By Glynn Adams
March 24, 2024
“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.” (1 Timothy 4:1)
This is where we are in America today. People falling away from the truth but still going to a religious service to hear what they want to hear and to be made to feel good in their sins. It is a dangerous thing to be under a false pastor and teacher in America today!!! “And Jesus spoke a parable to them, ‘A blind man cannot guide a blind man, can he? Will they not both fall into a pit? A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone after he has been fully trained will be like his teacher.’”
My goal in these articles is for you to be trained to operate in the image of Jesus Christ. The teacher is Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the instruction book is the Word of God. The church that Jesus builds is a culture of truth and not a culture of feelings. You cannot separate Jesus from what He says and still have the real Jesus. At the heart of Spiritual Warfare and following Jesus is having our lives formed by the Word of God. How we relate to the Words of Jesus determine whether we are His true followers. Jesus’ words cut across our own desires, ideas, and lifestyles.
Whether you want to accept it or not but the way of Jesus Christ is “radical.” Following Jesus is a “radical” decision!!! He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6)
“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life and few are those who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
“So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh – for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if (you are being led) by the Spirit, you are putting to death the deeds of the flesh you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” (Romans 8:12-14)
Following the ways of Jesus Christ is a radical decision!!! Radical means totally dedicated, obedient, and sold out to the person of Jesus Christ. Most shy away from the word radical because most people in America who claim to follow Jesus are nominal followers of Jesus. How many people do you reckon who are radical that are on the roster of professional and college sports? I say everyone of them. How many nominal players are on the roster of professional and college players? I dare say none.
How many Muslims do you suspect are sold out completely and are radical to Allah? I dare say everyone of them. They are committed and they will die for Allah!!! We accept “radicals” almost everywhere except in following Jesus. I don’t think the average follower of Jesus Christ has any idea just how radical He truly is!!! He was hostile to this world system and hostile to the religious leaders in His day who had a form of godliness and denied Jesus as the Son of God. He tells us to take up our cross and we are to live in absolute obedience, submission, commitment, faithfulness, and allegiance to Him.
The spiritual war is on today to keep you a nominal follower of Jesus and to keep you from finding His path to abundant life. Many pursuing the path of following Jesus want to fast but a vacation is coming up. They want to be in the Word more but their kids get up too early and they want to pray more but do not know where to start. This is so simple to solve. Either you are doing it or you are not.
Too many people frame their opinion of themselves or their accomplishments on their intentions. In the reality of following Jesus, the only measurable thing in your life is the action you take and what that action produces in you and the lives around you that you influence. It’s what you do that is actually measured in the end. One day we will all stand before Jesus Christ and give an account on what we did in this life with what we were given. You do not want to hear, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”
Start where you are but start!!!! In order to be a master of anything you must constantly be willing to look like a fool. The only thing that matters is what Jesus thinks. He was in the flesh and He understands what it means to live in the flesh. Reading the Word, studying the Word, prayer, and acting on the Word will lead you to Jesus and help you develop tangible habits in your life that will create an anchor for you to continue following Him no matter what storms come your way.
The Bible is clear in James and 1 Peter that we are to submit to God and resist the devil. We are not to be ignorant of his devices. But unfortunately, in today’s world, the Devil is little more than a joke. Even many professing believers of Jesus shy away from the subject for fear of appearing the fool if he’s taken too seriously.
To say that man has underestimated the Devil is a commentary as old as history itself. Satan is a deceiver in Genesis 3 and it will be the same in Revelations 20:7. The Lord today through Scripture is still warning us of “things not seen” but we continue to ignore them.
Everywhere in America today, lies are being told by the thousands and we continue to listen to them. In a time in America when many are falling away from the faith, because we will not resist the demonic forces working in our nation, we are a captured nation, and we have become a habitation of demons and the gods of ancient Babylon and Egypt are building demonic strongholds. America has become a dangerous place to live and to ignore Satan and fall away from Jesus is inviting disaster on a scale unimaginable.
Today, on spiritual warfare, I want to focus on the seriousness of the lies going on in our nation today. I hate to say it but not only are lies in our culture, government, and schools but many lies and deceptions are in our churches because of our false pastors.
Being deceived or in deception is not exactly the same thing as a lie. A lie is a contradiction of the truth but deception is what occurs when someone believes the lie. If someone tells you something that contradicts the truth, you have been lied to. If you believe what they tell you, you have been deceived. A lie doesn’t become deception until it is believed. That is why the enemy in America works at making the lies believable, subtle, and even mixed with some truth. If a lie is crafty, it’s more likely to be believed.
