I don't know about you but I'm getting tired of being beat up and losing battles to Satan. I've had some victories but it's been a lot harder than it had to be. Its like baking a cake, if you follow the recipe the cake will come out tasting good. I've been trying to bake a cake with bits and pieces of a recipe. Sometimes it may come out hard, bitter or too flat. Sometimes it is edible and sometimes it is not. Sometimes I had victory, sometimes I failed miserably.
My question to you is...When is the last time Satan lost a battle in your life? Are you tired of being beat up and tossed to and fro like a ragdoll? I believe God has revealed to me a recipe for victory.
The text for all this is II chronicles chapters 19 and 20.
The first steps toward victory would be conviction from the Holy Spirit to clean these areas up in your life that are displeasing or in disobedience to Gods Word. So all of this will seem pointless to you if you have not been "born again" and do not have a personal relationship with the one true God. This is the beginning of the sanctification process. God expects us to do the obvious beginning steps such as praying, reading His Word, studying, going to church, etc..
So, maybe your doing the basics. You have cleaned up some of the blatently obvious areas of sin in your life and have been pretty successful on this road to sanctification. Then God reveals to you an area that your not so ready to let go of. Perhaps that "pet" sin. Now Satan doesn't want you to be successful and will be unrelenting in his attempts to defeat you. If we look at verses 1 and 2 in chapter 20 Jehoshaphat learns that a great multitude is coming to destroy his land. Satan is going to come and try to destroy you and take away your victory. That is the point I would make it to and fail every time. I was victorious until it started to hurt a little then I would be knocked down and have to start over again.
So what happened to Jehoshaphat when he heard that multitudes were coming to destroy him? First of all he didn't wait until the danger was already there before doing anything about it. He had already placed judges to judge over their respective areas to be sure that all the land was living in fear of the Lord. He made provisions to be obedient to the Lord. This is one of the first ingredients in our cake. We need to make provision for victory. Avoiding people who are not encouraging or avoiding the bar or drinking buddies would be examples of making provisions for victory. I Thessalonians 5:22 tells us to obstain from every form of evil.
Next, Jehoshaphat fasted, prayed and went and gathered all the people to pray (verses 3 -13). So, our next step would be to fast and pray. The next ingredient I've already mentioned is he gathered all the people to pray. Jehoshaphat had to be humble. Next ingredient...fellowship (prayer) with fellow believers.
Then God spoke through others with encouragement to Jehoshaphat saying in verse 15 "Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but Gods". If we are obedient in following God's direction he will comfort us when we need it. So the next ingredient would be faith. As my Pastor and friend J.D. Hatfield says, "faith is in the face of fear".
Please understand, encouragement wouldn't be neccessary if it was easy. It will be difficult and there will be times when you want to give up. But that is when you need to realize you are doing something wrong. Read verse 17. You will not need to fight this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem! Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you. If we realize that it is not us that needs to fight this battle then we can concentrate on what God wants us to do to be victorious. But we have to be still and not try to fight a battle that we cannot win.
Our cake is almost done! Our next ingredient is praise. If you continue reading from verse 18 you'll see that praise is all that was required of Jehoshaphat and his people to be victorious over their enemy. If we concentrate on the very reason for our existence then we can live that victorious life that I believe we all want. CONCENTRATE ON GOD!!!
After the enemy had been defeated then the people of Jerusalem and Judah went to the house of the Lord and rejoiced (verse 28). This is the stirring up of the cake. The witness, which was so great and strong that their other enemies heard of their victory and were in theory, already defeated.
Now that we have added all our ingredients and stirred our batter it is time to put it in the oven (Gods hands) and watch our cake rise and become the wonderful creation we were designed to be.
Dan
My question to you is...When is the last time Satan lost a battle in your life? Are you tired of being beat up and tossed to and fro like a ragdoll? I believe God has revealed to me a recipe for victory.
The text for all this is II chronicles chapters 19 and 20.
The first steps toward victory would be conviction from the Holy Spirit to clean these areas up in your life that are displeasing or in disobedience to Gods Word. So all of this will seem pointless to you if you have not been "born again" and do not have a personal relationship with the one true God. This is the beginning of the sanctification process. God expects us to do the obvious beginning steps such as praying, reading His Word, studying, going to church, etc..
So, maybe your doing the basics. You have cleaned up some of the blatently obvious areas of sin in your life and have been pretty successful on this road to sanctification. Then God reveals to you an area that your not so ready to let go of. Perhaps that "pet" sin. Now Satan doesn't want you to be successful and will be unrelenting in his attempts to defeat you. If we look at verses 1 and 2 in chapter 20 Jehoshaphat learns that a great multitude is coming to destroy his land. Satan is going to come and try to destroy you and take away your victory. That is the point I would make it to and fail every time. I was victorious until it started to hurt a little then I would be knocked down and have to start over again.
So what happened to Jehoshaphat when he heard that multitudes were coming to destroy him? First of all he didn't wait until the danger was already there before doing anything about it. He had already placed judges to judge over their respective areas to be sure that all the land was living in fear of the Lord. He made provisions to be obedient to the Lord. This is one of the first ingredients in our cake. We need to make provision for victory. Avoiding people who are not encouraging or avoiding the bar or drinking buddies would be examples of making provisions for victory. I Thessalonians 5:22 tells us to obstain from every form of evil.
Next, Jehoshaphat fasted, prayed and went and gathered all the people to pray (verses 3 -13). So, our next step would be to fast and pray. The next ingredient I've already mentioned is he gathered all the people to pray. Jehoshaphat had to be humble. Next ingredient...fellowship (prayer) with fellow believers.
Then God spoke through others with encouragement to Jehoshaphat saying in verse 15 "Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but Gods". If we are obedient in following God's direction he will comfort us when we need it. So the next ingredient would be faith. As my Pastor and friend J.D. Hatfield says, "faith is in the face of fear".
Please understand, encouragement wouldn't be neccessary if it was easy. It will be difficult and there will be times when you want to give up. But that is when you need to realize you are doing something wrong. Read verse 17. You will not need to fight this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem! Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you. If we realize that it is not us that needs to fight this battle then we can concentrate on what God wants us to do to be victorious. But we have to be still and not try to fight a battle that we cannot win.
Our cake is almost done! Our next ingredient is praise. If you continue reading from verse 18 you'll see that praise is all that was required of Jehoshaphat and his people to be victorious over their enemy. If we concentrate on the very reason for our existence then we can live that victorious life that I believe we all want. CONCENTRATE ON GOD!!!
After the enemy had been defeated then the people of Jerusalem and Judah went to the house of the Lord and rejoiced (verse 28). This is the stirring up of the cake. The witness, which was so great and strong that their other enemies heard of their victory and were in theory, already defeated.
Now that we have added all our ingredients and stirred our batter it is time to put it in the oven (Gods hands) and watch our cake rise and become the wonderful creation we were designed to be.
Dan
1 comment:
Yeeehawwwww!
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