lesson25

JAMES #25

How do I keep going when the going gets tough? Where does forgiveness play a part? What�s next in the line up of our weapons? We�ve already covered the fact that the enemy �rules� over mankind. We�ve also seen that the only way to �life� and �truth� is through Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by Him. Many times when we�re in the heat of the battle we begin to question whether or not we�re really saved. Read Phillipians 1:6. Who is the One who began a good work in you? Jesus Christ. If I accept Jesus Christ into my life � as Savior and Lord and in response, begin to walk in truth, I not only inherit �eternal life,� but according to Ephesians chapter 1:4,5, 11,13-14 I discover that I was a) chosen before the foundation of the world b) share in Christ�s inheritance c) have been sealed by the Holy Spirit until the day of my redemption � what�s that? -the day we go to heaven and stand in the presence of God and are given new bodies d) are adopted sons. We also discover the �guarantee� � the �stamp of approval� on our lives is the Holy Spirit according to Ephesians 1:13-14.

In the ancient world (it is a custom still followed) when a sack, or a crate, or a package was sent out, it was sealed with a seal, in order to indicate from where it had come and to whom it belonged. The possession of the Holy Spirit is the seal which shows that a man belongs to God. The Holy Spirit shows us God�s will and enables us to do it. THAT, is why when you�re born again you see a �life change.� It�s no longer �me� �alone� pushing through the ups and downs of life. It�s a �joint effort.� Once a heart has truly been claimed by the Spirit of God � that heart is saved and will keep being saved : What is that? That�s the �helmet of salvation� that is seen in Ephesians 6:17. When you go to war you need to remember who you are: a child of God. The enemy wants to get you to doubt your salvation because if he can get you to doubt your salvation you�ll question who�s going to fight you�re battles and attempt to fight them in your own strength, outside of the �joint effort.� John 17 says, �Father, I don�t ask you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them � to keep them from the evil one.�   If you�ve given you�re heart to Christ � (all of who you are) � you belong to Jesus Christ. The evil one can not touch you as to destroy you. He can�t grab you so as to pull you out of the family of God but he can sure torment you, tempt you and lie to you.

Your journey through life will position you often next to people who will come at you, throw emotional daggers at you, do ugly things to you � and seek to take you down. It�s important to realize that your battle IS NOT WITH THE PEOPLE who are attacking you. Your warfare is against the powers that stand behind them and operate through them. Why? Because who are these people? They are people who belong to this world: they walk according to their desires.

Look at I Corinthians 1:23-24 Who is �the power of God?� Jesus. Where is that power when you get saved? In you. It�s the message of Christ. If you have Jesus Christ dwelling in you, you have the power of God and the wisdom of God inside of you. Look at I Corinthians 1:30-31 But by Who�s doing? HIS doing- HIS doing what? Bringing about the end of you � bring you to the �I quit� moment � bringing you into your �humbling and your shame� � �waking you up to the reality that you are not Him and never will be-� THAT was HIS doing � not yours. HIS doing went far beyond our �humbling and our shame� � because following that, HE poured into us through Jesus Christ wisdom from God and righteousness (the ability to walk in truth), sanctification (a set apart life that�s made holy BY HIM), and redemption (complete and total payment for all the sin in our lives). The point? When we�re in the heat what do we do? We put on the helmet of salvation and �cling� to Jesus. Look at Jeremiah 13:11 - It was offered: They didn�t cling!