Once you have believed the lie and you are living in deception, then in this spiritual realm of deception, you develop a mindset called a stronghold based on that deception A stronghold is an ungodly imagination, an argument against the truth, or a deceptive way of reasoning. Strongholds are deceptive thought patterns. These deceptive thought patterns can become safe havens for the works of the flesh as well as demonic influence. Once established, these ungodly thought patterns become ungodly behavior patterns and these ungodly behavior patterns are what we refer to as spiritual bondage.
If you want to be permanently freed from spiritual bondage, you have to get to the root of the issue. You have to address the problem beyond just the symptoms of your actions and feelings, you have to get to the source of the deception. Deception is the root of all defeat. The devil is the father of all deception. Spiritual warfare is the fight to believe God’s truth over the enemy’s lies. What we believe can give power to or take power from the devil and the sin nature. Thankfully, we’re told how to deal with strongholds of deception.
Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 10-3-6, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but divinely powerful for the destruction of strongholds. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and we are ready to punish all disobedience whenever your obedience is complete.”
When Paul writes, “casting down imaginations,” he is speaking of reasonings, mindsets, or deception. These “imaginations” are the things we tell ourselves that don’t align with the truth of God’s Word. They are also the lies that demons tell us repeatedly. So “casting down imaginations” is a reference to the dispelling of deception.
We must also realize that our mind is the battlefield. Whenever you choose to believe truth, peace advances. Whenever you choose to believe the lies of Satan, darkness advances. Strongholds are built by lies and are torn down by truth. That is why we must be in the Word of God, in an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ and we must know our weapons of warfare and especially how to put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6).
Putting on the full armor of God is putting on Jesus Christ with prayer. We must be in the power of the Holy Spirit to be guided into all truth and knowledge because many in the Body of Christ today are literally perishing because they have no personal relationship with Jesus Christ, no knowledge, and no power.
What God has done is He has entrusted everything on this earth to His children of faith. He has placed everything under His authority and has given us authority and dominion. He has given us great responsibility to possess the land – over all creation. There is no question who has the responsibility on this earth – His Body!!!
We can blame the Democrats, the weather, or whoever for our spiritual mess in this nation. But this is a fact that you cannot change what you do not take responsibility for. God gave us the responsibility for His Body to see to it that His will was done on earth as it is done in heaven. We have been disobedient in this and until we repent and take responsibility for our inactions in allowing Satan to take over the rule of this nation rather than God, we will remain under the judgment of God and worse – P O W E R L E S S.
For the people of God who will take responsibility for our spiritual mess in this nation, and repent, and change our mindset to obey God, He will give us the power to bring about the change we need in America. Satan has had his day in America and it is our time to have our day of obedience to our LORD Jesus Christ.
We must get organized and in one accord and say NO to Satan and YES to our LORD Jesus Christ. We must put ourselves and our own agendas to the side and get ourselves back together, and stop Satan from dividing us with names, titles, and positions so we can be united as one in Jesus Christ. The greatest title in the Kingdom of God is Servant. It’s time to come together and go to the battlefield.
I believe in my heart that the true Body of Christ in America will rise again and take their position on earth and be the Church that Jesus built and died for – like the First Century Body in the Book of Acts – going out into the streets and preaching the true Gospel at any cost and resisting Satan and regaining what he has stolen from us.
But we must never forget that every day, we must go to our closet for prayer and Bible Study and be quiet so we can hear God. This intimate relationship with our LORD Jesus Christ is a must if we expect to receive revelation, change in our life, and possess the power of the Holy Spirit!!! In this process, we must die to our flesh (Romans, Chapter 8) and renew our mind (Romans 12:1-2).
God bless, I remain His warrior and watchman, Glynn Adams (Thanks to “The Great Falling Away Today” by Milton Green, “Unmasking the Devil” by John Ramirez, “The Prince of the Power of the Air” by Jeffrey W. Mardis, “The Way of the Warrior” by Edwin Ralphael McManus.
© 2024 Glynn Adams – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Glynn Adams: glynnadams@sbcglobal.net
Sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-28/montana-s-yimby-revolt-aims-to-head-off-a-housing-crisis
https://ced.sog.unc.edu/2018/07/what-exactly-is-workforce-housing-and-why-is-it-important/
