God is Omniscient (All Knowing)

Omni means “all” and God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.

In other words, God is all powerful, all present, and all knowing.

 

God not only sees us, but sees into our hearts, and knows us better than we know ourselves.  He knows why we say what we say, do what we do, and go where we go. He knows every detail and thought and action of our past, and our present. He also knows every detail, motive, thought and way that we will take, and He still loves us. Psalm 33:13-15, tells us that from heaven the lord looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth…He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.

God watches us and considers everything we do… this is something I need to keep uppermost in my mind.  God knows that our minds can wander to places we should not go, that we sometimes have thoughts we do not want to have, that we try fixing things ourselves before we turn to Him, making our plans without His input, doing things the way we think best without His perspective or direction, and feel wise in our own eyes.   Then we find our plans did not go the way we thought they would, we made a worse mess of the thing we were trying to fix, and we feel lost, and maybe even hopeless.  We cannot see our way out of the mess we have gotten ourselves into and have nowhere  to turn.  It is then we finally get around to calling out to God, pleading with Him to please clean up our mess, or at least show us how to get things fixed up.

First of all, how did we get in the mess in the first place?  Perhaps we were being wise in our own eyes and did not inquire of God (through His Word), or request His help through the Holy Spirit who is our Counselor.  Why do we not always do this?  If we think back in retrospect, we have 20/20 hindsight and remember when things turned out better than expected when we trusted His wisdom and grace over our own. They may not have always gone smoother, but the end result always came out better. How do we forget so easily?

 

It is amazing how we still tend to think we know what is best for us, and the best way to attain the things we believe we need to make life more enjoyable and profitable in all ways. God, alone, knows all things from beginning to end and all the details in between.
God, alone, knows every detail about us from our actions and words, and our thoughts, before we even think them. And even to the deepest recesses of our inner being He knows what motivates us, why we do what we do, and think the way we do. He uncovers the secrets of our hearts and He, alone, knows what is best for us from an eternal perspective. He knows how our attitudes and ways affect everyone around us to some degree, whether for good or bad. He, alone, knows beforehand how the results of our own thinking and planning without His wisdom and direction will turn out.  He is never surprised, but waiting for us to wake up and realize… we are not the managers of our life anymore, He is.  Christ Jesus purchased us with His own blood, and we now belong to Him.  He is our Master and we are His bondservants who are to be living for His will, not ours.  Until we get this straight in our minds and hearts, we will continue to mess up, and when we do, like ripples in a pond after a stone is thrown in, our choices effect everyone involved in some way with our life.

After we trust Jesus Christ with our salvation by faith in what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross and through His shed blood, we belong to Him, and no longer to our self. He gives us the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, as our Counselor and Helper, and has given us His Word, the Bible, for our knowledge of Him and our direction in life. Why? So we will know how to work out in our lives what He has already put in.  Our spiritual lives are lived progressively, day by day, growing in grace and knowledge and filled with love for God and for the brethren.  Everything we do must be done in love or it doesn’t count, and if we don’t love our brother, we need to question the sincerity of our faith.  If anyone is concerned about this, ask God to change your heart to be like His heart on that matter, and all matters. He wants our sincerity. Our sincerity is proved in our heart desires, which God can see. Jesus wants us to honor Him in all we do and say, and to have a loving, forgiving spirit toward all, including our enemies, and to pray for them to come to know Jesus.

Sometimes, I wonder why God puts up with me. I am a slow learner and forget at times what I should remember.  I am not as obedient yet in all things, as I want to be, but am persevering day by day to grow more in grace and knowledge of God and His mercy, grace, love, and even His justice.  I want to know Him, His character and love in a deeper way, but I also need to learn to trust Him in a deeper way, too.  I do know that as I learn to know His character and His ways better, my love and trust are actively growing, even if slowly.  I thank Jesus for putting His perfect sinless life (His righteousness) to my account and for paying the penalty for my sins because there is no way I could possibly, no matter how hard I tried, or how much I wanted to be perfect, attain it myself.  Since there will be no sin in heaven, the only way we get there is through Jesus Christ and His shed blood and His sinless life. He paid our debt in full and when the Father looks at His blood bought adopted children, He sees His Son’s righteousness covering us.  Hebrews 9:22 says “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”  That’s why only God could save us, and why He became a man who lived a sinless life (the perfect Lamb without blemish), then offer up that life as a sacrifice for all of us who would put our faith and hope in Him and willingly exchange our old life for His life. How? By progressively taking off our old grave clothes and progressively putting on Christ daily.

