The Connection Between Grace and Resisting the Devil

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You know, there are lots of people who they don’t believe in Jesus don’t believe in the Holy Spirit, they don’t believe in the devil, and they don’t believe in demons.
And people gonna do what they wanna do.
I believe in a word, and the same word that convinced me about Jesus god heaven is the same one that convinced me about Satan, demons, and hail.
I ain’t playing around.
Staying the same is not an option odd.
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This is your world. So let’s vow to make it a better place.
Let every heart
uh,
We are changed.
James chapter 4. For 6 through 7.
I’m gonna start that off in NLT. We’ve been talking about how to defeat the devil in your mind.
And today, we’re gonna focus on, we’ll continue that, but we’re gonna focus on the connection between grace and resisting the devil.
Now we might as well get this straight. There’s a devil loose.
And he wants to kill, steal, and destroy.
One of his most powerful weapons is the weapon of suggestion. He wants to discourage.
He wants to deceive. It is an invisible, uh, enemy that’s trying to wipe you out and take you down.
And as Christians, we’ve got to come to the place where we understand the demonic influence that is in the world today and has seeped into the church today.
And we’ve got to understand that there’s a battle going on in your mind.
And so as we look at this today, we’re gonna see how grace now comes into the picture.
And we’re gonna see what the Bible has to say about resisting the devil.
That our part is resisting the devil.
Now we’re not trying to fight the devil to see who’s gonna win. That battle has already been determined.
Satan is a defeated foe. Alright? Nor are we fighting the battle to try to get victory?
Jesus got the victory, we don’t go from, you know, defeat to victory.
We have the victory that Jesus got for us, and we go from victory to victory.
And so it is not us trying to obtain anything. Jesus has already obtained everything.
Our job is to maintain So our job, our position is the position of, of, of, of a stance that we take, uh, a stance that we we take and say, well, I maintained the victory that Jesus has already obtained.
And so when sickness hits your body, you’re Jesus obtained healing. So we’d go at it like this.
Sickness hits our body, and we say, Well, I maintain the healing that Jesus has already obtained. Satan hates that.
We get that as Christians, they were no longer fighting to try to get something.
We recognize we already have it, devil, we are maintaining it double, and you’re trying to take what we already got double.
So don’t try to deceive us into thinking that we’re trying to get something from you.
Now it’s already been taken from you. He took the keys of authority, hallelujah.
And whatsoever, we bind this earth is already bound in heaven. It’s already a done deal.
Say it’s already done. So if if the works of grace And if the finished works of Jesus are finished, it’s done.
So we have to take the position in victory that we have these things rather than the position of, you know, let me see if I can beg god for something, con god for something, Well, if I’m good enough, then maybe he might give it to me.
You’ve got to believe you receive that it’s already done. Hey, man? Let’s look at this.
Uh, James Chapter 4 and, uh, verse 6 through 7.
In NLT, he says, and he gives grace generously.
He gives grace generously, as the scripture says, Now watch this carefully.
God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble He opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
Now I certainly don’t wanna be on the side where god is opposing me.
And a proud man, what does that look like? He’s self dependent.
A proud man is self dependent, his self effort.
It is what he is doing to try to get god to do something. That’s a proud man.
But what he says is is I will give grace to who, the humble.
We’ve played around with this for quite some time. Let’s keep it on a simple plane.
Here, he’s talking about, I’ll give grace to the guy who’s in complete dependence to me.
I’ll give grace to the one who is in complete dependence on me. Complete dependence produces humility.
Complete dependence upon god produces humility. They’re 1 and the same.
So what god is saying is that grace is made available to the 1 who’s entered into complete dependence for god.
In other words, you’re no longer dependent on yourself or assigning a greater value to any person or anyone else.
Your dependents, you have declared dependence upon god, and he says, that’s the one I’m gonna give grace to.
You remember the definition of grace is is unmerited, uh, a bounding provision in the in the strained or unrestricted operation of god’s infinite love that comes through Jesus Christ for mankind is especially for those who depend on him.
