The Devil's Greatest Fear

The Devil’s Greatest Fear

1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

This is one of the verses that was covered in my class last night.  In case I didn’t mention this before, I have enrolled in a two year program with the Encounter School of Ministry. This school was designed and established from the heart of Encounter Ministries.  This school draws from the richness of our Catholic heritage as we seek to teach, equip, and activate disciples to demonstrate the love of God through the power of the Holy Spirit in their spheres of influence. In conformity with the teachings and traditions of the Catholic Church, we offer students a dynamic  2-year training program designed to take you to the next level in your ministry.  I am really loving the class so far.  I truly believe that Jesus gave us all the authority to do signs and wonders here on earth when He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit.  I am sure I will be using a lot of the Bible verses from class in the podcast so that everyone can see how powerful the Holy Spirit is.  

This first quarter is all about Identity and Transformation.  Last night I heard something and I knew I wanted to share that with all of you.  Our teacher asked us a question.  What is the devil most afraid of?  Do you want to take guess?  Maybe you already know, but I don’t think I did.  The enemy is most afraid of confident sons and daughters of Christ.  Did you know that already?  What does that mean?  What she meant by confident sons and daughters is that we are confident in who we are as sons and daughters of Christ.  We have talked before about how the enemy loves to steal our joy with half truths.  He takes a kernel of truth and then twists it into a lie that we believe hook line and sinker.  Why do we believe it?  Because we are insecure in who we are and He knows that.  

Remember when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and then the Holy Spirit came upon Him and He went into the wilderness for 40 days?  This can be found in Matthew 3 & 4.  In Matthew 3:16-17 it says, “And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Immediately after this Jesus went into the desert for 40 days.  In Matthew 4:1-3 it says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”  Do you see how the devil was trying to get Jesus to question His identity?  God had just said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  Now the devil is coming in 40 days later when Jesus is hungry and trying to get Him to question His identity.  The devil says, “If you are the Son of God.”  Luckily, God had just affirmed who Jesus was and Jesus was confident in who He is.  He was not tempted by the devil.  I wonder if we can say the same?

Are we confident children of Christ?  Do we let the enemy get in and twist the truth of who we are?  Let's look at this verse and see who we actually are.  The verse says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  It starts out by saying we are a chosen race.  Did you know you were chosen?  God chose you, yes you to be one of His children.  It says so right here in this verse.  If this is something you struggle to believe, post it somewhere you can read it multiple times a day.  We are a chosen race, you are His chosen child.  Next, it says we are a royal priesthood.  I was not sure exactly how to explain this, so I looked it up and found the answer on lavendervines.com.  “We are a royal priesthood, which means we have direct access and fellowship with God like a priest but are also called to expand the Kingdom of God and influence the world like a king.”  I will post a link to her article as she goes into a lot more detail in her article.  Basically we have direct access to God, there is nothing in between us like there was in the old testament.  The moment Jesus died on our cross the veil at the temple was torn in two. (Matthew 27:51)  This veil in the temple was meant to keep the Holy of Holies apart from the people.  Only Priests were allowed to go in there.  However, when Jesus died on the cross that veil was torn in two and we were granted direct access to the Lord.  That is another thing I learned somewhat recently and something that still amazes me.  We now have direct contact with the Lord, we don’t have anything standing in between us.  

Next, the verse says, “A holy nation, God’s own people.”  We are holy, which means to be set apart, or different.  We are not the same as everyone else.  We belong to God and that makes us different.  We don’t have to do things on our own, or rely on our own strength.  We have the power of the Holy Spirit on our side to help us do what we need to do.  Also in Philippians 4:13 it says, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”  We have a loving father who has set us apart from the ways of the world and He gives us the power to resist the ways of the world if we call upon it.   Do you believe this?  Do you believe that God has set you apart and that we are called to live differently?  

The last part of the verse is one I think we forget often and maybe even the thing we have the most trouble believing or remembering.  It says, “That you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  Do you struggle to believe you've been called out of the darkness and into His marvelous light?  Right now it may feel like you are stuck in the darkness.  That is a lie the enemy wants you to believe.  Yes, things may seem pretty bleak right now, but you have already been called into the light and you are not stuck in the darkness.  God is shining His light into that darkness you feel, can you see it?  Are you looking for it?  Or are you just falling for the lies of the enemy?  If you struggle to believe who you are in Christ, you are not alone.  We all struggle sometimes.  However, the reason I wanted to share this with you today is because we are so much more powerful when we can believe these things and we can be confident in who we are.  

When we know who we are, when we are confident in who we are and whose we are, the enemy can’t touch us.  Being confident in who you are doesn’t mean you will never being tempted by the enemy, you will.  He will do all he can to get you to doubt who you are.  However, when you are confident you don’t fall for his lies.  He still tries, but you don’t give him the time of day.  You don’t even listen to His lies because you know he is a liar.  If you go back and read Matthew 4, you will see Jesus didn’t get upset at the devil, He didn’t get flustered, He just answered the questions of the devil with scripture.  This is one reason why it is so great to get familiar with scripture.  If we truly know what the Bible says, it is a lot harder for the devil to use it against us.  It is hard for him to twist it into something it is not if we know what it says.  However, even if you don’t know scripture, you can still ignore the enemy if you just remember this one verse.  This verse above says all you need to know.  

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Write this somewhere you will see it often.  Memorize this one scripture if it helps you to believe more in your identity as a child of Christ.  Know who you are and whose you are and the enemy won’t be able to get into your heard.  He won’t be able to make you doubt.  He will be afraid of you because he knows how much power a confident child of God has.  He knows how powerful we become when we step into our identity.  He knows when we fully step into our true identity, we are lost to him forever.  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, we love you and we accept our place as your sons and daughters.  Lord, please help us to step into this identity fully and to not believe the lies of the enemy.  Help protect us against these lies.  We want to be confident children Lord, please show us how.  Give us the strength we need to do this.  We are so grateful you have adopted us Lord, we are thankful you have chosen us and set us apart.  Help us to live into this glorified state.  You are the almighty one, you are Lord of Lords and  Kings of kings.  We are so very grateful for all you do for us and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow.  Remember Jesus loves you and so do I.  Have a blessed day!

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