Morning Chapel Prayer Playlist
Morning Chapel Prayer Today
Prayer Leader Mike…
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us, to come before God, into agreement. My name is Mike Hines, and my wife, Jeannie, is usually here, but she’s not feeling well today. Hopefully, she’ll be back in a couple weeks.
Rick Renner’s book, “Sparkling Gems”
I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about as a launching point for prayer. And this morning, I was reading a couple things, and it just popped into my head, about resisting the Devil. And I think there’s a “Sparkling Gem” from Rick Renner. I remembered reading it. And there is! I found it, and I thought, this is really good. So, hopefully, most of you are familiar with Rick Renner, Greek scholar, knows a lot of things. And if you’ve ever read any of his studies, he can get really in the details of what words mean and what compound words mean, and they can change depending on the context and things like that.
Are you resisting the Devil?
I want to use this as a launching point because it’s about resisting the Devil. And his question is: Are you resisting the Devil? And, of course, we want to think we are, but we also know that sometimes it feels like we’re not. But I thought this was a really good point just for, if anything, to come into agreement with what God is teaching us and telling us so that as we’re going through our day and as we’re having conversations with the Lord and as we’re just going through everything that we face day by day in our lives, I think it’s always good to be reminded.
Renewing our minds to the Word…
I always love Rick’s perspective to hopefully, like… Roman says to renew our minds to the Word. And it’s a continual thing. And he wouldn’t have used that phraseology about renewing your mind… People have said it’s a constant thing. It’s not like, okay, you renovate your house and you’re done. It’s like, well, you know what? You’re going to have to renovate it again maybe in another 20, 30, 50 years, whatever it is. It’s a continual thing. And he tells us that because he knows how we’re built. He knows the world we live in. He knows the influences that we need to keep being reminded of this.
James 4:7, AMPC
So the scripture that he based this study off of is James 4:7. First the Amplified: “So be subject to God. Resist the Devil, stand firm against him, and he will flee from you.” And another version says, “So humble yourself before God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.”
It’s possible to resist the Devil…
Years ago, I heard a teacher say, “If it’s in the Bible, and if it’s a command, or if it’s a I’m giving this to you, it’s there because He knows it’s possible. He would not tell us something or give us an instruction or lead us in a certain way if He did not make it possible for us to do that.”
The Word is so incredible, but sometimes things especially depending on your circumstance or situation, it can feel impossible to actually do that. Can we really resist the Devil and he will flee from us? Or are we just insulating ourselves and it’s like, “Well, I’m going to put on a heavy rain jacket, but I can still feel the Devil punching me and beating me up.”
Yes, the enemy will flee from you…
Well, actually, Holy Spirit said through the writer, the enemy will actually flee from you, not just leave you alone for a bit. But some of the things that Rick talks about gives me a whole different perspective on how to view the Devil. So I’m just going to start getting into this.
Excerpt begins…
“When the Devil tries to assault your mind, telling you that your God-given dream will never come to pass, how do you resist those assaults? Do you stand firm against those lies and command them to leave? Or do you allow the Devil to mentally assail your mind with untrue allegations?
“James 4:7 says, ‘Resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” The word resist…” And I might not say all these right, so just, you know. “The word resist is from the Greek word anthistemi, which is a compound of the words anti and istemi. Anti means against, as to oppose something. The word istemi means to stand. When placed into one word, it means to stand against or to stand in opposition.”
Okay, that makes sense.
“It’s a word that demonstrates the attitude of one who is fiercely opposed to something, and therefore determines that he will do everything within his power to resist it, to stand against it, and to defy its operation.”
And I know we do this a lot. And it’s taught a lot. And this is part of our knowing that we’re in a battle, even though no one wants to be in a battle, but we’re in it. So that’s just how it is.
Rick says…
“By using this word, James plainly lets us know that we must be aggressively determined to stand against the work of the Devil. Just shutting our eyes and hoping the enemy will withdraw won’t work. We must dig in our heels, brace ourselves for a fight, and put our full force forward to drive him back and out of our lives. Our stand against Satan must be firm, unyielding, and steadfast if we want to successfully resist his bombardment of lies against our minds and our emotions.”
People get tired of fighting…
And when I was reading this, the thought came to me, I remember years and years ago, we were going through something. And I don’t even remember what we were studying. But it talks about obviously in the Word about there’s a lot of imagery that God uses. I’m going to touch on that as well about having armor and that it’s a fight. And people can get tired of fighting. And the thing that I love about how God, especially through Jesus, He talked in parables trying to help us understand like the agricultural and the spiritual so that it helps us to make these connections to what He’s trying to say.
