Thoughts
on Michael Wells’ teachings in Sidetracked In The Wilderness - # 58
Michael’s book is
available through:
Abiding Life Ministries
International
Littleton, Colorado
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
Everywhere
the Lord has taken me in ministry I have run into one Christian after another
who has lived in defeat due to their thinking they had no hope of overcoming
the constant attacks of Satan. If he
hasn’t been out to destroy them, he has been out to make them do things they
didn’t want to do. And yet, everyone of
these Christians has said they believed 1 John 4:4. Really?
Lie #1 - SATAN HAS NOT
BEEN STRIPPED OF HIS POWER
excerpt
from pages 174-177 of SIW (5th printing,
March 1998)
excerpt
from pages 176-179 of SIW (14th printing,
March 2012)
(used with permission from
ALMI):
…Once
Christ as our life is accepted by faith, we will begin to take an offensive
position against the enemy, refusing the lie that he has more power than we do
in Christ, and exercising the release of the life within us that has already
defeated Satan at every turn.
In
conjunction with this deception, many are told that when there is something in
their lives they cannot overcome, they should seek the Lord to see if there
might be some type of demon dwelling within them. Though there is no scriptural basis for a
demon’s inhabiting a believer, this will be taught with fierceness because of
what has been seen or heard…
Again,
the issue is to find what works in terms of being conducive to a victorious
Christian walk…when problems recur, these believers are then told they didn’t
struggle hard enough to keep the demons out, which avoids the real issue that
the whole process did not work…
If
Satan can possess Christians as easily as many report, isn’t it reasonable to
assume he could wreak much more havoc than we now see?...Why does Satan not do
such things, given his nature? The
answer must be quite simple: he cannot!
But he can lie and deceive and make Christians waste time casting demons
out of one another, not standing against him with heavenly power to accomplish
the work of the Kingdom.
…Church
history does not bear out that casting demons out of Christians was ever a
solution to defeat. It does, however,
bear out that the enemy has continually introduced one-time solutions into the
Church, all calculated to keep our eyes off of Jesus. If demons are so much the problem, why is it
that Paul and the other writers of the New Testament neglected to come right
out and tell us so?...
This
is not to say that a Christian cannot be oppressed; we know that does
occur. And all too often what the enemy
uses to harass the believer are particular manifestations of the flesh; these,
as we have already mentioned, are removed by taking up the cross daily, which
will cut the ground out from under the enemy and free us from his influence…
If
Christ in you cannot keep demons from dwelling in you, what chance do you have
of keeping them out? Victory belongs not
to those who try to generate power over the enemy, but to those who receive
Christ’s power.
Listen
carefully to Michael giving us a detailed explanation of just how powerless
Satan is:
·
Scripture
details his powerlessness.
·
His
total ineptness betrays his weakness.
·
Christ
in us is our overcoming and Satan’s losing.
So,
what’s the problem? Why is it so many
Christians believe the lie? Because
lies are manufactured to satisfy the emotions.
Too many are too quick to believe their lying emotions rather than God’s
Truth. The Truth is invariable. Unless one is prepared to stand and not
compromise, they should never fool around with the Truth. That is the Victory Michael gives us in his
last sentence: “Victory belongs not to those who try to generate power over the
enemy, but to those who receive Christ’s power.” Amen!
So much for Lie #1.
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
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
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