooted and swimming in the deepest of all waters in understanding and functioning in this verse because, that is the only way God's Children will become warriors in the Kingdom of God.

If we intend to become like Jesus and do the works that He did when He walked the earth; we must be operating in what Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 13:44-52. "The kingdom of heaven is like something precious buried in a field, which a man found and hid again; meaning (God planted it in His heart.) Then in his joy he goes and sells all he has and buys that field. Again the kingdom of heaven is like a man who is a dealer in search of fine and precious pearls, who, on finding a single pearl of great price, went and sold all he had and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet which was cast into the sea and gathered in fish of every sort. When it was full, men dragged it up on the beach, and sat down and sorted out the good fish into baskets, but the worthless ones they threw away.

So it will be at the close and consummation of the age. The angels will go forth and separate the unsaved from the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with God) and cast them [the unsaved] into the furnace of fire; there will be weeping and wailing and grinding of teeth. Have you understood all these parables taken together? They said to Him, Yes, Lord. He said to them, Therefore every teacher and interpreter of the Sacred Writings who has been instructed about and trained for the kingdom of heaven and has become a disciple is like a householder who brings forth out of his storehouse treasure that is new and treasure that is old the fresh as well as the familiar."

Out of the abundance of the Spirit of God in our understanding of our righteous position in Christ; God speaks. What's coming out of our mouth should be rich and meaty with revelation of God thoughts and ways because; we have been discipled and are maturing. When this scripture tells us that we should be speaking the familiar and the fresh, the fresh to the unsaved is Jesus saves. However, to the born again believer Jesus saves should be familiar not fresh.

For the first six months after my born again experience which took place in my automobile while taking my wife to the doctor; my testimony in all of the services I attended when it came time for people to stand and give their testimony; I told the people how I became born again by the spirit of God. God said to me after six months "Haven't I been showing you more of my person and revealing to you my ways with new revelation of how to operate in my kingdom; that you are participating in daily. Start sharing the new things I am showing you in your testimony."

Please hear me on this. The greatest miracle is Jesus saves. However, after becoming born again; we must be experiencing what God's sanctification process is and how we need to be participating in it to obtain all the other miracles from God as His children. I am grieved to say that most of the born again church preaches Jesus saves which is the familiar however; the new meaning of our sainthood in God's sight as been buried and substituted with denominational teachings that have no power.

We now come to explaining the weapons of our warfare that will enable us to wrestle and take the kingdom of God by force. A born again Christian who is on the milk of the word and ignorant of God's word; can not wear God's armor and be called into battle and wrestle. They are too weak to handle the anointing.

Paul in Ephesians 6:10-18 describes what our weapons are that God has given us to overcome evil. "Be strong in the Lord and draw your strength from Him as your having fellowship with Him. Allow Him to put His armor on you so you can be a heavily armed soldier and then, you can successfully stand up against the strategies and deceptions of the Devil. We are not fighting against people in our own human understanding of things, but against a tyrant, master spirits and world rulers of this present dark and wicked age who live in this heavenly (supernatural) atmosphere.

Therefore, by having God's armor on; we will be able to stand firmly in place and be able to handle all crises. First tighten the belt of truth around your loins and having on the breastplate of righteousness, you will be able to make correct judgments that will keep you in right standing with God. You will be able to stand on your feet so you can face the enemy and be ready because, you have a peace in you put there by God. Lift up over all the shield of faith, which will enable you to put out all the flaming missiles of the wicked one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit that is the authority of the Word of God. In addition, be praying at all times on every occasion and in every season in the Spirit in all types of prayer. To the final end, keep alert and watch with a strong purpose and holding fast interceding in behalf of all the saints or all of God's consecrated people."

The first weapon stated here is the weapon of truth. Scripture tells us that the truth will set us free from any thing contrary to God's will. When we live in denial and in darkness by lying to ourselves about the true condition of our hearts, we cannot participate in kingdom living and our lives are wasted on trivial pursuits that have no consequences in eternal matters. It is us understanding God's evaluations of circumstance that brings truth.

