Have you ever said this to yourself? “If I was like so-and-so, I would be able to be a good Christian.”

The devil will have you believing that things are harder for you because you don’t have a certain gift or giftings.

Sometimes the people we are comparing ourselves to are our preachers. Did it ever occur to you that a preacher’s gifting is essentially telling others what they ought to do?

Pastor Joe says: “I can tell everybody what they ought to do. But honest preachers know that when they step out of the pulpit, they don’t have any more grace to do it than you do. In other words, I have a special gifting to tell you about this. But when I step out from behind this pulpit and have to live it, I don’t have any special gifting to live it.”

But this is good news!

Because if it’s the same for everybody, then victory is the same for everybody. Victory isn’t easier personally for anybody.

So in the words of the apostle Paul, “Stand, therefore.”

You may not know how right now; you may need to grow; you may need to learn; you may need to develop. But there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with you that will prevent you from becoming strong in God and walking in victory and fulfilling your destiny. Let it get a hold of you that you cannot be stopped.

This episode is pulled from Pastor Joe’s MP3 series, Strong in the Lord, new to our online store!

Mentioned in this Episode

E.W. Kenyon

Additional Resources

Strong In the Lord – Full MP3 Series

Transcript

Remember, just a couple of weeks ago, I did a message called putting on your armor. And I just was thinking that it would be a single message I wanted. I felt like the Lord was saying that we need to be diligent to put on our armor. Some of you will recall that I had taught on Thursday night, a few months back. I did about 12 weeks on prayer armor. And the focus in that particular series was on taking our place in Christ in intercession. The focus was a little broader than a putting on. There’s been a lot of teaching about personally putting on our armor. And yet, as the Lord has been speaking to me, along these lines, in recent weeks, I felt that we needed personally as a body, to be exhorted to personally put on our armor. We’re not going to be strong corporately, if we’re not strong individually.

There’s a lot of personal teaching. There’s a lot of teaching about the individual believer, and we really need to have a corporate vision. We really need to see the synergism of faith, that when believers join together and walk together, that releases a dynamic in the Spirit. If two or more agree on earth, Christ is in the midst. There’s a manifestation of the Lord that comes with the corporate anointing that isn’t there individually. And that’s why team ministry. That’s why agreement. That’s why the church is far more powerful than the individual collective power of the individual. You see. If one can put a thousand to flight, two can put ten thousand to flight. So the power potential is increased exponentially rather than additionally. Multiplication takes place when we agree. But if the individuals who are agreeing are struggling, if they’re not strong, if they’re not individually able to stand, then that agreement power is diminished. And so we really need to be personally equipped and suited up to fight.

And I have sensed, now maybe I could be the only one. But I have sensed there’s some warfare. I might be the only one that’s experiencing this, so I’ll be preaching to myself and allowing you to listen in. But no, there is. There’s an intensity because God is preparing to move. God is setting the stage for a dynamic move. And he’s wanting to get churches ready to evangelize, to disciple, to walk in the truth and the word and the power of God. And so we want to be ready, don’t we?

Well, personal victory is foundational to corporate victory. We need to have the vision for corporate victory. We had a prophetic word. Maybe somebody has a copy of that prophetic word about the armor. How many have stuck it in your Bible when we gave it out, and it’s still there? How many know the word I’m talking about? The shields joined together? There was one word that had come through Cindy Jacobson, it was about the fact that the warfare had intensified, because the enemy is afraid. One of the things we need to realize is intensity of warfare can be explained by the enemy’s fear that we’re about to break through. And so it’s sort of what you would call a last ditch attack, to discourage before the manifestation of the power which will destroy the strongholds of the enemy. And we need to be thinking in those terms, that if the warfare is intensified, it doesn’t mean the enemy is really growing in power. It just means that he’s figured out we don’t want to quit, and we’re going to go forward and it’s time. If he can’t stop us now he can’t stop us and he knows it. So there is an intensification.

So in Ephesians, chapter six, it’s a passage that probably most of us are filled with. Verse ten, “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.” Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Now he goes on in the passage to talk about putting on the armor of God. And I’m going to be spending some time on that particular idea, because I was meditating on this passage, and I realized what Paul says here is put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Now, the obvious implication is, if you don’t put on the armor, you won’t be able to stand. See? But putting that positively, if you know how to put on the armor, and you put on the armor, you will be able to stand. So this passage promises us victory in spiritual warfare, if we know how to do what Paul says to do. So the question is, do we know how to and are we doing? Okay?

