Avoid The Hostage Situation

Shalom.

Pastor Willie Blakely brought a word that was truly from the Lord. The word had come as an edification and warning.

The scripture text is coming out of Exodus 1. The text talks about how the children of Israel multiplied as a people and the king that watched and was concerned about their multiplying. The devil is doing the same thing with God's people -- he is watching the multiplication of God's people and devising a plan to destroy God's people.

We were instructed to avoid the hostage situation. Who is holding who hostage you ask? The devil is holding God's people (those who claim Christ as Lord and saviour) hostage because we are allowing it. We are allowing it by not spending time with God in prayer. We are allowing it by not studying his word. We have to change our way of thinking. We have to call a sin a sin. We can no longer believe that a certain sin is worse than another; there are no varying levels of sin. All sin is putrid in the nostrils of God.

We need to learn to ask for help. The Bible says in Proverbs 16:18 that pride goes before destruction. The enemy is using pride and other devices to put us in a hostage situation. And we have been operating in those areas for so long that we can hardly see that we are very vulnerable to the enemy's attacks. We have to ask the Lord to open our eyes so we can see; we want our Spirit man to be strengthened so that we can get into a place where we are aware of the enemy's devices and we can deflect that attacks.

And the kicker is that the devil knows we have power over him, but we are the ones that don't know we have power over him. The devil lays hold of our mind and causes us to think we have no power. But that is the furthest from the truth. We need to counteract those thoughts. We need to avoid the enemy's domain. We need to avoid the things mentioned in Galatians 5:19-21. As Galatians 5:1 tells us, we don't have to be trapped by the enemy because we have been set free. We are set free from being ruled by our emotions. We are set free from remaining too long in a downtrodden state.

We have to stop trying to build buddy systems and forgoing telling one another the truth. We need to love one another enough to tell the truth. We should only be concerned with God liking us, meaning we need to make sure we live the word of God and not just preach it or quote it. We can't afford to let our brother or sister go to hell because we don't want to lose their friendship, or we are concerned that we won't get invited to a banquet, or get invited back to preach, or that we can't have anyone preach at our anniversary service and help us raise money for the "need of the week."

Blessings.

"Jesus plus nothing is all you need" -- Pastor Willie Blakely