If you're not listening to His truths and acting on it, life has no healthy real meaning. This scripture says to tighten the belt of truth around our loins. The word for loin in the Greek is osphus: Meaning, hip or procreative power. God is the author of procreative power; its how He brought all of exists into being. (This was Jacobs encounter with the angel of the Lord.) We need to know God's truths from His word and use it as Jesus did against the Devil when He was tempted. Since the Devil is a liar and the father of liars, he can't stand the truth and he shakes when we use it, however, only when it is being inspired by the Holy Spirit. It's only as we have our daily fellowship with the Holy Spirit, recognizing His voice, and say what He tells us to say that, we can use this weapon.

Next weapon stated is the breastplate of righteousness. This word breastplate in the Greek is thorax: meaning an upper chest protector or a corset. This represents a heart protector where the issues of life are formed and meditated on in our being. Its how we get our assurance and deep rooted connection between God as our Father and us knowing that no matter what happens in our lives; nothing can ever separate us from His love and holding power. I never cease to say this over and over; we need to know without a shadow of a doubt that, when we made Jesus our savior, we were adopted into God's family permanently.

Righteousness means that, when God the Father looks at us He sees Jesus His perfect son.

There must be an end to these childish teachings of the concept that says God loves us when we do this and He forsakes us when we do that.

These conditional love themes are the most destructive and blasphemous teachings ever perpetrated by the Devil through men of ignorance in explaining God are holding power.

Eternal security has to cease from being interpreted as a doctrine of Devils or a license to sin, as it is being interpreted in many circles. We are eternally secure however; we can through faulty teaching and bad choices be living out of fellowship with God and grieving the Holy Spirit because, this stops him from comforting and strengthening us in our daily warfare.
There is a security, which builds a source of integrity within us as we become deep seated in our understanding of our permanent relationship with God. If we do not have this security, the Devil makes us believe through his subtle persuasion that the God we serve is an indecisive person of mere opinion and His mood changes with circumstances.

That is why there are so many Christians that have no commitment and a stick to it attitude no matter what happens. When the warfare gets to hot they fold and run for cover and deny their savior as Peter the Apostle did in his childish years of growing up. Without integrity in ones life you have no example to represent the Love of Jesus Christ to the world. The word of God tells us that our statements in life should be either yes or no. The Holy Spirit doesn't compromise. He tells it like it is and we can do nothing less. Its time to put our childish thinking away and! Grow Up!

The next weapon is the shield of faith. The word for shield in the Greek is thureos: meaning, a shield shaped like a door that can be opened and closed. The word for faith is pistis: meaning, a consistency of confession, being persuaded and speaking the truthfulness of God. As God showed me this concept it made me realize, what a commitment and trust God has for His children to give them a powerful weapon like this. When using it, we are able to have the ability to control our thought life by being able to close and open this door type shield when we need to. To me it was a very practical application that was simple to understand. When the Devil shows up to dump his garbage in our minds, we keep it closed.

In Rev. 3:20, Jesus tells us that, "He stands at the door of our hearts and knocks and if we respond to Him and open ourselves up to Him when He shows up, He will come in, discuss with us His plans, and train us in the warfare that we are all going through. In turn, we will be over comers and will be able to sit beside Him as a sovereign King and Priest having great power to rule and reign with Him." You have to really be living in extreme darkness or demonically mesmerized in your mind or have a serious brain deficiency to not want to be close to Him and be in His company at all times. I can write unending volumes on the definition of faith because of the fact that, Jesus Himself is our faith. Every thing He thinks, feels, and His very being and intense passions rubs off on us as we hang out with Him. To be like Him that has to be our first desire.

The next weapon is the helmet of salvation. The word for helmet is perizonnumi: meaning, to prepare one self for action and to tighten a belt around our mind. The word for salvation is soterian: meaning, our defender, rescuer and savior Jesus the Christ. There has to be created in us a security and total persuasion by God in our inner most feelings that, there is no way we can lose this war no matter what ever the adversity. This helmet or attitude of confidence cannot be tightened around our minds unless we are totally sold out with a concentrated effort in us seeking after the Lord and His counsel because the battle we are fighting is in our minds.

Romans 12:1-2 tells us the attitude we need to practice. "We are to present all our mental reasoning and will power and dedicate our lives to be earnestly and totally devoted to God's causes. When we do this, it makes God rejoice over our enthusiasm. We having this attitude makes sense because, of what He has done for us. We are not to conform to these wordily ways of outward shallow customs. Therefore, we are to be inwardly changed by the entire renewing of our mind and in turn, we will know what God's perfect and acceptable will is for our lives."

The next weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the authority of God. The word for sword is machomai: meaning a knife, to fight or the administration of justice. The word for Spirit is pneuma: meaning, superhuman or the Divine God, Christ's Spirit the Holy Spirit. I don't know how God can make the interpretation of this any clearer. This gives us the authority as God's children to rise up in the authority of the Holy Spirit to fight these demonic forces in this present age. This is what God's kids are supposed to be doing, going about their Heavenly Fathers business administering His justice in the lives of people on this planet. We are not to do this in our own fleshly self-righteous attitudes by sitting in judgment and portraying God as some kind of control freak wanting to inflict punishment and pain.

This type of warfare has to be administered through us by the author and lover of our souls; who became a servant and ultimately died on a cross for our sin and the sin's of the whole world. We need to get a hold of what it means to die to self by the Holy Spirit's leadings and unless we do that, we have the capability of becoming the Devil's disciple and advocate coming in the name of the Lord and ministering self-righteous concepts that, we have been reaping on ourselves for years.

This way of reasoning has no power to deliver others or ourselves. Scripture states, "The Devil disguises himself as an angel of light." However; only Jesus is the true Light of the world. The darkness can not be exposed in us or others by false interpretations of God's word. It's time for us to not be afraid and let the Holy Spirit check us out and see if; there are any harmful ways at work in us; that is hindering us from walking in the fullness of God's call.

The last weapon that is talked about in this scripture is the power of prayer. (Intimate conversations with God) and this is what it's all about. Prayer is our endless conversation with God now and forever. It's His life and our life becoming one life. Therefore, we see that there is no end to this weapon. It's the weapon that makes all the other weapons work. Moreover, to me this is our greatest weapon. It is also the weapon that we need to discipline this fleshly body to lay down and die. It's where we receive our stability, and sound minded thinking. Wisdom in the day and night hours of our life, His hugs, rebukes and chastisements, that are needed for our safety and guidance. It's the way we search for His presence, play, and joke and carefully listen for Him to reveal new wisdom's of His ways as we learn to be comfortable with His friendship. I have found that over the years my prayer life more than anything has changed.

It has become more of a natural all hours of the day and night conversation going on at all times. It's like living with another person that you're learning to get comfortable with and trust.

The word for prayer is proseuchomai: meaning, to be in a humble state before God in worship, adoration and requesting. The prefix of this word is pros: meaning, on all occasions and together with at all times. The scripture that we have been using says that we are in warfare against spiritual wickedness and a force in the supernatural atmosphere. Let's realize that this is an outward force trying to impregnate us with ideas, emotions and principles to do its bidding. It is a spirit of anti-christ, which is an extremely beguiling spirit that is running ramped on the earth.

Now that we're God's children and the Holy Spirit lives within us; let's learn to trust Him to keep our hearts door of the house of our temporary stay on this planet locked, when the Devil shows up to bombard our thought life with things that have no eternal value. We will never know how to keep our armor on without our Commander and Chief inspecting us to see if we are equipped to go into battle and wrestle for the kingdom of God. Walking with the Lord isn't a chore. We just need to lay down our lives and allow Him to live big in us.