I
remember years ago reading this
book, “This Present Darkness” by Frank
E. Peretti; it is a book about spiritual warfare, an excellent book which really opened my
eyes. It shows that the forces
of good and evil
are battling in the
spirit realm, although we
do not
see it. The
book also shows that the power of prayer will prevail over evil. Although
the book is a novel,
I believe the message
is true because
Frank wrote the book from the
scripture of Ephesians
6:12:
“For
we are not wrestling with flesh and
blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms (absolute or tyrannical
government), against the powers, against [the master spirits
who are] the world rulers of
THIS PRESENT DARKNESS, against
the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere”
(www.biblegateway.com
- Amplified Bible – emphasis by me).
God loves us but until
we accept
Christ as our Lord and
personal Savior, He will
not intervene in our life;
He allows us to make our own
choices until something brings us
to a point of surrender to Him. We need to choose God or
the devil; we can’t serve
both.
When we are living
in
sin, we belong to
the devil, he is our father. But
when we renounce the
devil and all his tools, and accept Jesus Christ as our Lord
and personal Savior,
He immediately comes in, and God
begins to intervene for us and becomes
our Father. Also, God gives
us access to Him and His Kingdom and we become
heirs and joint-heirs with Christ. We receive the
baptism of the Holy Spirit and with Fire; the Father
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit
lives in us. God is
the reason “for
in
Him we live and
move and have our
being…we are his offspring” (Acts 17:28). In
other words, Father God totally takes
control of us
(by invitation – He does not
force Himself on us) and lives
in us. But as I said before, this does not mean we will
not have trials and tribulations (John 16:33). Remember also that Jesus said in that same scripture, He has
already overcome the world. Since
Jesus is in us, the Holy
Spirit with fire is in us, and the
Father is us – the Holy Trinity is in us as I
said before – we cannot
fail; greater is He who is
in
us than he who is in
the world (1 John 4:4).
As David
said in
the
Psalms 23:4: “Yes, though I walk through the [deep, sunless] valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear or dread
no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod [to protect]
and Your staff [to guide],
they comfort me,” we can say the same. But we can
go farther than that, we can say
God is not only with us but He is IN us – He lives
in us; our body is the Temple
of the
Holy Spirit. Therefore, no matter what storm arises in our lives, it will not
destroy us; we will not drown.
What sets us apart from the world is when we go through storms
(trials and tribulations),
we will not fall apart
and operate out of
fear, but we will operate through
faith in God. It is the God within us
that keeps us from falling
apart, from overdosing on drugs, from becoming
alcoholics, from committing suicide, and from turning to
the world’s system to bring us
out. We WILL NOT bow to the world,
we
only bow to the
true and living God Almighty, who is our Father,
the Great I Am, the
Alpha and Omega (Beginning and End), and the
Creator!!!
We must put our
trust in God
(which gives us peace) so He can bring
us
out of whatever we need to come out
of; we will not act like the world but we will
show the world Jesus which is the more excellent
way (love of God) .
We will win because
“we are more than conquerors through
Him
who loved us” (Romans 8:
37). In that same chapter of Romans
8, Paul stated
in
verses 38 and 39:
38” I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers,
nor things present nor things
to come,
39” nor height nor depth, nor any other created
thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (www.biblegateway.com – NKJV).
Be blessed,
Dr. Dorothy E. Hooks
Other Scripture References
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