Can the devil stop your God given gifts?

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Can the devil stop your God given gifts?

As we know all the devil can do is lie.  He did it to the first woman and continues to do it to all of us today to try to block the plan of God for our lives.  He’s been at it for thousands of years so he’s got a lot of experience tricking us humans!  He’s very good at what he does which is why we need the Word of God embedded deeply into our hearts so we can combat the lies of the enemy with the truth of what God says.

For example I was talking to a friend recently that was telling me how they used to be heavily involved in ministry a long time ago and I honestly had no idea as they never talked about it.  And I mean traveling around to minister even not just in the local church building.  Baffled I asked why doesn’t he use his talents now at the church we both go to.  He said he didn’t feel that his life was “right” at the moment and didn’t want to be a hypocrite.

While I understood where he was coming from I immediately thought, wow the devil has blocked him from using his gifts with just a simple lie.  Who among us if we really examine our lives lives perfectly holy?  Only one Man accomplished that and His name is Jesus.  As for the rest of us…we’re all screw ups if we look at our flesh but the good news is that once you’ve surrendered your life to the Lord God doesn’t see your flesh anymore.  All He sees is the Blood of His Son which cries out forgiven, clean, healed, etc!  Hallelujah!

None of us in and of ourselves is worthy to serve God or stand up in front of people in His name but through the Blood He makes us worthy.  And it’s because of the Blood that Holy Spirit is able to live within every believer to help us live and do what God would have us to do.  The Blood gives us access to Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit empowers us to live supernaturally.  We can’t live right on our own and that’s why we need Him to help us.  Among His many names He is called the “Paraclete” which means One called to your side to help you.  He’s ready and willing!  Are you?

The Bible says that we are to “reckon ourselves dead to sin” and also that we were crucified with Christ!  Wow!  Did you know you already had a funeral?  It was 2000 years ago when Jesus died because when He died the “old you” died with Him!  You are now a NEW CREATURE and this creature doesn’t even know how to sin let alone want to sin!  But our bodies are used to sinning so we have this battle between the part of us that wants to do the will of God and the part called the “flesh” that just wants to do it’s own thing and live in pleasure all the time.  (See Romans 7 & 8)

The devil doesn’t really know how to deal with us as the “new creature” that we are but oh boy is he familiar with our “flesh!”  He tries to appeal to the flesh and makes sin seem so fun and the Bible even admits that sin gives pleasure “for a season” but in the end comes destruction.  And let’s face it whatever particular sin you battle with is something that you have fun doing.  Come on let’s be real!  If it wasn’t fun you wouldn’t be doing it!  On some level you enjoy it!  This is why we must strive to strengthen our spirit-man, that “new creature” so that the flesh won’t be able to take over so easily.  And you can only do that by doing things that are spiritual such as praying, reading the Bible, worshiping God, ministering to others around you etc…

So what’s stopping you from doing mighty things for God?  A lie.  A stupid little lie that the devil told you that you have to meet such a high unattainable standard before you can represent God.  A standard none of humans can ever meet.  If we had to meet it then NO ONE would be able to minster and the whole world would be going to Hell!  Do you see how sneaky the devil is?  Think of all the things you could have been doing for the Lord all this time but one little lie stopped you.  Shouldn’t you be mad about that?  I hope so!  No one likes being taken advantage of but our enemy has done just that.  Taken advantage of our ignorance because we didn’t really know who we were.  But are your eyes open now!  Do you see that he has made a fool out of you?  SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?!?!?

You and Holy Spirit need to get in sync and do what God wants you to do from now on!  No more lies are gonna stop me anymore!  How about you?

Do it because you love it???

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As you can guess from this picture I ate at a Chinese restaurant once and for laughs I opened up the fortune cookie that they always give you and what it said spoke to me but in a different way than most people would look at it.  I’m guessing most would look at it as a motivational saying.  I took it in a totally different way.  I started to think about “sin” and why we do it.  And you wanna know why we do it?  Because we love it.  Because we enjoy it.  Because it gives us pleasure and makes us feel good…in the moment anyway.  Hebrews 11:25 talks about enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season.  Why would we bother doing it unless we got something out of it?  And that’s the devil’s trap.  And it’s like he gives us amnesia to the fact that we really want to obey God until we we’re done giving into our fleshly desire for pleasure.  Once it’s over than he changes tactics and tries to overwhelm us with feelings of guilt for failing God.  And it’s a vicious cycle.  So how do we overcome it?  You’ve got to start to see sin as God sees it.  Disgusting, repulsive, repellent, offensive and just plain gross!  Would your Mom or Dad let you do something they found offensive in front of them?  I would hope not.  But here’s the thing.  EVERYTHING we do is in “front” of God because He sees everything at all times.  Just because we aren’t aware of this at every moment doesn’t mean it’s not true.  So knowing this would you really want to put your own pleasure ahead of pleasing our Heavenly Father when you know you’re grieving Him?  Don’t look at this as changing your behavior but rather as changing your mind about sin.  Once you change your mindset then the proper behavior will automatically follow.  Ephesians 4:23 (NLT) says let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.  And Ephesians 5:26 (NLT) says we’re to be washed by the cleansing of God’s word.  So through the Bible and with the help of the Holy Spirit we can transform our mind first so that our behavior will line up with the will of God.  What do you love more?  Your sin or the God that suffered and died on the cross for you to free you from the power of sin?

Held back by the past.

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For some of us the greatest obstacle to reaching toward what God wants for our future is our past. The past keeps many of us in bondage. We’re in chains of emotional pain. In prisons of feeling worthless. In shackles of “I’m just not good enough.” Handcuffed by “What if I mess up?” BUT I HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU! JESUS came to set the captive free! Not only DID He do it (past tense) but it’s already done! You already are free! It’s the enemy who has lied to you and said you’re trapped in jail but Jesus busted the door wide open for you already! Get out of there people!!! God has so much more for you but you gotta move out of the past and into your future. No more waiting! The time is now! GO GO GO!!!