Authority

When Words Get Used Against Us – Part 2

/ Jelena McClellan / 2 Comments

So if the devil can’t use your own words against you (see Part 1), how about the word of God?

Let’s look at what happened with Eve in the Garden. The devil’s approach here was to question the word of God: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?’ (Gen 3:1).

He didn’t lie to her about anything at this point; he simply asked her a question. He was testing her knowledge of the Word of God and by probing her in such a way he created doubt. We all know what happened after that but there is actually one small thing that we often overlook.

Genesis 2:16-17 says “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

But when Eve is responding to the serpent in Genesis 3:2-3 she says this: “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

Did you catch that?

Two things actually.

Number 1: In Genesis 2:16 it says that God commanded the man. So where was Eve? Was she present when God told Adam not to eat from that tree? We don’t know. All we know for a fact is that God commanded Adam. So that would mean that it was up to Adam to tell her what God had commanded, right?

Which brings us to number 2: Somebody added to the Word of God. Genesis 2:17 only talks about not eating the fruit, but in Genesis 3:3 Eve tells the serpent that they can’t eat it nor touch it. So did Adam add to the Word of God or did Eve?

What’s my point here?

When we add to the Word of God, take away from it or change it, we get ourselves in trouble. Look, we know that Jesus was the Word at the beginning, right? So how are we going to add anything to Jesus, take something away or just change things about Jesus and think it won’t have any negative effects?

Don’t get me wrong, I can only quote certain scriptures word for word. There are a lot more scriptures that I can paraphrase and give you the gist of than I can actually quote them (something I’m working on getting better at). But when I have an issue, I go straight to the Word, I find the scriptures I need, I make sticky notes, I put them in my phone, I write them on my mirrors, whatever I have to do to keep God’s Word in front of me, I do it. And then I quote it during prayer.

So 1st, you need to know the word of God. And 2nd, don’t let the devil twist it around on you! If in doubt, go open your bible or even the bible app on your phone. But don’t fall into his trap and allow him to use it against you.

We talked about 3 different ways the devil uses our words or God’s Word against us, but there is one more.

Have you ever had a situation that you were praying about and you knew what the Word of God says about it so you claim it for yourself and in comes the devil telling you that in your situation it doesn’t apply?

I made my biggest mistake after I had become a born again Christian. It took me several months before I finally turned to God asking His forgiveness. The reason for that was the devil constantly telling me that I should’ve known better, convincing me that I must not have been saved after all or I wouldn’t have messed up in such a way.

So when I would look at scripture like Jeremiah 29:11 that talks about God having a good plan for my life, the devil would say “well, that’s all fine and well, but that doesn’t apply to you anymore. You screwed up, remember?”

Or reading Romans 8:28 that says that God makes all things work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to His purpose, I would hear the devil telling me “Ha! What good could possibly come out of this mess you created?”

I’m sure you have had similar “conversations” with the enemy. In the past these comments, these lies, would defeat me because I didn’t know my identity in Christ. I didn’t understand just how much the Father loves me and that nothing can separate me from Him now that I am His.

So first I had to learn who I am in Christ and how God sees me. The next time the devil tried to lie to me about what was mine I told him that he was a liar and that God had forgiven me and His word applies to me and my situation!

Oh really?

That’s when the devil plays little movies in my head, like a “Best Of” my worst moments, biggest mess ups and sins I have committed.

Remember the Blood of Jesus we talked about earlier?

Use it! Plead it! Apply it!

I don’t care how badly you messed up, once you have confessed your sins to the Father and repented, that sin is under the Blood and the devil has no right to use it against you anymore! He will try but you don’t have to let him!

So let’s look at Jesus in the wilderness one more time. He has been fasting, he is hungry, weak, and here comes the devil trying to tempt him. And what does Jesus do? He quotes scripture to the devil. One scripture per temptation.

I don’t know about you, but when the devil comes to attack me, I pull out every scripture I can think of, I rebuke him, I pray in tongues, I cry out to God, I pray hedges of protection around me, you name it, it is happening! And it is exhausting!

Jesus quoted ONE scripture. One for each temptation. He didn’t scream at the devil. He didn’t pray in tongues, He didn’t even pray to the Father for help. We know that He prayed all the time anyway. He was prayed up so to speak and ready to act when He needed to. He quoted one scripture.

And this is Jesus who was fully man, mind you. He has not yet gone to the Cross, so He has not yet defeated death and the grave and taken the keys back from the devil.

We are blessed enough to be operation under totally different circumstances than Jesus at that time. We operate under the authority and anointing of the resurrected Jesus, while He had to deal with this situation as fully man.

And the reason why He did that was the same as with everything else He did while he was fully man. To set an example for us on how to do it and to show us that it is possible. He didn’t do anything out of His own power or we wouldn’t be able to do it because we are not Jesus. Everything He did was based on God and He gave us access to that same power. He gave us access to God so anything Jesus did, we can do also.

