We need to understand the law of action and reaction, the moving of the Spirit of God and the moving of the enemy. We live in the conflict of two kingdoms. For every action of the kingdom, there will be a corresponding reaction of the enemy, until we become more than a conqueror and the enemy is so depressed, he doesn’t’ show up for the battle.
Being more than a conqueror means there is nothing left to conqueror, we have established the kingdom on the present level, and all we have to do is watch and pray, to maintain the victory. We are an overcomer, overcoming the opposition, until there is nothing left to conquer and then we become more than a conqueror, we rule and reign with Christ over that which we have been given authority over.
We grow spiritually through communing with the Spirit, where we are partaking of His nature. The Lord reveals a word to our spirit or to our mind. The word revealed to our mind has to get into our spirit. When we get the word in our spirit it will be manifested in the natural realm.
The Lord communicates to us by giving us a word. Whenever God gives a word to our heart, evil spirits will fight that word. When we receive a word from God, we will become the source of both action and reaction. For God’s will to come to pass in the earth, we have to receive the word and then act upon it. The angels of God hearken unto the word spoken in the spirit, and demons try keeping it from working.
Until we grow spiritually enough to begin to hear the voice of God, the lord will speak to us through anointed vessels in which his word is living. No matter how strong the anointing is that brings the word, there will be a corresponding power exercised to take the word from us, and we will have to contend for it.
When we are dealing with the usurper and moving into a level of victory and freedom, we must understand the balance that God wants. There must be as intensive a faith to believe God’s word as there is also an aggressive resistance against everything that the enemy would do. There must be a grasping of the word and holding on to it and also a resistance against the enemy battling it.
The whole battle is centered on the word of God. We are called to live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Once his word has been engraved upon our heart so that we become a living epistle then the kingdom has been established in us and we are then called to advance the kingdom in the natural realm we live in.
When God gives us a word, the enemy battles that word. We contend against principalities and powers. The battle centers around the word God has spoken and is called the good fight of faith.
Faith comes to us from hearing God speak personally to us. Faith has to come and then it has to work. But there is a kingdom of darkness that is in opposition to every word that has been spoken by God. We must war against the doubts and the unbelief in our own heart, and that which the enemy would bring against us.
The faith of God comes to us by a revelation to our spirit. Our will is directly related to our spirit. So once we know in our spirit the will of God we have to choose to believe, determine to believe. Faith becomes a choice. We choose to believe with the force of our spirit. We will believe just as much as we determine to believe.
A walk with God is a revelation to our hearts; we determine to believe in it. If a person has reasoned his way into some truth, the enemy comes with great deception and helps him reason his way out of it. Reason does not bring a person into a walk with God, but revelation does.
God has to reveal himself to us in such a way, that there is no room left for doubt, we have heard from God. Because of that revelation, our will and determination to be a believer hold us steadfast in our walk with the Lord. We can only walk in what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us.
The enemy tries to steal the word out of our heart, before the Lord reveals it to our spirit. If the word conceives in our spirit then he will bring persecution or harassment to offend us so that the word produces no fruit. Or else he we try to choke the word with the cares of this world or desire’s for other things to displace it.
The battle is not against our circumstances or in our relationships, although the enemy will use them as a means to an end. The battle is not against the things that come along to turn us aside from walking with God. The battle is against the word that God has spoken to us.
The enemy distracts us by presenting various problems in our circumstances or relationships; he will try and stir up one situation after another to try and get us frustrated. He tries to get us to withdraw or become rebellious. But the purpose behind everything he does is not just to create harassment, he wants us to let go of the word God has given us, so that it does not come to pass
The enemy will come to the one who has just embraced a word, and will dangle some kind of distraction in front of them so that they let go of the word as they reach for the distraction.
He will do whatever he can to distract us from the main object which is believing the word that God has spoken to our heart
He will do whatever he can to distract us from focusing on the word God has given us.
Our primary focus in this life is the Lordship of Jesus Christ and our submission to the words he has spoken to us. The word transforms us and conforms us to the image of Jesus Christ.