 

Biblical references to check out

Psalm 33:13-15

Hebrews 9:22

1 John 1:8,9

1 John 3:14

Romans 7:4-6

Romans 8 tells us how we are to rely on the help of the Holy Spirit who uses the Word of God to bring to our memory what we have been learning from it, and to give us direction through it. In this way we are no longer under the law, but rely on God's grace, as the Holy Spirit and the Word of God transform our thinking and direct our ways..

 

God watches over us and considers everything we do... and He wants us to remember and consider what His Son did for us... when we find it difficult to forgive from the heart and pray for those who hurt or even persecute us.

 

 

 

~Annie~

 



The Real Holy War

 

(Galatians 5:16-26)

 

The Real Holy War

 

 

In military battles, victory is won when the enemy is killed, captured, or gives up and retreats. But in the spiritual life, the enemy is invisible and the heart, soul, and mind are the battlefields.  Victory is won when the sinful nature is put to death.

 

The armor of God protects the believer from Satan's every attack. However, as we study the Bible it becomes clear that we have more than one enemy. John speaks of three adversaries that plaque Christians: the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Satan brings individual attacks, but the flesh attacks us through our internal desires and the world through external influences.  Each area needs a unique strategy. In order to gain victory over the devil, we have to put on the armor, fight the war, and resist him. To gain victory over the flesh, we have to learn what it means to walk in the Spirit.  To gain victory over the world, we must have faith in Jesus Christ who has already overcome the world.  To put it another way, to be victorious over Satan, we have to fight; to be victorious over the flesh, we have to flee; to be victorious over the world, we have to forsake its influence.

 

 

The Inner War

 

There is an inner war that goes on inside every one of us, a war between the flesh and the Spirit. Galatians 5:17 says it this way, "The sinful nature (the flesh) desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is contrary to the sinful nature (the flesh); and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish."  ...When the old and the new nature both want to use the body for their own advantage, there is conflict.  Because of the old nature there is an avenue whereby Satan can approach us with temptation. The flesh, the old nature, provides Satan with opportunities for attack.  We are in the flesh, all of us, until we become Christians. Then we receive the Spirit of God and are transformed by His power.

 

 

The Flesh is Weak

 

Roman 6:9 warns us that the flesh is weak. It doesn't have any strength to merit God's favor. So when God gave the Law to man, he could not maintain it. Men could not attain holiness by perfectly obeying rules. Why? Because the flesh is weak. That's the reason Christ had to come to bring grace, because there wasn't even one person who could live up to the high standards of the Law. The flesh is too weak and we all sin.

 

Someone has written:

Run and do the Law demands,

Yet it gives me neither feet not hands.

But better news the gospel brings.

It bids me fly and gives me wings.

 

 

The Flesh is Worthless

 

 

Paul says in Romans 7:18, "For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells."  He acknowledged that there is nothing good in his flesh apart from God, an idea that flies in the face of all humanistic thinking in our culture today. We are told that we can improve the flesh, make it better until ultimately it will be perfect.  Yet John 6:63 tells us, "the flesh profits nothing." It is worthless.

 

 

The Flesh is Warring

 

Romans 8:7 reads, "The carnal mind is enmity against God."  The flesh is weak and cannot hold the law. It is worthless and cannot help us. And it is at war with God and His Holy Spirit. There is a war going on inside of each of us, a war that is between the old man and the new man. The old man is without hope and dead to God, the new man hast eternal hope and been made alive in Christ Jesus.  "The flesh is contrary against the Spirit," Paul wrote in Galatians 5:17. All of us struggle with this inner battle.

