Satan's Fear Of An Open Door

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 42

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that many can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner. 

Michael gives us excellent insight into one of the most devastating tools of the Christian’s enemy: tricks to take us into darkness.  God has told us that he is the father of lies, deceitful, a thief…yet we too often easily fall prey to his tricks.  Let Michael show you some of the ways satan will attack…

SATAN’S FEAR OF AN OPEN DOOR

excerpt from pages 118-121 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 115-119 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

If you choose to believe and walk in your co-crucifixion with Christ, life will often get worse before it gets better, with dangers increasing.  For you become a threat to the enemy…as Christ lives His life through you, you are dangerous!...

Satan’s plan is very simple; he must get you out of the light!...I have personally found that Jesus makes life make sense, and once I find myself out of His light, life has no center or meaning.  Therefore, the enemy wants to draw us out of Christ’s light into his darkness….

The enemy has a myriad of tricks to take us into darkness.  Usually he will begin to tempt us with the same kind of situations and events that gave us our negative identities from the past.  He will try to push our button, so to speak, to drive us back to a carnal existence.

…there are certain buttons the enemy has pushed for years to make you ineffective; once you are living out of Christ’s life, he simply won’t go away!  On the contrary, he will push buttons all the more frantically to get the responses of the past.  When you see this happening, do take heart, for you have truly found the answer; if you hadn’t, the enemy would not be attacking you.

…the enemy will try everything at his disposal to emotionally beat a believer…Be watchful; it may happen when we are on vacation and out of the daily fellowship we normally have with our Savior.  It may occur during times of stress…It may be the result of a person whose situation or action draws our eyes off the Lord…Even our work for the Lord can become so important that we neglect Him.  It can especially take place in times of loneliness and failure.  The list is endless, but the result is the same: We close the door to His life, and in so doing, we begin to live much as we did before we were born again.

Not only will the enemy use circumstances and people, but he will attack with a new level of temptations that the unregenerate world rarely experiences…

So it is with the deep deceptions of the enemy.  If we knew his plan for destruction ahead of time, we would think it impossible.  However, if we knew his timetable and the effort that would be placed into the deception day by day, we would be filled with fear.  Is it any wonder we are called to be alert, stand fast, take heed, and not be ignorant of the enemy?

…The spiritual man must be aware of temptations that are not calculated to bring immediate defeat, but downfall years away.

The total writing of Michael’s for this day is a strong capture of the insidious attacks of satan on Christians.  Our failure to be alert, stand fast, take heed, and to be ignorant of the enemy is what so often leads to our downfall.  Michael gives us some outstanding insights into the myriad of attacks the enemy has.  Let us read, meditate, and move to keep the door to Christ’s life open all the time!

Next time we see how to get out of living in defeat…

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

If you desire to get a weekly email of this blog, look to the top right hand side of the web page, enter your email address in the box under “Follow,” then click on SUBMIT.  You will receive a “confirmation email,” and when you click on the link and “confirm,” you will receive all new posts via email.

NOTICE:  another blog on Michael Wells’ book, My Weakness For His Strength, called Living Life With a Capital “C”.  You can access by logging onto www.leemccm.blogspot.com

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                               936-559-5696

The Unrenewed Mind

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 41

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that many can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner. 

Michael brings us now to something every Christian must understand…the “old soul” remains a part of the New Man, as does the old body.  It is not the “old man” that is the Christian’s problem…it is the old soul.  The old man (spirit, with a little “s”) was crucified, is dead, buried, and has not risen from the dead.  A Christian’s Spirit is Christ’s Spirit, from the New Creation at the New Birth.  So, understanding just who we are (note: trichotomy of man) is a major step in the direction of engaging the New Me and my life (which is not my life, but Christ’s!).  Well, amen!

THE UNRENEWED MIND

excerpt from pages 114-118 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 111-115 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

We will reject the argument that the Christian has two natures, and look to Scripture for a different explanation…the “old you”…Every sin that was committed, idol trusted, and identity message received had to register in your mind, will, and emotions (your soul), (boldness for my emphasis), and, therefore, the complete history of your old nature is stored there.  When the old man is put to death and replaced by Christ’s life and Spirit, we are one with Him and He with us (John 17:21).  We receive new spirits, but our old souls containing the old information remain.

…The baggage that we accumulated by living with the old nature for years is still stored in the mind, will, and emotions…Understanding the residue baggage that was left by the Adam-life will help us to understand how a Christian can walk with the Lord, in the Spirit, for days, weeks, even years, and in an instant find himself attracted to the old sins, idols, feelings of the past.

…What opens the abiding door is humility, and what closes it is pride.  If there could be one word that describes God, it would be love, but the one word that might best describe Jesus is humility.  Humility is not saying, “I am nothing”; rather, the humble man says, “I have nothing.”…Jesus did not walk on water because He could, but because God told Him to…In fact, the New Testament does not record any original saying of Jesus, for He Himself said He only spoke what the Father told Him to.  He was Divine Humility.

