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| "Don't be afraid!" Elisha told him. "For there are more on our side than on theirs!" |
“Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!”
Jesus, You are my strength. You are mighty to save and more powerful than any thing that will come against me today. Thank You for saving me. Thank You for giving me Your Holy Spirit to guide my thoughts, words and actions. Today, help me to stand firm, to resist the enemy, to call on YOU, my Savior.
You have already defeated Satan and he knows it. So now, he goes after Your followers to hurt You. Please keep me from being his tool, his instrument of evil. Help me to remember that the battle is already won. Help me to put on the full armor of God. Dear Lord, keep me from doing anything that brings dishonor to Your Name. Most of all, LORD, keep my thoughts pure, because that's where all sin begins. Remind me to bring every thought under Your authority. I don't want my head filled with anything that is not from You. You alone are my God. Today, help me stand firm with Your strength and victory. In the Power of Your Name I pray. Amen.
From Jesus Calling:
Do not be surprised by the fiery attacks on your mind.
When you struggle to find Me and to live in My Peace, don't let discouragement set in. You are engaged in massive warfare, spiritually speaking. The evil one abhors your closeness to Me, and his demonic underlings are determined to destroy our intimacy. When you find yourself in the thick of battle, call upon My
Name: "Jesus, help me!" At that instant, the battle becomes Mine; your role is simply to trust Me as I fight for you.
My Name, properly used, has unlimited Power to bless and protect. At the end of time, every knee will bow (in heaven, on earth, and under the earth), when My Name is proclaimed. People who have used "Jesus" as a shoddy swear word will fall down in terror on that awesome day. But all those who have drawn near Me through trustingly uttering My Name will be filled with inexpressible and glorious Joy. This is your great hope, as you await My return.
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Yesterday, at least 4 times, I heard messages about Spiritual Warfare.
One speaker made a statement that caught my attention. He said the moment I became a Christian, Satan became my enemy. MY Enemy! Mine! He hates Me and wants to hurt ME and everyone I love. He hates me because I love Christ.
He will use whatever he can to destroy my life.
Satan despises the honor and adoration we give to Christ. Christ has everything Satan wanted and although our Savior defeated him, Satan still has a little time before he must face his ultimate destruction. During that time, he is lashing out at anyone who brings glory or honor to Jesus. BE READY!
He is out to bring me down, to weaken my faith, to destroy my influence, to make me doubt that God loves me, to discourage, depress, defeat me. I am his mission's goal, and he is obsessed with that goal. He has a plan for my demise. Usually, he uses my weaknesses, but sometimes he uses my strengths.
For those of us who can sometimes feel a little self-righteous, he'll even use the "good things" we do to bring us down. He can use our ministries for the church to steal us away. We can get so busy doing things for the Lord, that we don't spend time with HIM. We stop reading His Word. Maybe we spend so much time on our ministry, we fail to care for our family in the way that God intended. Busyness is one of Satan's power tools. Anything that takes our attention away from Christ is not good, no matter how good it may look to those around us.
He uses our successes, too. Financial success can mislead us into thinking we don't need Jesus. After all, we provide for our families, we give to the needy... It's very easy to think it's our hard work and our insight and our understanding that brings us our material wealth. But ultimately, everything we have comes for our Father and when we forget that, we become prideful and we take our eyes off our Savior. Satan loves to use that weapon: PRIDE.
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The Enemy is crafty. He's been engaged in battle against believers for centuries, and he knows exactly which weapons to use against each of us. He has a personalized plan just for me and one just for you, too. Peter warns us to "Be Alert!" because the devil is prowling around just looking for opportunities to catch us off guard.
What weapon does Satan use against you? Think about.
Romans 1 lists some sins that Satan uses against us:
Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents.
I can read this passage and feel pretty good about myself until I look closer.
Matthew 5:28:
"But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
The sin starts in our thoughts. My thought sins may not be "lust", they may be bitterness, resentment, self-pity, etc. But those kind of thoughts will cause just as much damage as lustful thoughts.
Have you ever head someone say "it just happened. We didn't mean to have an affair. It just happened."
No, it didn't just happen. You thought it about long before you took action. You let your mind think about what it would be like long before you made your first move. That's why God tells us to capture our thoughts and bring them under the authority of Christ. Stop the thought. The action will never happen.
1 Peter 5:8-9
Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are.
http://youtu.be/1gbBrlAVm20 - Your Great Name - Natalie Grant
His Name is powerful. Call on Jesus when you feel attacked. Call on Jesus when you don't feel attacked, because you are being attacked whether you feel it or not. Satan is YOUR enemy. Don't forget it. He won't.
Resist the enemy and he will flee from you. He will flee for a season, but first, YOU must resist. God gives us the weapons we need to defeat the Enemy.
He tells us to put on the whole armor of God.
Ephesians 6
A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
And don't forget this last weapon. PRAY.
Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.
This battle we fight every day is real - whether we realize it or not. When I think about how vicious Satan is, how much he wants to destroy anything that is good or sweet or kind, I tremble because I know too many days I walk around completely unaware. My guard is down and I'm vulnerable. But praise God! I do not fight this battle on my own. The Creator of the Universe can call down His heavenly army to protect me. Just because I can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't surrounding me.
I think of the prophet Elisha's servant who was so afraid because the enemy was surrounding them and there was no way out... no human way out. But Elisha prayed and ask God to open the eyes of his servant so he could see what Elisha saw.
2 Kings 6:15-17
When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha.
“Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!”
Then Elisha prayed, “O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” The Lord opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.
Whom then shall I fear? Satan can tempt me, he can use every trick imaginable, but I have the LORD on my side. He's my Savior. One word is all I need, "Jesus!". At His Name, every knee will bow, even Satan.
That beautiful, powerful, sweet Name!
That beautiful, powerful, sweet Name!
http://youtu.be/NgHu0YyYbnU - Names of God
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