 

 

 

The Flesh is Without Righteousness

 

Try as we may, the flesh doesn't have the ability to produce righteousness in a Christian's life. A person who lives in the flesh cannot please God and it is futile to try. "Are you so foolish?" Paul asks in Galatians 3:3. "Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect in the flesh?" He was writing to a church who thought once Jesus had saved them, they could add to His work by fulfilling the old Jewish Law. Paul told them in essence, "You can't do anything by your works to make yourself perfect, since the flesh is without ability to produce righteousness.

 

 

 

The Flesh is Wounded Mortally

 

 

"Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin" (Romans 6:6).  The flesh, which is the old man, was crucified with Christ.  His death makes it possible for us to be at peace with God and to experience true righteousness. But the old nature wasn't eradicated, just mortally wounded. It is still alive and at work within you. Your flesh still produces sin in your life. Galatians 5 calls them the "works of the flesh," and lists several areas, like sexual sin, spiritual sin, self-centered sin, and societal sins. As you look through the list you'll see what the flesh produces: adultery, fornication, idolatry, hatred, discord, envy, rage. Those are the expressions of the old man.

 

When you became a Christian, you didn't lose that old nature. You still have it. Christ comes into your life and gives you a new nature, and the two enter into a holy war. Paul put it this way in Galatians 5:17: "For the flesh is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit is contrary to the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. A Christian has a much harder time with inner struggles than a non-Christian because we have these two natures at war within ourselves.

 

This war between old and new natures is the subject of Paul's letter to the Romans. He knows he has been changed---his heart's desire is to follow God---but he finds himself struggling against the flesh. In Romans 7:22 he writes, "I delight in the law of God according to the inward man." That is the normal desire of Christians. There should be a desire in you to love God. There should be a sadness over sin and a wish to please Him. But Paul says, "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Romans 7:23. Even though his heart's desire is to please God, it doesn't automatically happen. There is another force inside---the flesh--that prevents him from pleasing God. He has the desire to do good things, but his performance doesn't measure up. That's why he says, "For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice" (Romans 7:19).

 

There is a holy war going on inside every believer. You will face that fight every day, but it doesn't have to be one sad experience after another. There is hope for victory. God has given us a  battle plan.

 

 

Winning the Inner War

 

 

In Galatians 5 we are given two keys to gaining victory over the flesh. One of them is negative and one positive. Notice the 24th verse: "And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires."  There is a truth often misunderstood. It is not a positional truth, like the fact that we have been crucified with Christ and had the penalty for our sins paid. It is a description of an action---we have taken the flesh and done something with it.

 

 

Crucify the Flesh

 

 

While it is a fact that our old nature was positionally crucified when Christ died, it is only true for us when we reckon that truth and apply it in our daily lives. You can believe in your head that Christ crucified the flesh, but if you don't reckon it true and apply it on a daily basis it will never be effective in your life.  This is not merely head knowledge; it is the cooperation of your spirit with what happened when Christ died.

 

The story is told of two men looking at a turtle, still moving though its head was cut off. One of he men examined it and said, "It's dead, but it don't believe it." That's the problem with most Christians. Our old nature died with Christ, but we don't believe it. We keep moving to take it off the cross and use it. We don't recognize that the flesh has been crucified.

 

 

Walk In the Spirit

 

 

The Holy Spirit is mentioned three times in Galatians 5. Verse 16 says, "Walk in the Spirit." Verse 18 reads, "If you are led by the Spirit." and verse 25 says, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." So you see, we live in the realm of the Spirit.  As Christians we understand that He is actively involved in our lives. We are led by the Spirit, who guides and directs us in how we should live. Having nailed the flesh to the cross, you yield to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. You find out wear He is leading and you follow Him.

 

Do you see how you can gain victory over the flesh? You look at those influences in your life that clearly come from the old nature, the ones that are corrupting you and keeping you from having joy in your life. Deal with them ruthlessly, count yourself dead to them, and begin following the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Soon you'll find the fruits of the Spirit in verses 22-23 replacing those character traits of the old man. that's what happens to a Christian: God replaces the old character with a new one. Life change for a Christian is not a matter of stopping things, of pulling out the weeds that have grown in the garden of your life. It is a  matter of letting God start some new things by planting seeds to grow a harvest of righteousness. God doesn't tell you to give up something without telling what He is going to replace it with. Romans 13:14 says, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts."

