Beloved Family… One major habitual trait that must be instilled in all recruits as they go through boot camp training, is the trait of being relentlessly aggressively focused in attacking their enemy on the field of battle. And that is also a major trait that our Heavenly Father intends to instill in each of His beloved Son’s disciples-in-training.
Overcoming Evil
“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
“These things I have spoken to you, so that IN ME you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I HAVE OVERCOME THE WORLD!” (John 16:33 Emphasis added.)
“Do not be overcome by evil, but OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD!” (Romans 12:21 Emphasis added.)
“HE WHO OVERCOMES, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, AS I ALSO OVERCAME AND SAT DOWN WITH MY FATHER ON HIS THRONE!” (Revelation 3:21 Emphasis added.)
Somehow, someway, every true disciple will have to succeed in absorbing and becoming one with God’s Holy Spirit. And we can be sure that the Holy Spirit will begin to impart to, and develop within us, what we’ll need to have – the same aggressive fighting spirit and habitual fortitude that God’s Word made flesh, our Messiah, exhibited when He walked the earth:
“After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased…” (Matthew 3:16)
“… Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”” (Matthew 4:1-1, Emphasis added)
Observing the Facts
Dear ones, from this text, notice the following facts:
- The Holy Spirit initiated this confrontation between God’s Word made flesh and the Serpent. It can be said that it was God’s idea to lead His Son to invade Satan’s space and ‘pick a fight’, so to speak. He is sent to stop the enemy in his tracks and confront and expose and demolish him! From start to finish, this is what Yeshua was sent to do… to glorify and reveal His Father’s Excellence… by exposing and dismantling the Serpent’s array of lies and deceptive traps… for the sake of the demon-oppressed Creation He had made… especially His beloved human race!
- The Lord used God’s written Word to cut through Satan’s deceptive snares the way a warrior uses a two-edged sword to mortally wound opponents on the field of battle. And when the Serpent tried to do the same thing… to use God’s written Word to entrap our Lord, it backfired on him. Yeshua is God’s Living Word… and the written Word is a revelation of Him! So when the Serpent dared to try to enter the Ground that is totally forbidden to Him and reserved only for God’s Living Word, he strove to attain something that will always be completely beyond his reach!
- The written Word is the revelation of what God’s Living Word is sent into our midst to be and to do. So it’s impossible for the Father of Lies to usurp the Word’s Authority and twist it around to use for his own anti-God purposes. Only God’s perfectly obedient Living Word has the Authority to use the written Word, because only He, and those who truly belong to Him, can truly fulfill everything that God has written for Man’s reconciliation, redemption and full restoration to His Grace, and Covenant Union, and Eternal Friendship. Because the Serpent is only a mere fallen rebellious creature of God, he’ll never have the power and authority needed to contradict God’s Word!
- When people truly follow and belong to their Messiah, He grafts them into God’s New Covenant with Israel. That makes them partakers of the blessings that flow out of the promises He once made to Abraham: “And I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you, (through the New Covenant that I will make with your descendants in the future) all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2b-3 Amplification added.)
- The children of Jacob repeatedly violated the Covenant God made with them through Moses at Mt. Sinai. Nevertheless, God made the New Covenant with them, thereby renewing and perpetuating for them the Covenant He had made with their fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And now, that renewed Covenant makes it possible for God to graft all the families of the earth into the promises He had originally made to Abraham. So the entire family of fallen Adam and Eve, Jew and Gentile alike, can now be included.
- God’s written Word reveals God’s Living Word and His Significance and Commission and Destiny. It also reveals the Truth and Reality about how the Word made flesh came to fulfill and demonstrate this glorious Truth about His Eternal Triumph over Satan’s lies and destructive intent. It also reveals that, by becoming one with us through His Covenant, God made it possible for His Word’s disciples to become one with Him, so that together they could expose and devastate the Serpent, and restore to humanity everything God gave to their original parents in Genesis 1. So now He takes back and restores to us everything our demonic enemy usurped and stole from us in Genesis 3!
What is the Armor of God?