So I want to talk about how to and doing, so that we day by day, are in our personal time of prayer, appropriating the armor of God. Now, let me say something to you about the armor of God, it’s all invisible. How many have ever seen the shield of faith? How many of you have you ever seen the sword of the Spirit? These are things that are put on and appropriated by faith in invisible realities. But because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean they’re not real. They are spiritual realities. They are things that God has provided for us to win the war. So we must believe in their reality, we must believe they’re not just metaphors and concepts, but they’re actual realities, that we can enter into walk and stand in and fight in, you see, and they have to be appropriated by faith because you can’t appropriate them by sight.

So he says, Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. In the series that I did on the prayer armor, I pointed out the fact that chapter six is built on chapters one through five, which is a profound concept that you probably never thought of. But the reality is, Paul’s already used many of the words he uses in this verse be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

Now, one of the great truths of the revelation given to the Apostle Paul that isn’t really expounded elsewhere that much, is the reality of being in Christ. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 5:17,18,19. You, if you’re born again, are in Christ. But one of the things we need to realize is that as human beings, we are spirit, soul and body. And that means we contact three different realms of life. And our spirit, the human spirit, is able to have intimacy. Intimacy with God. Intimacy with God takes place on the level of spirit. That’s the highest level of our being.

The spirit of man is the highest part of man capable of intimacy, fellowship and communion with God, capable of the highest type of knowledge which is the intuitive knowledge of God. So we don’t know God with our minds. We know God with our spirit. Our spirit is capable of intuitive knowledge, knowledge that doesn’t come through a process of reason, but knowledge which comes Spirit to spirit. God by His Spirit touches our spirit, and we know God, we know know the reality of His presence of his love of his peace, his joy. These things are spiritual realities, which are perceived on the highest level of our being.

But now the difficulty is, before we became Christians, we didn’t even know we had a spirit. And we operated in the realm of the soul and the body. And so we were governed by our flesh. And our mind, emotions and will work together in a unity to live independently of God and satisfy our own selfish desires. That’s the way we lived, before we were born again. But what happened to us when we were born again, is the human spirit was resurrected from its death in trespasses and sins, in this lower realm, made alive and raised up and joined to Christ, in a union of spirit. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” So the new birth is the recreation, the resurrection, the impartation, of divine life, to the human spirit. And when you are born again, your human spirit was blasted with divine life, and you received eternal life and your spirit came into union with Christ and became aware of God and spiritual realities. And you became capable of functioning in three realms instead of just the two.

Alright, now, when the Bible says, we are in Christ, it’s talking about this highest realm of spiritual realities, you see. Because, Jesus, it says in Ephesians, chapter one, has been made alive and seated in heavenly places, far above principalities and powers, and every name that’s named. Alright, now the unseen realm is from here up. The soul or psychic realm and the spirit realm are all unseen. I can’t walk up to you and say, “Please show me your emotions. Prove to me you have a mind.” Sometimes the evidence is lacking. I take it by faith. But you see, I can’t show you my soul. You can’t show me your soul. I can see the evidence and evidence of it working through your body. But you know, discernment is determining what it is that’s manifesting through the body, whether it’s soul or spirit.

But now, your spirit man, in God’s original intention, the spirit man in intimacy of communion and fellowship and truth was to govern soul and body, but the fall caused your mind, your will and your emotions and your body to join forces together in a relationship God never intended for mankind and conspire to live independently of God. And what you fight in spiritual warfare, in one sense more than you fight principalities and powers, is you fight your soul and body’s tendency to want to rule instead of walking in the Spirit as a new creation in Christ. And so now why is this important? Well, Jesus is seated in the heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers. But Paul says in chapter six, we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers in heavenly places.

Now think about this. Evidently, there’s a lower realm in heavenly places where wrestling goes on, and there’s a far above realm, in heavenly places where we’re seated with Christ. So spiritual warfare is, to a large degree about what dominates the believer. Which realm controls us? You know, there are believers who have studied the Bible intently with their intellect for 20 and 30 years, and are full of knowledge of the scriptures that is mental, but haven’t a clue about the Holy Spirit. Like somebody said, if the Holy Spirit came walking down the street with a red hat on, they wouldn’t recognize him. Why? Well, because it’s possible to be very religious on this realm, but not really be under the influence and control of the Holy Spirit. In our human spirit, see.

