You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.

Psalm 32:7 (NIV)

Have you had enough of the evil that surrounds you? We encounter it, but often times we fail to see what is really going on. I’m sure that you have heard it before, but I seem to hear less of it from man these days:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Ephesians 6:12 (NIV)

Our struggle is NOT with flesh and blood, but we keep acting out in our flesh.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please HIM, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

2 Corinthians 5:6-9(NIV)

If we act out in our flesh, we are away from the Lord. If our goal is to please Him, it won’t matter if our souls are with him or in this failing body. We must live by faith and not by sight. This is not only about whether we believe but also how we follow Christ.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine powers to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (NIV)

I have to tell you something. Don’t be surprised by what you see around you. If you are trying to fight a battle for your freedoms, you are too late. For many years, God has given us signs of changing times. The battle you are waging is a battle that should have been fought many years ago – about 12 years ago. So many were busy living in the flesh and not living in the spirit. You will not win your battles in the flesh. You must go to the Lord, petition Him, and learn how to do battle in the spirit realm with the spiritual gifts that God has given you. The battle plans changed while you lived “in peace”. If you believe that protesting man will get you your freedoms, you are mistaken. Who has the power here?? You don’t have the power to make deceived men change their course – only God can do that! And it is only through God that YOU have the power, through the Holy Spirit, to demolish strongholds. This is the giant we are facing – STRONGHOLDS. And you learn what to do about it but petitioning God to, first, show you the Truth, and second, teaching you to demolish strongholds, first in your own life, and second in the lives of those around you.

Let me repeat myself here:

You will not win this battle in the flesh but through faith in God and the power He has given you to demolish strongholds.

It is only in the refuge of the Almighty that this can take place. If you refuse to go to His hiding place, you won’t be sheltered from the storm long enough to gain strength to withstand it.

You are here in this time and called as a light for the battered and wounded. You must be strengthened and learn what God has planned for you. You will not be affective if you don’t do this.

I will end with one of the most important things, because without this, none of the other will take place.

Be careful not to be deceived by man.

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

1 John 4:1-3 (NIV)

There are people in this world for which God has given me an uneasy spirit – one particular person that you would never would have guessed. Be careful not to be deceived.

And above all else, petition God to be holy and blameless in His sight. (Ephesians 1:4 NIV)

Go forth and be blessed my friend.