Good Morning Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
My last email spoke to us, as Believers, being dressed and sleeping in our wedding gown awaiting the arrival of our Bridegroom Jesus Christ to take us to His Father’s House for the wedding and wedding feast. Part of our responsibility as charged by Jesus is to “occupy till He comes.” This means we are to be preparing everything in our life and those around us for the return of Jesus to “fly” us away for the wedding. How do we prepare for Jesus’ return? By doing what Jesus said to do. We, as Believers, are to bring The Kingdom of God into the earth by the authority and power given us by God through Jesus Christ.
As we go about our preparations for our King’s return to take us out of the earth, we will be opposed regularly by the devil and his entourage. With everything that is happening in this country, Israel, and the world, you can readily see the devil has ramped up his attacks. He knows his time is coming to a close. But I caution you with this – DO NOT BE AFRAID OF satan. He has already been conquered by Jesus Christ. Victory has already been secured by Jesus Christ. There is no more war. There are only legal conflicts where a squatter, satan, continues to occupy that which doesn’t belong to him anymore. The resurrection of Jesus Christ put an end to satan’s authority and power. Jesus Christ STRIPPED satan of his authority and power when He took the keys to hell and death from him (Revelation 1:18). The gates of hell CANNOT prevail against a wisdom and faith-filled Believer. If it happens, the Believer has yielded themselves. We can’t blame God for our ignorance or our rebellion. But, praise God, He is ever ready to help us.
Jesus’s Words, “occupy till I come” tells us we are to move satan off the territory he is squatting upon, and we are to occupy it by exercising the Spiritual laws of The Kingdom of God. Believers have been taught the church is at war with satan through ignorance and through denominational rebellion against The Truth of God, His Word. Please, please understand this and quit making a mockery of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. satan has no power to wage war! It may feel like he does to you. But this is your first mistake – feelings. Your feelings are nothing more than a fleshly, carnal deception. You cannot be in faith and in feeling at the same time. They’re mutually exclusive. When we hear ourselves or another Believer saying, “Well, I feel….,” we need to stop ourselves because we are speaking out of our flesh. We are to say, “God’s Word says……” Only God’s Word is Spirit and life. ANY OTHER WORDS are flesh and death. Sisters and Brothers, it is this simple. You only have two choices. satan will try and deceive you with more choices (kind of like the insane gender debate today). I don’t care what anyone else has to say – if it doesn’t align completely with God’s Word, then it is nothing more than flesh and death. I know. I’m too Heavenly minded to be any earthly good. Praise God!! What an awesome complement!
How do we evict satan, the squatter, from what belongs to us and how do we take additional territory? Great question. Jesus gives us a HUGE key to success in dealing with satan and his entourage in Matthew 16:19.
Matthew 16:19
And I will give unto thee the keys of The Kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Notice what JESUS has to say in Matthew 16:19. Can it be made any clearer to us? He tells us He is giving US the keys of The Kingdom of Heaven. Notice there is a colon after Heaven. What follows explains or amplifies upon what was previously stated. The “keys” are “binding” and “loosing.” Let me also share another BIG key Jesus gives us in Mark 3:27.
Mark 3:27
No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.
Who is the “strong man” Jesus is referring to in Mark 3:27? Yes, satan. Jesus makes it so plain to us, thank God! If you try to deal with satan any other way than what Jesus prescribes in The Word of God, you’re going to meet with defeat. How do we “bind” the strong man, the devil? With The Word of God spoken in faith (authority and power). What does “spoil” his house mean? To strip satan of everything he has taken from you (Proverbs 6:31) and to strip satan of everything he is holding up (God’s blessings that are to overcome and overtake you ((Deuteronomy 28:2)).
Hiding in plain sight!! And then, if this was not enough, what more does Jesus say that clues us in to how to kick satan square in his little impish butt and send him sailing? Let’s check out Matthew 18:18-19.
Matthew 18:18-19
18 Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
19 Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.