This grace is, and will, has been made available especially for those who depend on him.
Who are those that depend on him, the humble?
I am humble because I have entered into complete dependence upon god, and and especially for those who depend on god, grace is made available.
I’m gonna show you how to kick that devil’s tail with the grace of god. Amen?
I apologize. I’m showing you how to add on to that what whoopin he already had.
Do you understand something when you show up looking like Jesus, it strikes fear in the hearts of the hearts of demons?
Because they figured they finna get the same butt whooping they got before.
Because they see you come and praise god. You ought not be running from the devil.
All devils ought to be running from you. Amen.
So we said, so since grace is given to the humble, those who are in complete dependence to god, So humble yourself before god.
What is he saying? Get in complete dependence upon god.
Humble yourself upon it because when you do that, He makes all grace available to you.
And and I watch this now.
He says, even when you humble yourself for god and grace is made available to you, He tells you to do this.
Resist the devil, and then he will flee from you. That word flee means to run with fear.
Resist him this word resists means to withstand, to fight against and to withstand, with standing again, it, it gives you the picture of your position in victory that if you will stand in the victory that’s already been given you, And if you’ll withstand the attacks, which would be in your mind, alright, all attacks of the devil are in the mind.
Your mind is the battleground for the attack.
Everything the devil will do in your life has to be launched right here in your mind.
So if you can resist the devil right here, This is where you’re gonna be resisting him.
This is where you’re gonna be you’re gonna be resisting him in your mind.
If you can resist him in your mind, all those crazy thoughts that are come.
Uh, and especially your emotions, your emotions, uh, your emotions, he he will really try to move you physically by moving you and your emotions, because that’s what emotions are.
Emotions are feelings on the inside designed to re to move you in a direction.
If those motions are negative, they will move you in a negative direction.
If they are positive or holy emotions, they’ll move you in a right direction, such as our worship and our praise towards god.
And so humble yourself before god resist the devil. That means there’s gonna have to be some standing there.
There’s gonna have to be some withstanding that goes on.
That means in the height of enormous pressure on your body to to respond negatively.
You’re gonna have to stand anyway.
And the best way to do that I found is when you’re facing stuff, just shut up.
The bible says if you can control your mouth, you can control your whole body.
But sometimes, you you you ever seen your mom and dad if fighting, if if if somebody would just shut up, it’d be alright.
But they come in now. You don’t come here to talk to me.
Like, they come coming up me telling me something like this and not not you. Now you’re ready to fight.
And then by the time they get in the house, I wish you would. Not that do it.
I wish sometimes the best thing you can do Come on, say it. Shut up.
That can be so spiritual.
But the resisting the devil is a withstanding.
It’s a standing against the attacks These attacks are witnessed about warfar warfare are not carnal, but mighty through god.
So these attacks are most likely they don’t start off in your physical body.
And now they’re gonna try to end up there.
It starts off in your mind, your emotions, with the stress, with the worry, with all this, and the fear, and the things.
But what if they think this, and what if they say that? All of it starts right here.
And if you can withstand that initial attack, then it won’t find itself manifesting physically in your life.
Because you withstood it right at the battleground at the place of the battle. Amen?
Resist the devil, and what will he do? He will flee.
In other words, that attack in your mind is gonna cease. He will flee. He will watch this.
Watch this. He will run with fear because he has encountered someone that he has encountered someone to 5 versus 5 through 8.
Let’s look at it in the King James and then NLT. The King James and NLT.
And I asked the lord. I said, am I gonna get stuck on these 2 scriptures today.
Some good stuff to talk about here today.
1st, Peter, chapter 5, versus, uh, 8, 5 through 8, versus 5 through 8.
Let’s read the whole thing. 5 through it. He says, likewise, you’re younger. Submit yourself onto the elder.
Yay, all of you, be subject one to another, and be clothed clothed with this sense of dependent upon god, humility.
For god resisteth the proud Man, that’s interesting.
That word resists here is used to say god withstands and stands against the proud.
