It hurts on the inside. You can’t take it anymore.
You beat your head against the wall. I get it!
The problem: “I’m a sinner, saved by grace”
We’ve been taught that God gives us grace and some people think because of grace you can continue in sin but I want to let you know that grace is not for that.
Today I’m gonna release this word to you because I want to empower you. I want to infuse you with supernatural strength to tell the devil, “I don’t have to sin, I have the ability to stay away from you.”
Let’s jump right in!
But first, a fact:
Grace empowers you to get out of sin, God gave you grace that you can resist the devil.
So grace is not supposed to be used for error.
We shouldn’t commit sin and then say “God’s grace is for that” No!
Grace is to empower you to overcome the devil.
We need to understand what grace is. We talked about grace as God’s unmerited favor, but I want to let you know grace is more than God’s favor.
Grace is the empowerment to succeed, it is the empowerment and the enablement of God that strengthen us in times of weakness.
So, grace brings strength to you.
When we studied grace we realized that grace is being abused in the body of Christ. Grace is used as an excuse to commit sin, but I want to let you know Grace is not for that.
The Bible says where sin abounds grace does more (Romans 5:20).
There is so much teaching on grace that causes people to continue walking in ERROR. God wants you to walk in POWER! So He has given us grace to walk in power.
The Bible says we are no more slaves to sin. So we must understand that grace gives you such a strength to resist the devil. You don’t have fall to sin, you don’t have be entangled to sin after God has given you grace.
The Meaning of Grace
So one of the things you have to understand is what God did for us is that he extended himself to limit the power of sin over our lives. So God has extended strength, God has extended his hope to us, God had extended his favor to us, God has extended his love towards us.
When we look at grace we realize that we are not worthy of Grace but God counts us worthy and brings us into grace.
So what the devil uses is that he uses deception against grace. He tells us lies and makes us feel that we are not able to overcome him.
Moreover, the law entered, that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so, might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5: 20-21
Grace Reigns Through Righteousness.
So because of God’s righteousness, we are enabled to resist the devil. Grace exists through righteousness, not sin. So when the bible says where sin abounds grace does much more, we would be mistaken to think that God is saying we can sin because grace is there.
No, it’s saying in other words you can stand in righteousness because grace is there.
Our righteousness is not dependent on us, our righteousness is in Christ Jesus. The more we stay in Jesus, the more righteous is being released to us.
Grace comes from a righteous act, because of God’s righteousness we receive Grace.
It is not about our own righteousness because the bible says our righteousness is like a filthy rag but it’s by the righteousness of Christ we obtain grace.
God himself chooses us to be righteous.
Deception: The Weapon Against Grace
The more accountable you are to somebody else the more you can resist the devil. The bible says to tell your faults one to another. It means to come into accountability. Accountability is where expose your problem to someone who can pray effectively and give you proper direction.
“If you are ashamed of the sin you are doing it means you know what you’re doing.”
So if you’re going to hide something, it means you are giving that thing power over your life.
check out my post on overcoming demonic entrances for more information on this.
It means you are saying you’d rather stay the way are than walk in the way that pleases God.
The bible says Satan sinned from the beginning, he is a sinner and a liar. So if we continue lying, if we continue deceiving ourselves we are giving Satan power in our lives.
“Anything you expose you receive empowerment over! What you hide will have power over you.”
Apostle DR. gLEN eNGLAND
The devil cannot use something that you expose, he has to look for something else to come up against you.
The thing that we hide could end up becoming generational; the thing that you hide you are coming into agreement with the devil — that your life is his place and it becomes a stronghold.
We are being deceived by thinking “the more I hide it is better for me.” No! the more you expose it the more freedom you get.
You must not be ashamed of being exposed, you must be ashamed of continuance.
If you are ashamed of the sin, get out of it. If you feel so ashame, if you feel bad with others knowing what you did or doing then EXPOSE it!
Find somebody that you can say I need help, I’m struggling here, there’s something that’s happening in my life I don’t want to do it, I don’t want it to have any place in my life, I don’t want to continue in sin then expose the sin.
