Floodgates of Heaven Devotions: Spiritual Warfare

Showing posts with label Spiritual Warfare. Show all posts

"Forever Faith" & "Perpetual Praise"

Today’s Reading: Psalm 70-71, Romans 8:22-39

Today’s Reflection: Psalm 71:14 But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.

David’s warfare mode was a “Forever Faith” and a “Perpetual Praise”! In spite of the fact that he was getting older and feeling more vulnerable to the elements of war, he chose to never let his hope or his praise die.

David was trained that these were his true weapons and his true strength. If you read verses 13-18, you will see more of this context, and you will see where he said in verse 16, “I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD…” In fact, David had most always gone in the strength of his God, even when he was young; and yet, when old age started talking to him, he had to remind himself of that very truth.

Oh, what a wonder it is to know that according to 2 Cor. 4:16, though this outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed (to be changed into a new kind of life, given new strength and vigor) day by day. May this serve as a reminder to all of us that our true strength is not in our flesh, but in our spirit. When we realize this, we can then focus most of our energy on feeding our inner man, who can serve the strength we need to overcome any obstacle or enemy standing in our way.

I would like to encourage each of you to not allow the ever-changing and ever-eroding external conditions around you cause you to lose faith or stop praising God for His greatness and His goodness. You can be more feeble that you’ve ever been in your life externally, circumstantially, and physically, but if you go into “Forever Faith” and “Perpetual Praise” mode, you will never be disappointed with the results of God’s response in coming to your aid.

That’s why we must learn that spiritual warfare can only be fought and won in the spiritual realm. Remember that our weapons are not carnal (fleshly, physical, tangible, weak), but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds! So, in short, you can believe and praise your way through any season in life that creates chaos and destruction around you!

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What would you do for God, if you KNEW you could not fail?

Today’s Reading: 2 Chron. 15-16, John 12:27-50

Today’s Reflection: 2 Chron. 15:7-8a Be ye strong therefore, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded. And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Obed the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land…

God needed Asa to remain strong in his stance against idol worship throughout the land. However, purging Israel of the many strongholds of false religion was no small feat. In fact, by the simple fact that Our Lord sent a prophet to encourage King Asa in the work tells us that he must have needed the encouragement.

There were no literal wars going on in the land, but the spiritual battle raged on, and it had begun to take its toll. Imagine if you will the tidal wave of wreck and ruin that was held at bay from this season in King Asa’s rule and reign, simply because He was striving to please The Lord.

The very fact that there was literal peace in the land was because King Asa was winning the battle on a much deeper level; he was winning the spiritual battle. Was he perfect? By no stretch of the imagination. But did he get Heaven’s attention? Absolutely! And no surprise that Hell also took notice, hence the reason for King Asa’s need of encouragement.

Now, what better way for God to encourage King Asa to carry on his spiritual warfare to victory, than by sending a man of God to give him a prophecy that his work would be rewarded?

All of us at some point begin to wonder (even while walking with The Lord) if all of this spiritual warfare is ever going to pay off. If you have never been there, first thank God, and then get ready, because sooner or later you will.

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You see, spiritual warfare takes on a toll of its own, and one can soon become weary in well doing while waiting on all of the promises he stands upon to start manifesting themselves in noticeable and quantifiable ways on this side of Heaven.

Furthermore, it is human nature to ease up on efforts where rewards seem to either be too far in the distance to wait, or completely out of site altogether.

This now brings me to my focus; to live by faith and not by sight is to live not seeing the end from the beginning naturally speaking. However, it IS to see the end from the beginning with the spiritual eye, BY FAITH. And when we need encouragement to carry one, all we need is a word from The Lord as a quick reminder that one day, sooner or later, we WILL be rewarded!

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Floodgates of Heaven
Volume 2
Entry 152 of 365

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copyright © by Gary D. Caudill

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Victory is to be OBTAINED, not simply ABSORBED effortlessly.

Today’s Reading: 2 Sam. 21-22, Luke 18:24-43

Today’s Reflection: 2 Samuel 22:6 The sorrows of hell compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me;

The powers of both hell and death always seek to prevent God’s anointed from moving forward. But because King David called upon The Lord in his distress, these otherwise powerful enemies ultimately failed to stop him. And so it is with the blood-bought, born again child of God today!

Although Jesus already TOOK the keys of death and hell (see Rev. 1:18) away from satan, yet today each force attempts to prevent God’s people from going forward throughout the Earth with the Gospel of The Lord Jesus Christ. Hell still sways the hearts of the people with its sorrow, and death still does so by its attempts of intimidation and threat.