That same spirit of humility allows us to recognize that we have nothing, and that our very existence must be supported by the Father moment by moment…

…we can often see the same behavior in an unbeliever as we do in an unbelieving believer…The door can open and close as fast as a thought.  Many believe it can close as fast as a wicked thought, but few know that it also will open just as fast with a repentant prayer…

Michael’s comment that all our sins from the old life are embedded in the old soul holds the key to the struggle for Christians.  There is no struggle in the New Man (Christ’s Spirit) which is God’s new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) upon our being Born Again.  There really is not much of a struggle in the body…it moves with whatever the mind, will, and emotions tell it to.  The battle is in the “soul.”  And the real battle is that Christians are “double-souled”…we have the residue of the “old soul” and Christ’s “soul” (His mind, His will, His emotions). 

It helps to know what the “mind” is: Greek word, “nous” - “the organ of mental perception and apprehension; the organ of conscious life; the organ of the consciousness preceding actions or recognizing and judging them; the understanding of word, concept, sense” (Spiro Zodhiates, Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, p. 1741).  The answer for Christians is to operate in Christ’s soul that is ours, instead of the original soul that was “trained” by the Adam-life from our birth…infiltrated by sin, Satan, and the world.  James said we are to not be “double-souled” (James 1:8)…living out of both souls.  With only Christ’s mind, will, and emotions leading our life, empowered by His Spirit within, He yields a holy life through our body.  Well, amen.

How do we enjoy moment-by-moment, day-by-day life like this?  Abandoned and abiding in Christ.

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                               936-559-5696

Continued Conflict?

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 40

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that many can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner. 

Trying to explain, rationalize, excuse away, or biblically posture the fact that Christians do sin is a never-ending work for some folks.  Michael addresses what is probably the #1 “reason” many give as to this dilemma…albeit it is a non-winnable position.

CONTINUED CONFLICT?

excerpt from pages 112-114 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 109-111 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

One of the problems associated with unbelief is its tendency to protect God.  …God has spoken…we have not been able to experience it…we cannot admit the fault lies within us…neither can we let the blame lie with God…we whitewash what God has spoken and give it an alternate meaning…protecting God and…freeing ourselves from the accusation that we might be failing…

…we still sometimes find ourselves in the same sins, behaviors, and feelings that we had before we were crucified with Christ and born again.  Why?

Some have suggested…the Adam-life or old nature never really died…the Christian possesses two natures that battle against each other.

…the concept of having two opposing forces or natures dwelling within us is, besides being contradictory to Scripture, hardly novel.  We find that notion in most world religions, many of which predate Christianity, and most notable of which is Taoism, which has a similar teaching concerning the yin and yang…

…Christianity does not originate in the tree from which all other religions do; it springs from the other tree that was in the Garden, the tree of life, rooted in the person of the Lord Jesus and based on something much deeper than a mere struggle between good and evil.

In John 15, Jesus uses the illustration of the vine and the branch.  It is quite clear from nature that once a branch has been grafted on, its old life is completely replaced by new life from the vine.  There is no warring between old and new lives.  Even though the branch might remember what it felt like to be cut off and dead, it now receives a new and different life from only one source.

Michael shows the incorrectness of trying to explain a Christian sinning due to the old nature having “never really died.”  Michael’s last paragraph in this portion of the book describes the true essence of what occurs when our old man was crucified (cut off from our old life) and we became a new man (receiving the life of Christ).  Next time he gives us what it is like to “remember” (the old mind is still with the new creation).  And therein lies the Scriptural look at what is taking place in the life of a Christian that is attracted to the old sins, idols, and feelings of the past.

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                                 936-559-5696

Working To Reveal vs Working To Become

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 39

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that multitudes can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner

The LIFE OF CHRIST begins to flow like a tsunami from these pages forward in Michael’s book!  Line after line, paragraph after paragraph, page after page, chapter after chapter…hang onto your seats!  You are in for the ride of your life…His life (Colossians 3:4 tells us His life is our life!). 

WORKING TO REVEAL vs WORKING TO BECOME

excerpt from pages 109-112 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 106-109 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

…behavior cannot change what we are.  We are what we are by birth, and to change we must be born again.  Again, Christian growth is simply accepting what we have always been from the first day we accepted Christ.  The word grow teaches this very thing, as it means to expand what already exists…either we are growing in bondage to Adam’s life or growing in the freedom of Christ’s life.

…If you are born again, your old Adam-life has been put to death and replaced with Christ’s very life…if we know who we are, then the doing is natural.

