When you were born again, did you know that you were taken from the Devil's kingdom? Since you were born again you have been brought into God’s Kingdom. Did you know that the Bible describes the New Birth Experience as being delivered out of darkness? That means the Devil has no authority over you, other than the authority you give him. Did you know that?
Look at Colossians 1:13 with me. This verse tells us it is God, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” Did you know that darkness has power? That’s the reason that so many people, (both children and adults), are afraid of the dark. There are people who are afraid to walk around anywhere at night, and I do mean anywhere.
At one point I was a night watchmen at a small rescue mission in Elkhart Indiana, when I was there one of the residents was a man who was extremely paranoid and afraid of the dark. Whenever he awoke, he would always show up at the front desk complaining and making up some of the wildest stories you have ever heard. In some cases things like this is because of some kind of schizophrenia, sometimes it's fear, sometimes it’s demonic oppression: this is where it takes a Holy Spirit witness to be sure which of these it is so you can minister effectively. For this man it was absolute fear. The only way to minister to him was to bring him back to his room, show him that no one was there and things were okay. Only then would he let you pray for him and then he would calm down and go to sleep. None of the other watchmen were able to get this man to relax and go to sleep, but because I knew it was a spirit of fear I was able to pray for the man and he was sleeping within 10 minutes from the time he showed up at the front desk.
The good news for those who are willing to listen is this: God has delivered us from the power of darkness.. That is it has delivered already.. the Word already settled it. But God did more than that the verse goes on, to say He “has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” As Christians, we belong to the kingdom of God.
That's right, according to God’s Word, the devil must have permission to harm us when we are walking in the light. The only time that he can harm us is when we open the door to him, or when we are being tested, (that’s what was happening in the book of Job). Yet the fact of the matter is that when God blesses you nothing can be done to reverse it, if you’re in God’s Will and bad things still seem to be happening it’s only a time of testing.
Numbers 23:19-20 show us that when God blesses us, no one on earth can keep the blessing from doing its job. Those verses say“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it.”
In the new covenant this is confirmed by Ephesians 1:3 which says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.”
It is in Christ that we have these blessings. When we are in Christ the curse cannot touch us. We have been blessed with all of heavens blessings; this is not something that needs to happen this is something that has already taken place.
When a believer thinks that the curse is powerful, they underestimate the power of the cross, the power of the blood and the power of the resurrection according to Colossians 2:15 which says “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.”
Jesus defeated Satan at Calvary and He broke the power of the curse. But people still think these curses can affect them without their ability to do anything about them. Yes, there are Curses that can affect us, but as we will see in a moment there are things that can be done about them. Curses fall into three arenas:
1st. What some call Generational Curses – those curses that according to the lies of the Devil, have been passed down from Generation to Generation. I’ll discuss what they really are in more detail later on.
2nd. Modern day curses – those curses that are cast as spells upon people by way of witchcraft.
3rd. Curses in the Scripture – these are actually promises from God concerning what will happen when we disobey Him, serve other god’s and live our lives in rebellion against Him.
We'll cover these things more in later posts..
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