Zdravejte (hello) from Dobromirka, Bulgaria!
I hope this finds you doing well, and if it should not, email me and let’s talk ([email protected]).
Man, do I have a lot I can blog about right now. I’m so very thankful all that God has been teaching me recently! Today, however, instead of digging into that trove of treasure, I’m gonna be pulling something from the top of the pile that God placed on my heart just yesterday and seems to need sharing more urgently than the rest. So here it goes!
So I’d say it’s a safe guess that most reading this are familiar with Matthew 5:37:
“But let your ‘yes’ be’ yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one”
To give some context, leading up to this verse Jesus is telling the people that they have been instructed in the past that they should never swear falsely, but if they make an oath to swear it by the Lord. But in this instance He’s telling them to cease swearing altogether!
Now, I myself may casually say in the course of a given conversation, “I swear!”. I mean, we all have.
“I swear on my mother’s grave!”
“I swear on my honor.”
Or how about “I swear on my grandfather’s dentures!” (okay, that last one was a bit contrived).
Regardless, the bottom line of what Jesus is getting at here is that we should live lives that don’t necessitate us needing to stake anything on the validity of what we say. We should always be honest, even when it’s hard, that our own lives may attest to our reliability. Additionally, we should never commit to something (be it a job, project, promise, etc.) if it may overburden us and we end up failing to accomplish that task. Our words should never be idle (and there’s a wealth of verses in the Bible about this very thing), but rather we should speak with intention in all things. I, like most people, thought I was living in such a manner, with the occasional stumbling, but overall doing well in this regard.
But I was proven wrong the other day.
Let me explain.
In the last several years, but especially in the past several months, I’ve tried my best to be vigilant and discerning of the ways the enemy tries to speak untruth into my life (And may I say, I am BEYOND thankful for all the insightful teachings AIM has given us because I’ve learned that there were/are a LOT of ways I had never even considered that the enemy tries to bring me down daily). And when he comes around I have been steadily getting better at being there to greet that thought or temptation he looks to plant in my heart and mind with a, “No!” All is well, am I right? I’m living that James 4:7 life (resist the devil and he will flee from you).
But… nevertheless, something wasn’t right. Oftentimes in the seconds following these incursions, even though I resisted, my heart would sink a bit.
Now I wish for the life of me that I could remember what specifically the enemy tried to attack me with the other day, but it’s just not coming to mind. But what I DO remember was the sensation, and that’s where the lesson I needed came from.
In this experience I recall the enemy making his usual charge at the battlements of my heart, and I in typical fashion shouted within myself, “IN THE NAME OF CHRIST, NO!”
…But there was something DIFFERENT this time!
There was no sinking feeling. In its stead I could almost feel this very physical… well… BOUNCE, like the enemy literally just deflected right off of me!
I stood there for several seconds confused (and I could almost say I could feel the presence of the enemy and that he was just as phased and baffled as me).
…And THEN it occured to me!
I sorta did an “instant replay”, if you will, of what went down and how I reacted in my mind. And “after further review” I uncovered what was different.
…I said, “No”… and I MEANT it!
It suddenly occured to me that all these times I had been “resisting” the devil that my defense had two fatal flaws:
1) I wasn’t speaking with the authority of Christ in my declaration.
2) I wasn’t speaking with intention in my “no”.
You see, I realized that all these times I had been outwardly denying Satan entrance…
…BUT… deep down I was always leaving the window or the back door to my heart open JUST A crack, metaphorically speaking.
Let me tell you, if you give him ANYTHING he will find a way to make something out of it.
Why was I doing this? I’ll get to that in a minute.
Now, you may be asking right now, “What changed, Thomas? Why now have you had this experience?” I pondered it too for a moment, but it soon donned on me.
Lately, God has really challenged me in abandoning myself for Him, and I’ve taken some… pretty big leaps in this regard (perhaps I’ll go into more detail about that in a later post- we’ll see). Periodically as a team and squad we take time to speak truth/words of affirmation over each other. I’ve been blessed and am very thankful for the things my teammates have declared about me, and there have been a few words that I have seen consistently. But recently a new word has been added to the list and keeps coming up from people both close and more distant from me on the squad: Obedient. I have been trying to grow more and more in my obedience to God, and again as I said, I’ve taken some big strides.
And now the first evidence of the fruit of that obedience! And it’s a pretty darn good taste, too!
And what is one of those fruits?
Seeing my desire starting to shift!
Satan is forever wanting to plant thoughts and cares of this world into our lives to distract us from having any though or desire for God. As I have begun to become more obedient and abandon myself, I see one by one the small as well as the larger desires of this world that normally consume my thought life start to trickle away, and He takes their place. The desire to leave that door open begins to dwindle as God fills them and multiplies them the way no other can!
“But let your ‘yes’ be’ yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’. For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.“
So here’s what I want you to consider, in your faith, in your life: Is your “yes” truly “yes” and your “no” honestly “no”? Or is there something something more to it? And are you speaking with the authority of Christ? Do you know you are granted THE SAME POWER that Christ exhibited through the Holy Spirit that resides in you, to heal, to cast out demons, etc.? Go check it out if you don’t believe me, it’s in there! What’s more, He even told us that we would perform EVEN GREATER things than He did!
It’s time to start walking AND talking with intention, and it’s time to start being obedient, AND IT’S TIME to start exercising that power that He has given unto each of us!
