Tag Archives: darkness

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What Does It Take to Get You Awake?

How many of you remember when you were going to school and every morning your parents would always try to wake you up for school, but it seems as though that’s when the best sleep of your life came on you even though you heard your name being called. Then, the desire to not let go of that wonderful time of peace and relaxation had bound your body, mind, and soul to that bed. You willingly did not want to leave the warmth and the comfort that the bed had to offer though we knew we had to get up to face reality and growth in our life for the future. Sometimes, we get into situations that tend to lock us in a certain mindset that is not healthy for our body physically, or a subjugated lifestyle that is not profitable and beneficial for our soul.

Turn with me to Romans 13:1-14:

1 “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. 5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. 6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. 7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. 8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. 13 Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. 14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

So in conclusion, we need to know that when we get a clear understanding of the word of God then we need to walk in that understanding.

Extra Readings: John 12:35-36, John 12:44-49

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We Wrestle Not against Flesh and Blood

Ephesians 6:5-8

Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.

 

Emphasis on verse 8, Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. Whether you are a slave or free, your’ll receive the same of the Lord. He is no respect of persons in that respect. A lot of people feel they can’t serve Christ if they are a slave or beholding to someone. But know that under the oppression of whomever or whatever it may be, if you are a true Child of God, you are still to do His will. By doing so, you’ll receive of the Lord, whether you be bonded to someone or free on your own. Doesn’t make a difference.

Ephesians 6:9-11

And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

 

Can someone say “Whole Armour?” Put on the whole armour of God, not just part of it, all of it. Put on all those things to be fully armored. Because Satan is not coming just to cut off your head, but anything he can get a hold to, whether it be your legs or arms…anyway he can. If he can strike you at your finances, in your body, he will. If he could strike at you by attacking your loved ones, he will. If he could strike at you at your job, he will. Know this, you must be prepared at all times when you go into battle. You have to have on all of your protective gear. In the military, they give you cavalier vests/armored vests, reinforced knee pads, reinforced elbow pads. They give you special helmets before you go into battle. All for the purpose of protecting you against any form of an attack. So as a Child of God, your amour is what it says in Galatians 5.

 

Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

 

So you have to put on your armor. First of all love. Sometimes its a hard thing to put on love, but put on love so when you come against that foe, they won’t know how to act. People seem to wait for you to be combative, so they can justify their attack on you. They want you to be afraid. Our President John F. Kennedy said this one thing that is very important and I hope that we catch this: “The only thing to fear is fear itself.” Now I hope you got that. The only thing to fear is fear itself. Let me break that down for you. Sometimes people don’t understand what they’re afraid about. They have been indirectly or directly taught to fear this thing, that situation, or this type of problem, not understanding that there was nothing to fear in the first place. In other words, people are being trained to fear and don’t realize it, so when they get older that fear comes out in them. It manifests itself in many different forms and ways, when you least expect it. That is why you have to be prepared to love in spite of. When somebody treats you wrong, you have to love them still. If someone talks about you, you have to love them still. I know its hard, we all have been through, when somebody just hurt you to the very fiber of your being. We want to lash out in revenge, hoping that taking revenge will resolve that issue. But I’m here to tell you revenge doesn’t resolve anything, it just opens another door that Satan can come into to destroy you.

The next armament is joy. I know some will say, how can you feel joy when someone has their foot on your neck? How can you feel joy when they are trying their best to destroy you? How can you feel joy when someone has taken all that you have? How can you feel joy when someone has taken your loved one? Taken your home, taken your livelihood? How can you feel joy? The Bible tells us in the mist of confusion and mess, God will calm that water. In the midst of trouble, He said cast your cares upon Me for I care for you. The joy you have to feel is, trouble don’t last always and neither does pain or hardship. So be confident that God has your back. Its a good thing when God has your back. We think that men have our backs, but we need not trust in men. Put your trust in God. When God has your back, He has your back.

The next thing is peace. What is peace? Freedom from disturbance, quiet and tranquility. When you look at the action of peace, it calms down everything about you and around you; the Word of God says peace be still (Mark 4:39). What comes along with peace is having faith. The only thing that would cause you to get agitated is when you don’t have peace; is when something has disturbed your faith. Does that mean you have no faith in whom you serve; in Christ that He would deliver you? When you’re going through a situation in your life, does that mean you have no faith to deliver you? It brings in fear, not having enough faith; causes you to doubt what you believe.

The next bit of armour is long-suffering. Some of you all can’t hold out for one minute without complaining. You can’t even fast for even 1 hour, notwithstanding one day. You can’t endure anything. Do you have endurance? Can you endure the stress and heartache of going through? Knowing after a while it will all be over? It reminds me of an old song they use to sing: After a while the troubles shall be over, after a while my Savior shall come. The race is not to the swift nor to the strong. The Bible says its to the one that endureth to the end. Long-suffering. Do you have on that armour of long-suffering. Can you stay with it without complaining or whining? Can you endure? That’s a heavy thing.

Another is gentleness. How many of you are gentle? How many of you have that quiet gentle spirit? How many have a gentle nature? Most people have the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth type of mentality. He hit me, I’ll hit him harder, if he hurts my family, I will hurt his, if he steals from me, I will take from him. We don’t have a gentle spirit. Another thing is goodness. When you say the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul. It says toward the latter part of that, yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall not fear. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Did you head goodness mentioned? Goodness has to be a part of a Child of God’s life, without any doubt, it has to be a part. When you think about the goodness of Jesus and all the things He’s done for us, yet we sill complain about the little things. Its a shame that we sit up there and complain about the little things. The Word of God tells us how long halt you between two opinions. If God be God serve Him, if he be mammon, serve him. I think some of us are caught between that making up our mind stage. Faith is the strongest armor because without faith its impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Faith in what He does, what He says, faith in what He tells us to do and where He tells us to go. The Bible tells us if we have the faith of a grain of a mustard seed, its like a little tiny bead. To say that someone doesn’t even have faith that size its an indictment on them.

