Many believers are unknowingly involved in witchcraft, yet God is calling us out of witchcraft and idolatry. Being ignorant of what God's Word says about the occult is not an excuse. We must partner with God to root out all occult practices from our lives.
Are you aware of how the enemy attacks? It is vital to understand how the enemy attacks our thought life and how we can take our thoughts captive, bringing them into obedience to God’s Word.
Don't ignore satan - answer him. When Satan sends thoughts our way, many times we ignore them instead of answering with the Word. The enemy's thoughts and temptations don't simply disappear by ignoring them. They continue to build until the enemy traps us. It is vital to answer the enemy with the Word until we get the victory.
We are caretakers of the mysteries of God that are to be revealed in these end days. As believers, our faithfulness is under investigation. We are in a time where everything and everyone is being shaken. Consistency with what God is revealing to us is necessary to remain faithful to God. Have you been faithful with the revelation God has entrusted to you?
There are times the enemy comes as a roaring lion, and there are other times Satan comes as a serpent. In Corinthians 11:3, Paul says, "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ." When the enemy comes as a serpent, he is looking to bring deception into our lives. This battle always starts in our mind first. But the good news is that if we recognize the scheme of the enemy when it is just at the thought level, it is much easier to defeat.
Are you right in the middle of a storm? Storms come to steal our peace. But we can decide to hold on to our peace no matter the storm. Fear comes and tries to tell us God doesn't care. But remember, Jesus calmed every storm while He walked the earth. God is never the one sending storms. God is our hiding place, our fortress in the midst of the storm. He is the one speaking, 'Peace, be still to the storm.' John 6:33 says, "in Jesus we have perfect peace, and in the world we have tribulation, but take courage, Jesus has overcome the world."
Satan and bad angels are not all-powerful, but they can influence a person's thinking and emotions until we learn the enemy's schemes and the authority God has given us. Since his fall, Satan now peddles his merchandise of sin and rebellion to the unsuspecting and ignorant. He works through fear and self-will, pushing us to our "own" devices instead of the power and authority that comes from submitting to God and His Word.
There are good and bad angels, but today we are going to talk about the origin and goals of Bad Angels. Satan himself is an angel who fell from God's presence in heaven. Bad angels are spirit beings that don't have a physical body, but that doesn't make them any less real. We must recognize the enemy's schemes because if we remain ignorant, we will fall prey to his tactics.
Proverbs 21:2 says. "Every way of a man is right in his own eyes; but Jehovah weighs the heart." When we don't intentionally seek God, we end up justifying our own actions. David justified not going to war in the Old Testament, just as many times we justify not doing spiritual warfare under the New Covenant. But God wants to show us the things we don't see about ourselves. If we cry to God and have a heart that is after Him He will open us up to see our blind spots so we can repent and turn completely from them.
How do we partner with God to bring His Word and will into reality? Sickness came on the earth by man's choice to sin. God created everything perfect in the Garden of Eden, and He now desires our lives to be completely redeemed, but it is not automatic. Through the blood of Jesus every part of our redemption has to be accepted and fully received. God is never sending the sickness or tragedy. He is always working to redeem us from it.
Healing is a part of our covenant with God. We must be intentional in taking in the promises in the Word on healing. In Matthew 8:2-3, Jesus sets a precedent in the Word regarding healing. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately, he was cleansed of his leprosy. Because of Jesus' word, we know biblically that God wants and is willing to heal us.
What does the Word say on healing? For starters, the word Salvation means: health, healing, deliverance, protection, and provision. God's salvation offers us everything we will need in this life and in the life to come. The Word of God can be either a preventive medicine or a cure, depending on what we need at the time. When we need to work with God for the Word of God to become part of who we are.
When we were born again, our old sin nature died and was buried with Christ. Baptism is a picture of us being resurrected into newness in Christ. So when we are born again, we are resurrected in Christ. We are no longer a singular person. We are put in Jesus. So every good thing in Christ has been made available to us. We need to come to the place where we believe we are a new creation in Christ Jesus to truly be able to overcome sin.
How do we turn loose of fear and the world's thinking, and securely grab hold of God's promises? We must become like a child. We cannot approach Psalm 91 or the promises of God from adulthood. We are not to become childish but childlike. As adults, we wrestle with the knowledge of good and evil because of Adam and Eve's choice to sin, but to receive only from the Tree of Life, we must again become like children.
One of our priorities as Believers is to destroy the works of the devil. In 1 John 3:8 it says, "The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil," and then in 1 John 4:17, it says, "In this world we are to be like Jesus." Now we cannot destroy the devil in our own reasoning or strength. We must remember we are in a spiritual battle, and it takes the spiritual weapons Jesus has given us to overcome. When the battle is won in the spirit, circumstances will change in the natural.
The world believes that intellectual knowledge is power, but that is part of Satan's plan to get us to worship our mind and intellect. Satanism, the New Age, and even "normal" worldly thinking teach some form of mind control. But it is not God's way. The Holy Spirit is meant to be in charge of our lives and our mind.
Are you aware of the call of God on your life? Every Christian has a full-time ministry in the Kingdom of God. Some know they have a calling and step into it too soon, and others are in the middle of their training, unaware they have been called. But God has a training process He wants us to go through before we can walk in the anointing.
Guilt is a weapon that comes against Christians. It is the subconscious need to be punished. When we have repented and put our sins under the blood of Jesus, God has forgotten our sins, but many times we have not. Guilt is not the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It is not a burden God wants us to bear.
So many people go through life thinking they don't have a choice, "whatever will happen, and there is nothing you can do about it." But with God, this is not true. We have been given a choice. In Deuteronomy 30:19, God says, "I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." Life and God's abundant life are not out of reach. God is giving us life, but we don't receive it by default; we must make a decision to choose life for ourselves.
It is easy to forget what is most important. Truly, everything in our Christian life flows from our relationship with God. We don't want to take for granted the gift of having a personal relationship with God. Knowing God and praying is a two-way street, and there is no substitute for time alone with God. The closeness of drawing near to God is the source for everything good in life.