Now what I want you to see this morning is when he says to us, Paul, be strong in the Lord, he’s telling us to be strengthened in that spirit realm, to be strengthened in our human spirit, so that our human spirit is alive and empowered by the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the resurrection power of God, so that we walk with spirit in dominion over soul and body. Now, your soul isn’t evil. Nothing about you is evil. Your body isn’t evil. God created your spirit, your soul and your body, all to glorify God all to be a blessing. It’s just we want things to function the way God intended, so they can be a blessing. How many have ever had your emotions rule of, don’t raise your hands, how many have ever had your emotions rule you in a way that it was like it was a war. And you were saying, “Oh, I don’t want to feel this way. But I feel this way.” Well, how many know your emotions can war. In fact, Peter says in his letter, to fight against fleshly lusts that war against the soul. Your body says, Your body is like a spoiled little brat. Your body says, “I want my way. Serve me. give me pleasure. I want what I want, and I want it now.” Fleshly desires war against the soul, to capture the emotions to capture the mind to capture the will, so we live in the flesh instead of walking in the Spirit.

Now, when Paul says Be strong in the Lord, He’s saying, Be strong in Christ, be strong in who you are in Christ. Be strong in what God’s done in you and made you by the new birth. Learn to walk in the reality of the new creation. Learn to walk under the influence, the power and the strengthening of the Holy Spirit. Because if you don’t, he says, and you don’t put on this armor, he said the wiles of the devil will have victory over you. Now, I’ve had enough experience with that, to know I’d like it not to be. How about you?

The wiles of the devil. He’s had at least 6000 years figuring out how to trip us up and he does it really well. And we really need to learn. Because you see, ultimately, if God, I like the way E.W. Kenyon put it. He said we must come to the place where we understand that God’s work in Christ absolutely overcomes Satan’s work in Adam. That who and what we are in Christ, because of the new birth and because of the indwelling Spirit is sufficient to cause us to walk in the Spirit and to do the will of God. To accomplish, to fully accomplish the will of God. But you see, when you set your heart and mind to do this, the war intensifies. And that’s why Jesus said count the cost. He said, if you want to be my disciple, you better count the cost because you’re going to find out it’s going to cost. And you have to make up your mind to pay the cost, pay the price. Decide that, “Alright, whatever it costs, I’m going to pay the price. I’m going to do the will of God.”

So he says, Be strong in the Lord. Well that means in Christ. In Christ, you are a new creation. In Christ you are the workmanship of God. You have been created for good works that God planned that you should walk in, and he’s given you grace before the foundation of the earth. He gave you purpose and grace in Christ that you might accomplish the works that he foreordained you should walk in. You and I are men and women of destiny. We have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. And we’re walking out our destiny now in time and space and history. We’re walking out our destiny, and the battle is to discover, lay hold of and appropriate the grace to walk it out and do what God intended us to do. And it’s a daily battle. It’s a real war with real enemies. But God has promised us the victory, and we must learn to fight the good fight of faith. To lay hold upon eternal life, to appropriate the power of the Spirit, and stand. Having done all to stand, to stand and stand and stand and stand and stand. What do you do when you do everything? You’ve already done everything? stand. “What if it doesn’t look like it’s getting better?” Stand. “What if it looks like it’s getting worse?” Stand. “What if you don’t feel like standing?” Stand. “What if you want to quit?” Stand. “What if your knees are weak and your ankles are twisted and your hands are hanging down?” Stand. “What if you just want to throw in the towel and concede the battle?” Stand. “Well, you don’t know what I’m going through.” Stand. “You don’t know how hard it is.” Stand. God knows. And he’s the one who said stand. See? “Well, my flesh doesn’t like it.” I know. But God says stand.

God says fight. God says be determined to win. Where am I going to get the determination to win? From God. Be strong in the Lord. Don’t be strong in you. If you try to be strong in you, you get beat up. It’s real easy to say “Be strong in the Lord.” It’s easy, you know. There’s a certain part of preaching, that’s really easy. You can tell everybody what they ought to do. But honest preachers know that when they step out of the pulpit, they don’t have any more grace to do it than you do. In other words, I have a special gifting to tell you about this. But when I step out from behind this pulpit and have to live, I don’t have any special gifting to live it. I got the same gifting as you do. So it’s easy for a preacher to act and strut around like he’s got it all together and never has any real battles and “what’s wrong with you.” But reality is, all of us face the same devil and the same flesh and the same world. And we all have to appropriate the same grace of God through the same Holy Spirit through the same word of God, or we get defeated.

I’ve been in the ministry for a little over 17 years. And let me tell you, I have not yet met a minister of the Gospel who had it all together. I hate to disillusion you. And what I mean by that is not that I don’t know people who walk in victory and love God and serve God honestly, with a pure heart. But what I mean is, people are human. I know that’s profound. And the church would be perfect if it wasn’t for people. But what I’m trying to say here is that, sometimes we look at those who we greatly admire, like maybe you, you see somebody on TBN and they’re preaching away and you think “My goodness, they probably just, in the morning they just probably pray, God lifts them out of bed, and they float over to their prayer chamber and immediately break into the spirit and heavens are open and they’re having such intimacy with God that they just kind of stagger out of their prayer closet. Their clothes just come on to them, and they just walk out and go to the grocery store and while they’re pulling out their wallet to pay, revival breaks out. “Oh, you need to be healed? Be healed in Jesus name.”