 

Don't allow yourself to enter a situation where the flesh is going to take control. Submit to Christ, and ask God to deal with those areas of your life in opposition to Him. James tells us to "Submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). If you spend all your time trying to resist the devil, he's not going to flee. But if, while resisting him, you submit to God, Satan will be defeated.  If you spend all your time crucifying the flesh and never yield to the Holy Spirit, you're going to lose the war. But if in the process of crucifying the flesh you are also yielding to the Spirit, you are going to find victory in the war, that holy war going on in your life.



 

Taken from David Jeremiah's study guide, Spiritual Warfare, 2002

 

This concludes the David Jeremiah's, Spiritual Warfare. There is much more in the study guide with lots of Scripture references if you would like to obtain a copy. Just go to

turningpointonline.org

 

~Annie~

.



Praying Always With All Prayer

Ephesians 6:18

 

 

Praying Always With All Prayer
 

Both before, and during, military campaigns, clear and strategic communication up and down the chain of command is essential to victory. So in spiritual warfare, prayer is the way we receive guidance from our Commander-in-Chief as we engage the enemy.
 

Throughout Scripture there are illustrations of the power of prayer in battle. Moses prayed on the mountain and God gave Joshua the victory over the Amalakites. Joshua prayed and the walls of Jericho fell before him. Gideon prayed and his 300 soldiers routed the Midianite hordes. As you study the Old Testament you will see that when Israel fought in her own strength, she was defeated. But when she cast herself upon the Lord and trusted in His might, victory always followed. King Hezekiah, after conquering the Assyrians, said in 2 Chronicles 32:8, "With us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles." The Lord is with us, fighting. That is the message of Ephesians 6:18.

 

 

The Persistence of the Warrior's Prayer
 

Notice how many times the word "all" occurs in this passage:  "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.  Paul said, "Pray without ceasing." "Praying always" means that we keep a constant attitude of trust and communication with God at every moment. You are always to be available to God as He is to you.

Satan will use every device to keep you from praying. He will cause fatigue, doubt, discouragement, and depression to seep into your life to keep you from your true source of power. That is why you need to be praying regularly, not just when you feel like it. The enemy wants to keep you out of touch with God and occupied with other matters. But you must be constantly in prayer because you are constantly in danger.

 

 

The Possibilities of the Warrior's Prayer

 

What does it mean to be "praying always with all prayer"?  First, it means that we are to pray on all occasions. You can pray in public worship, in prayer groups, and in private. Second, it means that we are to pray in all places. We should be praying in the car, in the classroom, in the office, around the family table. We are to pray in both prosperity and adversity. We are to pray morning, noon, and night. Third, we are to pray for all things. Pray for personal needs, family needs, business needs, church needs, All things should be bathed in prayer. Prayer, talking with God should come as naturally as breathing. "Lord, show me what to do." "Father, help me to understand Your will at this moment." The possibilities for prayer are endless. We can pray on all occasions, in every place, at all times, for all things.

 

 

The Petition of the Warrior's Prayer

 

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication. We ought to ask God for what we need. James 4:2 says we have not because we ask not. We ask in prayer because that is the only way God is going to work on our behalf.
 

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great British preacher, once said, "Asking is the rule of the kingdom. It is a rule that will never be altered...God will bless Elijah and send rain, but Elijah must pray for it.  God will deliver the Jews, but Daniel must pray for it." When the Bible tells us that we are to pray always with all prayer and supplication, it means that the things we have need of we are to ask God for.  Asking is the rule of the kingdom, and God has he resources to meet your need.

 

The Power of the Warrior's Prayer

 

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit."  The power of your prayer is the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in you. He determines not only the character but the content of your prayer. Have you ever wondered if what you pray is the will of God"  Well, the Spirit who wrote God's Word lives in you will direct you to the things of Spirit's power that we can pray in the will of God.

As you spend time with God, through prayer and Bible reading, the Spirit makes clear what God's will is. You come into agreement with Him and pray in the Spirit's power, and you will see mighty things happen. There is power in a warrior's prayer.

