Blood of Jesus

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?

 

When Words Get Used Against Us – Part 1

/ Jelena McClellan / 1 Comment

The other day God was speaking to me about the wilderness, so to get a better understanding of it, I started to look up people in the Bible who had a wilderness experience. The first one I started with was Jesus. Now there are a lot of things we can look at when it comes to the timing and circumstances of Him going into the wilderness but today I want to focus on something else.

I want to look at the attacks of the enemy today.

When you read about Jesus in the wilderness, it doesn’t give you a lot of details to work with. The Gospel of John doesn’t mention it at all, and the other three have slight variations. Only Mark mentions the wild beasts that surrounded Jesus while he was in the wilderness, but based on what we know, Jesus was alone in the wilderness, in a somewhat dangerous place, he was fasting for 40 days and nights so since Jesus was fully man we know he was hungry, he was weak, maybe even scared.

Any time I have ever fasted I am not just physically weak but also emotionally. There is a lot going on when we stop satisfying “king stomach”. So chances are that Jesus was not just weak from hunger but maybe also concerning his emotions.

Those conditions make us vulnerable.

I have heard many accounts of people who had a great time with the Lord during their fasts. They hear Him loud and clear as He speaks to them regarding certain issues and they receive the breakthroughs they have been praying for.

Me, not so much. Fasting for me usually means a dry time where it feels as if God has completely forgotten about me and I’m all alone. I know that is not the case but it sure feels that way. By now I have also learned that a time of fasting in my case usually brings attacks from the enemy. I guess he knows I am weak and vulnerable. Maybe even cranky and irritable so it seems to be an opportune time for him to strike, right?

That’s what he did with Jesus. He tempted Him while he was in a weakened physical state.

So how does the devil attack us? We know he is the father of lies but that doesn’t mean that’s the only tool he uses.

Usually the first thing that happens is that he makes us use our own words against us. Let me give you an example:

Years ago we had a very rough time in our marriage and so I constantly went before the Lord and prayed for His help. I quoted scripture, stood on it and was confident that God would work out our situation according to His word. So far so good. But then something would happen and I would either break down into a sobbing, crying mess or I would blow up and vent, but either way the words that were coming out of my mouth were detrimental to the prayers I had spoken. Things like “this will never change”, or “I give up” were my go-to things.

Why is that an issue?

In the natural I didn’t pray and then say those things at the same exact time but God doesn’t exist inside our understanding of time. He is eternal. He sees my past, my present and my future – all at the same time.

So when I’m praying and I’m full of faith and standing on His word for deliverance He is ready to move. He might even assign some angels to help me with my situation. But at the same time He hears my words cancelling my prayers so everything He wanted to do to help is now put on hold.

Are you with me so far?

Ok, so the first way the devil attacks us is by getting us to speak negatively about our situation.

Let’s say we learned from our mistakes. Maybe we heard a few messages on the power of the tongue and we are trying really, really hard not do speak death anymore.

Can the devil still use our words against us?

Sure can! Imagine him standing there with a recorder and so here you are going through whatever it is that you’re dealing with right now and every time something happens he tempts you and tries to make you open your mouth to speak death over the situation again. But this time you keep your mouth shut! Or maybe you have even learned to praise God in the midst of your storm so instead of speaking death you are doing the opposite. You are praising God for what He is about to do in your situation.

But the breakthrough doesn’t come. Why? Because the devil is playing back all the negative words you have said about your situation in the past.

He is the accuser of the brethren, right? That is what he does, according to the bible, day and night. So your prayers come up before God and He is ready to move on your behalf and here comes the devil and he plays back what you said. Boom. Prayers cancelled. Again.

Why? You did so good! You didn’t curse. You didn’t complain. You didn’t speak death. You praised. You stood on God’s word. You did everything you were supposed to do and still nothing happened.

You missed the Blood of Jesus.

When you got saved and became a born again Christian, the Blood of Jesus was made available to you. So you go before God and you confess your sins and they get covered by the Blood of Jesus so now you are made righteous, right?

But did you also put your words under the Blood?

keep quiet

Imagine you sit in a court room and you want the judge to move on your behalf. You have your evidence as to why the judge should decide in your favor – your prayers, your worship, your praises,… – but then the opposing party comes and says, “That is all fine and dandy but our of their own mouth came this and that so if they don’t even believe that you, as judge, would do that for them, all their evidence is null and void”.

This would be the time to object and bring in the most powerful evidence on earth – the Blood of Jesus. So you repent for what you said and then you put all your negative words, your whining and complaining, your unbelief, whatever it is, under the Blood of Jesus. Now it is gone. The devil can’t use it anymore. You just took away the case he had against you.

Ok, so now we have dealt with our own words of the presence and the past.

But the devil doesn’t give up so easily. Do you ever wonder how many more times he is going to come against you before he finally gets tired of losing? I sure do. I keep thinking, dude, Jesus already won this. You might shake me a bit but we both know how this is going to end so why don’t you just give up and move on already?

Luke 4:13 tells us that “when the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.” Now this is Jesus we are talking about and still the devil hadn’t gotten the message that there was no point in pursuing his attacks. He simply quit for the time being only to return at an opportune time.

He is looking for weak spots. Don’t give him any!

Continue with part 2

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!

 

There is Power in the Blood

/ Jelena McClellan / Leave a comment

When Jesus died on the Cross for us, He did so much more than to just give us a path to salvation and an invitation to start a relationship with Him. He also gave us the power of His blood.633fa63917d243f219ff007e292e9fac

We know that His blood redeems us. We could never pay the price against us, so Jesus did it for us. It is His blood that redeemed us: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

His blood not only removed the punishment for our sin, but it also cleansed us. 1 John 1:7 tells us that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Maybe you’ve heard the term “washed by the blood” before?

The blood of Christ also brings us into fellows
hip with God (Ephesians 2:13) and makes peace with God (Colossians 1:20)

When it comes to spiritual warfare, there is another aspect to the blood of Jesus that many believers are unaware of it seems – power over the devil.

Revelation 12:11 (AMP) tells us “they overcame and conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony”.

When you come before God and confess your sins, those issues are under the blood. The enemy just lost the power to hold that sin against you.

One morning during my time with the Lord I was reminded of an old German myth or legend about a man named Siegfried who bathed in dragon blood which made him invincible. Except that while he was taking a bath in the blood a leaf landed on his right shoulder and since the blood couldn’t touch that spot, it was the only part of his body that could be pierced. Later he was betrayed and killed because of that one small spot that wasn’t covered by the dragon’s blood.

We do that, too, don’t we? We hold certain areas of our lives back and don’t want to give God access to those areas because we want to keep living the same way we always have.

Guess what? Those areas are not under the blood of Christ until we confess them to the Lord and allow Him to cleanse us. So essentially you are giving the devil access points, soft spots that he can and will attack.

But the beauty of our Savior’s blood is that it is always there. We have been granted access to it. The image the Lord showed me that morning was of somebody standing under a constant outpouring of the blood of Christ, being washed and cleansed, being covered continuously and as soon as that leaf was removed, that spot, too, was under the blood.

It is up to us to fully cover ourselves with His precious blood. He made it available to us, so don’t hold back from Him. Ask Him to identify those areas of your life and submit them to Him.

Plead the blood of Christ over yourself. Use the protection God has offered you.

So the next time the devil attacks you, you overcome and conquer him in the name of Jesus and with the blood of the Lamb. The blood of Jesus is more powerful than anything the devil tries to throw at you. He won’t be able to stand. That’s the power of the blood!

Image by Benny Hinn Ministries