In part two of his War Over the Word series, pastor Joe McIntyre discusses:

1) How to get free of the most challenging, long-standing sins in your life;

2) The one lie the devil uses to convince you that you’ll never get free; and

3) What God has committed himself to doing in your life.

Never again think to yourself, “I can’t be like Christ in this area because _____.”

Tune in and be empowered to step into your freedom! Listen to this episode here.

Mentioned In This Episode

Randy Clark School of Healing & Impartation

Restoring the Foundations

Additional Resources

War Over the Word – Full Series Audio

War Over the Word – Book [FREE for a limited time with code WOTWv1 at checkout!]

The Eternal Defeat of Satan – Book 

Full Transcript

Hebrews 4:12, for the Word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit. Now, this is amazing, this Living Word will penetrate your heart, and help you discover whether your understanding is soulish or spiritual, whether it is carnal, or birthed of God. It will divide your heart so you can tell what’s spiritual and what’s not. As a young believer, I read books about this process that told me that the only way God divides soul and spirit is through hardship and challenges and trials, and the last thing we wanted to do was be soulish. So we were constantly on the lookout to see if we were soulish. And after a few years of that misery, I discovered that it was my soul watching my soul to see if my soul was being soulish. And when I began to understand what it meant to be a new creation in Christ, I began to watch my spirit man. I began to focus on my spirit man. And I began to understand that what God had done in my spirit was superior to what Satan had tried to do in my soul life, and I got my focus where it needed to be.

Part of the teaching was reckon yourself to be dead indeed unto sin. You know, I reckoned ’til my reckoner wore out. But I forgot the rest of the verse, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus. It’s far easier to reckon yourself dead if you reckon yourself alive, because if I’m alive unto God and part of the body of Christ and in union of spirit with Christ, it’s easier for me to believe I actually am dead to sin. He doesn’t say, reckon yourself therefore dead to sin so that you can become dead to sin. He says, reckon yourself to be dead to sin, because you are dead to sin. Yes, but I’m still wrestling with it. That’s right, you don’t believe it yet. You don’t believe you’re alive unto God in Christ and you don’t believe you’re dead to sin, therefore, you still believe that sin has dominion over you, therefore you still give place to it.

I remember early in my walk with the Lord, I was wrestling with a sin that had been a problem in my life, most of my life. And the Lord delivered me. And I was amazed to look back and see that I had been deceived the whole time about my ability to resist that thing. I had told myself, this thing’s too big for me, I can’t resist it. And I cried out to God and in His mercy, He delivered me. But in the light of my deliverance, I could see that I had just given my will over to unbelief. And when that unbelief was broken, I could see that I could have chosen to walk away from that anytime. But I just didn’t believe it.

You see, the enemy wants to capture you in strongholds of unbelief. He may have sown them in your life in your early days and part of your walking out your salvation is getting delivered from those strongholds of unbelief. All of those areas that say “I can’t. I can’t be like Christ in this area, because…” Because there aren’t any areas where you can’t be like Christ by the grace of God.

So it’s alive and it’s powerful. Sharper than any two edged sword. offset, my volume went up. But it divides soul and spirit and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. Now, let me just say, a sin conscious believer, a believer who’s very ingrained in thinking about how wicked and evil and and what a failure he is, immediately goes, Oh, no, he’s going to discern the thoughts and intents of my heart. Why don’t you think about this: as a new creation in Christ, you’ve got a new heart, and the Holy Spirit and the Word of God are trying to help you locate the good intentions of your heart that God has put there, so you can cooperate with them and let them come forth in your inner man. Now it will expose the negatives, but those are not….I remember a preacher telling the story one time about how he his daughter had disobeyed Him and done something rebellious. And he was giving her a parental lecture. And he he gave her the reasons why she should do it his way. And she said, “That’s not my thought.”

