It’s Time To Stand Against The Enemy!

Today we are going to be covering Gideon and 7 Steps To Conquering The Impossible… But there is a little reading involved first. I recommend you first go and read Judges 6 and 7. Then come back and read the rest.

So we are talking about Gideon. Gideon was called to bring the Israelites out of the bondage of the Midianites. Israel was under the bondage of Midian because Israel forsook and did evil in the sight of the Lord. The Midianites kept Israel in such a stat of oppression, the Israelites had to live in caves. And every time there seemed to be some hope of moving forward, the Midianites would come in and take all of the increase…

Have you ever felt like you were a slave? Maybe a slave to oppression, sin, depression and so on? Well that is no way to live! Jesus said He came to give life and life more abundant (John 10:10). When we aren’t living in that abundance, we need to NOT blame God, but take the time to seek the Lord and find out the cause of the bondage…

After reading through Judges 6 & 7, you will find these 7 Steps to Conquering the Impossible…

1. Vs 7:1 Rose Up Early.

Proverbs 8:17
“I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me.”
There is a common thread you will find with many of the great men and women of God in the Bible, they all woke up early to seek and spend time with the Lord… This is also know “first fruit” principle.

There is nothing better than starting your day out right with your Savior and friend.

2. Vs. 6:39 Pray.

Eph. 6:18 tells us to pray with all prayer and supplication for the saints. We must always be in communication with God. Much of the war is won through prayer.

Now, Gideon was young in his walk with the Lord and you see him asking the Lord multiple times for a confirmation of what he thought the Lord told him. God did honor what Gideon asked, but there has to be a time of maturity where we are not always asking God for a confirmation. We need to learn to know the voice of God and then move in obedience.
There will be times were God will tell you to do something and there is no time to “throw out a fleece”, you must know you heard God and move.

Plus, the devil and do things to. It would be a shame to never really know if you heard God right and the devil do something that you thought was God confirming something. That could mess someone up for a LONG time.

3. Vs. 7:6 Hand to their mouth (Alert & Ready)

“and the number of those who lapped. Putting their hand to their mouth, was 300 men. But all the rest of the people bowed down upon their knees to drink water.”

I find it interesting here about the difference between the 300 that were chosen and the ten thousand that went home…
From a battle strategic view, the 300 were in a position where they could remain alert and ready. While all the others were consumed with the water, the 300 could still drink of the water and keep an eye out for any potential threat.

1 Peter 5: 8 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” – Gird up the loins of your mind!

We must always be on guard and ready to war when the Lord calls us.

4. Vs. 7:7 The Lord Said Unto Gideon. (Hearing the Word of the Lord)

Romans 10:17 “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

Just like in step #2, we must hear God in the matter at hand. If we try to go out Conquering something and declaring Romans 8:37 “I am more than a conqueror!”… But God never told you to do it, you are picking a fight with the enemy that God never gave you the backing to do. That’s big trouble!

5. Vs. 7:9 “Arise” (Take Action)

James 2:17 “Faith without works is dead” Or Faith without action/obedience is dead…

When God tells us to do something, we must do it! We can’t be lazy and expect God to hand everything over on a silver platter. Although, those times are nice, we must always act upon our faith. If God gives you a promise, you have to stand on His Word. You have to fight for it, you have to move forward believing it is so.

6. Vs. 7: 15 Worship.

Psalm 99:9
“Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy hill; for the LORD our God is holy.”

What an awesome privilege it is to worship our maker. Great victory is won in worship. You lose sight of yourself and come to a knowing just how big God is and how He really is the one in control.

Don’t ever forget to worship God along the way in battle and in times of peace.

7. Vs. 7:17 Israel listened to Gideon (Obedience)

1 Sam. 15:22 says, “to obey is better than sacrifice”
2 Cor. 10:5 talks about “…casting down every high things to the obedience of Christ.
There is protection in obedience. How do you expect to win the battle if you are living the way the enemy wants you to? You cannot win the battle living in compromise and giving the enemy a right to beat you up… It just doesn’t work.
Plus, the Bible says… “If you love Me, you will obey my commandments”
Shouldn’t we be able to say, “I love Jesus enough not to do that stupid thing!”

So as you are continuing to move forward in the Lord, I ask you what is your Midianite? What is the thing that is causing you not to do the 7 steps we just covered?

It is time to cast down all evil for the sake of our King and continue to advance the Kingdom for His glory.

Don’t ever give up! Go conquer the thing the Lord has told you to do!

As we are coming upon celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I started thinking about what Paul said in Phil. 3:10

“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.”

