Spiritual Warfare

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?

 

The Weapons of Praise and Worship

/ Jelena McClellan / 1 Comment

This morning on my way to work I didn’t want to listen to the radio or to the news. I was feeling tired and even a little down for no real reason other than life is just really busy right now. My morning drives are oftentimes my quiet time with the Lord but today I felt like I needed more than prayer time where I tell Jesus all about my issues and hope that He will give me an answer.

So instead I put on some worship music, turned it all the way up and started singing along. Instantly my Spirit was lifted and I felt so much lighter and at peace. As I was driving down the road I began to dance along with the music in my car and just having a great time with the Lord. Not asking Him for anything, just enjoying being in His presence, recognizing His goodness and telling Him how much I love Him.

My heart was filled with the joy of the Lord and the atmosphere began to change. I was no longer worshipping, but now I was praising God for a number of different things but most of all I was praising and thanking Him for being Lord over my life.

There is a difference, you know, between praise and worship, although a lot of times we just sort of lump it in together.

According to Webster’s Dictionary, worship is defined as “reverence offered a divine being or supernatural power; also: an act of expressing such reverence; extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem”.

You might be familiar with the phrase “to worship the ground somebody walks on”, which basically says that we love somebody so much and have such a respect and reverence for this person that even the ground this person walks on is to be admired.

But worship of course is not meant for a person, but for God! We worship God because we love Him, because of who He is, not because of what He does for us. We admire Him, adore Him, revere Him, respect and honor Him. So when we worship Jesus we are basically declaring our love for Him.

Praise on the other hand is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as this: “to express a favorable judgement; to glorify (a god or saint) especially by the attribution of perfections”.

When your child did a good job you praise him for it or when your dog didn’t pee in your house during the night, you praise him and tell him what a good job he did.

So what does it mean to praise God then? Do we tell Him that He did a good job?  We thank Him for what He did for us!

When you start to praise Jesus it is about your testimony. It is not just about God being a good, good father, but about your personal story with Him. All of our testimonies are unique but we can all praise Jesus for the amazing things He has done in our lives.

Revelation 12:11 tells us that we overcome the enemy by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, so you see how your praise, which involves your testimony, becomes a weapon?

Not only do you enter the presence of God with your worship, but you change things with your praise, especially when you don’t feel like praising God right now. Let’s face it, we all had moments when we didn’t know how to get through a certain situation and giving thanks was probably the last thing on your mind at that point.

But Hebrews 13:15 (KJV) tells us “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.”

WorshipHandsCrowd-1

Years ago there was a situation in my marriage that seemed pretty desperate. I didn’t know what to do and my husband was about to leave the country for a job overseas for at least six months. So I told God that even though I knew He could help us no matter how far apart we were at the time, in my limited earthly thinking I just couldn’t see that particular situation working out with my husband living at the other end of the world.

That day I offered a sacrifice of praise to God as I thanked Him for all the wonderful things He had done in my life and for the good plan He has for my life (Jeremiah 29:11), all while tears were running down my cheeks.

I recalled time after time when Jesus did what only Jesus can do and I thanked Him and praised Him for it. Before long, I was praying in the Spirit while crying non-stop. But through my obedience and offering the sacrifice of praise something changed. Still in the Spirit, I calmed down, the tone of my voice became soft again and my prayer turned into praise as I was singing to the Lord in the Spirit. I started crying again but this time it was tears of joy as I was completely at peace.

A few hours later my husband came home and told me he was unable to go overseas at that time because there was a glitch in the system, so they couldn’t process his paperwork and just couldn’t figure out what happened.

He was pretty upset but I walked away with a huge grin on my face giving the Lord a shout of praise!

My former pastor’s wife used to say “you praised yourself out of several situations, I don’t see why this one should be any different!”

Praise changes things!

Why do you think you end up fighting with your spouse on the way to church or something happened that week and you just can’t get your mind off of it and you just sort of go through the praise and worship part on auto-pilot?

Satan knows what happens when you worship God and praise Him!

I encourage you this coming Sunday (and every time, really) to join in the worship service at your church. The worship team is not there for your entertainment. And they also can’t break the chains for you. Have you ever wondered why they seem to be in the presence of the Lord but you’re just on the outside looking in during service? It’s because they worship and praise the Lord while you are watching them do it.

You would be amazed when you see what happens when the entire congregation lifts up one voice in worship vs. just a few individuals on stage or spread out throughout the sanctuary.

So join them! Clap your hands, sing the songs, put your heart into it, dance and shout, because Jesus deserves it!!

 

Waiting on God’s Promises

/ Jelena McClellan / Leave a comment

Some of you are currently pregnant – and I’m not just talking to the women out there.

Before you want to get all upset because you think I’m writing about some sort of new “trend” on the left or whatever other type of abomination you might be thinking of, let me assure you that I’m right there with you!

I am not talking about a natural pregnancy, but a spiritual one. Allow me to explain:

During worship a few Sundays ago, I heard the Holy Spirit say “You’re pregnant!” and my first reaction was “I better not be!” That may seem a little harsh but being that we already have two children and the last pregnancy was a high risk pregnancy which put my life and our daughter’s life in danger, unless God is working a miracle, there is no way that I could be pregnant.

So after the first few seconds of being in shock, the Holy Spirit continued to speak to me and explain more of what He was talking about.

Some of you, me included, are currently pregnant with a promise from God. If you are anything like me, you might be getting impatient because God promised you something years ago, and you have been waiting and waiting but nothing seems to be happening.

If you have been waiting to see a promise from God come to live, being birthed so to speak, then this word is for you.

Think about a natural pregnancy for a minute. There is a time when the seed is planted, then we go through a lengthy period of time during which that seed grows and develops into a baby and finally this child is born into the world.

So what does that mean in regards to a spiritual pregnancy?

Sometimes God gives a promise, He plants a seed, but it is nothing that we can see overnight. It takes time, in some cases years, before we finally see that promised being birthed into the world.

But just as life begins at the time of conception, so does the life of the promise God planted in us at some point. We just can’t see it yet.

During a natural pregnancy the first trimester is considered to be a risky one. Once we make it past the 12 weeks, we feel better about it and don’t worry as much about losing the baby. And in most cases a lot of the problems like morning sickness and the total fatigue that comes with the first trimester, are starting to ease and we get to enjoy the pregnancy a bit more.Think about the time right after God gave you a promise seed? Did the enemy attack you?

In my case it was only seconds after God spoke to me about something, making me a promise, when Satan started to speak lies to me, telling me that it would never happen, that I wasn’t good enough, that I was too young and that I should just give that stupid thought up.

He was trying to make me abort this spiritual pregnancy. Don’t let him!

Praise

So after we make it past the first trimester, we start to feel more confident in the promise, right? Maybe we struggled with it a bit in the beginning but we are starting to make peace with it and even look forward to it. We are getting excited about what the promise is and we start to make preparations.

In the natural, we might start to think about names, pick out colors for the nursery, start buying items we know (or think) we will need, read books to prepare ourselves and maybe even take some birthing classes or something along those lines.

When we look at a spiritual pregnancy however, do we really prepare for the promise God gave us?

For example, when God told me about the ministry I was to have and that it included writing and teaching about Him, I more or less expected somebody to just offer me a book contract. Crazy, I know, but then again, nothing is impossible with God (see Luke 18:27), so why not?

I pretty much wanted the result without the preparation. Comparing my behavior to a natural pregnancy, I would’ve been very unprepared, had I done nothing at all to prepare to welcome my children into the world. I would’ve been in a full-out panic mode, completely overwhelmed and probably would’ve felt like a huge failure.

But in my mind, going into ministry was going to work without me having to work for it or prepare for it, simply because God could do whatever He wanted.

Thank God He is a good, good Father and knew better than to let me go right ahead. He knew of course that I needed time not just to study but also to grow in my faith, learn a few things (or a lot) and let go of bad habits.

By nature I am a very blunt person. If you do something that makes me angry, I will let you know in no uncertain terms! I also tend to take things very personal which means I get my feelings hurt very easily.

Think about being in ministry for a second and then think about having a temper and getting your feelings hurt over everything. That does not sound like a winning combination to me. So those are things that I had to work on over the years – old ways I had to get rid of.

So there are things happening inside of you that nobody else can really see – yet. People might talk about how you changed but can’t quite put their finger on what is different about you. But you know. You can feel that promise seed growing and growing and you know that soon everybody will be able to see on the outside what has been happening on the inside.

Once you’re finally in your last trimester it feels like you have been pregnant forever. At least for me it did. Neither one of my pregnancies was easy so I didn’t really enjoy that time and was just looking forward to the end of my pregnancies and to meet my babies. I was very impatient.

