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Cover Your Crack
Jennifer mission trip. The wife was alone and had recently had a fight with her husband.
All Satan needs is a crack.
God is activating FVC people for a greater work this season
There is a great outpouring of the Spirit on the horizon- which will usher in many miracles, signs and wonders, healings, supernatural debt cancellation in the financial realm
IT IS COMING and so……
Satan is trying to isolate God’s people and keep us in a fetal position.
We are in a season of SUDDENLY. Suddenly things are going to happen and we need to be ready and prepared!
Share the story of Rahab-
We need to be READY TO MOVE when God speaks! If we are not ready and prepared, things will come upon us suddenly and we will miss it!
Cover your crack!
1 Peter 5:8New King James Version (NKJV)
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because[a] your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
YOUR ENEMY SEEKS whom he may devour- he is looking for your crack. He is looking for a way in and he is patient. He will sit back and watch you until your crack is exposed and then he will come rushing in.
(8) Be sober, be vigilant.—Single words in the Greek, and in the tense which bespeaks immediate attention. The best text omits the following “because.” These are the sudden cries of warning of a shepherd who spies the lion prowling round the flock in the darkness, while the guardians of the flock lie drowsy and secure.
Be sober — Keep your appetites and passions under proper restraint and government
be vigilant — Watchful against the subtle and malicious designs of your spiritual enemies.
As a roaring lion.—The epithet is not only added to lend terror to the description, but the roaring implies hunger and determination.
Walketh about.—Peter, however, is not calling attention to the fact that Satan is always prowling about, but he warns the sleeping shepherds that he is especially doing so NOW. This season of persecution was just his time for picking off one here and another there.
Seeking whom he may devour.—Perhaps still more expressive to say, “seeking which he may devour.” Satan is eyeing all the Christians in turn to see which he has the best chance of picking off, not merely stalking forth vaguely to look for prey.
If you are not secure in your identity in Christ, you will have a tough time.
Satan is seeking to isolate God’s people so that he can keep you from fulfilling your purpose in Christ
EVERY single one of you has a calling and God has a plan and purpose for your life!
If Satan can get in your crack, he will blow you wide open ad run all over you.
The devil is using tools to expose our cracks!
If there is a crack in us, make no mistake the devil will find it.
I have a list of things to be aware of:
LIES of the enemy-
“you are not wanted and you are not needed” truth: you are wanted and needed
“nobody likes you anyway” truth: some may not like you, but not all
“you are not qualified” truth: you don’t have to be qualified, just willing
“there is no place for you here” truth: there is a place for you here
“you can’t do anything right” truth: you do lots of things right
“you have nothing to offer” truth: you have a lot to offer
“you can’t trust God or the church” truth: you can trust God and you can trust His people
“the Word of God is not true” truth: the Word is absolute truth and can be trusted
“Satan is stronger than God” truth: satan is not equal with God, he is a created angel
“Satan is not real, he’s not a threat” Truth: satan is real and he is a big threat
“God just wants you to be happy” truth: God wants you to grow and growth comes through trial
“Church is not important” truth: Church is the body of Jesus, it’s very important
“you have plenty of time to obey God” truth: your life could be taken at any time
“there is not judgment” truth: there is a final judgment even for the believer
“God hates me” truth: you are the apple of His eye
“God doesn’t heal anymore and He would never heal me anyway” truth: God still heals, still delivers
“I have to be perfect” truth: nobody expects you to be perfect
“Nothing I do matters” truth: you matter
Satan desires that you live a selfish, miserable, lonely life
You have to learn to recognize the lies of the enemy.
Believing a lie will expose a crack.
Let me let you in on a little clue:
ANY THOUGHT or word that is ACCUSING is from the ACCUSER.
John 8:44
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.
This is the part that it is essential that you know who you are in Christ, otherwise you will believe the lies of the enemy and you will be misled and deceived.
You MUST KNOW what God says about you and who He says you are.