The Word of God made flesh fulfilled God’s written Word, and is here to continually prove, through the obedience of our faith, that Almighty God, and His Covenant Family, is eternally Invincible, Invulnerable and absolutely Unstoppable, regardless of what the Serpent and his duped slaves may try to do to stop our Messiah’s complete Takeover. That Takeover is inevitable, and is even now, in the process of reaching its Consummation Point! God is finalizing it in this Era of the Last Days, the Era in which we now live! And what Yeshua did with ‘the Sword of the Holy Spirit’ in Matthew 4, is what He came to teach His own disciples to do as He brings the story of Salvation to its final conclusion. So dear ones, pay close attention!
We too must learn to remain safely covered with the Armor of God. But is the Armor of God a bunch of created objects? Is it a pile of man-made ‘gear’ that we must keep donning incessantly in order to fend off enemy attacks? No, of course not! God’s Armor is… God Himself! He gives Himself to us to be our indwelling Lord and Protective Covering in all things, at all times!
“…And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because GREATER IS HE WHO IS IN YOU than he who is in the world! They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.” (1 John 4:2-4 Emphasis added.)
Walking with the Holy Spirit
In other words, we must always be in touch, personally interacting with the Holy Spirit, if we’re going to walk in the obedience that believing and trusting in God’s written Word enables us to have and to do. If we aren’t connected to the Holy Spirit, how could we possibly be connected to our risen Messiah? It is only the Holy Spirit that connects us to Him and makes Him real, alive and dynamically fruitful and able to abide with us in His Eternal Heavenly Reality! This is how New Covenant believers can, even now, ‘walk with’ and ‘follow’ Him. It can only be done when we learn to abide under the Authority and Management of God’s Spirit. THEN… we are able to always abide under the Eternal Shadow of our Messiah’s Protective ‘Wings’.
Beloved, we must embrace and ingest and absorb the awesome Revelation that God’s Covenant has filled us with His Spirit! He is the One who makes us to be one with our Lord, and to be His image and likeness! When we’re one with the Spirit… we’re one with the Word… and therefore… we’re also one with the Father who speaks and imparts His Word into us.
And when we learn to abide permanently in this Reality, we have the right and authority to use God’s written Word, the Sword of His Spirit, against the Serpent and his powers of Darkness. Shielded by this airtight level of faith, we can cut right through the Serpent’s coils and slice and dice all of the lies and deceptive traps that he places before us, by resting in our Master’s Absolutely Perfect Finished Works of Grace, and His All-Sufficient Covenant Faithfulness! And as we learn to live and work as one with our Messiah, He equips us to expose all of the deceptive Darkness that must give way to the Invasion of the Light of the World. And the Darkness can do nothing to prevent the blinding, overwhelming, unstoppable Radiance of God’s Living Word from blotting it out and destroying it completely!
Our Protection
Yeshua is the ‘Protective Armament’ in which we must learn to abide. His Perfect Presence is the ‘solid Rock’ upon which we can rest and rely. God’s Living Word is the unstoppable Offensive Weapon that the written Word equips us to use against the onslaughts of the enemy. Our Messiah embodies everything God’s Word has accomplished, and He makes us to be one with Him so that we too can do the very same thing, in His Name! This is what equips us and makes us unstoppable and invincible as our Lord leads us right into the bowels of the Serpent’s very shaky and soon to be totally trashed domain. The boot camp training that He is here to give us will, if we avail ourselves of it, equip and prepare us to take our God-assigned places within the ranks of the hosts of the Lord. We’ve been called to become part of His Invasion Force and to attack and pierce the heart of the Darkness in which the demonic powers of Satan are desperately and vainly trying to hide.
Our job is to usher in the Light of the World so that God can strip the coverings of deception, deceit and utter falsehood away from our cowering enemies! We are not here to be their dupes and victims! We are here to cut through their lying facades and to strip and expose them and render them useless and ineffective. In this way, the myriads of deceived and entrapped slaves that languish under their demonic oppression may also finally begin to be set free! So we must not allow any openings or ‘weak spots’ of doubt, unbelief, or disobedience to remain in us as individuals, nor can we allow any gap to exist within our assembled ranks on the fields of battle. If we afford them openings to exploit, our enemies remain free to continue to inflict disastrous carnage upon us, and our households and whatever else may pertain to us!
An Awesome Reality
The Armor of God is the Infinite Airtight Righteousness and Eternal Triumph of God’s Living Word over Sin and Death! He has severed the coils of the Serpent that once entrapped us! We are also legally, forever free from the hold that even our own flesh once had over us! And the chains of bondage that once kept us trapped in the clutches of this fallen world and its systems have also been smashed and obliterated! Will we believe and embrace and identify with and own this awesome Reality? Will we become one with the fact that the Word of God, who is the Sword of His Spirit, has already completed all that is needed to set us free and move us out of Darkness and into His Father’s Eternal Kingdom of Light?