But what we need to do when the devil tells us we’re unworthy worms, and that we’re rebellious, and we’re not obeying God, and we really are unworthy of his blessings, we should say, “That’s not my thought. That’s your thought, devil. My thought is that I’m a child of God, washed in the blood of Jesus, forgiven and cleansed, and I don’t need to accept your thoughts about me, I’m going to take God’s thoughts about me.” So when it says it discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart don’t immediately go to the negative. Now, when you start embracing the positive, the negative you can deal with. Because there will come times when the Holy Spirit will minister to you and you go, “Ooh, I’ve been thinking wrong. That’s not good.” So ask forgiveness, ask cleansing and find a promise of God, incorruptible seed that’s counter to that thinking and embrace it, and sow it, and water it and renew your mind. And if it’s been a long standing stronghold, get some ministry. Every Wednesday night, the healing center is open, you could walk in and say, “You know, I’ve wrestled with this all my life, and I want prayer to see that stronghold broken. I’d like a little help. You know, this is kind of a big one for me, and I need help.” And so you go to a prayer session, and you get ministry, you go to a focus prayer session, and you get ministry. And you realize, well, you know, that didn’t quite get it. So you make an appointment for an issue focused RTF session on that one particular problem, and they walk you through the four areas of RTF, until you get that thing thoroughly uprooted and driven out. All the time, confessing and declaring the promise of God, sowing, watering, and letting God bring increase to the incorruptible seed in your life.

These things aren’t in opposition to one another, they complement one another. I’ve had areas that were very difficult for me to get the word to work in, because they were such long established strongholds. And I needed help to get rid of those and they had to be dealt with a little differently. Sometimes people will say, “Well, all you need to do is confess the Word, all you need to do is get in the Word.” And you see, that should be a foundational way we approach our Christian life, but it isn’t the answer to everything. Some things are more deeply ingrained, and you need anointing and deliverance, to get free.

Alright, but still, these principles should be foundational, in our Christian walk, the written word of God is final authority in my life. If God says it, then I have made the decision of faith to submit to whatever God says, and not not argue with God. Early in my walk with God, I read Second Corinthians 5:17. If anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. And I said, Lord, that’s not true. Because it seemed to me, there were things that hadn’t passed away. I didn’t understand He was addressing my spirit man, not my soul and body. And so you know, I’ve made a discovery. If you tell God, His word isn’t true, he doesn’t respond. Until you get over it. And say, “Lord, let me approach this differently. You said that, so it must be true, but I don’t understand it. Could you show me how it works?” You never get anywhere telling God His word isn’t true. Somehow that just doesn’t really fly with him.

Now look at this, Isaiah 55:11, so shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth, it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please. And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. God believes in the authority and power of His Word. And He says, It shall not return to Me void, or fruitless or empty. But it shall accomplish what I please.

Now, how many of you remember, in the early days of humanity when we organized a group and they went to God and they said, Lord, could you please give us some promises? You don’t remember that. That’s because it never happened. What happened is God chose to give us promises. You see, sometimes Christians are kind of timid, they think they have to have a special revelation from heaven before they can stand on a promise of God. God chose to give the promises. The Bible says in Second Peter, that we have been given exceedingly great and precious promises from God. That we might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that’s in the world through desires.

Second Corinthians 1:20 says, All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. So promises exist, to be taken, to be appropriated, to be received. This is your Christian lifestyle. How many believers do you think suffer from a lack of knowledge of the promises of God? Think it might be a lot? You see, if you don’t know the book, you don’t know what God will do for you. If you don’t know the promises, you don’t know what he’s committed himself to do in your life. And how many think God might be smart enough to put promises in that would cover every area of human existence? You think so?

How about this: I’m told, I have never counted in myself, but I am told that there are at least 365 fear nots in the Bible. A promise a day keeps the doctor away. Take a fear not every day. And come and see me again next week. So the Word of God accomplishes the purpose of God. “Oh, Lord, I want to do your will.” Well, what is his agency for getting you to do His will? It’s the empowerment of his promises. That good, you ought to write that down and take that home with you. The agency of God’s will, is to give you the promises to accomplish his purpose. If you don’t know what the promises are, you don’t know what the authority and power is to back you doing His will.

The word won’t return to Him void. In Jeremiah 1:12, it says, I watch over My word to perform it. I watch over My Word. What do you think God thinks? Will you take the time to sow his Word in your heart to get the promise and you keep reminding him day by day, “Lord, I’m believing your word.” Well, He’s looking for good ground that’s willing to bring forth fruit with patience. He’s watching over His Word to perform it. What’s he looking for in the earth? People that will hold his promises up to him until they’re manifested in their life in their lives?

