And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.
Luke 24:49 (NLT)
After a long hard week, I am ready for a Bible lesson that will replenish my strength. How about you?
Sometimes when I have faced many lions (battles) throughout the week, I yearn to be engulfed in God’s love. Similar to how a baby kangaroo, a Joey, snuggles down deep into his mother’s pouch; I want to snuggle down deep into God’s love. In other words, I want to do a free-fall into His arms and say, “I’m tired. Can you take over?” Do any of you know what I am talking about?
Have you ever had a week where you felt like Satan had smacked you up side your head, pushed you past your limit, and sucked you into his wicked game? You became distracted and before you knew it, you were ensnared in one of Satan’s senseless diversions. You don’t have to put up with this—you have rights!
It is time to go on strike and demand your rights. As a child of God, refuse to let Satan victimize you any longer. Unfortunately, you will continue to encounter him in this wicked world, but you don’t have to become his victim. “…He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God” (Ephesians 2:2, NLT).
James 4:7 says, “… Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.” I don’t know about you, but I am certainly ready for him to flee. Far too long, I have given him free rein in some areas of my life. Now I am ready to stand my ground and say, “Shoo, go away devil. Get out of here!” But simply verbalizing those words doesn’t work—I know because I’ve tried it! Therefore, I need to go a little bit deeper into God’s Word for the solution to this devil problem.
In Luke 24:49, Jesus said that He would send the Holy Spirit as God had promised. Once we received the Holy Spirit, we would then be filled with power. The original word for power was “dunamis”— a dynamite power, or a miraculous power.
Consequently, as children of God, we have a great power within us…The Holy Spirit. This Power can miraculously explode and vaporize all of our large boulders of problems into small particles of dust. But how do we light the fuse to that dynamite power?
Let’s go back to James 4:7 and take a closer look at the section on resisting the devil. The first part of that Scripture says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” The following section, James 4:8, says, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.”
Did you notice that the Scripture on resisting the devil is sandwiched between messages that require something of us? We can’t pick and choose the messages that we want to listen to and ignore the rest. If we want to be successful in resisting the devil, then we must obey all of the messages.
From the other messages, we learn that we have to submit to God (V. 7), draw closer to Him (V. 8), and repent of all sin (V. 8). After we do this, then we can resist the Devil and he will have to flee. The fuse to the dunamis power will have been lit. But all of this sounds very similar to another Scripture, “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
God promises that He will do the healing; as such, we need to turned everything over to God. We don’t have to fight Satan on our own. It is not our fight! “But even Michael, one of the mightiest of the angels, did not dare accuse Satan of blasphemy, but simply said, ‘The Lord rebuke you…’” (Jude 1:9, NLT).
Further, Ephesians 6:12 says that we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against “principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Since our weak flesh and blood cannot victoriously fight against any wicked spiritual powers, we just need to step aside and let God fight on our behalf. Besides, God says that vengeance belongs to Him and He will repay those who deserve it (Romans 12:20).
Our part in this fight against evil is to remain standing by putting on the whole armor of God. “Use every piece of God's armor to resist the enemy in the time of evil, so that after the battle you will still be standing firm” (Ephesians 6:13, NLT, emphasis added).
Satan is attempting to wear us down by his constant badgering; however, we can stand firm because we have within us a dynamite power that, hopefully, we have lit. “…as I depend on Christ's mighty power that works within me” (Colossians 1:29, NLT).
Although Satan constantly tries to wear us down, you and I can remain standing when we put on the whole armor of God and are accessing the power of God. We have to light the fuse to the dunamis power. I don’t know about you, but I am going to strike a match and light my inner dunamis power!
“Don't be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!” Then Elisha prayed,“O Lord, open his eyes and let him see!” The Lord opened his servant's eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.
2 Kings 6:16-17 (NLT)
Three Key Concepts:
1. Satan strives to wear us down.
2. God’s Holy Spirit empowers us to stand firm through all battles.
3. We must turn all battles over to God—the fight belongs to Him.