Dear ones, the obedience of our faith in God’s Word, will always authorize and enable us to be, and to live as one with God and His Perfect Finished Works! That is how He can continually cover, protect, and keep us fully endowed with what is in Him, even though our bodies still must abide and operate upon this fallen demon-possessed Earth! If our spirits and souls are His, then our souls can direct our bodies to act as one with Him too. And thus we can afford to march into battle filled on every level, with the Fullness of the Lord’s Joy, Peace, and Triumphant Rest!
“For you have died and your life is HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD!” (Colossians 3:3)
So we must learn and fully identify with this foundational basis of our New Covenant identity, inheritance, and equipping with God’s indwelling Presence. And as we do that, the benefits that come from the Reality of God’s Finished Works will always prove to be real, and truly present and active in our daily experiences. Just as the Lord led Gideon’s troops into the encampments of the startled, totally unprepared Midianites, so will we be prepared to follow our risen Commander into the very heart of the enemy’s contemporary ‘house of cards’ encampment!
In What Does Our Boot Camp Training Consist?
So what will make up the stages of our boot camp training? Will they focus on us, trying to improve, strengthen and assert ourselves personally, as individuals? Will it require us to focus on ourselves, and on how well we can strengthen and build ourselves up, and amass for our storehouses by pursuing superhuman personal training regimens and conditioning programs? Will our ultimate success depend on how wisely and craftily and viciously we can learn to tear into the forces of our enemies by using his tactics against him? That’s pretty much how earthly military forces must be trained to think and behave. In their case, the question is always: which side will out-weaponize and out-muscle the other? Which fighting force will have the best equipment and armaments and most supplies and best battle strategies? And which cadre of generals and admirals will succeed in coming up with the winning set of strategies by which to outmaneuver and blast, and kill their opponents?
In other words, the question is always, ‘How good and strong and invincible must WE eventually become, if WE are to prevail all the way to the end?’ The focus is always on the humans that will be involved, and how well they will manage to perform in the future. But that’s not what the spiritual warriors of our Messiah-King must learn. We don’t go through boot camp to become all that WE can be! We’re not here to operate as radically independent God-less agents, learning about and improving and strengthening ourselves in all the ways we’ll need to do whatever will have to be done. No… disciples of our Messiah have to be thoroughly disciplined and trained and corrected until they can do the exact opposite! We must be thoroughly ‘weaned’ and ‘broken’ of our former, worldly radically independent perspectives and self-reliant ways! All of that temporary, earthly ‘wisdom’ will have to be put to death and taken completely out of us, so we can finally be delivered from any reliance on ourselves and on others like us! For us… Almighty God’s Eternally Perfect Living Word, in all of the Infinite Perfection of His All-Sufficient Finished Works of Creation, Redemption and Restoration, must become our EVERYTHING!
The Eternal Conqueror Abides and Rests within Us!
We must be trained to focus entirely upon God… and on what He, through His Perfect Living and written Word… and by His Absolute Authority over all of Creation… and through the Infinite Power of His Holy Spirit… has already accomplished by His Infinitely Perfect Finished Works of Creation and Redemption!
In other words, all the necessary work is finished, and we must learn to identify with, and absorb, and begin to work from all the Perfection that only belongs to and flows out from the nature of Almighty God! We must realize that God doesn’t need our help or our advice! So we must die to thinking that this War is all about us. It’s not at all about us! It’s all about the risen Lord of Glory who has already done everything to Perfection… in our name!
So here is the vital question for us: Will we finally learn to draw entirely from all that our God is and all that He has already done? Will we finally realize that as He abides within us, He is absolutely Perfect and Complete and totally Victorious? Will it dawn upon us that because He abides within us, His enemies are already routed and finished and that they can’t advance against us or do any damage to us? It is from His Infinite and Eternal Perfection that we must continually draw, and absorb into ourselves what we need. And we must learn to rest upon God’s All-Sufficient Grace! We must memorize and feed upon all that is written about what He has given to us through His Living Word… who is now our abiding, indwelling Life! And we must realize that we can afford to live from that, and that alone, from now on!