He’s designed us to be warriors…
I remember going through this and it’s like, okay, yeah, we’ve got this battle gear that He’s given us, these spiritual battle gears, and He gives this imagery so we can help connect the two. And it really hit us. It’s like, okay, but we’re tired from fighting. And this stuck with me, and I really, really want to get it. But it was more the concept of like, “Well, I actually designed you, if you’re doing it right, to be a warrior. And when you are a warrior and you know it, that’s just how you do things.”
That you can get strengthened by being a warrior. It’s like He’s equipped us to do this, not just so that we could get so worn out mentally or even physically. But He’s like, “I created you to be My child, and I gave you everything you need to resist.” It’s not a part of life that you just sit in your insulated cocoon and the enemy just doesn’t get close to you. It’s like, I gave you these things, but it’s not a tiresome fight.
Now this really jumped out for me. He goes on…
“Notice that James says we are to resist the Devil,” and he put Devil in quotes. “As noted in other studies, he said the word Devil is the translation of the word diabolos, which is more of a job description than it is a name. So if you understand the word Devil, you also know exactly how this sinister enemy works.”
I thought that was interesting. It’s not really his name; it’s more of a job description.
“So it’s a compound of those words. He says the word dia has many meanings depending how it’s used, as a lot of those words do. But he said in this particular case, it means through, as to pierce something from one side all the way through to the other side.
“The word balos means to throw, as when a person throws a ball or a rock or some object. But when they’re joined, it means to repetitiously throw something, striking again and again and again until the object being struck has finally been completely penetrated.”
I don’t know, that kind of sounds like the enemy’s job description, is to keep throwing stuff at us.
And he says…
“Now do you see why this word is a vivid job description for the Devil and not just his name? It tells us exactly how he operates. He comes to assault the mind, not once, but many times. He strikes the mind and emotions again and again and again and just keeps on striking until he wears down the resistance of the one being assaulted. And as soon as the victim lets down his mental resistance, the Devil gives one last firm punch that finally succeeds in penetrating the mind. And once he does have access to that person’s mind, he begins to deluge him with lies on top of lies. And if the person listens to those lies and believes them, the Devil can then successfully build a stronghold in that person’s life from which he can begin to control and manipulate him.”
What to do when the enemy keeps coming…
That kind of sounds familiar. I think we’ve all experienced that, those attacks over and over. And maybe even if I’m saying this, Holy Spirit’s bringing to mind those types of things where you feel like, yeah, he has been just assaulting. And I think I have a victory, but then he comes again, like, the next day or a year later. I start getting assaulted by that again.
And he says…
“It’s time for us to resist the enemy of our soul.” And we know that. But again, being encouraged by these things can help us stand.
Rick says…
“Let him know that we are not going to bite that bait anymore, and he might as well go fishing somewhere else.” You know, even Jesus said, “The Devil has no foothold in me.” And we can say, “Yeah, that’s Jesus,” but you know what? Jesus also gave us everything that He had. So we can get to that point. It is achievable that we can have that attitude as well as spiritual reality that the Devil doesn’t have a foothold and has no grip on us. We are no longer going to be a sucker, that we are not going to fall into his traps any longer.
“But James 4:7 has good news. It says that if you will resist the Devil, he will flee from you. Now, the word flee, even in Greek literature, means to flee or take flight. It was used to depict a lawbreaker who flees in terror from a nation where he broke the law.”
So it’s not just, “Okay, I’m just going to go to the other room.”
“The reason he flees so quickly is that he wants to escape the prosecution process. Remaining in the nation would most assuredly mean judgment. So rather than stay and face the consequences, the lawbreaker flees for his life. This means the Devil knows that he is a lawbreaker.”
We see today law enforcement getting tired…
It’s kind of like, unfortunately, I mean, it’s been going on forever, but it’s almost like what we’re seeing happening in our society today is that people who are meant to enforce the law are getting tired of enforcing the law. And it’s like, “You know what? I don’t even have… Whatever. Let them steal something. It’s not worth my time.” I mean, if that’s not a tangible sign of how the enemy has been working in people to influence them, both to keep stealing and thinking it’s fine to steal something, to the point where now the people who are supposed to be the law enforcers are saying, “Okay. Well, we’re just going to back off of that stuff.” Something that would’ve been considered a big deal twenty years ago is now like “Yeah. Well, it’s not that much.”
Not that much!
We’re here to trample on snakes and scorpions…
You know, we’re not here to manage the enemy. We are here to trample on snakes and scorpions, and we are told to resist the Devil. We aren’t to say like, “Okay. Well, I’ll give you this much.” Jesus didn’t give the enemy one step. He didn’t give him a grip. He didn’t give him His arm to hang on to. He didn’t give him His little toe to hang on to. He said He had nothing in common with him. And because of that, Jesus had the ultimate victory, which then He said to the body of Christ, “By the way, I overcame, but you are more than conquerors.”