The only Christians who are swayed by such forces of darkness are those who are ignorant or apathetic about the victory they already have through Jesus Christ. Jesus taught us that the gates of Hell will not prevail against his church. This means that the gates of hell will not overcome, or gain the victory or superiority over, or gain the advantage over. It also means that hell will not be in such force, as to have prevailing effect, power or influence over the church.

And the truth is, this is ever so true, but only because the true church exercises the authorities afforded them through Christ’s shed blood on the cross, and the power of His resurrection. We must learn to wage war against our adversary with the weapons of our warfare (see Eph. 6). Victory is to be OBTAINED, not simply ABSORBED effortlessly.

Many of us are only using some of our armor, but we must take on the WHOLE armor of God! We often have our prayers in place, but we should also have our battle strategy against the enemy in place, because he stands in an effort to prevent us from serving God effectively.

So, how do we prevent the devil from preventing us from prevailing? One verse in particular teaches us to RESIST the devil (see James 4:7). Now, when we resist the devil, we are in fact preventing him from preventing us. Doesn’t it make since that if we are preventing the devil, while he is preventing us, that because God is on our side, that we will do the preventing and not him?

If so, then why are so many Christians still being prevented by the enemy from doing what it is that God has called them to do? May I suggest it is because many do not acknowledge that the preventing is done so by the forces of death and hell. We may call it bad luck, Murphy’s law, inability, inferiority, insecurity, poverty, etc., but not until we identify our true enemy will we prevent him.

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Floodgates of Heaven
Volume 2
Entry 115 of 365

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TAKE BACK ALL of what the devil has stolen from you!!!

Today’s Reading: 1 Sam. 30-31, Luke 13:23-35

Today’s Reflection: 1 Sam. 30:19 And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor any thing that they had taken to them: David recovered all.
The Amalekites had invaded David’s small home town while he was out doing battle elsewhere, and had stolen their wives, sons, daughters, livestock, and whatever else they wanted to take with them for a spoil. In like manner, it seems that our enemy still focuses on our areas of weakness and vulnerability.

While we are focused strong on one front, then enemy hits us where we are least covered and least protected. To be honest, it is difficult to cover ALL fronts when you have so much to protect, from so many different angles.

However, we need not be surprised by this reality. We also need not despair or give up. We ought rather to ask our Lord to teach us to war and to cover all bases so that our enemy can’t find a single breach of security through which he can come in and attack. But and if the enemy happens to slip through a breach in the wall, the good news is that God can help you recover what was lost, just as He did for David.

I may be writing to someone right now who feels like you were hit by the enemy from an angle that caught you totally off guard, and in the process of that attack, the enemy took something very precious from you. Whatever the loss was, please allow me to remind you that God is a God of restoration. He allowed David to persue the enemy and to recover ALL that was lost. God can do the same for you!

Now, I am a realist, so let’s keep it balanced. For example, when Job lost all that he had, including his children, God restored unto Job twice what he had before. So, DID God restore ALL that was lost? Well, yes, AND no. Let me explain. God DID restore unto Job TWICE as much as he had before, but God did NOT raise his children whom he had lost back up from the dead.

In other words, you may not always get back EXACTLY what was lost, but God can bring restoration back in ways that speaks volumes, which is at bare minimum the dynamic equivalent of, if not more than, what was lost. This means that God cares for your pain and your loss, and wants to restore.

Will you allow God to teach you and guide you on how you can go down into the enemy’s camp and TAKE BACK what was stolen from you? When you’re fighting God’s battles on HIS behalf, you may experience a few casualties and losses along the way, but He compensates you very well for doing so. You can rejoice today in knowing that all is not lost, because all is not yet restored, but soon shall be!

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Volume 2
Entry 106 of 365

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Casualties: The Bitter Cost of Victory...

Today’s Reading: 1 Sam. 22-24, Luke 12:1-31

Today’s Reflection: 1 Sam. 22:22b …I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father’s house.

While Saul was pursuing after the life of David, David went through the city of Nod in his journey, and since that city did not report his whereabouts to Saul, Saul then had eighty five priests, as well as their entire city including the men, women, children, infants, and livestock all killed.

It is in the aftermath of this devastating event that David then makes this statement; “I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father’s house.” He was speaking, of course, to one of the men of the city that actually fled, and his heart was broken.

Can you imagine the sheer weight of responsibility he felt for their loss? Here’s how we’d say it today; it’s MY fault! David is taking the blame. And although we know that David meant no harm to come to anyone, and though he could neither predict nor control the actions of king Saul, he still felt responsibility because if it were not for HIM being there, and then escaping, they would have never been the target of Saul’s destructive reactions.

Now, with that understanding, can we better understand why so many of God’s anointed men today would rather walk alone? It is not always that they enjoy the silence, but it is that they do not enjoy the breaking of silence when one who has fought with them becomes a casualty of war for simply being associated with them.