Look at I Corinthians 2:9 What does the �helmet of salvation� give me? Why put it on? What�s the point? It gives me �the mind of Christ.� With your �me myself and I� brain you can�t even begin to comprehend what God has for you as His child � nor can you even begin to unravel the tangles you encounter on the road. Some one recently asked me, �How do you hear God�s voice?� Look at verse 10 and answer the question: �How do we get the mind of Christ?� How is it �revealed?� Through God�s Spirit. Where is the Spirit of God once I�ve been saved? Inside me. I�m �sealed� with the Holy Spirit until the day of my redemption. Ok- so the Holy Spirit is living inside me: He �searches� the things that belong to God. He knows the mind and heart of God. He�s part of the Godhead. HE takes God�s truth and reveals it to us.   Our part of the equation? Ask � seek � for what? What I want? Nope- To know Him more. To see through His eyes. To hear through His ears. To touch with His hands. To know His heart.   Look at verse 11. READ on through verse 14 The �natural man� is the man that doesn�t know Christ. The world�s going to think you�re an absolute fool. The enemy doesn�t want you to be tuned into the truth of God. He will feed you lie after lie, usually through the mouths of those closest to your heart. BUT, God has given you an in house resident teacher � a professor � the Holy Spirit, who will lead you and guide you into all �truth.� You have to remember: GET THIS: the enemy will bombard your mind (THE battlefield) with things that are not of God. You need to REMEMBER that those things DON�T BELONG TO YOU. SO DON�T OWN THEM. REJECT THEM. READ I Corinthians 2:14-16 The word �appraise� means �examine.� We have the ability to look at things and say, �That�s true, or that�s not true.� The problem is that we don�t stop to examine them. The other trap we get caught in is allowing others to examine us. WRONG. Verse 15- says that he himself is examined by no man: why? Because the world is going to say, �You�re a fool!� �You�re stupid to work that hard � to give away all that money � to not cheat :� Where is that coming from? The enemy. When the enemy says: You�re stupid: When the enemy says: You can have an affair with that person in your head: after all, it�s not really �doing� anything- When the enemy says: You�re good for nothing � a loser: you�ll never amount to anything: and the list goes on: What do YOU say in response? �Oh really..oh my word: I never realized�� and just own everything being said? WRONG. Remember you�re fighting your battles IN YOUR HEAD. At that point, your �helmet� is on: USE the �mind of Christ� � and lift your �shield� of faith. Huh? What�s that? Look at Ephesians 6:16 What�s the purpose of the shield? To �extinquish� the �darts� - what are the �darts?� Usually what comes out of the mouths of the people who surround you along with the �disappointment� set-ups that the enemy plants around you to see if you�ll own the disappointment rather than making it �His-appointment.�

The word that Paul uses for �shield� of faith is not a word used for a small round shield. In the Greek it�s: thureos : it refers to a stone door � large and oblong that �covers the entrance� to a cave: It later became a word used for a great oblong shield which the heavily armed warrior wore. One of the most dangerous weapons in ancient warfare was the fiery dart. It was a dart tipped with tow (coarse and broken fibers of hemp) dipped in pitch. The pitch-soaked tow was set alight and the dart was shot. The great oblong shield was made of two sections of wood, glued together. When the shield was presented to the dart, the dart sank into the wood and the flame was put out. How do you apply �the shield of faith?� You go back to what you just learned in I Corinthians 2 and you apply it. Huh? When the �fiery darts come� � and believe me, they will: You remember that you have the �mind of Christ and that no man sits in judgment over you. This is a �trust� thing: The fiery darts are aimed at you but meant for Jesus. Huh? Ok- think about it a minute. If someone really wanted to get to you in a heartbeat what would be the greatest �blow?� � to take out one of your kids. Yup � that�s you..and that�s me. When the fiery darts come � you take them right to the Father : (not everybody else!) -the distinguishing shield? Forgiveness. THIS is where the rubber meets the road. Because at this point �trust� has to take on �obedience in action.� Why not run to everybody else? Because everybody else can�t �empower you� to forgive. They can only empathize with your agony and/or support you in anger.   (No I�m not saying don�t share your heart with a friend: I�m saying �Take it to the Father, FIRST) Hang on to that thought a minute:

I Corinthians 5:1-5 This is about a guy who�s either sleeping with or has married his step mother. Paul�s upset because the church has done nothing about it. Is this guy saved? Yes. Look at verse 5. Paul�s saying- stop praying and let Satan have at it with this guy to do what? Destroy his flesh: why? So that his heart will turn around. That�s a picture of consequences. You see very clearly here that believers can be tempted � drawn away by desire. If this guy had kept on his belt of truth he would have seen that incest is a no-if he�d put on the breastplate of righteousness �even if everything in him was screaming with desire, he would have walked in obedience- and his shoes would have been those of peace. When the seduction hit, he would have put up his shield of faith, remembering- I belong to Christ: I�m to glorify Him in my body and in my Spirit: sorry can�t do that- It�s IN THE MIND that the battle is fought. GET THAT. It�s warfare. If you want to get well you have to treat sin like a deadly disease. Jesus not only saved us from the penalty of sin � remember, He also saved us from the �power� of sin. We have the ability to say �No.� You see here that it�s possible for a Christian to get into heavy sin. But � it is not possible to live this kind of life � to live the kind of life that you lived before you were saved. Christians get into �besetting� sins, but they can not live a life of habitual sin where their lives are totally uninfluenced by God so that their lives are slaves to sin. Slave of �a� sin � a stronghold influence � but not slave of sin in it�s power and in it�s nature. Many times when we say �sin� � we print out the �list� �lie, steal, cheat, swear, sexual immorality�and the list goes on. However, �strongholds�can exist that dominate everything we do when we sin in the area of unforgiveness. As we talked about in the last lesson, �forgive� means �to send away.� It does not mean, �forget.� If God isn�t going to hold sin against me, in what �authority position� do I stand to refuse forgiveness to someone else? If you do not forgive � stop holding whatever it is against the person who�s wronged you � God will not forgive you. Forgiveness is an issue between you and God. It�s not that you have to forget the offender. It�s not that you have to like what they did. It�s not that you won�t hurt. Wrong. When Jesus hung on the cross for our wrong doings � did it hurt Him? Yes. Why forgive? Because Jesus commanded you to-out of love. Forgiving means you�re chosing to walk in peace so that you are not vulnerable to Satan�s advantage. Forgiving means you walk free. When you don�t forgive, Satan will take advantage of you.

1) Forgiveness is not forgetting. READ Psalm 108:8-18. In verse 12 it says so far has he removed � not held it against us � our transgressions from us.
2) Forgiving does not cancel God�s judgement. When you forgive you�re not �setting that person free.� God will deal with that person. They might not know Jesus - what awaits them is hell. I�ve actually heard some say, �I pray that they won�t get saved so that they get what they deserve.� Hmm � in that situation it�s probably pretty important to put on the helmet of salvation and regain the �mind of Christ� � one of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness: unconditional love.
3) If you don�t forgive you will not experience God�s forgiveness. You�ll be held in a stronghold position and Satan will run you ragged. We�re going to talk a little more about forgiveness tomorrow : -and then take a look at the �sword.�

�Letting go� is probably one of the most difficult things to do spiritually. Pain has a tendency to cause us to �clutch� � and not let go. For the longest time I really didn�t understand what it was that I was �holding on to.� I really thought if someone told me to �let go� � that I was to �let go� of the memory: the pain: the experience � to stop �replaying it over and over and over again in my head. THAT is only part of the �letting go.� There�s another step that is pretty tough. It�s �letting go� of what I call �the poor me.� Self-pity can quickly become stronghold territory when it�s birthed out of great pain. Why? Because in a lot of ways �self-pity� feels like �justification.� Poor me- look what horrible things that person said or did. It�s a backwards vindication- a deceptive place to get stuck � a way to �elevate me� �it�s also a way to seek support in �anger and hatred.� Very rarely will Satan walk through a front door. The sin in this picture is found in �me� playing �God.� �Letting go� is not only giving God the circumstance and those involved � but giving God what hurts the most � and allowing HIM to heal it in His time and in His way. We�ll talk more on this tomorrow.

Loving you- keep at it. I�m praying for you.

Robin
�copyright 2001, Jim and Robin Hibschman