Now we are to live by the Word of God. Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Now in that particular verse, the word word is Rhema. Rhema often refers to a smaller portion of the Word quickened by the Holy Spirit in many people’s thinking. But you see, God has always got a Rhema from the Logos. “I don’t know what to do.” Well, part of our devotional life ought to be to say, “Lord, where in the Word do I go today?” “Where would you have me meditate? What promise would you have me appropriate?” See, because as you meditate in that promise, as you appropriate that promise, you’re partaking of the divine nature, the incorruptible seed, seed that’s eternal, seed that cannot be destroyed, it can only be stolen out of your heart. As we get into the parable, we’ll see that that Satan’s whole strategy in your life is to arrange people, circumstances and pressures to get the Word out of your heart. Why? Because he has no defense for the incorruptible seed, if it takes root and brings forth fruit, he can’t stop that. It’s bigger than he is.

The prophetic Word of the Lord, one of the reasons in our worship, we encourage everybody to sing in the spirit is because when you sing in the spirit, you’re releasing the pure Spirit of Prophecy. And the prophetic Word of the Lord is higher authority than all the lower levels of spiritual warfare that the enemy would bring against us. So when we unite our hearts and sing together in the spirit and make one sound to the Lord, it cleanses the atmosphere and subdues the wickedness that’s in the spirit realm, because those things can never rise above the level of the Word of the Lord. And prophesy or tongues is just prophesy in an unknown language. You remember how Peter explained on the day of Pentecost, when they said, “What is this?” He said it’s what the prophet Joel spoke about, that they would all prophesy. Well, nobody was prophesying, they were speaking in tongues. But speaking in tongues is prophecy in an unknown language, a language not known to the one giving it, but it still carries the same prophetic authority, as if you were prophesying in a known language. So when we corporately do that, we establish our authority in the heavenlies, and we subdue the darkness that would seek to interfere with the service, seek to water down the worship, seek to get people dull so they can’t hear the preaching. You see, so we want to understand the many facets of the authority of the Word of the Lord.

Okay. So we’re to live by the Word in Psalm, I won’t have your turn to this, but I think she may have it. Psalm 119:9 and 11, “How can a young man plans his way? By taking heed according to your Word.” So how do you get your life sanctified? You use the Word. See, you take the promises of God, and you apply them to the weak areas of your life. He says, “Your word of I hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.” Wow! So if I get incorruptible seed in my heart, and it takes root, it can drive out the tendencies and the strongholds and the conditionings of sin? It would seem to imply that, wouldn’t it? So really, today’s message is designed to, to lift the level of your perception of the authority of the Word of God in the book. To cause you to say, “You know, I’ve been looking everywhere else for maturity, but the Bible. I thought if I endured enough, I thought if I went to enough conferences, if I had hands laid on me enough times, I’d grow.” Well, those are all good things. But the thing that’s going to make the difference is getting your heart established in Bible truth. And knowing how to use the word of God as the sword of the Spirit, which it is.

Now, I was recently at a Randy Clark Healing School. And I was teaching a session on developing your faith for healing. And I began to, I wanted to illustrate to them because you see, the Lord is trying to get us to speak His Word. And so he raised up the faith movement, they had an emphasis on positive confession and declaring God’s Word. But the the critics rose up and said, “That’s metaphysics that’s mind science. That’s this, that’s that, that’s the other thing, and a lot of people then were afraid, positive confession. So God raises up the prophetic movement. And he says, “Yes, I want you to be prophetic. Now. Take my word, and prophesy it over your life. Take the promises of the Scripture, prophesy them over your life.” Now, that’s positive confession by another title.

So you know, the church gets offended at it packaged one way, He repackages it and brings it back till we get it. Get the Word in your mouth. Prophesy over your circumstances! Declare and decree the word of the Lord so that you have a path of light before you so you can see where you’re going! “Well, it’s just all gray and dark in front of me.” Well prophesy to it! Speak the word of the Lord and let light shine on your path! Job 22:28 says “You shall the decree a thing and it will be established for you so light just shine upon your path!” I know where I’m going because I’m speaking it and I’m decreeing it, and I can see it because I said it!

