The Everlasting Arms of the Father
October 25, 2016
The Everlasting Arms of the Father
Deuteronomy 33:27
The eternal God [is thy] refuge, and underneath [are] the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy [them].
Perhaps you have memories like I do of times when you were little, at nighttime, when you had been put to bed. Your imagination would start to work and you would imagine shadows as being monsters or think there was something under your bed that would get you if you got up. As your imagination worked you would become more and more fearful until you might jump up in a panic and go running into your momma and daddy’s room crying and afraid. Maybe they would put you in bed between them and all of the fear would dissipate in the safety of their embrace and presence. You felt confident that no monsters were going to get you while mom and dad were holding you and your peace would return.
Ironically life often isn’t so much different as we become adults. Obviously it is not practical to go running to mommy and daddy anymore. The truth is that sometimes our monsters still seem very real and they still perpetuate fear in us. We can be very anxious about areas in our lives, things we must face and even spiritual attacks that can come upon us. There are some that are reading this today that are facing such fears.
Some years ago, after we had our middle child, through some rather traumatic events my wife began to experience demonic types of attacks. There was a dark presence that would come to her and assault her in different ways. Naturally she was petrified with fear. These would take place fairly frequently over the course of about a year and usually happened when you she was in a state of semi –sleep. These events were very terrifying to her and as she sought the Lord about it and she felt the Lord asking her, “Does this presence ever really harm or physically hurt you?”
She said, “no Lord.”
“Then why are you afraid.”
What the Lord began to teach her was that when these attacks would come she would enter into Christ, she would just crawl up on the lap of the Father and this presence would have no power over her and it would have to leave. Finally the time came when during one of these attacks she became angry and bold. She reached out as it were in the spirit and laid hold of this spirit and she said she literally broke its arm until she heard it snap as it was screaming to get away. Strangely enough a man prophesied that evening in a meeting that we had in our home that ‘the arm of the enemy had been broken this day’. He knew nothing of what had just taken place.
This may seem a little extreme and bazaar to some of you. It is certainly not something we like to share often, but rather we would like to share it or not, there may be some of you wrestling with your own demons. The truth that we discovered is that there is safety and refuge in the arms of the Father. You can still run and jump in Daddy’s lap, bury your face in His chest and allow Him to wrap His loving arms of love and safety around you. He is your refuge and your hiding place. Remember that you are seated at the right hand of the Father in Christ Jesus. Nothing can touch you except it goes through Him first. You are not alone. The way the enemy perpetuates fear and defeat in you is by separating you from the faith of who you are in Christ. This why it is so important feed upon the Word because it ministers into you life, faith, and reinforced confidence of who you are in Christ. My wife often goes to sleep now by putting on CD’s of the Word and just listening to it as she goes to sleep.
Just remember you have the strongest and toughest Daddy that has ever been or will be. You are His kid and if you run into His arms you are safe no matter what might be going on around you. Lose your fear and find your peace in the everlasting arms of the Father.
Blessings,
#kent
Did You Know You were Dead?
March 21, 2013
Did You Know You were Dead?
Colossians 3:1-4
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God When Christ, [who is] our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
A principle of salvation and the work of the cross that is hard for us to really grasp and assimilate into our minds and get down into our spirits is the fact that when we gave our hearts and lives to Christ we died. We became identified with Christ upon that cross. When we came into Christ our old man died there with Him. Romans 6:6 says, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” We have so long been associated with this body of sin, that many of us haven’t really made the transition spiritually and physically to the reality of this truth. We are still identified with our old body of sin and sin-nature. We keep wanting and trying to change it and reform it. That is not going to happen. We have to grasp the reality that it is DEAD! When we came into Christ we became a new creation, a spiritual man or woman with a redeemed soul. One of the greatest strategies of the enemy is to keep us in that old mindset of being sinners, still living under the curse of sin. Paul said in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” With that new life we found in Christ, there has to come in us a whole new mindset and way of seeing ourselves and our world through the eyes and mind of the Spirit of God. This is why we can be no longer conformed to the world, but as Romans 12:2 says,”transformed through the renewing of our minds.” Our nation, our country, our citizenship is Heaven. As such we must become heavenly minded in our thinking and actions. This is a hard rut for most of us to get out of, because we live in the world, we are around worldly people and our tendency is to think like they think and live like they live. But we have to remember that we are a redeemed and holy people now, living out our spiritual lives in these natural bodies. That is what makes us a peculiar people. Our thoughts, our dreams, our way of life and living and thinking are lining up now with the mind of the Spirit as revealed through God’s Word. The revelation of that Word is becoming alive in us more and more as we mature and grow up into Christ in all things.
So why are we still struggling with a sin nature that is no longer our nature? Much of it is because we are still housed in a body that can be influenced and moved by sin and temptation. Think of it this way: if when I came to Christ I literally died and went to heaven then I am in Christ and there is no more worries, no more struggles with the sin and the flesh. I can live a sinless life, no more temptations or trials. The reality is that while I did die and my life is in Christ, I am still left in this mortal body and subject to the curse of sin that is all around me and that still is trying to lay hold of my mortal body and soul. Even though I am dead to sin, I can’t run away from it influence. That is by God’s design, because He doesn’t want us to run away from sin, He wants us to overcome and conquer it even as Christ did. The power is not in us alone to overcome sin. If that were the case the law would have been enough and Christ would not have had to die for our sin. The only way to overcome sin is with a Savior whose life and power abides within us by faith. With the natural eye and understanding we may not see who we are in Christ, but with the eyes of faith, empowered by the Spirit and with the authority of God’s Word we go into battle. The battle to live out who we really are in the Spirit and at the same time bring others out of death and darkness, into light and life. As we have died to the natural man with it’s sin nature; we are now free to allow the Christ to live through us as we willing submit our wills to Him as a living sacrifice. We no longer hold our lives as being our own, but that ownership is now the Lord’s. We are His servants, servants of righteousness and no longer of sin. The more we lay hold of and live in this reality the less power sin has over us. It is as Romans 6:13 says, “Neither yield ye your members [as] instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members [as] instruments of righteousness unto God.” It is a paradox that when we die to sin and that old nature, we become alive in our spirits unto God. We have become the products of His life giving Spirit at work in us. While we have not yet physically made the ascent, spiritually we have stepped out of earth and into heaven where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. “And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised [us] up together, and made [us] sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus:
That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in [his] kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:1-7). We must walk in the revelation of who we are in Christ. Our state has changed from dead unto God to dead unto sin. That death is only made complete as Christ lives in and through us.
Blessings,
kent