…this is true salvation – to be free from the old identity and unholy trinity…the carnal believer walks after the flesh and then makes attempts to walk after the Spirit, never knowing which fits best…

Throw away those old garments of sin, failure, and defeat, and put on Christ.

It is one of the most dynamic truths of the New Testament: a Christian’s old Adam-life has been put to death and replaced with Christ’s very life.  Unbelievably, far too many cannot accept that.  Accepting what we have always been from the first day we accepted Christ is really impossible IF we cannot accept our old Adam-life has been put to death and replaced with Christ’s very life.  Simple.  Short.  Succinct.  The focus never leaves the old Adam-life.  The efforts continue to be those of trying to change and “clean up” the old life, instead of walking in the REST of knowing our life is Christ’s life.

How nice it is to live wanting to reveal the new me, instead of working to become something I could never attain.  No wonder that was a sickening life!

How nice it is to know that growing in Christ is simply accepting what we have always been from the first day I accepted Christ.  Boy, that takes a load off.  And wow…it is so relaxing to grow by “accepting” instead of “working”!!!

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

If you desire to get a weekly email of this blog, look to the top right hand side of the web page, enter your email address in the box under “Follow,” then click on SUBMIT.  You will receive a “confirmation email,” and when you click on the link and “confirm,” you will receive all new posts via email.

NOTICE:  another blog on Michael Wells’ book, My Weakness For His Strength, called Living Life With a Capital “C”.  You can access by logging onto www.leemccm.blogspot.com

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                                 936-559-5696

You Are Acceptable

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 38

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

Notice:  this email is part of a BLOG, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  Why a blog?  So that multitudes can receive the weekly thoughts I express on Michael’s writings in an easy manner.

I’ll never forget learning that I am “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).  That was just a short time after being Born Again back in 1980.  Wow!  That was huge!

And I also remember thinking of how many Christians I met in those first years that didn’t know who they were in Christ.  Unbelievable!  How could the church let this be?!?  Sadly, it is still the same everywhere God has taken me to minister. 

Michael makes such a profound statement: “Jesus did not come, however, so we could remain the same (as before being Born Again) and merely be sinners who don’t sin.”  Yet a huge percentage of Christians think that is exactly who they are.

Let this be the turning point in this book to take you on the rest of the journey to getting out of the wilderness…

YOU ARE ACCEPTABLE

excerpt from pages 108-109 of SIW (5^th printing, March 1998)

excerpt from pages 105-106 of SIW (14^th printing, March 2012)

                   (used with permission from ALMI):

…wrong last name…not my children.

One day there will be a great feast in heaven, and those who attend will not do so on the basis of their works, but on the basis of their birth.  They must have the appropriate last name, “Children of the Most High God.”  Our co-crucifixion, burial, and new life (Christ’s life) afford us that privilege.

We must say it again:  All that is true about Christ’s life is true of the “new you.”  Do you see the importance of this?  Each inner life (Adam-life) has taken its own peculiar form…But each one has the opportunity of exchanging what he has become for what Christ has always been.

…Jesus did not come, however, so we could remain the same and merely be sinners who don’t sin.  He took away the life in us that desires sin and replaced it with a heavenly one – His very life.  We possess a new identity; now we are saints, not sinners.  Satan’s definition of a hypocrite and God’s are totally different.  Satan tells us when we try to act holy we are hypocrites, because we are really wicked, vile sinners.  On the other hand, God tells us we are hypocrites when we sin, because we are really holy saints!...Remember, we are not saints because of works, but by birth.

Saints…not sinners.  “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since Jesus came into my heart!  I have light in my soul for which long I had sought, since Jesus came into my heart!”…the opening words of a favorite old hymn.  How many Christians know the words, but are not living the life…simply because they haven’t gotten the foundational truth correct: every new Christian is a NEW CREATION.  Not the same as before.  Not the same ever again. 

We are not the same sinners who don’t sin (simply because we have become Christians and people think Christians don’t/shouldn’t sin), but we are saints who do sin when we step into the flesh.  BUT…a “holy but”…because of our new birth WE ARE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD.  Hallelujah!

Note: if you don’t have one of Michael’s Sidetracked In The Wilderness books, please contact ALMI (www.abidinglife.com) and get one today!

To access ALL past weekly blogs, go to Getting Out of the Wilderness by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com  

If you desire to get a weekly email of this blog, look to the top right hand side of the web page, enter your email address in the box under “Follow,” then click on SUBMIT.  You will receive a “confirmation email,” and when you click on the link and “confirm,” you will receive all new posts via email.

NOTICE:  another blog on Michael Wells’ book, My Weakness For His Strength, called Living Life With a Capital “C”.  You can access by logging onto www.leemccm.blogspot.com

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

leemccm@gmail.com

1737 CR 2051    Nacogdoches, Tx 75965                                                 936-559-5696