How do we “bind” and “loose?” By decreeing The Word of God, in faith, that pertains to our situation. With The Word of God, we can “bind” and we can “loose.” Read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Jesus constantly did it. There was no elaborate spell or ritual. Jesus did it by issuing a command based on His authority and power. The authority and power were given to Him by His Father, God. We have been given the SAME authority and power by Jesus Christ. Verse 19 gives us power to have anything we shall ask, in line with God’s Word, when we ask, in agreement, with a faith-filled Believer. God makes it clear to us that He can do nothing from Heaven on our accord UNTIL we make a move in the earth. WE must first bind or loose in the earth, by decreeing the faith-filled Words of God, and then God can legally enforce our decree from Heaven using His authority, power, and resources (i.e. ministering spirits). Through our faith-filled decree of The Word of God, we have given God legal authority to act on our behalf. I know, for some of us that are, or were, so denominationally minded that we couldn’t see The Truth, this blows our mind – God can’t act until we give Him legal authority. Study The Word as commanded (II Timothy 2:15) with an open mind to The Holy Spirit, and He will show you where you’ve been misled by wrong doctrine. We are commanded to do this in I John 4:1.
Colossians 1:13
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into The Kingdom of His dear Son:
Once we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we were delivered from satan’s kingdom to The Kingdom of God, of which Jesus Christ is King. When we operate from this Kingdom in faith decreeing Spiritual laws, satan can NEVER defeat us. When we step outside The Kingdom of God into the flesh, and satan’s kingdom, the world, we are now operating under satan’s laws. How does this happen? When we choose to believe the world’s wisdom, to think like the world, and to speak like the world. Moral of the story: believe only, think only, and speak only God’s Word in faith over your situation(s). Don’t be double-minded. The Holy Spirit addressed this through James in James 1:5-8. I have Believers I speak to who say they believe God heals and protects them from COVID, but all they talk about is COVID. And they are always sick with it – over and over. Quit speaking the words of satan’s kingdom and speak The Words of God’s Kingdom. The more you talk about things of the curse, the more of the curse you are going to suffer in your life.
In The Gospel of Luke, Jesus speaks to the Truth He gave unto the seventy He sent out (in addition to the 12 disciples) two-by-two to preach the Gospel of The Kingdom and to heal the sick. In Luke 9:1-3, below, is the charge Jesus gave to His twelve. He then in Luke 10 gives the same charge to an additional seventy.
Luke 9:1-3
1 Then He called His twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.
2 And He sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
Luke 10:1
After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before His face into every city and place, whither He Himself would come.
When the seventy returned, Jesus spoke unto them Luke 10:19, below.
Luke 10:19
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Once The Holy Ghost came into the earth to fulfill His role in Acts for the Church Age, every Believer receiving The Baptism of The Holy Ghost has the power spoken of by Jesus in Luke 10:19. This power ONLY works by faith and by decreeing The Word of God in every situation in which we encounter satan or his entourage of demonic forces. And if you read Jesus’ encounter with the demonic forces in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they trembled before Him. Why Larry, that was because it was Jesus! I agree. However, Who is IN you? By Whose power and Name are you to operate? Please understand this. Don’t see yourself as the one you see in the mirror of your home. God instructs us in His Word to look into “the mirror of His Word.” How God sees you is how we should see ourselves. Don’t allow satan to deceive you into believing you are who you were before you were saved. Once you were saved, you became a NEW CREATION (II Corinthians 5:17-18) in Christ Jesus. The old you is dead and gone. You now have to work to put your flesh and your soul under subjection to the Spirit of Christ in you. Once you understand Who you are in Christ, demonic forces will tremble before you because when you decree God’s Word in faith with the Voice of authority and power, not only do the demons hear it, but your ministering spirits (angels assigned to you) hear and act upon The Word.
I will continue to address this topic of authority and power in the next email. Otherwise, this one email will be too long. I pray you are gaining some perspective of Who is in you and of the authority or power you have, or you can have (Baptism of The Holy Ghost).
In closing, I leave you with this thought. Do dogs like bones? No, they like steak. They settle for bones. Think about it. Have you settled for bones in The Kingdom of God when God has a huge, delicious, mouth-watering, over-the-top steak for you? Get in The Word and allow The Holy Spirit to teach and empower you to receive the full counsel of God so you begin thinking, speaking, and acting like the “more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37)” you are in Jesus Christ.
Blessings,
Larry