Meekness, I think meekness goes right along with gentleness. A quiet, gentle and easily imposed on submissive, yielding, obedient, compliant, humble spirit. Many people in the Church don’t have humble spirits, they aren’t too meek, and quick to jump down your throat. I tell people, you’d better leave people alone, because you’ll make that Peter spirit come out quickly.

Temperance is the last. Temperance is a moderate or voluntary self restraint to refrain from doing. How many people of God have temperance as an amour? How many can say I know where to stop, I know where the line is and I’m not going to cross that line? You’ve got to know when to say no. Then you’ve got to know when to go. Temperance is an important piece of amour on the Child of God on the battlefield of this world, because you will deal with some folks who cause you to loose your temperance. There is a time and season for everything under the sun. You have to know when you should do or not do.

Ephesians 6:12

 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

That is an awesome statement. Reason being is because people think they are fighting against people. Democrats are fighting against Republicans and vice versa. They are fighting against spiritual entities behind the people. Demons and imps sent by Satan to control this world. It says against spiritual wickedness in high places. Did you know one level of demons controls a lower level of demons that controls another level of demons on you? The more successful you are in halting Satan’s growth, the more of a target you are to Satan. Being a Child of God, you are already on the radar if you are true. If you are a Charlatan, they don’t pay attention. They only want those people effective against them to make sure that the effect they have doesn’t cause their power to wane.

The term wrestle against flesh and blood…why do we fight and argue. The Word of God says in James 4:2-3 from whence come wars and fighting among you? Come they not hence even of your lust that war in your members? Ye lust and have not, ye kill and desire to have and cannot obtain. Ye fight and war yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask an receive not because ye ask amiss. In other words your fighting against yourself, against the church because you want what they have. You never asked the Lord if you could have that, if it would edify your soul. We want it because it appeals to our flesh and will do anything to obtain it. You see these different leaders around the country fighting against one another because of jealously. You have these number of members. I want the same number of members, a nice edifice, I, I, I. When did God come in? When did He leave. When it became your ministry, when you conduct service according to your will. That is when the Holy Ghost leaves the place. Then the word Ichabod is written upon that ministry meaning the presence or Spirit of God has left that place. You never want that to be on your ministry, because once the presence of God has left your ministry, it is dead. The whole purpose is to do His will, and when He writes Ichabod on you He will never ever visit again. So you never want to hear Ichabod being pronounced on your location.

James 4:4

Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

 

So, you hear a lot of people say I’m concerned about what will happen to this world, and all the things pertaining to loving this world. If you are in the House of God and love the world more than the Church, you are an enemy, so you might as well either get correction or get out.

James 4:5-6

Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

So can you humble yourself? There are quite a few reasons or excuses people use to justify their general disenchantment and disgust for each other. So I’ve listed some of the more common misunderstood emotions:

 

  1. Hurt-The Lord said cast your cares of Him. When you are hurting, it will cause you to have regret and anguish. That will cause you to mistreat someone, it would even cause you to hurt someone because you are hurt.
  2. Lying-What’s so big about lying? A lie hurts everybody involved. Most people don’t realize, when you tell one, you have to tell another to keep the first from being discovered. Who is the father of a lie? Satan. So you are doing Satan’s will.
  3. Hatred- It has caused people to go war. Families and friends not to speak for years. People to be killed.
  4. Fear- We talked about earlier. When a person is afraid, they will do anything to keep the fear from getting out of control.
  5. Rejection- Rejection has become a big problem in our society today. More youth are committing suicide because they are rejected by their peer group. They want to belong to some group of people that would befriend them and say good things about them. Kids sometimes can be so cruel. You have to feel good and confident about yourself. But those emotions have caused people to be disenchanted with each other.
  6. Anger- People have been so angry that they have hunted others down just to get rid of them. A lot of times people loose focus, and that is what causes people to become disgusted with other people and loose faith and hope in people.
  7. Confused- People in the Church are confused, but they don’t know what part they play. They know they are supposed to do something, because they never took the time to ask God. They want someone to tell them what to do, and when you tell them they get upset. Confusion is running rampant all through the Church. We need to understand that we can’t be confused when doing the work of God. That is one thing you need to take care of. If you don’t what will windup happening is you will lead someone astray, which will bring in contention between individuals. So you must be very careful how you walk in your Christian walk.

 

You can’t allow these 7 things to cause you not to deal with your fellow man correctly. These have caused us to fight against flesh and blood. Attack the spirit, by the Spirit. That Spirit in you should be the Spirit of God. So its very important that you allow the Holy Ghost to lead and guide you to all truth and understanding concerning your walk. Know this there is no man, woman or child or creature made of flesh and blood coming after you. It is spiritual wickedness attacking you. It uses whomever and whatever to attack the Child of God to slip up or fail. So I tell you again how long halt you between two opinions? If you are a Child of God, act like one. You are to be the salt of the earth, so put on that shield, and whole amour of God so that you may be able to stand against the whiles of the Devil. Everything is not going to be to how you like it or want it to be. Remember God is trying to make you. First he needs to break you down, so He can build you up His way.

Know this, Satan will use whomever or bring up situations around your life, he will bring people into your life that mean no good for you or anything you do for the Lord, so as to destroy God’s purpose for you in ministry. So I say again, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, rulers and darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.