Faith to Overcome - There is God who fights for you!

 There is a deep need to refute wrong descriptions of perseverance - enduring toward a goal. Perseverance is not the same as digging in with your claws and holding on until a tough situation is over. It's not about fighting tooth and nail. Believers need to know that the only thing that holds on with their claws are demons. This is not right thinking for Christians and not where believers stand in the Kingdom. Look up dear one! This is not your standing in respect to the Kingdom of Heaven and the God-head. The trinity does not expect us to hang on by our nails. So if you are digging into the trenches and trying to hold out, perhaps its time to look around in the spirit a bit. Let me use my seer eyes.

First, demons are small. They like to puff themselves up and look huge and intimidating. The more you see them for what they really are and stand in your authority of who you are in Jesus Christ the smaller they get. 

Trench warfare is a feeling. It's like attack from all sides and weight. Heavy burden in the spirit that pulls you down. This is a very common feeling in times of heavy intercession, but the imagery is from the enemy, not from our Savior.  Don't let your feelings over ride the truth. Heaven is the stronger, higher, more worthy place. We are told to come up higher. 

VERSE We are seated with Christ

In fact we fight more effectively from this place

So, first, you are fully surrounded by a savior who paid all to redeem you. Your garment is made of salvation, and you are protected by HIS heavenly armor. All the words he speaks over you outweigh and overpower anything the enemy speaks over you. It can be hard for people who are not used to seeing in the spirit to step in to understanding on this, but the best example I can give is one of watching children at play in a sunny backyard. They can be fully engrossed in a warfare of their own creation where a refrigerator box is their fortress and they are besieged. The darkness inside is real, but also fully escapable by stepping outside. It takes several tools to do this in the spirit.

The most important is relationship with Christ. Relationship provides access and it builds trust. It's fully about identity and knowing who you Jesus says you are in the Kingdom of Heaven and also knowing who HE is.... sufficient, fully committed to you and  sovereign 

The second tool is rest. Fully soaking in your heavenly fathers goodness and faithfulness. Knowing what it truly looks like to hand over the big and impossible things to Jesus.

A third tool is changing your lens.... It's how you determine to LOOK. It's more than seeing yourself from heaven's perspective, it's also choosing to take every thought captive so that you can control the influx of lies from the enemy. He wants you to be besieged on all sides in your mind and feelings so that you do not feel you have access to Heaven or are even forgotten. The best weapon for all three of these tools into use is time. Taking time to be with Jesus, and worship and pray, when you are convinced you are so over-run that you simply don't have time, is a crucial daily step. It is the beginning of resetting your reality and  stepping out of the picture the enemy wants to paint for you.

VERSES: take every thought captive

the blood of Jesus gives us authority

God sends angels to fight for you and to make sure you do not stumble and f fall or even stub your toe

say these verses outloud, speak defeat over the enemy ever day.

Taking your thoughts captive is a crucial step... your first step maybe admitting to the Lord that you are not able to control your mind or control your own thoughts or thought responses to people. 

Time spent with Jesus is certainly a healing balm that shows us that the Holy Spirit is never out of time or resources. He has all he needs and all the time necessary to train us so that we know how to stand up victorious.

When we realize that our thought spin in to negative cycles and we learn to step outside of that practice, partner with Jesus and break the cycle, it's a huge open door to further healing and deliverance. You don't even need someone there to physically lay hands on you and deliver you from that demon, that is clawing at your neck and head or any of his pals he brought along to tell you this will never get better or to hit you with low self-esteem or to whisper lies about what other people are saying about you....

We understand that, yes, people may speak evil over us at times, but I am surprised at how many women who are mature in faith, who have been walking in church circles, bible studies and even in relationship to Jesus are healed and resilient on the surface and struggling so, so very very deeply inside to not give in to this self beating. I heard the Lord speak over his daughters. They believe the lies of Satan and "they abuse themselves with these false words."  It is certainly time for TRUTH.

