Sent on May 17th, 2017

Dear all,
 
There are passages in the scriptures that exhort us to submit and there are other passages that exhort us to resist, and sometimes they are both in the same verse.
 
The key is to know what to resist and what to submit to.
 
James 4:7 says “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
 
It is often relatively easy to understand and be clear about what it means to submit to God because God is pretty upfront about what He desires.
 
On the other hand, the devil is a deceiver and he does all he can to hide his work in our soul realm. What I mean by that is that the devil will bring a temptation to deceive you into seeing good as evil and evil as good.
 
One of the devil’s most creative methods is to plant within you the idea that when a negative thing is happening in your life, “that’s just the way it is”. The enemy attempts, by deception, to convince you that things cannot change. 
 
Do you have areas in your life that are plagued with fear?  We could name any number of fears that people deal with, but whatever fear it might be it has, most likely, come from a very difficult circumstance that the enemy took advantage of by planting continuing fearful thoughts around that circumstance. 
 
It may have been a childhood near drowning experience and now you are plagued with an unhealthy fear of water because of the constant thought patterns that have been developed around that experience. 
 
At first glance this may not appear to be a big issue but what happens is that once the enemy gets a thought pattern established in your life it provides an open door for a spirit of fear to harass you. 
 
Depending on the thought pattern established, it could be some other spiritual entity such as what the Bible calls a spirit of infirmity (Luke 13:11) or a spirit of an unclean demon (Luke 4:33).
 
Romans 10:10 says: “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
 
The word salvation in this verse is translated from the Greek word “soteria”. According to Strong’s Concordance this word means “deliverance from the molestation of enemies”. I like that because this tells me that anytime an enemy attempts to put something on me I can, by faith, declare my freedom from his attempt to molest me
 
We often think of the word ‘molest’ as meaning to sexually abuse but the word also means “to bother, interfere with, or annoy”.  When the enemy attempts to get you to think his thoughts he is bothering you, he is interfering in your life and he is annoying you.  We are to resist him; resist his thoughts. 
 
In other to resist the devil we first must submit to God. Only then will we have the confidence to stand against the fiery darts of the wicked one (Eph. 6:16).
 
In the coming weeks we will explore how to resist all the molestations of the wicked one.
 
If you find yourself living a life ill at ease, finding it difficult to approach certain people or certain subjects, plagued with unhealthy relationships or other kinds of dysfunction, then you will be especially interested in the tools of resistance.
 
In the meantime, try to submit to God on a new level.  Feed on His word, experience His love and patience and you will find yourself in good shape to resist.
 
You have the power of God within you not to tolerate the enemy but to dominate the enemy.
 
My prayer for you is to live the blessed life that God has designed for you.
 
Love to all…
 
– pb
 
 
P.S.
Here are 14 Bible verses to give you the strength to overcome fear.