THE BAIT OF THE ENEMY   

Matthew 12:28 – 29 8 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. 29 Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.

We are the strong people – men and women of God, sons and daughters of God, those who are engrafted into Christ Jesus.

The enemy works through deception. The enemy must find ways to deceive us in order to harm us, in order to make us ineffective, in order to steal, kill, and destroy.

Don’t allow your affections for anything to rise above your affection for God.

You can’t serve the world and then expect to receive the blessing from the kingdom of God.

You are a spirit. You must continually develop your spirit. You are blessed to be able to be filled with Holy Spirit. Your spirit, filled with Holy Spirit, is what is needed to support your life.

A sinkhole develops when there is a lack of support under the surface, when a hole develops under the surface which then causes the surface to cave in.

We are not destroyed by our circumstances; we are destroyed by allowing our circumstances to be exalted above the revelation of who we are in Christ Jesus.

We were created to rule and reign by being engrafted into Christ Jesus. When the spirit is weak, problems from the world become too heavy and the surface caves in.

The outside isn’t to come inside, the inside of you is to come outside. “Out of your bellies will flow rivers of living water.” “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Stop the intrusion of garbage into your mind and into your heart. For too many people, their heart and mind has become a garbage can.

For so many people, they can no longer change their circumstances because they have already been changed by their circumstances.

The world deceives you to try to empty yourself. Holy Spirit teaches us to fill ourselves with the Spirit of God.

The enemy drives people to make bad decisions. God empowers you to change circumstances.

People use sticky fly paper and glue pads to catch insects and rodents.

The enemy attempts to lure us into sticky situations that entrap us.

The enemy sets up traps that when we enter, the enemy knows that it is the beginning of the end for us.

People become stuck, they are weakened, and then they face destruction.

The main weapon of the enemy is a spirit of offense.

Skandolon is the trigger of a trap which the bait is placed on. The enemy lays out enticement for you to engage in conduct that will eventually bring about your ruin.

The enemy intentionally and specifically orchestrates a situation to trap you. Don’t be deceived to think things are just a coincidence or a random occurrence. The demonic realm works very specifically to offer you that which has the potential to trap you.

Some people the enemy can destroy through their lack of knowledge. However, the more people become educated and transformed by the word of God, the enemy must present traps that are constructed by deception.

Satan entices people to become offended and to become bitter so that they are so preoccupied that they failed to see the trap which the enemy is setting up for them.

People get offended when it appears that God is not making things go the way a person thinks they should go. When you stop trusting God, you begin to open the door for the trap of the enemy.

People are deceived to believe that the lack of one thing in the natural realm can cause a person to live a life void of being happy. People allow themselves to fall in love with someone or something that is not good for them and then they put pressure on the situation by believing that they can’t live without that person or without that thing.

People get so hung up on themselves that they quit trusting God. You must focus on your destination, and don’t conclude that it can only happen a certain way. You must learn to trust God to take you to your destination.

Don’t limit God by demanding your ways.

A few ways we opened the door to the enemy:

• we fight for fairness instead of trusting God for favor.

Life is not always going to be fair. We live on an earth that has received a curse because of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. You have to live life by having faith that the favor of God will compensate for anything that you face that in your eyes is not fair.

If you fight for fairness, you will always be offended.

The favor of the Lord will always bless you with more than what you demand to receive from fairness.

You must stand against the spirit of offense. You will go through ugly situations that appear to be unfair, but fight the offense and seek the favor of the Lord.

People walk into the enemy’s trap when they get offended, when they stop trusting God.

Don’t view God through your situations, look at your situations based on the goodness and the fairness of God.

Never let life explain God, let God explain your life.

So many people use situations and circumstances to explain the nature of God. No, you live in a corrupt atmosphere.

The enemy works any way he can to cause you to stop trusting God. The enemy wants you to blame and hate other people. Forget it – trust in God and position yourself for His favor and His blessing.

Don’t judge a tree based on the season. In winter time, a fruit tree looks worthless. Endure that time until the harvest comes. Don’t judge your life by your season, allow Holy Spirit to show you the big picture.

Fight to see the favor and the glory of the Lord. Don’t allow the spirit of offense to get you to question the goodness of the Lord.

• Don’t allow your issue to become your identity failure is an event, not a person. Don’t allow yourself to be identified by your issue – press in as a child of God – that’s your identity

Faith establishes your identity and puts your issues under your feet. You are engrafted into Christ Jesus. Your identity is always greater than your issue.

We are a new creation in Christ Jesus. We are God’s own handiwork.

Connect yourself with the proper identity and you will learn how to overcome your issues.

• Stop protecting your feelings at the expense of your future.

You have to learn how to let things go, you have to learn how to get over things.

We try to defend ourselves, we tried to clear our name, we try to change the opinions that people have of us.

When a person is determined to judge you and speak evil of you, they are not looking for the truth, they are not looking to be corrected. People do not want to hear the truth when they are in judgment.