When women step outside of right now they carried away very quickly by supposition. Odd comments come out like "I know that person is speaking lies about me," "I know they talk about me behind my back," 

The real issue is about your self-esteem and who you are in Christ. If you really know who you are, then there is no need to care what people say. If people really are speaking evil over you in church, work, home, or school that is witchcraft! If people, around your, male or female, are participating in that kind of witchcraft you have the authority, in Jesus Christ to shut it down and tell it to go. You do not have to submit to it and more than likely it is meant to take your focus off the real battle. What is really important in this time. What do you need victory over?

You don't have to be spinning around, wishing that you knew where you anchor is.... You get your feet firmly on the ground, standing next to Jesus and you rebuke that evil and tell it to go... and you then focus on the real battle. The battle that Jesus is focusing on, the battle that he is interceding for you over. What is Jesus praying in this time and place for you? If you know that and you turn your face toward that, the rest of the enemies lies quickly fall away out of sight!

VERSE He intercedes on our behalf

NO weapon formed against me will prevail.

You stand in that place, which if it is next to Jesus is full of light and glory and goodness and all the resources and strategy you need. And then you stand in it again and again and again the next day and you get in to a battle rhythm that is not about your strength or dogged determination or digging in your claws, but is entirely about CHOOSING each day who you will serve!

VERSE

choose this day who you will serve, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

AS you choose day by day you will find that it gets easier. You will also find that when attacks come you are protected because you prepared in advance. 

I stood in a parking lot and listened to a woman just assassinate my character. She said horrible things about me, my ministry and leadership and had no proof or evidence to offer other than gossip. The best description I can give is water off a ducks back. In that moment I felt the Lord's arms just wrap around me and the Holy Spirit placed me in a bubble that was almost even sound proof. I didn't want to remember her words. I worked to forget them because the were totally wrong, unfair and unjust. I didn't want to take them in and hold them internally, I wanted to hear from Jesus what he thought about my work, my leadership and my ministry, because I already knew my call, my identity and that Jesus had the final say, not any other human!

A pattern that I have seen again and again since then is when the enemy attacks too viciously, he over plays his hand. What that woman exposed in her tirade was that she had no actual experience of me but had participated in a group think of bashing me and my leadership and in the process exposed other staff who were supposed to be standing along side me in leadership. In one moment, I was protected, up held and provided with the strategy to expose and remove from leadership people who had been causing all kinds of problems and turmoil for months (and later we found out some of them had been participating in leadership slander for years!) In all the nastiness that the Lord allowed to be revealed it also became obvious that prayers were be answered, the patterns were being broken and even though I took the brunt of the attack it never was really about me. That was the take home. 

It's not about you! If you are seeking a life in Christ and pursuing him attacks may come, but it's not really about you! If you spend time in God's holy place you carry is glory on you. People may attack you in the gas station line or act nasty to you at the grocery store but they aren't attacking you, they are also being dominated by demonic lies and those demons are lashing out at the glory of God you wear! In short, they are attacking Jesus in you, and once you learn to practice it, see it and walk in it you actually begin to grow compassion for them!

EXAMPLE

I just walked down the street a few moments ago and one of my neighbors who struggles so so hard in her household, there is such alcoholism and addiction in that household and that family. We just keep praying over that household and that family. As I walked by she gave me the biggest stink eye but it's not about me! The demonic that lives in her house, that torments her, sees Jesus in me and reacts. 

Beloved, you have to let your relationship with Jesus be the supreme thing. You have to step out of your flesh response and in to a spirit lead response. It is really hard to do when life is hitting you hard. When you are battling - really fighting spiritually - I understand why it feels like you are fighting tooth and nail. Perhaps, its time to stop fighting and rest! There is a God who fights for you!!!!!

The righteous of the Lord say so, stand up and be counted 

6:15

You are the prodigal that he welcomed home,