Or his plan or his way of doing things or his self dependence.
For god resisted the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. There it is again.
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of god. Why? That he may exalt you in due time?
He says when you enter into complete And dependence upon god, there’s a due time for you to be elevated, promoted, exalted, Why why why won’t he exalts you until then?
Because if he exalts you in your pride, then he gets no glory for it.
But if you’re exalted in your complete dependence upon god, you ain’t got nobody to talk about and brag on, but Jesus.
In due time, in due time. Go back, uh, verse 6.
In due time, he will, it taught you, humble yourself there for under the mind of hand to god that he may, it notice that he may exalt you in due time.
Now, the next verse gives an illustration of what this looks like. Verse 7.
Now he said what he just said? And then he says, okay, let’s see if you get it.
Cast all your cares upon him for he careth for you. What is he saying?
To keep your worries, your anxieties, and your cares, is evidence that you’re in pride because you’re depending on you to take care of the situation.
But to cast your cares, your anxieties, and your worries on him, To cast your care, a care comes, a worry comes, your anxious about something come, even fear.
And you say, no, god I depend on you. I cast this off me right now. You got it.
He says, oh, I’m gonna give you more grace. I’m gonna give you more grace.
Because you cast a care.
I mean, now, for some reason or another, people think they should get a a a a medal for worry.
And god is saying worry is evidence of your pride.
This is hard to hear because we all worry. Yeah. Yeah.
There are there are there are temptations to worry.
There’ll be times that it’ll come, But as the Christian, the person of grace, you know, I am now laboring to enter into the rest called humility.
I wanna rest in humility, and that may look like, alright, I’m carrying the worry.
So now I’m gonna go immediately to the word.
I’m worried about something, so I’m gonna put my favorite song on.
I’m worried about something so I’m gonna call another Christian up and let their minister to me.
I’m not talking to you about magic. I’m talking to you about art. What does that look like?
I know that worry is a sin, and I know that worry is evidence of pride.
But I, you know, I can’t help you, Pamela. I’m just worried. I that’s what I do. I’m just worried.
No. You need to get rid of that.
What you’re doing is you’re holding on to self dependence instead of getting involved in complete dependence upon god.
And that may require labor to enter interest. That may yeah. I’m worried about this.
I’m trying to get this off of mind. I’m worried about it.
So you it requires you, you know what to do. You’re you’re entering into his presence. You’re singing that song.
You’re you’re praying in the holy spirit. You’re you’re talking to somebody. You’re meditating no scripture.
All worry is is an attempt of the devil to get your focus off Jesus and get it somewhere else.
As long as your focus is on Jesus, you’re in a dimension for miraculous supernatural things to happen.
But if he can get your focus, remember, this is a game it’s a it’s a game in the mind.
But if he can get your focus off of Jesus, then he can get your focus on other things.
And now through worry, an avenue for him to come in and initiate and continue the battle in the mind to ultimately get it to be an output in your life.
If you’re gonna understand how the devil fights, This is how he fights.
He’s not fighting you like the horror movies.
Ain’t nobody in the room spinning on you and throwing furniture around the room and stuff like that.
He ain’t doing none of that. We can throw furniture. We can do all that. We no.
He is saying, I’m gonna get you right up here because I gotta make it seem like you did it.
That’s the battle.
And there is a devil.
And I know you don’t wanna well, we went to church in the mail.
We’re talking about the devil. You know, there are lots of people who They don’t believe in Jesus.
They don’t believe in the Holy Spirit. They don’t believe in the devil, and they don’t believe in demons.
And people gonna do what they wanna do.
I believe in a word, and the same word that convinced me about Jesus god heaven, is the same one that convinced me about Satan, demons, and hell.
I ain’t playing around. It’s right here.
It’s right here. Has the devil been playing with your head?
And how successful has he been to get you away from this by using the contradictions that men couldn’t work out to convince you that this book is not worth paying attention to.
And what are the alternatives that he has given to you to choose a, b, or c?