No matter what the enemy has done or does we cannot let our heart be divided, or we will not be able to effectively walk in the word God has spoken.
To walk with the Lord, there must be a real dedication to him and a corresponding resistance to all the distractions of this world.
We cannot try and fit the Lord into our life, while we pursue after the things of the world. We cannot go in two directions at the same time.
To accept the word is to resist that which would hinder or distract us from wholly pursuing it. For every acceptance there must be a corresponding resistance.
For everything we submit to, there must also be something which we reject. Every time we have a meeting with the lord where he reveals himself to us in a new way, it is designed to bring us also into a new level of dedication requiring a new level of resistance. The advance of the kingdom in our life requires a resistance of everything that opposes it. The anointing of the Lord is like a snowplow moving that which stands in the way
The enemy tries to put a restraint on us the minute we accept a word from God. We need a balanced picture of what it means to submit to the Lord and to resist the devil. We come into the blessings of the lord by totally rejecting everything that the enemy brings against us. To submit to a word from the lord requires a total rejection of that which would steal, distract or choke it from coming to pass.
The enemy will try and offend us, to keep the word from effectively working. If human anger rises up within us, blocking our conscious contact with God we need to recover quickly by denying self, we have to abide in the spirit.
We are to be angry, but not sin. We can only do this through our awareness of the Lord.
Ephesians 4: 22That ye put off (specific point in time not continuous, to renounce, cast off, lay down) concerning (the object toward which anything tends or aims) the former (prior, previous) conversation (behavior) the old (former) man, which is corrupt (continuous, bring to a worse state) according to the deceitful (delusion) lusts ;( desire resulting from the diseased condition of the soul);and be renewed(continuous action, renewed in spiritual vitality) in the spirit(innermost part, disposition, vital principle, the breath of the spirit, the God part, the regenerated spirit) of your mind.(organ of mental perception, the consciousness preceding action)and that ye put on (a specific point in time 1-intimate union 2-go in or under- to put on as a garment, to clothe oneself.) the new(qualitatively new) man, which after God is created(definiteness of action, to create, produce from nothing, to create and form in a spiritual sense) in righteousness(the essence of him who is righteous, God himself the standard) and true(the unveiled reality lying at the basis of and agreeing with the manifestation) holiness.(holiness manifesting itself in actions)25Wherefore (wherefore, on account of)putting away (definiteness of action-middle, to put off, lay aside,” denotes, in the Middle Voice, “to put off from oneself, cast off,” used figuratively of works of darkness,) lying (a lie, conscious and intentional falsehood,) in a broad sense, whatever is not what it seems to be, of perverse, impious, deceitful precepts), speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. 26Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27Neither give place to the devil.
When our spirit is communing with the Lord, if anger rises up we will not yield to it on a human level. We open the door to sin, when we move in self.
When we are pressured to a point of emotional stress, we respond by refusing to be distracted from our awareness of the Lord. Be angry, but do not sin. We may feel anger, but we do not let it affect what we say.
Do not give way to it; recover instantly before it leads you into sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath. By the time the sun goes down, we should have changed our feelings and controlled our emotions.
If our focus is totally on the Lord, nothing will discourage us very long. When we learn this, and we will not become defeated when the pressure is on.
If we have been walking along fine for a while and we stumble, we need to quickly get back up on our feet.
If we give it too much significance, we will eliminate all the victory we have been walking in.
When a prizefighter is knocked down, they have an instinct for a quick comeback. If they are knocked down, they get up in a hurry. This is the way we are to react.
There is a lot to learn about walking with God. If we are caught in a trap, we need to get out of it quickly, and resist the enemy.
We do not want to give him an opportunity. In the evil day, having done all, we are to stand! No matter what we are going through, we determine that at the end of the day we will be standing, victorious in the Lord.
When we slip, we do not want to yield to human feelings of being defeated but learn how to be an instant repenter, we have to keep that feeling of victory in your spirit continually. It is only through our continual appropriation the Spirit that we overcome.
