Fighting the Ghosts

God is the potter, and Christians are his clay (Jeremiah 18:4 / 2 Corinthians 4:7). And he is shaping you into the likeness of Jesus, using all of life to do it. That’s the idea of Romans 8:28-29. But when you go against his guiding hand, God has to break you to remake you. And God may use the devil to break a believer down.

Maybe you’ve experienced this. Everything seems to upset you. You try and try, but things just go wrong, and you can’t seem to get a break. It seems like awful is amplified all over your life. It’s like you’re fighting a ghost, whose arming your enemies. 

Now sometimes, God is allowing this season to show your faithfulness as an example to others.  God may allow an attack to show his strength in your life. You’re wearing the full armor of God. You learn to have the patience of Job. You’re earning rewards in heaven. And those who would accuse you of sin are wrong. You need to stand strong in the Lord despite all the hurt feelings, lack of support, and hard circumstances. And your faith will be vindicated.

However, sometimes you aren’t just fighting your emotions, or people, or systems, or situations. Sometimes, God will allow the devil to invade your life because you have continually opened the door. You have continued in a pattern of particular sin, and God will use the devil to break and humble you. God uses the devil in a Christian’s life to accomplish his purposes. God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

 Satan wants to use this time to further cement you into distrusting, disbelieving, and disobeying God. But God intends for this season to liberate you into a deeper trust and greater belief and joyful obedience. The deliverance you need is not just from the devil, but to Jesus. It is no good to cast the devil out when you keep inviting him back in. If you want to stop fighting the ghosts, you’ll have to stop fighting against God’s will. 

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Bible Warnings against the Occult

(Astrology, Spiritism, Secret Knowledge, Magic, etc.)

When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you.
(Deuteronomy 18:9-12 – ESV)

· Leviticus 19:26, 31
· Leviticus 20:6, 27
· Deuteronomy 13:1-4
· Deuteronomy 17:2-3
· 1 Samuel 28:3, 7-9 / 1 Chronicles 10:13
· 2 Kings 17:16-17
· 2 Kings 21:6
· 2 Chronicles 33:6
· Isaiah 2:6
· Isaiah 8:19
· Isaiah 19:3
· Isaiah 44:24-26
· Isaiah 47:12-13
· Daniel 2:27
· Acts 7:43
· Acts 8:9-11
· Acts 13:8-11
· Acts 16:16-18
. Acts 19:19
· Galatians 5:20
· Revelation 21:8

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Casting Out Demons?

And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons;
(Mark 16:17 – ESV)

You don’t see Paul teaching Timothy or Titus how to cast out demons or how to teach others to do it. You don’t see it taught in the epistles of Paul, Peter, or John. You only see it demonstrated in the narratives of the gospels and the book of Acts. Surely, something of this seemingly important magnitude would be covered in more detail; it would be outlined in Ephesians 6:10-18, or 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, etc., if it were to be our standard operating procedure.

It isn’t.

Paul mentions to Timothy about people who are ensnared by the devil, but he tells Timothy not to go down the rabbit trails but to correct with the truth, hoping that God will give them repentance. He says that Timothy will have to be patient and endure the evil, not cast it out (2 Timothy 2:23-26). He was to engage the enemy behind the behavior by bringing the truth to the encounter. The power and authority of the Word IS the power and authority of the believer, it doesn’t require an exorcism. If this is not the case, and we are supposed to “take our authority” and cast out demons, then why is there such a lack of teaching in the scriptures about it?

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Devil’s Food

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
(1 Peter 5:8 – ESV)

It can be easy to over indulge ourselves during the holidays. Our eyes are filled with many delights as everyone we know is tempting us with tasty treats and mouthwatering morsels of fabulous food. It would seem as if we somehow develop an extra space in our stomach during certain times of the year.

Well Satan is on hells’ holiday until Judgment Day, and he has the most insatiable appetite, and an unquenchable thirst for destruction. The devil is wandering around, looking for fresh flesh to sink his teeth into.

However, we often don’t realize when our spiritual lives are being eaten alive. Believe me, you may think you aren’t being consumed by the enemy, but if your desires and deeds are not godly you are already in the enemy’s camp! You cannot stay in the cage with a hungry animal and not expect to have to defend yourself at some point.

Yes I know for sure that Christians can be oppressed by the devil, and obsessed with the world and their own sinful flesh. I want to encourage you that God can deliver you, and I exhort you to understand that you will never overcome the devil doing it your way. I know you’re battered, I know you’re weary, but that is because you are too often fighting in your own strength and with your own wisdom. I know that not doing what you want to feels like a fire burning you up. It is. You have got to commit yourself to God’s way, and allow the fire to purify you.

With sin, you will either be committed to kill it,

or you will be committed to do it.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Passion and Pride

…I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked… and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God… from the midst of the stones of fire.
(Ezekiel 28:14, 16)

Burning hot encounters with majestic splendor do not guarantee a continued walk on holy ground with God. Satan walked among the stones of fire but he burned with his own passions. Do we do that with the things of God? We encounter Him but all it does is to stir our pride and enflame our passion for our own agenda. There is a way to corrupt your own wisdom, to warp your spiritual perspective and it begins by becoming convinced that you are more than you really are, or by wanting to be something you are not called to be.

You don’t need a burning bush encounter in order to obey what you know His Word already tells you to do. To treat everything else that isn’t some radical experience as common is to treat everyday life with Jesus as common. Just because you have had some experience doesn’t necessarily make you special. It might make you responsible to use that gift, but all the children of God are loved equally. This doesn’t mean we don’t have particular roles to play, it means we need to be careful lest our gifts spoil us, and be careful of looking at experiences or gifts that make us bitter toward God and jealous of other people. We should be careful of being bedazzled because we may end up bedeviled.

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©

Questions: Satan's Reason

Why did Satan rebel if he knew God was sovereign / almighty / omnipotent?

I have an idea, but what do you think?

“Living For Today With An Eye For Tomorrow”©