Walk out the truth but be aware that no amount of information will correct the opinion of someone who is determined to prove you wrong.

People live to destroy other people, but don’t let those people destroy you. Walk in love and allow God to fight the fight. Walk out your identity of being engrafted into Christ Jesus. Apologize when you’re wrong and be quick to forgive. After that, let it go.

Don’t allow the unfair judgmental opinions of others drive you to be bitter.

Hebrews 12:14-15  14 Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: 15 looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

Acts 8:20 – 23 0 But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! 21 You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. 22 Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”

Bitterness will bind you. Bitterness will lead to sin, will bear many bad fruits.

Don’t live by your feelings:

• when we are in bitterness, we are overwhelmed by pain.
• Many people tried to use medication to get rid of their pain
• many people tried to overcompensate, to work very hard at things to get rid of the pain.
• Many people continually meditate on what is causing the pain.

You need to:

• face it
• forgive people
• forget it
• follow Jesus

Forgiving doesn’t change the past, but it enlarges the potential for the future.

Forgiving isn’t making the other person right, but it is making you free.

Bitterness is like asset – it destroys the container that it is held in.

There is so much stress in the world. People are under so much stress. People get themselves in such bizarre situations.

I really hate when I allow situations in the world to cause me to be stressed. When I’m under stress, that reflects that I’ve taken on cares and baggage in the world. It reflects that I have my eyes on myself instead of living to reveal Jesus to the world, to the lost.

How is it that we get ourselves in such bizarre situations? The answer is that we live in a world that is designed to destroy us. People end up in stressful relationships with other people, financial stress, tons of unfulfilled dreams, and heaps of potential anxiety.

We within ourselves are not capable of navigating through this world. Jesus told us that he came to overcome the world and deprive the world of its ability to destroy us. Jesus came that we could have life and Jesus came that we could be filled with Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is the answer to everything that you need in life. Holy Spirit is this amazing GPS that will guide you and help you navigate through all the deception in this world.

You see, Jesus offers to be our shepherd. Unfortunately, people are deceived to think that they can do things better on their own. They can’t, you can’t. The world is too screwed up. The world will mess with your emotions and will cause you to create affections for things in this world that have the opportunity to destroy you.

Jesus offers to be the vine. Jesus tells us that all we need to do is be a branch that stays united to the vine. You don’t walk through an orchard or vineyard and hear all kinds of stressful sounds coming from the branches in efforts to survive and to bear fruit.

The enemy wants to get me involved in things that keep me too stressed and too busy to help people. That hasn’t happened yet and it isn’t going to happen in the future.

I want to be effective in doing what Jesus asked us to do. We have a big responsibility, but in that responsibility all that Jesus asks us to do is to conduct ourselves like sheep where we allow Him to guide us. All He asked us to do is to be a branch and stay united to Him.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus said seek first the kingdom of God and your relationship with Father, and everything that you need in the world will be added to you. For some reason we did just the opposite, we pursued everything in the world that we felt that we had to have, that we couldn’t live without, and then we expected God to be there to pick up the pieces when we crashed and burned.

Focus on seeking and maintaining things that carry an eternal value. There are two crucial requirements:

• put God first

• walk in love

Do your best not to stress over anything that does not reveal Jesus or carry an eternal perspective.

Learn to love what God loves and hate what God hates.

There is something crucial for you to understand – there is a truth to your life. Demand that you honor that truth and that you walk it out. Jesus said that Holy Spirit will lead and guide you to all truth. Jesus said that He came to establish truth in the world. When your life is established on truth you will effectively walk out the truth of your life.

Your foundation is crucial. Jesus refers to one as being rock and the other being sand. A foundation of rock is obtained by building your house – your life on Jesus. A foundation of sand is obtained by building your house on this world system.

Be quick to forgive.

The way to success – walk in love and yield to Holy Spirit to lead and guide you to walk in truth and avoid deception.

Don’t allow anything in your life to be exalted above God.

Display the Lordship of Jesus through the way you live.

Don’t demand your own way – seek first the kingdom of God and everything you need will be added to you.

Don’t demand honor from man, position yourself to walk in the grace and favor of the Lord.

Demand your privilege to be so God inside minded that nothing in this world has the ability to cause you any stress and be determined to get to the place where each day you have time to be in the presence of Father in the secret place.

Don’t be deceived to be more committed to a church then you are committed to Jesus.

Spiritual maturity is where you get to the place that you live your life for the benefit of others. This is how Jesus lived. Jesus lived to reveal the Father and to be a shepherd for the lost sheep.

Once you have exalted the world to be your truth, you have established it in your mind as being unchangeable.

The devil continually puts his effort into attempts to have me create affections for this world by being involved in it without the constant focus that I am assigned to change it. What captures our attention creates our desires which develops our affections and finally determines our actions.