2 Cor 20:17, “ You
will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and
see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem.
Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and
the Lord will be with you.”
The battle you are crossing has two faces,
one that belongs to me and the other side belongs to God. When things don’t belong to you, before you
touch them, you ask yourself if they really belong to you. You can’t walk into a bank and take money
from the counter or just take Tyrone’s car.
It is the same way for God. He puts us in a battle field and tells, “Remember
that you have your portion of the battle and I have mine”.
The first enemy of your life is your
body. Behind this body, satan acts and
influences the body and that is what God calls battle. I’ve never seen satan tempting a dead
body. He doesn’t need to. As long as you are alive physically, then
your body becomes a part of your battle.
You must know that your body is your main
problem. Because of our bodies, most of
us will not enter the Kingdom of God.
That is why Paul said, “I want to do good but my body lets me down”. Most of the time we pray, God protect us
against satan. What many Christians do
to solve their problems, they try to protect their bodies through justification,
defending your body, your feelings, your wrong doing so you can please your
body. We forget that the body will
return to the earth. If you already know
that your body is a loser and isn’t worth it, why defend it. Tell your body it is wrong.
Once you know that your body is wrong in a
way, remember your problem is bigger than you.
Your body sometimes makes you feel so useless, how miserable is my
life. Your body will push you to believe
you are miserable while your soul doesn’t suffer. You will see someone crying and wishing they
could be like Queen Elizabeth. Do you
know how much she suffers? On one side,
we want to appear like big people because our body likes glory and we want
people to bow down.
I had the chance to talk to one of the most
valuable men on the planet and he said that he only sleeps 4 hours because he
has so many problems with people coming to see him and calling him and he must
see the doctor all the time.
Michael Jackson also, had to have
treatments because he was trying to make his body look a certain way and he had
to see the doctor every day and now he is dead.
He was once great but now the young people don’t know who he is. He forgot that the first enemy he had was his
body. The secret for salvation is
whoever wants to gain his life will lose it, surrender all to Jesus then you
will win the battle.
God is bigger than your problem. When I don’t get what I want, what do I
do? Nothing. If I want to buy this hall and I don’t have
money, I just have to accept it. But
your body will tell you, it is time to break a bank, sell drugs and then you
can afford the drugs. Your body will not
tell you that you will be caught. If
that thought comes up, the body will tell you a way around it. Your body will have plans and strategies.
The body which is your enemy will tell you
that you must win this battle. What do
you gain if you gain the entire world with everything it contains, gold,
houses, money from the banks, aeroplanes.
What will you do with it all?
Good or wrong, you don’t need all of it but what you need most of all is
your soul.
You should know that the most important
thing for you is your soul, not what is in this world. When I look for things that give me joy, ice
cream, chocolate, I believe that this will help me. Levi will tell you when you give him food, “mmmm
that is yummy” and he talks like poetry because he is full of joy. If only I could do that kind of poetry for
reading the Word of God and joy from reading Word of God.
I can buy shirts. I once saw a bottle of
wine for US$17,000. I saw this man
coming and asking for 6 of those bottles.
He paid with his card. The man
was rushing quickly and packing it with respect. My heart was pounding. The man gave bottles to different friends. He gave the remaining 3 bottles to the man
that served them. More than $40K in
wine. Who is going to buy it from that
man? Where is he going to sell it? He won’t drink it and he will fight day after
day for a customer. He won’t be allowed
to sell it in the shop.
Our bodies will give us something that will
give us more problems. For example, you
can feel like you are thirsty. You
search for water. For those that drink
alcohol, they can drink bottles of beer but can’t drink one glass of water. Some need to drink alcohol or they start to
shake. He asks for money, and if you
don’t give he starts to lie, I need money to take my mum to hospital. He lies to get money and then once he has the
money, he drinks and then he starts to swear and kick people.
I once saw him stumbling home, shouting, “Open
this door you dog”. He came inside. Another day, he jumped into the back seat of
his car and thought someone had stolen the steering wheel. How do you try to drive your soul when the
priority for you is your body?
If your daughter doesn’t respect you, you
feel bad. I feel shame on me. It is the same with God, when we don’t
respect what He says to us, we let Him down. He is disappointed, “I gave you
everything for free and in return you tell your Father God that you don’t
respect Him”. We respond by saying, “I’m
tired of you, I quit,” and you become rebellious.
