The Devil CANNOT Have A Hold Over You Any Longer

the devil is our common enemy as believers the world is also our common enemy as believers i personally believe that our greatest enemy is not the devil i believe that our greatest enemy is not this world my dear friends i submit to you that the greatest enemy that a christian must face is south it's the flesh you can resist the devil and he will flee according to the bible we can be in the world but not of the world according to the bible our flesh can be our greatest adversary because we can't separate ourselves from ourselves the flesh won't flee if you resist it it will come to tempt you again and again you can resist your flesh today but that same temptation will come back to test your flesh tomorrow you'll have to resist your flesh once more one of the solutions that the bible presents is that we must crucify the flesh what does that mean [Music] one way to look at it is that there are two types of seeds in us there is a seed of light and a seed of darkness the seed of darkness is the flesh and the seed of light is the spirit now keep in mind that jesus christ said i am the light of the world whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life the more of christ you have the brighter the light in your life the bible says in hebrews 11 verse 1 now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen you see faith is necessary for every believer because it's only when you have faith that you can please god now let me ask you do you really have faith or do you rely on your own judgment your reasoning or what your eyes can see are you living by faith are you walking by faith when you think about some of the heroes of faith in the bible and all of the trials they went through you'll see that they had one thing in common they kept believing in god they had unwavering trust in the lord and they were strong in faith and let me tell you something it takes faith to follow jesus christ it takes faith to continue pushing and standing for the gospel by faith the walls of jericho fell down by faith paul and silas were beaten chained up and imprisoned but they still praised god the three hebrew boys refused to bow down to king nebuchadnezzar all because they had such strong faith these are all great examples of people who stood their ground and trusted in the lord even when all the odds were against them their faith was not shaken their faith was not broken because they knew that the god whom they served is bigger greater and more powerful than anything or anyone else who they could come up against we can learn a lot from the believers in the bible and from how they dealt with adversity because even in this present day we often find ourselves in situations where our faith is put to the test and we must decide how we will respond but here's what the bible says in first peter 1 verse 6 to 7. in all this you greatly rejoice though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials these have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth and gold which perishes even though refined by fire may result in praise glory and honor when jesus christ is revealed no matter what your hardship might be be strong in faith don't allow yourself to be moved because as soon as you let go of god's sure promises you are bound to get swept up into the madness of this world jesus christ is our only sure foundation he is our steadfast anchor circumstances change people change but the word of god remains true forever in the book of matthew jesus says heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away that's why we can stand confidently in him that's why we can cling to him if we feed and water the seed of light which is your spirit it will grow brighter and brighter and this light will give no place to darkness however if we water and feed the seed of darkness which is our flesh then the darkness is what will grow it's the things we watch things we listen to the company we keep all of these things determine whether the light of jesus christ takes over in your life or the darkness of sin takes over so crucifying the flesh really means starving the seed of darkness within you we must starve the flesh this means we can't watch everything the flesh may want to watch we can't listen to everything the flesh may want to listen to we can't hang out with people that will only feed our fleshly desires and intents we must starve the flesh we must starve that seed of darkness that seeks to sin and rebel against god now how can we feed the light how can we feed the spirit psalm chapter 119 verse 11 tells us your word i have hidden in my heart that i might not sin against you this means that the way we feed the spirit is by diving into the word of god the way we feed the light in our lives is through the word of god we need to allow the word to speak to us and flow through us the word of god is the best instruction manual when it comes to how we can defeat the devil the world and the flesh as i have stated our greatest enemy is the flesh because it's an enemy that we have to fight daily it's an enemy that we have to crucify daily isaiah 40 verses 25 and 26 say to whom then will you compare me that i should be like him says the holy one lift up your eyes on high and see who created these who brings out their host by number calling them all by name by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power not one is missing indeed we need to reverence god and we can begin to do this by examining our lives through the standard of his word [Music] [Music] you