I encourage you to let that be the cry of your heart this Easter weekend. Don’t let your celebration be in vain. Paul walked in such a deep spiritual knowledge and I find it interesting that the three things that seemed to be the most important was Knowing Him, the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.

So many don’t want to stand up for what is right, they don’t want to share in any affliction. They seek power but not the Lord, they run from conflicts of faith and righteousness.

What an amazing priviledge we have to share in His sufferings. What an awesome priviledge to have the resurrection power inside of us. In Romans 8:11 tells us that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in us. Praise God! We have the power to rise above doube, fear, compormise and worldy mindsets! We must never let that lay dormant in us, the world is looking for Christians to be the people who allow the living God to have His way. The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in us! We don’t have to be like everyone else, we can be like Christ!
Which leads into the first thing Paul mentioned… “That I may know Him”. That word know is not a knowledge that you get by reading history books. This knowing is an intimate knowing that ONLY comes by spending time with the Lord, getting into the Word. There is no greater privilege we have than to have the opportunity to know Him.

Don’t let that privilege slip by. Make it is point to die to yourself a little more than before, to spend time with Him and know Him intimately. To walk boldly in the power of Jesus Christ, changing lives around you wherever you go.

May you all have a great Resurrection Sunday.

I remember back when I first got serious in my relationship with God, I was a Spiritual Warfare Freak! I had enough spiritual warfare books that if you stacked them on top of each other it probably would have come out to about 6 feet tall! Well, to make a long story short, I was very unbalanced in my walk. I was extremely “demon conscience” and not very Jesus minded. That alone can lead down a very dangerous road and unfortunately many are going down a road of darkness thinking they are doing warfare.

Who knows where I would be if I continued down a road of doing “spiritual warfare” that man made up instead of the warfare the Bible talks about. I must thank my friend Sandi Querin for the for sitting me down years ago and explaining how I should look to the Word of God to learn Spiritual Warfare and not books man has come up with. That advice saved me from a lot of crap! So thank you Sandi!

Some may say that the Bible does not give enough info on Spiritual Warefare and that we need books on the topic. But I would have to disagree, if you dig into the Word of God you will find everything you need. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and lead you into all Truth… He is good at that!

I would like to share something that I believe is very relevant to the topic. I can’t say I read a lot of books, I truly don’t have time. So When I am reading, it’s the Bible. There is however a book that I try to go through a couple times a year, that book is “The Conquest Of Canaan” by Jessie Penn-Lewis. I want to share just a little chunk of something that is talked about in this book…

“It is the only safe in this spiritual warfare to have a present tense faith in a present tense application of the Cross.

You may have yielded to the Cross up to the point of all that you knew last week, but there may be a hidden point in your character which the devil knows about and which you do not; and he is quietly fanning it up while you are off guard, thinking you are so “crucified” that he will never be able again to trap you. This is why souls are sometimes deceived and overthrown in the very spot in which they thing they are the strongest. They are off guard, thinking themselves so safe.

The wily foe can wait twenty years, until he senses that you have forgotten all about something in your character – something which God dealt with so deeply that you thought you would never have to face the matter again. But now, twenty years afterwords, it is attached by the enemy without your suspecting, and the occasion comes which causes you to discover that the devil is quietly aiming at the old place of weakness, and you have to vigorously say, “NO! The matter has been settled and must never be debated again!”  Therefore you see it is one thing to say by faith that you have died to sin, and it is another thing to let God make it fact. When there comes the actual severance, then you know the knife. Keep this before you as you go forward into this battlefield. Pray the Lord to keep the knife of the Cross applied to every part of your being, your cleverness of intellect, your self-confidence, your sympathies, your affections. Let the knife be used by God all the time, not yesterday, but today. This means keeping the material which the enemy can fasten upon out of his way. The place of victory can only be know as the knife of the Cross is kept continually applied to the old creation day by day.”

This is so very true and rings loud in my heart. So many have gotten off course in their life because they don’t have a present tense faith in a present tense knowing and application of the Cross. So they end up chasing battles that they were never meant to fight, they get blinded by pride and self-centeredness and make their faith about them being a “prayer warrior” instead of Jesus.

I remember back when I had a conversation with a guy I know who used to be awesome. He used to only be concerned with what the Lord wanted Him to do and then he would do it. Now he is a pot smoking drunk. I remember sitting there while he was telling me all the things he liked doing now, but how he still liked giving the devil a black eye. I remember sitting there and getting an image in my mind of him looking like a puppet while the devil was above him looking down being the puppet master. This guy really did think he would live in sin and be perfectly fine fighting against the devil. The enemy had this guy in such a delusion, it was very sad to see.