The truth is, when you have enemies, they are not just your enemies, but also your ally’s enemies. So David begins to tread as lightly as possible because he doesn’t want another City of Nod episode. He doesn’t want others to be targeted for his position. But, as much as he doesn’t want that to happen, he must learn that in many, if not most cases, it is unavoidable.

As a matter of fact, do you remember what Jesus told one man who came to him, saying he would follow Him anywhere? Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” Jesus was giving this man fair warning that if he decides to follow Christ, that he would by association with Christ alone, become immediately vulnerable to all of the dangerous elements of a spiritually hostile world seeking his destruction.

We know that in many cases, God provides protection, but we also know that in other cases, dangers simply come with the territory of following Jesus. So, if you and your team receive direct hits for serving The Lord, just know that it’s not really your fault. This is the journey that all “kings and priests” must take. It’s part of the territory, but so is the victory.

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Volume 2
Entry 103 of 365

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Useful Enemies...

Today’s Reading: Judges 1-3, Luke 4:1-30

Today’s Reflection: Judges 2:21-22a I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died: That through them I may prove Israel…

God is neither intimidated nor in less control because of the presence of His enemies. In fact, the only reason they still exist is because He still has use of them. Think of that! He, who just by the word of His mouth has been known to open up the ground to swallow enemies of the past, can at any point defeat any enemy standing in His path, at His own will.

We sometimes think that because the enemy still poses a threat to God’s Kingdom, that somehow it appears the enemy has the upper hand. Never so! At least not with God! Oh sure, we who are made of dust are weak in the flesh, and sometimes get backed into a corner by our enemy, but understand that our strength to prevail rests not in our own abilities, but in the abilities of God our Savior.

Looking at our text, you might call these nations God did not drive out, “Useful Enemies”. Just study your Bible. All throughout history, God was intervening in the affairs of men, so much so that had He not come through when He did and how He did, history would not have been near as meaningful to us.

Everything God does in the affairs of men is for our learning; even His battle strategies. For example, God could have smitten Egypt a whole lot sooner and quicker than He did, but He strategically chose the ways and the miracles He would use so as to maximize in Israel’s minds, and in ours, the sheer wonder of His works and ability to deliver.

That said, could it be that sometimes we’re asking God to remove things and people from our lives that truthfully we are getting more out of with their presence, than what we would get if they were absent?

Case in point; Paul’s thorn in the flesh. God got more use out of leaving Paul’s thorn than He would have by taking it. Our prayers then should not be for better circumstances for ourselves, but for maximum benefit to God’s Kingdom.

Is it better for us that God completely drives out our enemies, or that He sets up a table before us in their presence, allowing them to exist if for no other reason than to be powerless in their existence, and therefore bringing maximum glory to God.

Don’t worry…there will be places and times that God will remove the thorns, the enemies, the circumstances, etc., but I just wish to point out that regardless of whether or not He does, it doesn’t change who He is, or how powerful He is whatsoever. He might just be getting some use out of your enemies for a little while longer. Trust Him!

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Floodgates of Heaven, Volume 2, Entry 86 of 365

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copyright © by Gary D. Caudill

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Why you should FIGHT for your brothers in Christ!...

Today’s Reading: Josh. 1-3, Mark 16

Today’s Reflection: Josh. 1:14b-15a …but ye shall pass before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valour, and help them; Until the LORD have given your brethren rest, as he hath given you…

How can we rest, when our brothers cannot? The burden that is now upon God’s men to fight the good fight of faith has never been greater. There are many who, even as Gideon, may still be in the fight, but they are oh so weary and faint.

Gideon did have three hundred men helping him win the victory! But where are the coalitions of faith in our generation? Where are we uniting in great numbers and in great unity for the sole purpose of preaching and spreading the Gospel to untold regions of the world?

Oh, that’s right…we have our coalitions alright, but are they not merely for men’s causes, and men’s colleges, and men’s denominations, and men’s agendas?

Please forgive the cynicism, but I only want to make a point, and that is this; we the body of Christ seem to be disproportionately more divided than we are united.

It seems as if we are more interested in discovering all of the reasons why we SHOULD NOT work together, than we are finding the reasons we SHOULD.

Don’t hear me wrong; I’m not saying that there is no unity in the body of Christ, but I AM saying that unity seems to be more of an exception rather than a rule.

I find it interesting that The Lord through the hand of Joshua had to instruct these men to fight for their brethren. I have to believe that, were the instructions not given, they might have never thought of it!

They might have chosen to stay at home in ease and comfort while their brethren went into the heat of the battle for luxuries they have not as yet been able to afford. Aren’t we often the same way?

When we’ve reached our goals, and when we’ve achieved our accomplishments, we have a tendency to prematurely enjoy the fruits of our labor, when our brothers and sisters in Christ have not the victory.