Ex: I remember so many people telling me that because of my past, could never get married or be in the ministry.
I can tell you all day long, but you have to KNOW it for yourself. It has to be a revelation in your spirit.
OPPRESSION (the spirit of fear)
Hebrews 2:15 (NKJV)
and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Fear is a spirit and it is bondage!
Fear of death, fear of loss, fear of the unknown- there is a fear for almost everything!
If you have any form of fear, Satan will find that crack and he will expose it.
“Tell your heart to beat again” story
2 Peter 1:3New King James Version (NKJV)
“as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,”
You can overcome ANYTHING through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God
I suffered with panic and anxiety for many years.
I had a HUGE spirit of fear
I had traumatic things in my past, so traumatic that I had blocked them
I got serious about overcoming that fear and my past-
Yoyo dieting
A lot of Christians treat their walk like a crash diet.
They will do what it takes FOR AWHILE to overcome that oppression, but as soon as things begin to go better, they let off and that spirit comes back
BONDAGE to sin or substance-
Joshua 7:10-12New King James Version (NKJV)
10 So the Lord said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face? 11 Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff. 12 Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you.
YOU WILL NEVER PUT THE ENEMY TO FLIGHT WHILE HOLDING ON TO SIN.
Let me share with you a story. My struggle with alcohol- allowed it back in to help with my anxiety and panic even though the Lord told me “DO NOT TOUCH”, my panic attacks increased, I could not put that spirit of fear to flight no matter how much I came against it in Jesus’ name UNTIL I put my sin away from me.
OFFENSES-
So serious is the subject that Jesus pronounces a solemn “woe” against those “by whom the offense comes” (Matthew 18:7). “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (verse 6).
Matthew 18:7New King James Version (NKJV)
Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!
The apostles also weigh in on the subject. Paul writes about how he strives to avoid giving offense:
“If food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble”
(I Corinthians 8:13).
WHY? Because an offense can lead to bitterness and hatred.
John states in I John 3:15, “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”
If we allow it to go this far without repentance, offense can have eternal consequences. It is serious business!
Offenses usually occur when someone says something to us too harshly—or at least we interpret it that way.
It can and does occur when we perceive that we have been ignored, overlooked or given a responsibility we do not want.
Or we become offended when we are blamed for something we did not do, or on the other hand, when we do not receive credit for what we did do.
We may be offended when someone has been inconsiderate or thoughtless or has used us for their own purposes. The ways to become offended are countless.
While we are on this- DO NOT take on other’s offenses! EX: PTA president
How do we cover our crack?
James 4:7New King James Version (NKJV)
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
I want you to notice something- many scripture is predicated on us doing something FIRST.
So many want the devil to flee and even tell him to flee, but they are not submitted to God.
SUBMIT to God FIRST and THEN you can resist the devil and he will flee.
Submit yourselves therefore to God; voluntarily and freely, and that not only in a way of obedience to all his commands, but in a way of humility, and sense of your weakness, and emptiness, and need of his grace. This is a military term- submit to God as your Master and General
Therefore; both because of the danger of pride, (opposed in the former verse to humility), he resisteth the proud; and because of the benefit that comes by humility, he giveth grace to the humble.
Resist, by faith, and the rest of the spiritual armour, Ephesians 6:13,14, &c. Or, resist, i.e. comply not with his motions and temptations.
The devil; the head and leader of fleshly lusts. These likewise are military terms. Having spoken before of strife and contention, he directs here with whom we may, and with whom we may not, contend. He had commended modesty toward men, they are our equals, we must not lift ourselves above them, nor envy nor strive with them; here he adviseth to submission to God as our supreme Governor, we must not contend with him; and to open war with the devil as our great enemy, our contention must be with him.
And he will flee from you; as to that particular assault in which you resist him; and though he return again, and tempt you again, yet you still resisting, he will still be overcome; ye are never conquered so long as you do not consent.