And many of you are the same way with your spiritual pregnancies. It feels like God’s promise is never going to be fulfilled because  you’ve already been waiting for it for so long and maybe you’ve even had to fight one spiritual battle after another to hold on to that promise seed and you’re just tired and ready to give up.

I am right there with you!

But guess what? We are almost there!

So when it is time for your baby to be born – for your promise seed to be birthed – you have one last struggle ahead of you: The birthing process itself.

For some people this is very easy and smooth, for others it is a battle.

A lot of times the enemy will attack right before your breakthrough and throw everything he has at you in an attempt to make you give up so close to the end because you just can’t see how close you actually are. All you see is the warfare going on all around you and you’re tired and running on empty and you just want to be done.

Don’t. Give. Up. Now!

You are so close!

You know the saying “the night is darkest before the morning” and all the other cute little things we like to tell each other to keep each other motivated?

You are right there! Right at that spot.

There comes a point of no return when no matter what the devil throws at you, he can’t stop the promise of God being birthed into your life.

Remember that when you feel like nothing is happening and you’re frustrated because you have been waiting a long time already, God has not forgotten about you. The promise seed He gave you is growing on the inside of you and He will bring it to pass.

And just like soon-to-be-parents, use the time to prepare. Learn. Study. Get ready. Draw close to Him. Use that quiet time with God and let Him continue to grow that promise seed until He brings it to fruition.

Be blessed.

You may be stuck, but you’re not helpless!

/ Jelena McClellan / Leave a comment

We all get into these situations where we feel like we have nowhere else to go. No matter which way we try to turn, we run into a dead end and sooner or later we realize that we are stuck.

That feeling of being stuck is not a good one to have because  we begin to feel helpless, frustrated, depressed even.

The more we struggle to get ourselves unstuck, the worse the situation usually gets until we are completely and utterly desperate and just ready to give up.

So why do we get stuck?

Sometimes we try to get ahead of ourselves, or rather ahead of God.

I am one of those people who grow impatient and then try to do everything on their own, but it is “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 4:6).

Other times everything seems to have slowed down or come to a complete halt and we think that we are stuck when in reality we are right where God wants us to be.

Have you looked around? Maybe there is something you need to learn and until you do God will keep you exactly where you are because He loves you and doesn’t want you to get hurt.

Sounds contradicting, I know, but you don’t know what lies ahead of you. Maybe there are some bumps in the road, obstacles to slow you down and potentially hurt you, if you were to go full speed ahead, so God keeps you where you are at for the time being, until these roadblocks have been removed or diminished.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose,” (Romans 8:28).

And some times we simply made such a huge mess of things that we can’t see any way out anymore. We make mistake after mistake and don’t realize that we back ourselves into a corner where we start digging ourselves a hole that we can’t escape from.

Feeling stuck is not fun – at least not for me – especially if it lasts for weeks and even months, but no matter how bad your situation is, or how deep the holes is that you find yourself in, you are never too far away for God to reach you and nothing is ever too difficult for him.

You may be stuck, but you are not helpless:

“My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth,” Psalm 121:2.

Make it your habit to use prayer as your first response, not your last and watch Him get you unstuck, because “the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds,” (2 Corinthians 10:4).psalm 121-2

Equipping the Saints

/ Jelena McClellan / 2 Comments

One of the biggest issues in today’s Church is that we have strayed from the nitty-gritty truth found in the Bible in an effort to accommodate everyone and not to offend anyone. We pick and choose what we want to preach and teach and more often than not we opt for “feel-good-messages” instead of the whole story.

Don’the-sword-of-the-spiritt get me wrong, I like messages I can agree with wholeheartedly, that make me feel good and give me hope.  But there came a point when my world seemed to collapse and although reciting scriptures like Romans 8:28 or Jeremiah 29:11 helped to get me through some of the most difficult times of my life, it also seemed to just not be enough anymore.

I felt the urge to do more, to stand up and fight back but I had no idea if that was even possible. A woman in my church reached out to me at that point and began to teach me about Spiritual Warfare. That’s what started my journey as the call that God had placed on my life began to get louder and louder. The call to help others, to teach the saints, and to show you how you, too, can fight back when the enemy tries to wreak havoc in your life.

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” Ephesians 6:11

Jesus didn’t just die for us on the cross so that we could have eternal life but also so we could be set free: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free,” (Luke 4:18).

So the next time you feel the devil is trying to come into your life, steal from you, kill, and destroy (see John 10:10), remember that you are not helpless.

You have been given the armor of God as well as spiritual weapons. It is time to learn how to use them!