The thing you expose you gives power to the Holy Ghost.
If God delivers you out of darkness stay out of the darkness. The Bible says, he that going to a harlot, becomes a harlot, so what you connect to, what you give strength to, you become like it.
Think about it, if you expose something, how in the world can the devil use it again?
The devil loves when we hide. They say things like well the Apostle don’t know but guess what God knows.
So we have to understand everything God takes a record.
We need to live the life that pleases God. So, tell your faults, confess it, because if you confess it you are demolishing it. If you confess you are taking away the enablement from that thing ruling your life.
Some people will say well Apostle I tell you this, if I didn’t tell you that you never would have known. Listen to me, I would know because God knows.
We have to learn that sometimes when we tell our faults and you are telling the person you don’t understand that we are praying people, so God draws you to go and say it because God doesn’t like the state that you are living in.
You are living below your standard of righteousness, you are living below the benefits of walking in righteousness.
The Bible says God will not withhold any good thing from those who walk upright.
The more we walk upright, good things come.
It might not come like how you want it but it will come. Sometimes, the state that you are in is because God is cleaning you up, God is taking time moving things out your life.
Sometimes you go through a period of loneliness because God says everybody around you causing you to be focusing on the wrong thing and blocking the view of what God wants to show you.
If something is taken away, God is a God of increase. Anything that decreases out of your life that you think is valuable there is something better for you. There is something more worthwhile for your righteousness.
There is something more worthwhile that God is bringing into you.
He’s not Santa Claus he’s not coming down any chimney but guess what God is going to repay and bring you into something that when you look around you are going to say it was worth God that I went through this.
The Psalmist David said in Psalms 119, “it was good that I be afflicted, that I may know the statue of God.”
You might be going through some things right now because you made a stand to please God, because you made a stand for righteousness. You might look like a fool to others, you might look like you lost it all but I come to tell somebody God is a restorer.
Those who went through the fire, those who went through the water but when God is ready to bring you out because you have your stand.
Sometimes your stand takes you places where you might not be comfortable but I’m telling you that after you suffer a while, after you go through what you have to go through, after you go through the shame and the embarrassment there is a day coming that you will be celebrated.
God will celebrate your life
When we got saved we made a decision and said God whatever it takes, do it, God.
Sometimes when I look back at the prayer me and Karen made, that’s when hell broke loose.
That is when we started to go through things and every time we went through our process our confession never changed. I said to God if I have to suffer I will suffer. Not understanding that it was God’s will.
Not understanding I have to go through some stuff. We have to understand sometimes, David said in Psalms 139 God you have tried me, some of you need to read it.
He said God you have tried me, you know my reign, you know my downsitting and my uprising.
If I make my bed in hell you are there. David is saying God I’ve been tried. When God is trying you allow him to try you.
When God is taking you through some hard knocks, guess what He’s there with you.
God cares more about your character than your gift.
Gifted people can end up in hell but people of good character who follow God’s principle will see heaven.
You see, sometimes what may be happening to you is that God is pruning you because he has to remove the deceptions of the devil.
No sex is worth your salvation, no money is worth your salvation, no friendship is worth your salvation.
If God brought you out, stay out! If God delivered you from a weakness stay strong. Don’t go back, don’t do the old habits and don’t go back to the place where God delivered you from.
Don’t lie for anybody for a job position, don’t become a liar. Satan is the father of lies. Stay pure, there is a reward for being clean.
I know sometimes it may look and feel like there is no reward, sometimes when you make up your mind to be clean and everybody else around you is filthy and you look different to everybody but it’s good to look different.
It may look like they are getting their reward and you not getting yours but you are keeping yourself to God.
Sometimes what God brings you through may look ridiculous to others. The first thing the Devil comes with is Temptation, look at your flesh.
When God delivers you don’t go back. You can tell when the temptation is coming, run. If the thing that you were struggling with continues coming on you tell somebody.
You came out the dark, stay out the dark. I believe in principle the bible teaches that abstain even the appearance of sin (1 Thessalonians 5:22).