We forget that our bodies lie to us. God can turn off our breath at any moment and
our body can’t stop that. Then God will
ask you, what did you do during your time on this earth. Did you look after your soul?
Adam was given the job to take care of the
garden of Eden. Your soul is your garden
of Eden. When someone talks to you wrongly, you feel you need to fight. When you become angry, it is a simple
battle. Don’t fight back. Tell yourself, this is not my battle. If my eyes see something that I don’t like,
automatically I become angry. Why did
you put this here? We must consider God’s
position.
Once we open the door, our soul will be the
first thing that suffers. By serving
your body, you are killing your body for eternity. When I watch boxing on tv, it is a battle, a
fight. With boxing, people fight each
other for others to watch, they fight for the glory and for the prize
money. They give up everything, including
certain food and time and they train to win. How often do you train your soul
to feel fit?
Do you hate to put on weight physically, do
you also hate to put on spiritual weight?
When you don’t want to go to work, maybe people will call you lazy. Life is about working and we need to do
something but when it is about your soul, how often will people tell you to do God’s
work? Children will tell you they are too tired to go to school but the parent
will push children to go to the school.
Regardless of how good your sleep is, you
have to get out of bed. That is your
side of your battle. Now spiritually,
how often will people tell you to wake up?
Many people will try to please others. E.g. singing for others. Once I was invited to join a gang. They encouraged me by saying they would
protect me. I told them I’m not strong
to fight other gangs. Many young people
feel pride to belong to a gang and when they walk on the streets they feel like
they are something.
Have you tried to join or make this
connection with God to feel a part of God’s army where you can stand up and
fight against evil and against those who try to destroy God? When the battle comes, fight your part and
let God fight His part. E.g. “My
thoughts, I will not give in”. “My
desire for wrong, this is not my part, what you are asking me to do is the
battle of God”. When you live such a
life that you don’t have to respond to all temptations but give it to God, you
will be a winner.
When you are tempted to steal, say, “No
this isn’t my battle to possess this, God this is your role to get this for me”. As adults we fight against our parents
because we have our own way. Sometimes
we try to prove to God that we are grown up children and He can’t tell us
anymore what to do and I will come back to God when I want, read my bible when
I want and deal with my own problems. The
problems of my body are my own problems.
When someone dies the corpse remains but
the soul has gone. So the dead body is not me. I should remember that when I’m
tempted that this is not me, my body is not me.
I just have to decide, I don’t want to do this. For example, we all know someone who decided
to stop smoking. She just quit. She didn’t need a counsellor. She didn’t cut down slowly. It didn’t kill her. It was a matter of decision. God told the king, take your positions, and
stand firm and see the deliverance. What
position do you take in life? Do you
stand firm? Or do you go left and right
and try again tomorrow. How often do you
stand firm in order to protect your soul?
When you stand firm, the battlefield belongs to God now and he will act
for you.
A friend of mine, he was someone who always
wanted to get everything. One time he
borrowed money and he was told he had to pay 40% interest per day. He wanted to buy something to make him appear
special. After a few days he couldn’t
afford to pay it back. The lenders gave
him a job to steal from people’s houses until the day that he finished to pay
back the money. If it was $10, 40% was
$14 so it kept getting bigger.
In Congo, when someone is caught stealing,
they will burn you alive. When he was
caught, people asked, “Where is the tyre?”
That is how they kill you. They
were punishing the body. How often have
you been influenced by people? It will
be good, just for today. That is the
time to tell God, “The battle belongs to you, I stand firm God, intervene. I’m shaken by what I see, please God
intervene”.
In the gang, they were telling me that the
longer you stay with us you will get a title.
I responded, “I have title in heaven that is bigger than yours and I
can’t sacrifice what I have in heaven”.
Do you remember that at any minute you can die? Where are you going to go? Last time Ange was planning a trip and that
trip was planned for many weeks ahead.
Usually people don’t just decide to go
somewhere without planning. If you do,
you may not find a place to sleep. We must
plan our journey to heaven. If not, you
may find yourself in hell. You can only
plan by asking God to fight for us.
Please God do this battle. When God
fights, we have the victory.
