Wednesday 11 February 2015

Have indisputable faith

Last night, I was up thinking, having a conversation with and being taught by the Holy Spirit into the early hours of the morning, when I should have really been sleeping. But it was probably the most worthwhile late night I have had in a long time. It was a POWERFUL night. So just wanted to share some of the thoughts and lessons I learnt for your, and my own, encouragement.

We need to know who we are in Christ and to know that our identity is found in Him and Him alone. It is absolutely imperative for every Christian to be sure of this and it is urgent because we are in a spiritual war and the battles are daily; there are no days off. God has given us His words in the bible. He tells us about ourselves. We should use the bible as a reflection of who we are supposed to be, who God has called us to be and who God has already stated that we are. And we have to choose to believe that His words are 100% true, despite any lie we may have heard from anyone else about ourselves, or even the lies that the enemy tries to deceive us into believing about ourselves.

In Isaiah 54:17, the Lord said of His people:
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgement, you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me.”

Therefore, no weapon – not even the SMALLEST, MINUTEST or LARGEST, DEADLIEST of weapon – formed against YOU, a servant of the Lord, shall ever prosper. It is your heritage as a servant of God and your righteousness comes straight from the Lord Himself; not from works or from good deeds. From God! It doesn’t matter what you may have heard. The LORD has said this and I choose to believe it. We have two choices: whether to believe in the lies and negative, condemning things that people or society tell us about ourselves or the enemy tries to deceive us with OR to believe and wholeheartedly trust in the word of the Lord God, the ever faithful, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, almighty, creator of this world and our very own lives. I choose the latter. People will always let us down; nobody but the Lord can truly satisfy our hearts, so it makes no sense to trust in the words of people above the words of God. And it ESPECIALLY makes no sense to believe the lies of the enemy.

The enemy knows scripture too. He knows what the Lord has said. One instance in the bible where we read the dialogue between the enemy and a human is in Genesis, when the enemy said to Eve:
‘Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
This is what he is even doing today with believers. He leads us to question God’s word. Is it really so? Did God really say that? Meanwhile, he knows fully well that the Lord said it, but that is his scheme and we need to realise that and be aware. He plants seeds of doubt in our mind, and that’s where it all begins; we begin to lose faith and hope, and we ourselves begin to doubt God’s word to us.

These lies and the doubt that follows are like weights put on an endurance runner’s back, making it harder and harder to finish the race well. See Romans 12:1-3. Weights on an endurance runner’s back would make them become weary and tired; they may fall; they may get up again, but the longer the weights are there, the harder the race will remain for them and falling again is very likely.

So, Eve told the serpent what God had said:
“We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
Then the serpent said:
“You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

!!!!!!! The enemy actually said to Eve that God’s word was not true. God said they will die; the enemy said you will not surely die. He basically goes on to say that God said that only because He knows the consequence of eating it - that they would become like Him. Obeying God’s word is not up for discussion with the enemy. God’s word is not up for discussion. It is not a matter of reasoning what the consequence of disobedience may be to justify whether we really should obey Him or not. That is what society does. I have been asked why Christians are not supposed to have sex before marriage; what’s the problem. And I have stated consequences of sex before marriage, like soul ties, STD’s, unwanted pregnancies…etc. But the actual reason is merely that….God said so! Reasoning about the consequences is what the enemy wanted Eve to do and it still happens today. The only thing it will lead to is compromise, with us figuring out a way enjoy the pleasures we desire whilst avoiding the consequences that we know of. And side note: there are many consequences that we do not and will never know….because we are not God.

So, when Eve saw that:
1.       The tree was good for food
2.       That it was pleasant to the eyes
3.       That it was a tree desirable to make one wise
(These were her reasonings which led to compromise) She took of its fruit and ate it. And when she had given it to Adam and he also ate, their eyes were both immediately opened and they had the first negative emotion recorded in the bible….fear! Exactly what God had said would happen happened; they did die, but not just a physical death. They became separated from God. They were barred from His presence. That is spiritual death – being separated from God -, which is the consequence of those who do not believe in God; eternal separation from God, in hell.

He has given us a second chance to spend eternity with Him. It is our choice whether we will accept His Son’s sacrifice, believe and obey His Word. We just need to stop allowing the enemy to deceive us and lead us to question the truth of God’s word, and we need to focus and fix our eyes on Jesus, so that we can run this race with endurance and finish well. We need to cast down ’every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ’ – 1 Corinthians 10:5 (NKJV).

Other versions phrase it: ‘demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God...’, ‘destroy every argument and lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God…’, ‘destroy every proud obstacle…’, ‘refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God; and WE lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ…’

We do not need to converse with the enemy and reason or let any form of doubt reside in our minds about the Word of God. At all! We must take wrong thoughts captive. We have been given the authority to, through Christ. And the enemy knows this, but the longer he can deceive us and cause us to doubt the Word of God, even to neglect reading the Word, the longer we will find ourselves in a state of confusion and doubt – lacking faith. Do not be a sitting duck for the enemy.

Feed your spirit man, feed your faith, read God’s word, apply it to your life and make sure to converse with God and God alone though prayer. Then, when the enemy fires a dart in the form of a negative, false thought, you will catch it and take it captive.

Philippians 4:8 - Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. 

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