Verses to Dwell On
“After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I AM A SHIELD TO YOU; Your reward shall be very great!” (Genesis 15:1 Emphasis added.)
“But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever!” (Exodus 14:13 Emphasis added)
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to (the Eternal Son of) David.” (Isaiah 55:1-3 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant.
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the (Perfect Finished Work of the) Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit!” (Jeremiah 17:5-8 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“At that time Jesus (the Eternal Son of David) said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.
“Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. ALL THINGS HAVE BEEN HANDED OVER TO ME BY MY FATHER; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
“COME TO ME, ALL WHO ARE WEARY AND HEAVY-LADEN, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST! Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light!” (Matthew 11:25-30 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate (stop idolizing) his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even (trusting in) his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross (to surrender his Self-life for execution) and come after Me (following My example and joining Me in the Spirit-empowered Life that is supplied by My Perfect All-Sufficient Treasury of Grace) cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27)
“Then on the seventh day they rose early at the dawning of the day and marched around the city in the same manner seven times; only on that day they marched around the city seven times. At the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “SHOUT! FOR THE LORD HAS GIVEN YOU THE CITY!” (Joshua 6:15-16 Emphasis added.)
“Then in the midst of the assembly the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite of the sons of Asaph; and he said, “Listen, all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and King Jehoshaphat: thus says the Lord to you, ‘Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for THE BATTLE IS NOT YOURS BUT GOD’S. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the valley in front of the wilderness of Jeruel. YOU NEED NOT FIGHT IN THIS BATTLE; station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf, O Judah and Jerusalem.’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out to face them, FOR THE LORD IS WITH YOU (to impart to you all that He has already provided to meet your needs at this time)!” (2 Chronicles 20:14-17 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“… and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
“You are from God, little children, and (through your glorious risen Lord, you already) have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world! They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them.” (1 John 4:3-5 Amplification and emphasis added.)
Understanding God’s Word
Dear ones, can you see the spiritual mental picture upon which God wants us habitually to gaze at and realize that we have been included in it? No fallen human that is still trapped within his or her Sin-corrupted fallen flesh is in that picture. Only God’s Living Word made flesh and what He has already done for those who are one with Him in the Covenant, can be in that picture! God makes this revelation about His Infinite, Airtight Credibility and Trustworthiness, as clear as a bell! But are you yet able to really see the Glory of His Infinite Majesty and Grandeur? Do you finally get it? It isn’t the enemy that we should fear… we should tremble because of the enormity and Grandeur and Overwhelming Power and Glory that emanate out of the Perfect Presence of our God! We must grasp all that He is, what He has revealed to us, and identify with Him in our minds, wills, hearts, imaginations, actions, reactions, and interactions! We must get hold of what God is revealing about His Living Word, to, and through, His chosen people throughout the Torah and the prophets, Wisdom writers and apostles in all of Scripture!
The New Covenant apostolic Scriptures were not given to us to add something new to God’s already-given Revelation. God gave them to us to unpack and explain and reveal more and more about the awesome understanding, realization, and ultimate Fulfillment that God sent His Living Word made flesh to be and to embody in our midst. He came to Earth to be the Complete Fulfillment of all that was tightly packed into what was already revealed, and commanded and promised to Israel and the rest of the world in the Scriptures!
God With Us
And now that He has come into our midst in the flesh, and then later through His Holy Spirit, our Lord is ready to impart to Israel – and to the whole world – EVERYTHING we will ever need in what we call the future. He foresaw and created it in His mind, will, heart and plan of Creation in Eternity past! And it has been waiting for God to apply it to us as we move on through space and time as our ‘Daily Bread’. And so Holy Spirit has entrusted this awesome Truth to us… so we can receive and own it and demonstrate it and share it with anyone who has ears to hear! He has revealed that He is Infinitely Perfect and All-Sufficient, in everything, and all the necessary Work has already been done by His Word! His Living Word is Perfect, and therefore, so is the All-Sufficient Grace He has provided and paid for on our behalf! So beloved, we already have everything we’ll ever need… IN HIM!
So… when God spoke His Perfect Word at the moment of Creation, as we see in Genesis 1, from the first moment God spoke, His Word did His Father’s will to Perfection. Everything was infinitely Perfect and Eternally Complete from that point onward! Everything that any part of His Creation would ever need throughout the future eons of the dimension of space and time, was already fully present in the Fullness of God’s Eternal mind and will. And this is how awesomely PERFECT Almighty God, and His Eternal Word, truly IS!
