The spirit Of Disobedience
…”in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2).
Sometime ago, the Lord gave us a message and He said, “No children are allowed in tonight’s worship session and John (Not real name, and being 11 years at the time) must be present so that he can receive deliverance from his demons”.
Now, when John was about nine (9) years old, we led him to the Lord and at first, like all new babes in Christ (1 Peter 2:2) he walked obediently and the Lord rewarded him for that. As a family, we could sense the Lord’s Joy when people acted obediently and He always expressed such Joy through His messages to people and often His Joy would be accompanied by a blessing that brought the Lord great pleasure. We hasten to add, that little John was equally grateful to the Lord for his blessings and the Lord’s attention and love for him. As we knew, this was aimed at encouraging John to lead an obedient lifestyle (John 15:2).
Ungodly Interest, The Cause Of Our Fall
Being human, and since John enlarged his friendship circle, his interest in other things increased and subsequently his commitment to the Lord took a downward spiral. As it was, the ‘tools’ like daily bible reading he needed to build his spiritual live became a burden to him. He despised bible reading, prayer and his Christian manners (Ephesians 6:1; 1 Peter 2:2; Jude 1:20) and the result of his dissociation with the Lord was manifestly evident and his tongue twisted from being heartily truthful (Psalm 15:2; Ephesians 4:15) to being deceitful in his speech. It must be added, not only was his speech crooked, but his behaviour and the very content of his heart (Proverbs 4:23; Matthew 15:19).
Furthermore, those of us reading here can bear witness that as we slowed down in our commitment to the Lord so does our spiritual fruit which withers. A brother in the Lord once confided in me that being a Christian and in ministry, he came across many Christian brethren who were heartedly backslidden, but orally armed with the usual Christian jargon, and they can talk up a good salvation message while their hearts and interest are elsewhere. By this, I am being reminded by a conversation I had with a young man a few years ago, he agreed with me on our need for salvation and he even expressed great admiration for his father’s faith in the Lord, while he had his eyes on worldly things. This was confirmed by the Lord when He gave the young man a message saying that his mind was in the world, like our lead scripture, this is where disobedience resides (Ephesians 2:2).
Work Status To Promote Self
Often, Christians finds it difficult to balance their lives between being a committed Christian and a career. Like we acknowledged in our Laziness article, work is necessary (2 Thessalonians 3:10) but our work must NOT be priority over our relationship with God (Daniel 6:3-4). From the preceding verse, the Prophet Daniel was a diligent and hardworking man, however, he did not allow the love for his job to compromise his relationship with God. Neither was he hungry for power and admiration since the King planned to promote him (Daniel 6:3), he exercised his duties faithful and in the fear of God (Colossians 3:23) and not to display his ‘glory’ as some are in the habit of showing off their power positions to control and draw others to their status. It is common knowledge today that people regard their high social standing due to their influential positions as their 'glory' and trademark to gain power over others, their work is not of being a servant, but to be adored. What we know scripturally, is that the spirit of service at work in the Prophet Daniel was humility, and that same spirit was found in Joseph as well (Genesis 39:8), even as epitomised by our Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5-11).
The Influence Of The Strong Man In Us
Let me frankly put it this way, there is a STRONGMAN in each one of us (Mark 3:27), and the Apostle Paul it the ‘spirit of disobedience. No doubt, this being does not fear God, neither does it want to submit to Him. It is only at the command and obedience to God’s Word that we overcome this being which controls and directs our will to disobey the Lord (Romans 7:15-20). In other words, our victory in leading a sinless life would be that we subject ourselves to unquestionable submission to the Lord which is essentially an expression of humility (Romans 6:13; 12:1-2). It can therefore be said, that if we are moved by such humility no STRONGMAN would have a hold in some area of our lives. You heard correctly! The STRONGMAN possesses certain areas of our lives which influences our relationship with the Lord and with others (1 John 3:10; Acts 10:13; John 8:44). Like we have learned from John, a lying tongue has a touch of Satan to it and so does anger, fighting, swearing, screaming, stealing, gossip and pride (John 10:10; Galatians 5:19-21). Thus, all these vices are indicative of the STRONGMAN’S influence if we manifest any of these or any other act that is contrary to God’s will. Also, you will probably remember that we shared in some previous articles that the Lord rebuked a brother in our ministry and attributing his spirit of anger to Satan’s influence and possession (Matthew 16:23). Therefore, words and status will NEVER be able to substitute humility, for the spirit of humility issues from the heart in obedience to the Lord (Matthew 12:35; Galatians 5:22-23).
In Conclusion, if you are serious in conquering the STRONGMAN and possessing the spirit of humility, you need to repent and train your spirit daily through submissive obedience to the Lord and practice love for others, this will undoubtedly rid you of ‘self-status’ and leads you to God consciousness (Psalm 139:17-18).
We would like to extend an invitation to anyone who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ yet, or of you are not born again yet, please pray our suggested prayer on this link
Blessed Grace
Brother Glenn