Maybe it is time we rethink how we battle and warfare. Maybe it is time we truly understand who we are in Christ and what great power and authority He has given us. Maybe it is time to take back ground the devil has stolen from us.

Are you ready?

 

Don’t leave your Blessings on the Table

/ Jelena McClellan / Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered why some people appear to have more luck than others? There is always this one person that, no matter the circumstances, will always come out on top and things just seem to magically fall into place for them, while the rest of us seem to struggle quite a bit more with what life has to offer.

So is life just not fair or is there more to this?

What if I told you that you are leaving God’s blessings for you on the table all the time?

There are thousands of promises in the Word of God, but what are you really seeing in your own life?

During my prayer time with God the other day I kept asking for more. I wanted more of Jesus. I wanted everything He has for me. Every blessing. Every promise. Every gift. All the provision. I kept asking for it and asking for more of Jesus. A deeper understanding, more revelation, a closer and more intimate relationship. One phrase I said over and over again stood out to me: “Jesus, I don’t want to leave anything on the table.”

That’s when Jesus took me into a vision where I saw a huge table. It was filled to the point of overflowing with the most amazing things. It was a feast and I knew that what I was seeing was a table filled with all the promises of God, all the blessings, all the gifts and all the provision and it was all for me. All I had to do with reach out and take it.

But before I was able to do so the table grew taller, or maybe I grew smaller, either way I was barely able to see the top of the table, much less everything that was laid out on top of it. And since I couldn’t see anything that far up, my eyes began to focus on what was on the ground in front of me instead. There really wasn’t much, a few crumbs here and there but nothing that even remotely resembled the feast on top of the table.

feast

In my Spirit I knew what had happened. My expectations were so low that all I could see was what was on the ground in front of me, not what was high up on that table. My expectations were simply not high enough and so I was missing out on all the wonderful things that Jesus had laid out for me.

Then my view changed again and I was once again looking at the feast on the table. I knew I could take it because Jesus died for me to have these things (John10:10) . It was already mine, I just had to reach out and grab it. But every time I tried, I heard a voice telling me that those things were not for me. I was not good enough. I was a sinner and didn’t deserve these things. Those were only for the good people, those who pleased God, but not for me.

The devil was working hard to keep me from my promises and blessings by lying to me and it was working. Remember that he is the father of lies (John 8:44). Don’t allow him to steal from you. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10).

Once again my view changed and this time I was standing right in front of the table and it would’ve been so easy to reach out and grab a hold of the promises, the blessings, the gifts and to satisfy my hunger but I kept stopping myself, telling myself that I was not worthy, that I didn’t deserve it.

So there are two options here.

First, I was acting too religious so to speak, not wanting to be selfish and staying humble. Those are good things, right?

Yes, but not if it is something I am doing to appear more spiritual to others than I really am.

At this point I was thinking about my children and how I would do anything for them. How I enjoy to bless them. My husband and I work hard to provide for our children. How would it make me feel if I laid everything out for them but they wouldn’t take it because they worried to much about what somebody else might think of them.

I think I would be pretty upset. Insulted even. It’s a good thing that I’m not God!

But it still made me wonder how it makes God feel, when we keep telling Him that we are not worthy of His blessings to us.

Of course we are not worthy. That was plain obvious back in the Garden. And no matter how hard we try we will always fall short. On our own we will never ever be worthy of anything God has to offer and He knew that so He came up with a plan to send His only Son to die for us so that through His sacrifice, through His precious Blood we would be justified (see Romans 5:8-9).

So what are we saying then? That His Blood wasn’t enough to make us righteous? Because even the tiniest drop of His Blood that was spilled for us is not just enough but it is the only thing that could ever make us be worthy because God no longer looks at us and sees a sinner, but He looks at us and sees a child that was reconciled to Him by the Blood of Jesus (see Romans 5:10).

But there is also a second option. Maybe we really don’t think we deserve God’s goodness because we have an identity problem. Maybe we just don’t understand who we are and what authority has been given to us.

I sometimes think that in our modern western societies we have lost a lot of understanding. Things like authority are somehow strange to us.

Back in medieval times for example, if I was a servant of a king, who sent me on a mission, he might have given me his ring. This ring represented his authority so if I ran into trouble, I could’ve presented that ring and it would’ve helped me, provided for me, opened doors for me and granted me safe passage (in most cases at least), because I was coming in the name of the king.

Here is another way to look at it. Let’s say you come from a rich and influential family, just the mention of your father’s name might give you favor with decision makers when you’re looking for a job, it might get you into a fancy school or allow you to go on a shopping spree and put everything you buy on daddy’s tab.

Well, you ARE the child of a King and you have a name that you can use when you need it. You walk in the authority of a child of God and “at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;” (Philippians 2:10-11).

So raise your expectations, tell the devil he’s a liar, walk in your authority and stop leaving promises, blessings, gifts and provision on the table!