Grafted In
God offers Himself, and all of His Fullness, to anyone who will allow His Living Word to engraft them into Abraham’s Eternal Blood Covenant! And this is why God commands those of us who have been grafted into the New Covenant which is able to join the entire human race to Him, to abide with Him in His Everlasting Peace and Rest and Joy.
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new (renewed) covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My Holy Name, which you have profaned among the nations (the Gentiles) where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of My Great Name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,” declares the Lord God, “when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight.
“For (when the Last Days are fulfilled) I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.
“Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring a famine on you. I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, so that you will not receive again the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and your abominations. I am not doing this for your sake,” declares the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel!”
‘Thus says the Lord God, “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places will be rebuilt. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of everyone who passes by. They will say, ‘This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the Lord, have spoken (My Living Word, and through Him) and (through Him and Him alone) will do it.”
‘Thus says the Lord God, “This also I will let the house of Israel ask Me to do for them: I will increase their men like a flock. Like the flock for sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem during her appointed feasts, so will the waste cities be filled with flocks of men. THEN THEY WILL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD!”’” (Ezekiel 36:22-38)
His Living Word
Beloved, since everything is already Perfect and Complete and All-Sufficient, what else is there for us to do, but to embrace, absorb, love, obey and live as one with God’s written Word? And once we know and realize how awesome it is to have the Living Word who fulfills whatever is written for us, actually being our indwelling Life and identifying with us, what can stop us? Beloved… the Fullness of Almighty God is within His Living Word. And His Living Word, is now filling us with His Eternal Life! This is our Perfect Covering! Our Infinitely Good and Perfect Shepherd has already devastated everything all of our demonic enemies did to us in the past! And now, they are forever vanquished and silenced! And it is on this basis that He summons us to follow Him onto the battlefields of these Last Days. Everything that God is, and all that He has done and given to us, through His Word… is the Eternal Inheritance from which we are totally free to continually draw! The enemy has to get through all of that before he can even see us, much less get to us! So he has no chance or hope of prevailing!
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God (through His Living creative Word) completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Genesis 2:1-3 Amplification and emphasis added.)
“I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats? (Psalm 50:11-13)
“Thus says the Lord, “Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? For My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord. BUT TO THIS ONE I WILL LOOK, TO HIM WHO IS HUMBLE AND CONTRITE OF SPIRIT, AND WHO TREMBLES AT MY WORD!” (Isaiah 66:1-2 Emphasis added.)
And this is why it is so important that we know who God is, and what He has already done to cover EVERYTHING! It’s no wonder that, with His dying breath, our Lord said:
“IT IS FINISHED!” (John 19:30)
And this awesome Reality and Truth must be deeply embedded into and absorbed by our brains and souls during our boot camp training… while we still have time to become one with all of this and begin to embody and reflect it! God’s Truth and Reality, as given to us in writing, and sealed with His Word’s Covenant Blood, is the Sword through which we can cut through any demonic lie or deceptive trap or situation. Truth is what God has made us to be and to embody! Truth is what makes up our ‘warrior identity’! Truth is the mindset and set of priorities and attitudes that each one of us must absorb so the Spirit of God can be free to operate from within us without any drag or resistance or interference from us! God Himself, in all of His Glorious Reality and Truth, is the ‘Armor of God’ with which we must be fully covered. We must know this … BEFORE we’re finally called to follow our Lord into the Last Days Arena of Testimony!
God knows who we are in our Messiah. And He knows the awesome faculties and gifts with which He has already endowed us. And Satan and his demonic slaves already know Who it is that lives in us and operates through us too. That’s why they try every trick in the book to mess with our minds, wills and emotions, so they can dupe us and put out our spiritual eyes! If they do that, they will yank us off of the Covenant Ground upon which God has already placed us and take it away from us all over again.
The spiritual angelic forces of Heaven and those unclean spirits who are the eternal enemies of God, all know who God is in us… and who we, who are redeemed and Spirit-filled, already are – thanks to our Messiah! But whether the heavenly hosts know this, or whether all the other people on Earth know this or not, is not the real issue. No, the critical issue is this:
DO WE KNOW WHO AND WHAT WE ARE IN OUR MESSIAH?
