God is Life-giver. The adversary is life-stealer. He comes to rob, kill, and destroy. There are unlimited amounts of bondage within his rebellion against the plan and authority of God. Yet with God there is always the opportunity for us to find freedom. This is the purpose of faith. By reversing the curse and bending before God’s authority, we are returned to His ways for our lives. We also become targets in the war.
Remember, God was sorry He had made humanity. Yet “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Post-flood and reflected in His rainbow promise, God began to weave a return to freedom from spiritual death. Freedom flows from God’s gift of faith.
It is important to recover our God-identity and pursue the truth of who we really are. While our freedom is already won by Jesus, we participate in the war to experience the return of our freedom. Simple – right?!
The teachings of demons spoken through men subvert truth, bringing us into bondage as he steals – kills – and destroys our freedom and our identity. The adversary is beyond vicious. He is corrosive.
“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is set apart by means of the word of God and prayer.” – 1 Timothy 4:1-5
The adversary is consumed with stealing, killing, and destroying (John 10:10). He works to deceive humans through:
√ spreading the teachings of demons (1 Timothy 4:1-5)
√ empowering false prophets and teachers (2 Peter 2:1-22)
√ promoting empty clouds without rain (Jude 12) spiritual windbags?
√ causing fear and confusion in the midst of difficult days
“But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” – 2 Timothy 3:1-7
He attacks Christ’s Bride until the very end – and we become targets for spiritual warfare. 2 Corinthians 11:1-4,12-15; John 3:29-36
But we will win the fight! Revelation 19:6-8; 21:10-27; 22:17
MORE:
He gives us His truth (Law) to bring us back to Him to find freedom and real life. Genesis 1:26-28; 2:7-9,15-18; 3:1-24) 1 John 2:15-17 – Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 6; Deuteronomy 30; James 1:19-26; Galatians 3:23-29; Romans 2:17-20; Romans 7:7-25
√ Keys of the Kingdom thread
Matthew 16:13-20; Revelation 1:17-20; 3:7; 9:1; 20:1
√ You may wish to read the song of Moses and of the Lamb in Revelation 15:1-4 (note the harmonious truth of God’s Voice in both Moses and Jesus) Amazing!
√ The corrosive nature of the sons of god thread:
Genesis 6:1-13; 7:4,5; 8:20-22 and Romans 1:18-2:16
We kicked off our podcast journey with a consideration of God’s commandments vs. the me-gods of bondage. Check it out!
Praying for your path of freedom, friend!
Dave and Burnadette