 

The Precision of the Warrior's Prayer

 

"Being watchful to this end...The warrior must be watchful of his prayer life. In other words, he must diligently pray and be vigilant, permitting nothing in his life to disrupt his prayer life. Prayer begins hours before you get on your knees. It begins in the decisions you make. The prayer warrior guards his time, plans his schedule, watches for everything that feeds his prayer life, and guards against everything that hinders it. That is what it means to be watchful.

 

Jesus reminds us to watch and pray. In Mark 13:33 He put it, "Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation."  Do you remember how Nehemiah defeated the enemy by watching and praying? In Nehemiah 4:9 he states, "We made our prayer to our God and we set a watch."  (The word "watch in Greek literally means to be awake).  Here it means to be on the alert spiritually, staying awake in prayer, vigilant for the enemy's attacks. Peter went to sleep when he was supposed to watch and pray, and he ended up getting into trouble. That is one of the reasons I (David Jeremiah) often walk and pray, because it keeps me alert and focused while I speak with God. Colossians 4:2 says, "Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving."

 

The Perseverance of the Warrior's Prayer

 

"Being watchful to this end with all perseverance." We need to continue praying, for when we stop praying we are headed for trouble. Romans 12:12 puts it, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.  We need to hold on, not quitting or yielding to discouragement, and not being distracted by outside pressures. Prayer will never be an automatic thing but it must be a matter of personal discipline. We have to take time to be holy, to exercise ourselves unto godliness. No matter what it takes, we must persevere in prayer or we will fall out of communication with our Commander and become a casualty of war.

 

You might be discouraged about your prayer life. Satan likes to convince you that you have blown it and should no longer pray. He likes to get you to cancel your prayer time due to outside pressures. But we must learn to persevere because prayer is crucial for our survival and success on the battlefield.

 

 

The Purpose of the Warrior's Prayer

 

"Praying always...for all the saints, and for me." The purpose of our praying is that we might pray for others. We are to pray for each other corporately. Perhaps that is why the Lord's prayer begins "Our Father," and not "My Father" We are not going into battle alone, but as part of God's army, and we are to uphold one another in prayer.

 

If you study the prayers of Paul in Scripture, you'll find he always prayed for his friends. There are some examples of Paul praying and asking God to grant his friends wisdom, power, love, comfort, and the knowledge of God's will.  We ought to pray like warriors and ask God to grant each other power and strength and wisdom.  Perhaps we need to begin asking the Lord to help each believer put on the armor of God so that we will be ready for the battle with the evil one.

 

The Christian is built to run on prayer. If he doesn't pray, he won't run. You can try putting anything you want into the engine of your life, but if you are a Christian, the only thing that will work is prayer.



Taken from David Jeremiah's study guide, Spiritual Warfare, 2002

Next, The Real Holy War (where the heart, soul, and mind are the battlefields).

~Annie~



The Sword of the Spirit

The Sword of the Spirit

Ephesians 6:17

Our one "offensive" weapon is the Sword of the Spirit, which is the living Word of God...our Bible

The Explanation of the Sword of the Spirit

There are two Greek words which are translated in the Scripture as the term "word." The first, logos, found in John 1:1 refers to Jesus Christ as the "Word."  In Revelations 19:13, His name is "the Word of God." But in Ephesians 6:17 Paul uses the Greek word rhema, and it is essential to discover the difference if we are to understand and arm ourselves with the sword of the Spirit. The rhema of God literally means "the sayings of God," and it refers to the fact that God has available wisdom for your specific situations. In other 
words, the Bible is like an armory, and inside are all sorts of swords that you can pull out when you need to attack the enemy.

In Romans 10:17 the word rhema is also used: "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the rhema of God."  As you read God's Word He will pull out sayings that just become alive and touch your heart. When you experience that, your faith becomes alive. The rhema, or saying of God, became a revelation for you. that is the same sense Paul was getting at in Ephesians 6.

We aren't fit to fight unless we can pull out the rhema, the sayings of God, that are appropriate and effective for the need at hand.