I believe God is calling all of us who claim to know Christ to be sure that we do our part in helping strengthen our brothers and sisters in Christ for the battle that is ahead, and then march alongside them into their battleground to help them gain the same victory we already know.

It is easier for us to let others pay the price while we sit in our comfort, than it is to rise up and help share the load of being in battle for victory together.

May God help us to get a renewed vision and burden today to do our part in helping bear each other’s burdens. No fellow soldier of the cross should be left alone in the battle. We should come to their side and help fight for sweet victory together!

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Floodgates of Heaven, Volume 2, Entry 78 of 365

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God is messing with your enemy's head!

Day 64 (Category: Spiritual Warfare)

Today’s Reading: Num. 32-34, Mark 9:30-50

Today’s Reflection: Numbers 33:40 And king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south in the land of Canaan, heard of the coming of the children of Israel.

Sandwiched right in the middle of the list of places Israel had pitched their tents is a reference that almost seems out of place, because the passage gives no more light on the subject other than what seems to just be a bit of what we might call trivial information. Israel went here, Israel went there, King Arad heard they were on their way, Israel went here, Israel went there, so on and so on, etc. etc. Did you catch that? What felt like it should have been in parenthesis or a footnote was prominently positioned right where the Holy Ghost wanted it. God wanted us to know that King Arad, a ruler in Canaan land, had gotten word that God’s people were on their way! While Israel may have felt like they were making no progress at all, the enemy was getting nervous. The enemy seemed to be more aware of Israel’s progress than they did. Sometimes it is difficult for us, in the middle of our travels to our destiny, to detect how close we are getting, and sometimes the enemy knows more of our progress than we do! You may feel like you’re getting nowhere, but if you’ve been faithfully serving God, rest assured, the current powers that be are nervous at the prospects of your arrival because they know that it was nothing short of a miracle for you to even be where you are today! They know that if you make it to their borders, they stand NO chance against you and your God! That said, you know you’re getting close to your destiny when the “kings” take notice! For us, a “king” might represent whatever is standing in our way of getting to where God is taking us. In the Kingdom of God, this represents overcoming strongholds that have stood almost relentlessly to resist our progress in getting a foothold, establishing a strong presence in the Earth, and influencing this world to turn to Christ. Whatever your enemy’s name, whoever your “king” may be, just know that you’re closer to victory and possession of the Promised Land than you realize. The enemy wants us to THINK that we’re not making a difference. He wants us to THINK that we’re too small and insignificant. He wants us to THINK that he has giants in his land that will defeat us when we arrive. HOWEVER, just keep marching on, because the closer you get to the promised land, the more nervous and ill equipped “King Arad” will be; because, you don’t know it, but God is messing with his head to prepare him for defeat and you for victory. So MARCH ON, child of God, march on!

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Day 44 (Category: Spiritual Warfare)

Today’s Reading: Lev. 14, Matt. 26:51-75

Today’s Reflection: Matt.26:56b …Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

The disciples were in over their heads! Peter, ready to fight with a sword, was rebuked by our Lord for doing so. Perhaps the reason all of the disciples so quickly fled the scene was because of their lack of understanding of how to fight the battle at hand. In their minds, Christ just took from them the only defensive weapon they had, and so it becomes apparent that since they could not respond according to their own understanding, that they had no idea how to respond otherwise. This was new battleground for them; a new concept, if you will. Christ is shifting their focus from the natural realm to the spiritual realm, teaching them of spiritual warfare. I know that they didn’t understand spiritual warfare yet, because Jesus had to convince Peter that, even though they were not to use their swords, they were still protected by God. Did He not mention that all He had to do was pray to His Father, and His Father would presently give Him more than twelve legions of angels? Christ was helping Peter understand that spiritual battles must be fought spiritually, and since neither Peter nor any of the other disciples knew how to do that, they fled the scene! What about you? Have there been any recent spiritual battles going on in your life that so intimidated you, that you quickly fled the scene, rather than trusting God and seeking His counsel on how to do battle spiritually so as to win? If so, you are not alone, for there are many today who not only have fled the scene, but have yet to return. Today, however, I believe that God is calling us back to the scene from which we fled. Yes, it may be bigger than us, but it is not bigger than our God! Like Joshua, I believe God would speak to us in no uncertain terms, and say to us, “Only be thou strong and very courageous!” You see, as long as we stick by Jesus’ side, we have the same protections that His Father affords Him. That is why we must learn how to fight right, rather than fighting wrong, or attempting to avoid conflict altogether simply because we do not understand how to battle. Christ is our teacher, and if we will listen and obey, He will teach us how to win, and win every time! Let’s get back in the fight, fight right, and fight to win! Let Christ teach you how to war.

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