It doesn’t matter who else knows the Truth about us if we ourselves remain in a clueless fog concerning what God is here to be and to do for us. So in light of this, can any of us truly say that we are fully trained and drilled and equipped to live, think, act, react and interact as ‘One New Man in Yeshua’? Can we now demonstrate the Truth of all this in our lives and in the way we interact with one another? Can we prove that we have a deep practical and eminently useful knowledge and understanding of the marvels that Almighty God has already accomplished and placed within us to supply and provide for us?
Beloved… when all of God’s redeemed people know what God and the powers of Darkness already know… and when we can rest in and draw from what He has already done in our name, as one Heavenly Man, THEN the enemy will lose his grip on us and whatever pertains to us. And THEN, the combat will finally come to an end! For our enemies will no longer have ignorant, clueless, blinded dupes to deceive, manipulate and enslave for their purposes! There will no longer be any delusion created ‘openings’ in us, and no naive gullibility ‘handles’ attached to us that they can grab hold of and exploit in order to manipulate and wound us or drag us down to their level of Darkness, as soon as we are all truly and forever one with our Messiah.
When we know God and what He has done and all that He is as He lives within us… we will be fully bathed in the Divine Light of God’s Truth and God Himself will be our Armor! The Armor is all the Fullness of God that He contains within Himself! When the Word fills us and we become His ‘flesh’ on Earth… then we will overflow with all that He is and all He has done in our name and on our behalf… WE WILL BE PERPETUALLY COVERED AND SHIELDED AND FIRMLY GROUNDED AND FULLY PROTECTED! When we know the Glory of His Perfect Finished Work that is in us… we will know that God is also in all of our brothers and sisters to our left and to our right and ahead of us and behind us and all around us… there will be no more openings in our ranks, no chinks in our armor, and no leftover ‘openings’ remaining in us from our former Self-life days by which the powers of Darkness can maintain a grip on us or find any vulnerability through which to inject the Serpent’s venom into us.
When we know who we now are in Messiah… and walk in the Perfect Righteousness and Truth and Reality and Victory that He always is… as He lives and works from within us… THEN we will no longer be duped into giving the Serpent any legal claim or substantial right or authorization to trap or manipulate of entangle us! He will be completely routed and exposed, shamed and finished… as far as we’re concerned… and…
WE WILL BE ABSOLUTELY FREE TO ABIDE IN GOD… AS HIS REDEEMED SONS AND HEIRS!
“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
“The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
“For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” (Romans 8:14-25)
“When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him. You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, we continued in them a long time; and shall we be saved? (Isaiah 64:3-5)
“… The Wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory; but just as it is written,
“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God!” (1 Corinthians 2:8-10 Emphasis added.)
Our Rich Treasure
Beloved Family… we must get hold of the enormously rich Treasure that our Father has already put into us! This is what it means to have the Guarantee or ‘down payment’ for ETERNAL LIFE! It is contained in and guaranteed by His written Word! It is the Revelation of His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased! It unpacks and explains the awesome Significance and Reality of how God’s Perfect Finished Works of Creation and Redemption are transmitted and imparted to us by the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is given to us so that He can ‘form Christ, Messiah… IN US! If God is able to form and establish and enthrone His Word in us… Father will see His Son in us and respond to Him and His Authority over us, with wholehearted Joy and Gladness!
But it is good always to be eagerly sought in a commendable way, and not only when I am present with you. My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you— but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone of voice, for I am at a loss about you!” (Galatians 4:18-20 NASB. Emphasis added.)
And by that very same fact, when the powers of Darkness encounter us and regard who we are and what we have living within us… they too will be able to see HIM… and the invincible Armor and Protection that He is to us will terrify and dismay them like nothing else could do! They will see the Glory of our Risen Lord and the Fullness of His Perfect Finished Works on our behalf when we know this and can see it in ourselves by faith! When we’re able to operate in the obedience of faith, the Word of our God can serve as our ‘Ammunition… our Invincible Fire Power that we can release against Satan and his hordes… and into every situation, or set of circumstances or event or setback or personal relationship and interaction in which we will ever engage!