We cannot stand against the enemy until we first put on the whole armor of God
We are to take the aggressive role to remove Satan from the place that he has usurped.
We must put on the armor of God, and then we can displace the enemy from every area in which he is exerting influence or pressure against the will of God.
Jesus came to redeem His people unto Himself and to give righteousness to them. But He also came to destroy the works of the devil: For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. I John 3:8b
Restoration involves a great deal of resistance. There will not be a restoration of the faith that was once delivered to the saints (Jude 3) unless there is an earnest contending against the demon powers that try to withhold and resist that truth from becoming real and valid in people’s lives.
Satan is the one who stands in the way of the believer. Every time God raises up a man, Satan stands at that man’s right hand trying to resist him, just as he did Joshua (Zechariah 3:1). No one ever starts to move in God without the enemy throwing every hindrance that he can at him.
Only a remnant of God’s people will take the aggressive role to scatter Satan from the place he has usurped.
We must earnestly contend for the faith which was once (for all time) delivered unto the saints. Jude 3b. It is not that God suddenly decides to give us more—He has already given it to us. It is the enemy who comes to resist the word. We have to Contend earnestly to break that resistance so that we can have what God says we are to have.
He has given it to you! God’s people are coming into divine order under the Lordship of Christ. They are going on into the Kingdom! It will not happen automatically on a certain day. It comes through a great deal of resistance. Satan must be dislodged. Start contending earnestly. Resist the enemy.
Let there be in your spirit that which was in the heart of Christ when He went to face the cross. Luke 9:51 says that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem. Isaiah 50:7 says that He set His face like flint. There was no deviation from His destiny. John 12:27 tells us that He prayed about it, saying, “What shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour,’ when it was for this hour that I came forth?” He said in effect, “No, I will not pray for God to deliver Me out of this; I will face it. I will walk in it.” There must be that same determination within you too. Set your heart like flint and do not turn back. The possession of all your inheritance in God depends upon your laying hold by faith and resisting by faith.
All authority in heaven and earth is given to the Lord; therefore we submit to Him as Lord. To the extent that we submit to Him and come under His authority, to that extent His authority is valid in our life. With all our heart we submit to God; then with all our heart we resist the enemy. Submission places us under divine authority. Then our resistance is effective because we resist under the total, absolute authority of Christ. Any other approach is through the energies and efforts of the flesh.
If you are somewhat rebellious or withdrawn, you are not walking in the Spirit or thinking after the Spirit; you are walking by your own reason and understanding, with the arrogance of the carnal mind dominating you. You cannot expect to resist the enemy on that basis. Romans 8:7 says, …the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
The carnal mind never will come under submission to the Lord. When you walk on the plane of a carnal Christian (I Corinthians 3), you cannot expect any great degree of victory over the enemy. You do not have the leverage to resist him. But when you come into a total submission to the Lord, submitting to Him with all your heart, then you are directly under His Lordship.
The authority is in Christ, and your submission to Him determines your effectiveness in moving in His authority.
It is most important to be submissive to the Lord and to have the corresponding action of resistance. Then the enemy flees. He does not just walk away from the situation; nor does he back off and then hit again. He flees! He goes as fast as he can, because he has encountered all the authority by which everything is held together. The submissive heart brings the authority of his Master into every situation. From a place of submission, your resistance can be total and absolute.
I Peter 5:8,9. Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.
We can resist Satan as we are steadfast in our faith. We are to be sober and on the alert; we have to know what is happening. The key of this is found in verse 7: casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.
The way the enemy gets an inroad into our life is through unbelief. Anxiety and fear are manifestations of unbelief. Therefore, we must completely trust in the Lord so that every care is committed to Him, every fear is laid at His feet, and all unbelief is committed to Him. You can resist that roaring lion to the extent that you learn to cast your cares upon the Lord and to walk with absolute trust in Him.
The battle and the struggle is one of faith. When we determine to be a believer we have won the battle within ourself to believe the word that God has spoken.
If you are a submissive believer, you can resist Satan and he will flee from you. When the battle is fought on the positive side, then the corresponding reaction against the enemy is effective.