So I began to I wanted to demonstrate for the group so I started to, I just started out quoting the healing Scriptures that I say daily. And I said, “Surely he has borne my sicknesses and carried my pains. I’m here by the stripes of Jesus. He forgives all my iniquities, He heals all my diseases. The Word of the Lord within me is producing after its own kind. I believe the Word of God. Father, thank you for your promises.” And I began to move in the spirit of prophecy. What was I doing with my memorized confessions? Priming the pump. You see, I got the river flowing by doing what I’d memorized. But you see my human spirit and the anointing within me wants to prophesy my future, but I have to get the pump pumping.

So, as I began to declare the promises, pretty soon it moved into a flow of prophetic utterance, and I began to prophesy my healing in my future, under a great anointing. And that will happen to you in your devotional time, if you cultivate and develop these disciplines. So you will live by the Word of God. Psalm 119 is a warehouse of promises for the Word. It says, you’ll get victory over sin, you’ll get strength, you’ll get mercy, you’ll get deliverance, you’ll get liberty, you’ll get wisdom, and you’ll get other things. Good things.

Now, the point of this parable is that the Word will produce fruit in your life, if you learn how to fight the things that the enemy brings to stop it. So the goal is that the Word would bring forth fruit in your life, that it would change you that that faith would come by hearing, hearing by the Word of God, and you would understand these principles and understand the devil’s strategy. You see, I have found that many times people can become under the attack of maybe a spiritual form of wickedness. And they’re just frustrated because they don’t know how to defeat it. They don’t know what to do about it, because they don’t even recognize it. But by simply getting a good teaching that helps them recognize the enemy’s work, then they can just stand up and resist it. Because before they were questioning themselves, “What am I doing wrong? What if I, have I disappointed the Lord? What is it? Why am I feeling this way? Why am I struggling like this?” And they don’t recognize the enemy.
And then all of a sudden, the light goes on, and they go, “Oh, my gosh, I am under demonic attack.” And they say “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the power of His shed Blood, I rebuke every demon spirit assigned against me in this area of my life. Now command you to see cease your maneuvers and to stop in your operations against me, for I am the redeemed of the Lord. And I’m saying so and you have no authority over me, you have no rights to come against me. I’m bought by the blood and I rebuke you devil in Jesus name.” And the atmosphere clears, and you realize it was demonic attack, and it wasn’t anything in your own life.

But you see, if you don’t know, the tendency is to doubt yourself, to examine yourself, to condemn yourself, to judge yourself. And I’ve made a discovery over the years, when I’m in that mode, I often project that onto those around me, and I judge them and I condemn them and I out of…. but what if I refuse to do that? And I say, “I’m a righteous Son of God, I’m a new creation in Christ, God is unveiling in me the treasures he’s put in me.” And then I become a treasure hunter in the body of Christ, looking to bring out in others, all the riches that God has put in them. And if I do see an example of fleshly thinking and behavior, I said, “Well, that’ll get dealt with eventually, I’m going to help them discover the treasure. What if this whole church decided to be treasure hunters and not dirt finders? So you bump into somebody’s flesh. And instead of going, “Oh, I don’t like them. I’m going to avoid them,” you say “Father forgive them. They let a little bit of their undealt with areas manifest, but I know who they really are. They’re a new creation in Christ. They’re your workmanship. You got treasures in them, Lord, don’t let me get focused on what their flesh does. Let me stay focused on what you’re doing in them.” Now, what if we all treated each other like that? Because how many know you bump into one another’s flesh. And the mistake we make is we begin to know that person after their failings, and when you know somebody after their failings, you have no expectations of good coming out of their life.

But when you know that they’re really a new creation and you bump into their flesh…. You see this is the problem a lot of congregations have with their leaders. You know, when I stand in front of you, under an anointing of the spirit, I can do most things right. You know, because I got real good divine help. But sometimes, because actually, because of some of the physical things I’m wrestling with, I forget people’s names. I get, after service, sometimes I’m really tired, and I’m not very good at interacting with people. And what if you took offense at that? You see, and some people do. They have a certain expectation of a pastor that he ought to be, above all else, a people person. But people are gifted differently and wired differently, you know.

And so so we have to train ourselves to not be offended. Part of our leadership commitment is to join the ranks of the unoffendable. And we’re calling the body to do that. Let’s make this our focus this year. Let’s become the first church of the unoffendable. Yeah, that’s a good vision. Most of our judgment and criticism flows out of our own insecurities. So let’s get secure in Christ. So we’re not so easily offended,because we’re so insecure.