You know, we can kind of get these ideas about greatly spiritual, people we perceive to be greatly spiritual, that they’re not like us. And I just want to tell you, it ain’t so. Preachers, people who teach and minister God’s word and people who minister in the supernatural power of God, do it by a gift given to them by God, not because they’re so holy and spiritual. See? And I say that because we need to realize, see, the devil used to say this to me, “If only I had, you know, if only I had the same kind of drive and determination that brother so and so had, he was just that way.” You ever told yourself that? “Well, I wish I was like so and so, because they’re just determined, but I’ve always been kind of blah.” You know? “Well, they were just a hard driving person. But of course, I’ve always been kind of, you know, I mean, they’re so intelligent, and I’ve always struggled with, with study and stuff.” Or, “They’re so, you know…” The devil will say to you, “Other people have things you don’t have, therefore, it’s harder for you.” And I’m trying to say to you, it’s hard for everybody.

It’s a battle, it’s a war, it’s a fight. But that’s okay, because if it’s the same for everybody then victory’s the same for everybody. Victory isn’t easier personally for anybody. Now, you may have unique situations you have to overcome, but when God sat back in the councils of eternity, and said, “Let me see, I’m going to create this world, men are going to fall, and I’m going to redeem them. And I’m going to devise a plan of redemption and put it into operation.” And he did all that. And then you came along. And you said, “Oh, wow. If only I hadn’t been brought up the way I was, I would be able to be a good Christian.” And God said, “I didn’t know what they’d go through. I never thought about their kind of problems. Wow! I would have devised a different kind of plan of redemption had I known people would face these difficulties.” You see how absurd that is?

The plan of redemption meets broken, fallen, sin bruised humanity in the very depths of their pain, and perfectly provides the way to come into the image of Christ. For every human being, or else it wasn’t from God. It’s just a joke, a cruel joke. You follow me here? We’ve got to say, “I can walk with God in victory. Because God designed this plan for people just like me. So I can be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. I can. I may not know how right now. I may need to grow. I may need to learn. I may need to develop. But there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with me that will prevent me from becoming strong in God and walking in victory and fulfilling my destiny.”

Let it get a hold of you that you cannot be stopped. Because you have springs on your back. If you go down, you bounce up. If you go down, you bounce up. If you go down, you bounce up. How many times can I fall and still get up? How many times can you fall? Get up. You know after a while though, you get in the habit of staying up. while your mind is being renewed and you’re learning to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, you have the high priestly ministry of Jesus, who ever lives to intercede for you. You have the righteous advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous, who is the propitiation, the total satisfaction for your sins. He ever lives to intercede for you. He’s your mediator. He’s your merciful and faithful High Priest. While you’re learning to walk in the Spirit, he stands in the gap for you and says, “Father, I already died for their failures. I already died for their discouragement. I already died for their weakness. I already died for it all. Don’t lay it to their charge, Father, it’s already been laid to my charge. Don’t put that sin against them.” He covers you while you grow up. You do need to confess your sin if you fall. You need to say, “Father, forgive me and cleanse me.” And the word says he will.

But get up and go on. You have got to get into your spirit. You’ve got to be able to look absolute defeat in the face and say, “Thank God. I’m a victor.” You’ve got to, while you’re lying on your back, going, “What happened?” You’ve got to raise your hands and say, “Praise God! I’m a new creature in Christ and I’m an overcomer, because it’s still true. Even if the devil outsmarts you and knocks you down, you’re still who God made you to be. You’re still what God made you to be. You’re still a child of God. When you sin, you don’t become an old creation. You become a deceived new creation. You become someone who listened to the liar, and you got caught out of the Spirit in the flesh. So repent, get back in the Spirit, and say, “I’m a son of God, I’m a daughter of God, I’m born of the Spirit of God. I’m born of the will of God and born of the Word of God. I’m a new creation in Christ. I’m the righteousness of God in Christ. I have the victory through my Lord who strengthens me. Thanks be to God, I’m being led in triumph!” Right in the face of failure. Right in the face of defeat. Get up! You don’t know quit! When God made you a new creation, he wrote Victor on your spirit! He wrote strength on your spirit! He wrote overcomer in your heart, it’s written on the tablet of your heart! And if you just listen to what God put in you, you can be laying there totally defeated, and his voice says, “Glory.”