2003-02-25
Good Morning Cherished Readers,
We have been looking at why we can have confidence that God has given us authority to resist evil and will continue with that in today’s message. There are actually steps we can take when we are accosted by the devil and his cohorts. We can certainly take them with James’ words from JAS 4: 7, 10 firmly in our minds. “So then, submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will go away from you…Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.” Now, let’s take a look at these steps.
The first step is: 1) to pray. We need to begin by reaffirming our praise of God, acknowledging His marvelous attributes and actions. I always make that distinction between Who God is and what God does, because it’s important for us to understand it. For example, God is the wisest of all beings. That’s one of His attributes. God also imparts some of His wisdom to us, if we are humble enough to ask for it. That’s an example of what He does. JAS 1: 5-6, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, he should pray to God, Who will give it to him; because God give generously and graciously to all. But when you pray, you must believe and not doubt at all. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is driven and blown about by the wind.” That gives us something to think about, particularly the phrase, “But if any of you lacks wisdom…” I say that because the wisest human on earth isn’t nearly as wise as God. So, for me at least, I can’t help but conclude that we all must need more wisdom and to pray. As for doubts, we can rest assured that if any of our doubts are about things accurately taken from God’s word, things taken in the context the writers of the Bible intended, then those doubts are coming directly from the forces of evil. That may sound like tough talk, but if it quacks like a duck and has feathers, it’s a duck! For our own sakes and the Lord’s, we have to see what Satan is doing for what it is and meet it with “head on” resistance.
The next step is: 2) to realize our position in Christ. That’s clarified in EPH 2: 6, “In our union with Christ Jesus He raised us up with Him to rule with Him in the heavenly world.” I have often cited RO 8: 29, the verse which describes Christ as “the First among many brothers.” Christ is the first to be raised from death to life, that is, resurrected to assume authority over God’s Kingdom forever. Who are the brothers then? That is a team the Bible uses for every person, male or female, who is a true believer who endures in faith and eagerly awaits his/her own time to be resurrected after physical death. As for RO 8: 17, that illuminates what is being said here even further. That’s the citation that confirms that all believers will be joint-heirs with Christ to the Kingdom.
The step that follows is: 3) to rely on the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ’s name. PHIL 2: 9-11 gives us one reason why we can do this. “For this reason [Christ’s obedience in going to the cross for us], God raised Him to the highest place above and gave Him the name that is greater than any other name. And so, in honor of the name of Jesus all beings in heaven, on earth, or in the world below will fall on their knees, and all will openly proclaim the Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.” Another reason is seen in COL 1: 13-20, which outlines the person and work of Christ. And, a third reason is found in REV 12: 11, “Our brothers won the victory over him [our accuser] by the blood of the Lamb and by the truth that they proclaimed; and they were willing to give up their lives and die.” If we ever needed further proof of this, just look at REV 6: 9-11, which reveals that God will reward these righteous martyrs who hanging on tenaciously to their faith in Him.
The last step is: 4) to remove the ground of oppression. What this means is that we must not allow unrighteous people to influence us by moral compromise, deception, exploitation of vulnerability, and so on. PS 9: 9-12, “The Lord is a Refuge for the oppressed, a place of safety in times of trouble. Those who know you, Lord, will trust You; You do not abandon anyone who comes to You. Sing praise to the Lord, Who rules in Zion! Tell every nation what he has done! God remembers those who suffer; He does not forget their cry, and He punished those who wrong them.” The only way we can know what is unrighteous is to test it against what we learn from God in the Scriptures and through prayer. We must be careful in doing this not to take the Scriptures out of context, because we don’t want to make a wrong assessment of what our problem is. Removing the ground of oppression often takes courage of faith. That’s the very ingredient Satan wants to keep us from using. Don’t let the evil one do it! There is more to say about these four steps, and that will be in tomorrow’s message. For now, we must examine our own lives and see how we might implement them.
PRAYER: O Lord, we have a tendency to rationalize why we can’t accept Your commands. Sometimes, it’s doubts about whether we can do it at the time You give them. Sometimes, it’s about whether we really understand what You require. Other times, it’s whether we are properly equipped to follow them. All of these doubts have one source, the adversary. Trying to mix human rationalization with Godly commands doesn’t work. The efforts of the wicked kings in northern Israel, at the time Israel was divided just before the Assyrian Captivity show this. They tried to mix idolatry with true worship of the One and Only God. It never works. There are few things that are either black or white in this life, but You have told is repeatedly that we can’t worship two masters. MT 6: 24, “No one can be the slave of two masters; he will hate one and love the other; he will be loyal to one and despise the other…” There are times when we doubt we are wise enough to understand what You have told us to do, Dearest Abba. But, those of us who know You well, know that You never command us to do anything for which You haven’t equipped us to do. The problem is not trusting You as we should. Today, we dedicate ourselves to trusting You more. If our resistance to Your commands comes from pleading the time is not right, it means that we have put human agendas before Yours. That is something we understand we must not do. It is not for us to understand why some people won’t heed Your calls to obey and others will. All we know is that we don’t want to be in the former list. We understand that the best way to know You is to spend daily time in the Scriptures and in prayer. That gives You the best chance to reveal Yourself to us, and You do. JN 15: 5, “I am the Vine, and you are the branches. Whoever remains in Me and I in Him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without Me.” We gratefully acknowledge Your presence, superior wisdom, generosity, compassion, loving nature, and unparalleled power. You are a righteous and kind God, Who boldly invited His people to come to obedient faith while they were His enemies, so that they could be saved, blessed abundantly, and brought back to Him for a life of mutual eternal bliss. We humbly confess our sins and offer You our adoration, worship, loyalty, diligence, glory, honor, trust, obedience, thanks, and eternal praise. In Christ’s name, amen.
As promised above, I am led to look at some of the practical applications of the steps presented in this message tomorrow. As I write to you today, I’m feeling under the weather. However, our awesome God has given me the words to say and the energy to write them on my computer. He has also given my doctors, the knowledge of how to best treat me, so that I can recover and a husband who loves me enough to see to it that I got to see the doctor. So, I can be confident that God’s will is for me to soon be back to good health. I mention this, so that all of us can see one way that God’s hand is on the life of a believer. It’s one of many ways God’s hand is on our lives. JER 29: 11-13, “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. Then you will call to Me. You will come and pray to Me, and I will answer you. You will seek Me, and you will find Me because you will seek Me with all your heart.” Our God loves each and every one of us. Peter and I send each of you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn