Continuing Pastor Kyle's message, he tells us that the second key to keeping a positive mindset when it feels like losing in this world is that we represent the one true God to our world. All religions are not worshipping the same God. The God of the Bible (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is the One true God. The way that we fight our battles here is a direct reflection of our God to our world. It is a battle between light and darkness, between good and evil, between right and wrong. It is essentially a battle between the forces of God against the forces of Satan. The fight is on.
Several of Egypt’s main gods were connected to the Nile River. So, God just turned the entire Nile river into blood. The idea was that Egypt’s gods controlled the Nile, so the One true God proved that He was more powerful than Egypt’s gods and their nationalistic pride in the life-sustaining water of the river. Atheistic people today say that they do not believe in God or follow any religion. In that case, they are their own god, sitting on their own thrown of their life. The scene in Exodus 7 was a battle between the God of the Bible (Creator of Heaven, the heavens and earth) and the pagan religious structure of false gods. God said to Moses and Aaron that they represented Him to Pharaoh. We represent God to our world and our mindset, when we feel like we are losing a battle, is critical not just for us, but for the world in which we are trying to reach and influence for Christ.
One of the biggest lies that Satan wants every one of us to believe is that every religion is just worshipping the same God. I’ve heard this lie manifest in many ways. A couple of primary lies are (1) that, like spokes on a wheel, all spiritual roads lead to Heaven as long as we are sincere about what we believe. You can be sincere about a belief and be sincerely wrong about it. There is truly only one way, (2) that we are all really worshipping the same God in different names and ways. It’s the same lie as the first, repropagating itself. If Satan can get people to believe that all religions are the same, then there is no reason for Christians to spread the gospel truth of Jesus and less need for us to obey God in our everyday life. God doesn’t want people to believe in the idea of a God, He wants us to live for the One true God; to serve Him and bring Him glory.
1 Corinthians 10:20-21 “No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”
Every prayer and offering that is made in the name of another religion, is not made to another god (there is only one God), so they are actually made to a demon. In John 14:6, Jesus said to his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There is only One true God and one narrow gate to salvation. The first of the Ten Commandment given to us by the One true God in Exodus 20:2-3 is: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” We (God’s people/ the children of God) represent Creator God to this world that does not know Him. We need to remember that and the ways that we fight our battle is a direct reflection of God, who we are trying to reach the people with for salvation.
The third key to keeping a positive mindset when it feels like losing in this world is that the weapons of our warfare have divine power to demolish strongholds. God gives us the right weapons to fight the battles of the Lord. There is a very real spiritual battle happening in our nation eight now between God and Satan for every human soul. Too many of us our listening to the mainstream media or read social media, mad and divided about this or that, and Satan is laughing because Christians are distracted and not focused on the real battle. 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 explains, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” God has given Christians all the weapons to win the war. Battles are happening right now in the unseen realm.
Satan knows that once a person accepts Christ, that he cannot get that “born again” person out of Heaven; their salvation is secure. But he can sure make our lives here on earth as close to Hell as possible. Also, if the devil can get us distracted and forget that we represent God to the world, we will be less effective in leading others to Christ. Satan certainly does not want Christians reading the Word of God, because the Scriptures of the Bible affirm that we have the weapons of God against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places to win the war. The devil definitely doesn’t want Christians congregating and fellowshipping with other Christians because then they will realize that they truly have the power and resources to be victorious. as Christian soldiers standing beside each other in the good fight.
Let's conclude Pastor Kyle's message on "Winning with God" in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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