Protected from the Enemy
When we can embody all of this, then the enemy will know that they can no longer touch us or stop us. They will know that we are now fully convinced that they have no right or claim over us any longer. They will finally realize that we now know that the Lord who has already routed and devastated them and their works, is our Eternal Life, abiding within us! When they know that we finally realize that God’s Living Word is our Covering and Shield and Weapon, and that God Almighty Himself is forbidding them from even coming close to us… from now on… they will know that we have everything it takes for us to hold our Ground and persevere, and cut through their lies and overcome all of their tactics. And we will know that we can now afford to anticipate and celebrate the Lord’s approaching Eternal Triumph, even now, while we’re still making our way toward the Ultimate Conclusion and Eternal Peace Agreement that is almost here!
Yes… when we’re fully trained and equipped to participate in the combat of the Last Days… God will know it… and our enemies will know it… but most importantly… WE WILL ALSO KNOW IT AND BE ABLE TO WALK IN IT AND LET GOD’S REALITY AND TRUTH BE SEEN AND EXPERIENCED BY WHOEVER WE MEET! And THEN… we will truly be ‘Combat Ready’!
“The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine also said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.”
“Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the Name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and He will give you into our hands!”
Then it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead, so that he fell on his face to the ground.” (1 Samuel 17:43-49 Emphasis added.)
The Sword of the Spirit
So I believe it would serve us very well if we seriously got hold of as much of the pertinent Scriptures as possible. Do what our Master did in Matthew 4, when the Father of Lies came to attack and deceive and undermine Him:
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written,
‘He will command His angels concerning You’; And ‘On their hands they will bear You up, So that You will not strike Your foot against a stone.’”
“Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
“Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him.” (Matthew 4:1-11. Emphasis added.)
Following Our Commander’s Will
Dear ones… I ask you to envision our Commander leading us into battle, to teach us how we are to engage and overpower the Serpent and all of his demonic hordes. He advances into enemy-held territory. In the beginning, when our Lord began His Invasion into enemy territory, Satan tried to prevent His advance by trying to entrap Him into doing just one thing on His own initiative. (See the Mt. 4 text cited above.) If Satan had succeeded in luring Yeshua to perform even one radically independent act, the Lord would have gotten ahead of His Father and separated Himself from Him to act independently of His Father’s guidance and leading, just the way he had once persuaded Eve and the first Adam to do. In that case, the Serpent would succeed in killing Yeshua, just as he killed Adam. And he could thus prevent Him from fulfilling His God-given commission of serving as the Covenant Representative and Redemptive Champion for the rest of the human race! But beloved, He failed in the past, and He will always fail in the future, for our Lord is by His Nature, the Perfect Image and Likeness of His Heavenly Father who sent Him to us!
“Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in the same way.“ (John 5:19 NASB. Emphasis added.)
So our Messiah was out there in the wilderness, facing Satan, and teaching us on a ‘Watch Me… now you,’ basis about the invincible, unstoppable FIRE POWER of God’s written and Living All-Authoritative Word! And now since we have the Living Word living in us and the ability to fill ourselves with God’s written Word as well, it’s up to us to learn to allow Him to continue to embody what He is to His Father, from within our yielded faith-filled obedient flesh! So we can learn and absorb what is written in Scripture as well as we can, and know what He, acting as God’s Living Word, is ready to do to us, for us, in us, and through us, to His Father’s Eternal Glory and our best and highest good! He has cut away all Sin, and Death, and even the power that our own flesh once had over us. And He set us free from our former connections to the demonic spirits and to this fallen world! So when the Son of God sets us free, we are free indeed… free to be armed and moved by God’s written Word, allow His Living Word to lead us into His Eternal Victory and Glory and Everlasting Kingdom!
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” (John 15:4-8 Emphasis added.)
Abide in Yeshua
Just as the Son abides in and with His Father, our Lord is cautioning us to learn to abide in and with Him. Let everything that comes out from within our spirit, soul and body be a manifestation of what Almighty God Himself puts into us by sharing His Eternal Life with us. May our every thought word, action, reaction and interaction be a living embodiment, a revelation and reflection of what Almighty God Himself is and does, from within us. And if we are wise enough and well prepared enough to do that… then, when the enemy sees us advancing toward him… he will screech and turn and try to get away from us as quickly as possible!
“In the synagogue was a man who had an unclean demonic spirit, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ah! What have we to do with You, Yeshua of Natzeret? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are! You are the Holy One of God!”
“Yeshua rebuked him, saying, “Quiet! Come out of him!” And when the demon threw him down in their midst, it came out without hurting him.” (Luke 4:33-35 TLV. Emphasis added.