So as you are going out contending for the faith and giving the devil a black eye while you do it, make sure you have a present tense application of the Cross in your life.

Keep moving forward!

In life we can find ourselves in many different situations, some good and some bad. It’s a horrible thing to suddenly find yourself in a place that seems to be void of God, you feel numb or even dead…

The worst part is, you don’t even know how you got there. This is when situations and people can dictate who we are and how we feel about ourselves, which then dictates how we think, act and live. What a terrible thing.

But, there is great news! In Phil. 3:8-10 says:
“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”

Paul seems to sum it all up for us…

What a beautiful picture that is painted, “to be found in Him” and to “know Him”. When you are found in Him, your current situation doesn’t control you anymore! When you are found in Jesus, you aren’t controlled by people’s words and actions because you know who you are in Him and who He is in you.

So let’s break these verses down…

Paul says, he counts all things a loss for the “Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus”. I’m thinking this is a big deal, to count ALL things loss, all things is a LOT of things! Paul had some insight here, all things are as dung compared to the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ. This knowledge is not a knowledge you get by reading a text book or going to school, this knowledge comes from spending time with Him and Him alone. It comes spending time with Him and getting to know Him. You know what He likes and how He feels. When you spend this kind of time with the Lord, something changes inside of you, His word is sealed upon your heart where you know that you know that you are found in Him…. And there is no better place to be found!

Now let me say, there are many that seem to think Paul is cussing when he uses the word dung. Now I realize what the Greek says, but I will argue that Paul was NOT cussing, if he had, he would have contradicted all the things he said in all his letters about the words that come out of our mouths. So if you find enjoyment in thinking Paul cussed, you better check your heart because there is nothing funny about it. And don’t be using that as an excuse to say whatever you want either!

When you are found in Him, there is nothing in you that would want to cuss either. As you continue to abide in Him, He shares His heart with you and you feel what He feels.

Now Paul also mentions something else that is key. “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”

Once again this “know Him” is an intimate knowing. But now, it’s also about knowing the power of His resurrection through sharing in His death and living a crucified life. As you do, you are transformed into His image in all areas. As you are dead to yourself and the world, you walk in the power of His resurrection. In newness of live with power and authority. It’s a beautiful thing!

When you combined all of the above to your own life, you don’t have to worry about what people are saying or thinking about you. You don’t have to conform to the situations around you. All you have to do if keep standing firm in the confidence that you are found in Him, worshiping Him every step of the way.

Sure, there is more we could talk about, but let’s make it a point to live a life that is completely hid and found in God!

Until next time, God bless!

My good friend and fellow soldier Kenny shared something with me the other day. I haven’t been able to shake it…

He said on Sunday, that’s what the Lord was telling him, “hold the line”. How very true that is for each and every one of us. As I was thinking on “hold the line”, I started thinking about how easy it is to get so bogged down with things of this world that we forget we are in a very real war. Something happens when we allow others and situations to dictate to us who we are and what we do.

I have been experiencing this recently…

For the past few years I have been on this journey of business and entrepreneurial ways. I never wanted to go that route, but the Lord had other plans. ? Anyways, I have learned TONS and now love it, but at the same time in the world of business when you must look and be professional, it’s very easy to get civilized. What I mean by that is, it’s easy to start to adapt to what is common to man. Take the recession for example. The media screams that we are going into a recession and people freak out and stop spending money. Everyone is affected…

But, what does God have to say about all of this? Did we forget to ask Him? With all the business owners I talk to on a daily basis, the economy is in the forefront of their minds and the first thing that comes out of their mouths.
With all these facts floating around, it becomes very easy to adapt to a different way of thinking. The way the world thinks and sees things. This is where our faith becomes civilized and it’s a very dangerous place to be. When we start to become civilized we forget there is a war going on, we stop fighting the good fight and we stop representing Christ and His Kingdom in the way we should, we lose our Kingdom thinking.

It’s a very scary place to be…

We can’t allow things to desensitize us! We just can’t! There is too much at stake! When we allow our faith to become civilized, most of the time we don’t even know it. We still think we are all big and bad, but in reality, we can become prideful and pathetic. We may even pick fights with other Christians just so we can still feel like a warrior. What a bummer deal that is!

Please remember, Christianity can be messy and brutal and yet, the best thing you could be….A child of the living God!
So let’s hold the line and dig our feet in deeper than ever before, because our King didn’t die for nothing!
Let me hear a war cry!!