What’s going on up here? And that’s where we’re being defeated.
The mind is the arena of faith. You will lose it or win it.
The outputs of your life are gonna be based on what happens up here in your head.
Does does everybody understand that? Alright. Then we go to, uh, verse 8. He says, be sober.
Now, notice sober means you’re not intoxicated.
Whether the opposite of intoxication is being sober, if a man is intoxicated with alcohol, He’s not thinking right.
His thinking is not where it needs to be. He says, be sober, but he’s referring to your thinking.
Have sober thinking, be vigilant. Why should I be sober? Why should I be vigilant?
Because you gotta double He says your adversary, the devil, as a rowing lion, is walking around, seeking somebody intoxicated so he can devire them.
He’s looking for somebody that ain’t thinking in line with the word.
He’s looking for somebody who’s not thinking right according to Jesus. He’s looking for somebody that’s intoxicated.
He’s looking for the person who’s made their mind up. I don’t believe in Jesus. I don’t believe in God.
I don’t believe in the they’re intoxicated. They’re good ground. For him to win a battle.
He said the reason why I want you to be vigilant and the reason why I want you to be sober is because you have an adversary.
Let’s stop right there. You have an adversary. If you are a Christian person, you have an adversary.
You have an adversary. You can’t see him. He don’t wanna be seen. He he’s in some people.
He’s showed up somewhere in your life. But you don’t know it’s him.
He just showed up in your time or 2, but you didn’t recognize him because he was hiding and using your old physical man as a cloak.
He’s looking for somebody. Now here’s another deal here.
He is seeking whom he may devour. Well, if that means he can’t devour everybody.
That means if he could devour everybody and anybody, he wouldn’t have to seek.
But since he can’t devour everybody, since everybody’s not intoxicated, Since some people are sober and thinking in line with the word of god, you are the ones that he runs with fear when he bumps into.
Your attitude all of me, Devil, I wish you would come by my house. I know you’re in the neighborhood.
I wish I saw this report yesterday morning, crazy. You’re talking about demonic influence?
This guy was so demonically influenced.
He got in his car, went to a neighborhood, and start pulling in the driveways, wrecking people’s car cars, backing out, go to the next thing, wrecking people’s car cars, and we’re going to and and just just wrecked a bunch of cars that were parked in front of their house in the driveway.
And in one house, he wrecked my car and pushed it into the garage and tore that up.
And then when they got to him, they said, well, they decided he had a mental problem.
He had a devil. See, we we we wanna call the we wanna call all the devil’s mental problems.
Some of them are devil problems.
And think about what he what he could accomplish there.
Because I’m sure everybody didn’t come out the house and say, well, praise the lord. We’re gonna pray for him.
I’m sure there were several spirits looking for an opportunity to take advantage of this situation right here, because when nobody calling on Jesus, they put they they they went and and and pulled up, and they got the book of cuss in the backyard.
They couldn’t find the whole book, but they found two or three pages, and they wore them things out.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have an adversary.
I think the day you recognize you have a adversary, then you’ll prepare to battle him.
These 2 scriptures let me see.
I didn’t let let’s read this, uh, 1st Peter 5 and 5 through 8 through in in in Lt before I move on.
This thing, it does something when you recognize, okay, I do have an adversary. He’s invisible.
I know his tools. I know where the initial battle’s gonna come from.
A lot of things can change in your life just by knowing this, and withstanding these attacks.
But as long as you go around I don’t believe that. A devil. You believe that devil, for real.
Man, no devil, for real. And that is it that’s the devil.
Trying to get you not to believe that he exists.
Don’t allow the enemy to access your life through deception, distraction, and suggest dollar unveils how to defeat deception.
There’s not one attack from the devil can be anywhere else but in your hand.
When you keep your eyes on Jesus, even though you’re in the physical world, you move into another dimension of operation, and the devil knows That’s why he wants your eyes everywhere else except on Jesus, but stop focusing on Jesus.
Start seeing Jesus as everything and Jesus is your everything.
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