The Effect of the Sword of the Spirit

Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."  That passage is militant about the Bible. It says the 
Scripture is alive, active and powerful and can pierce the hearts of men, even causing an enemy to retreat.  It is useful for discerning truth, and it's the most dreaded weapon we can






use against the enemy. A metal sword may pierce the body but the Word of God pierces the heart. A metal sword gets dull as you use it, but the Sword of the Spirit is sharpened with use. A metal sword wounds to hurt, the Sword of the Spirit wounds to heal.

Consider how effective it is. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:37 and the sword of the Spirit worked wonders. "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Men and brethren, what shall we do?" The 
sword was turned loose that day by Peter, and he preached the Word of God concerning 
sin, and judgment, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Sword pierced the hearts of the people who listened in such a way that the Scripture says they gave the invitation instead of the preacher! They asked, "What are we to do?"

Christ is the master swordsman when it comes to using this weapon. In Matthew 4:1-11 we read about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness that took place right after His baptism. At the end of chapter 3 God said, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Right after that the Spirit leads Him into the wilderness where Satan tempts Him to question what God said about Jesus at the baptism. There are three temptations that are all along the same lines he has used since the beginning of history. He always uses the same old temptations, the lust of the flesh, "the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16). It's the same way he tempted Eve. He said the fruit was good for food (the lust of he flesh); he said the fruit was pleasant to the eyes (the lust of the eyes); and he claimed it was able to make one wise (the pride of life). He never changes.

After being in the wilderness fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus was hungry. The tempter came to Him and said, "If You are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Jesus answered, " It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word (rhema) that comes from the mouth of God. The key word in this verse is "alone." In other words, man shall not live apart from the will of God. He is to walk in dependence upon God. Jesus was telling Satan He was willing to walk according to His Father's will. Jesus beat back the devil with the sword of the Spirit, the Scripture.

The first temptation was the "lust of the flesh". The second temptation was the "lust of the eyes". The devil took Him up to the holy city, set Him 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 shall give 
His angels charge over You,'and'  in their hands they shall bear you up, lest You dash Your foot against a stone.' " Satan quoted the Bible, but did so inaccurately. He left out the phrase from Psalm 91:11, "For He shall keep you in all your ways."  He perverted the text by leaving out that part of the passage that would remind Jesus that His Heavenly Father was in control and would take care of Him no matter what. The devil is very shrewd. In the first temptation, Satan was trying to get Christ to distrust His Father and act independently. In the second temptation he was trying to get Christ to trust God more than he should, to be presumptuous and jump from the roof so that His Father would catch Him. But the Lord had His sword ready and , reaching in, came out with, "It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God" (Matthew 4:7, Deuteronomy 6:16).

Temptation number three was "the pride of life". Again, the devil took Jesus up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of he world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship 
me." He used his power to appeal to the Lord's personal ambition. Satan was telling Jesus the end justifies the means. He was encouraging the Lord to take a shortcut to His goal.  After all, Jesus came to set up a kingdom, so Satan offers an immediate physical kingdom in place of the spiritual kingdom. "Forget about death, sacrifice, and salvation," the devil suggests. "Why suffer? You can gain your kingdom without the cross." Once more Jesus reached into the sheath of swords and pulled out the right one: "it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve' " (Matthew 4:10, Deuteronomy 6:13). And do you know what happened? Verse 11 tells us, "then the devil left Him."  Jesus won! He used the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. He used the rhema, the sayings of God which He knew were appropriate for the situation.  James, the brother of Jess, tells us in James 4:7, "Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

Finally, the sword of the Spirit exhorts us to memorize key passages of God's Word.  Most temptations don't come when we have a Bible in our hand, so we need to store up His Word in our mind so that when temptation comes we can call them forth to use in warding off the attack of Satan. That's what Paul meant when he said, "Let the Word of God dwell in you richly" (Colossians 3:16) and David wrote in Psalm 119:11, "Your Word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You." Be filled with God's truth so that when temptation comes you will know how to deal with it. Get a grip on your Bible: read it, hear it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on it. If you don't, you don't have a sword, and that means you are walking into battle unarmed.

Taken from David Jeremiah's study guide, Spiritual Warfare, 2002
The next. Praying Always With All Prayer

~Annie~