To walk with God in the high places we must lose our
fear. Fear can only be lost in the desert, in the crucible of
warfare, inferiority and internal struggle. In the place
where only God can shelter you. Only His Comfort
works. All is stripped bare and we come to rest in His
goodness.
-Graham Cooke
While we have been in Africa there has been a significant amount of spiritual warfare. We aren’t into finding a demon behind every bush and sound in the night. But there has been significant attack against some of our teams. Just this morning our host Patrick and his wife both had the same vision of someone shackling up a racer and pulling them back. So we all prayed for a bit this morning for freedom and peace against the enemy.
I could tell some crazy stories of some of the things that have happened but I really want to focus on the protection of God. I think that a proper understanding of God and his battle strategy will blow us away and put our hearts at rest. He is a strong tower that the righteous run to and are safe. We can rest in the shadow of his wings.
Rest is a weapon. To know peace at depth is a most
urgent discipline to acquire. To be able to bring yourself
to peace in moments under severe pressure is vital.
This is so good, rest is a weapon that will destroy everything negative. As we just trust in God and rest in His safety it takes away the main weapon of the enemy: intimidation. We can destroy His power by just ignoring Him and being fascinated by God and resting in Him. I used to be bound by sin and the major way that God set me free was to just get in His presence when tempted and fall asleep. When I woke up I felt awesome, in my right mind and felt the absurdity of the temptation.
Those whom God inhabits fully are always singled out
by the principalities and powers. There is a place in the
Spirit set aside for us where no weapon can prosper
against us. We can make the enemy tired, weary and
inferior through the quality of our rest and peace. We
cannot be intimidated because we are too busy being
fascinated . . . by Jesus.
All these quotes are from Graham Cooke, He is one of the most peaceful and joyful men of God I have ever heard of. He has an incredible ministry setting satanists and occultists free. He is never intimidated by them because he is so amazed by Jesus. One day in a sermon he was talking about Psalm 23 it says “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” God prepares a table for us! While we are thinking about battle and warfare with our enemies God is preparing a picnic!! He certainly seems secure and more interested in intimacy with us then battle with them.
