Greetings to you…held safe, held close, and held firm in the strength and love of Jesus Christ – THE Risen Savior! Wow! what a beautiful morning in the Kingdom, in spite of the chilly air there is a warmth in the sunlight and the blue sky speaks of God’s majesty. Yes, this is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it! This morning I will be praying for you, asking Father to release the power of the Holy Spirit into your life in a way that will take your breath away.
Let me give you a verse of Scripture that had been hovering in my thoughts for several weeks now, in fact it has been part of my daily prayer time via the Healing Creed: A thief has only one thing in mind–he wants to steal, slaughter, and destroy. But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect–life in its fullness until you overflow! – John 10:10 TPT.
We usually focus on the second half of the verse but thanks to the Healing Creed…“I have been redeemed from the hand of the enemy–the thief, the devil – who comes to steal, kill, and destroy…” I have been pondering the first half of the verse. First, consider how the enemy works his plan…progressively eroding our faith, slowly dismantling our relationship of trust in God…stealing then killing and then destroying.
Second, I focused on “what” is that he steals-kills-destroys and there were three aspects of our faith life that caught my attention. Through the act of “stealing he wants to remove our prayer life by whatever means he can. We are told that he interferes with the timing and delivery of God’s answers. Then he wants to remove our worship by means of devaluing our music/songs…so much so that we are told that the filling of the Holy Spirit is linking to singing and making music. Then he influences our thought life and we are told to pay close attention to this, making sure we take thoughts as prisoners directly to God.
Third, as he continues to ‘steal’ those parts of our faith-life, our confidence and expectation in the manifestation of God’s signs, wonders, and miracles diminishes and is killed…slaughtered. It may take him some time but he is relentless. This plan of his finds its greatest moment when all hope is destroyed.
All this sounds very discouraging but we fight back by surrendering ourselves to the One who comes to give us life…and we come to Him through our daily conversations with him- prayer; through our times of worship and singing and making music and sharing our witness with others; through choosing to think on what is positive, true, worthy, honest, and good. When we fight back in this manner…when we do our part – we begin to experience the powerful presence of the one inside of us who is stronger-more powerful than the one who is on the outside. The result is an overflowing life!
Something to think about…be blessed today – pray-sing-think for God’s purposes