Good day and welcome to your Kingdom Connection for Wednesday- January 17th. I'm so excited about sharing on the demonic world. None of us can win a battle that we don't know exist, nor can we be successful when we don't know what to look for. Warfare is as important as salvation and God fully expects for those of who know and understand to be teachers of this matter; leaders and laymen!
Once we began walking out our lives in Christ with a 'made up' mind, Satan begins to change up his strategies and tactics accordingly. If snatching you right back didn't work and chaos all around didn't make you waver then he moves to another level. His attempts to lure you away through your own desires and/or the need for self preservation comes into play. We have to remember, Satan was with us ALL of the years we were not saved. He knows exactly what we like, how we like it, when we've gotta have it and more.
Mark 4 teaches us what is called the Parable of Preeminence. It's referred as such because Jesus explains that if we don't understand THIS parable, how will we understand any others. Jesus was setting the ground work and frame work for the opposition that would occur to prevent us for remaining in His Kingdom. Make no mistake about it, Satan is definitely in the picture. In this parable Christ talks about condition of 4 soils. Soils and grounds are used interchangeably and both are metaphors for our hearts. This parable teaches us that when the word of God is being sown there are potentially 4 types of hearts receiving it:
1) Wayside hearts
2) Stoney Hearts
3) Thorny Hearts
4) Good Hearts
The New You that makes it to the point of consistently coming to church and learning the word is now becoming a real threat to Satan's kingdom. The word of God, which is the Truth of God, sets us free from Satan's dominion and he can't stand it. Therefore he begins ploys and he aggravates us. When we do make it to the House of the Lord, some of us are totally preoccupied with our problems, pressure and people and when the Word is sown as a seed into those hearts, it simply lies there for a moment and the bible says, Satan takes it away immediately.
There is also a group of us that actually hear the word but it doesn't take deep root. We have heart issues, issues with people, unforgiveness, bitterness; things that taint the purity of the heart. So when the word is sown on this kind of ground, the seed only grows a little and when bad situations happen, this type of soil's plant simply withers. Verse 6 speaks of the sun rising and scorching the plant. This plant's roots were not deep enough to receive the water and nutrients necessary to withstand satanic challenges and problems in life.
The last bad soil that Jesus warns us about is the thorny ground. This soil is actually good soil for over a period of time. This soil took in the word and learned how to fight Satan. They learned how to weather storms and how not to wrestle with flesh and blood so that they didn't end up hating people and becoming bitter. This was a good and model Christian at one point in time. But Satan never cares about how good we were or are. He is arrogant and sadistic. His ONLY goal is to get us to recant our life in Christ's Kingdom so that you can return to his. He doesn't care if you make a literal choice or if it's done by default, just as long as he gets his house back! Remaining in Christ's Kingdom is an intentional decision that has to be made day by day.
Therefore with this last group of believers he starts bombarding their minds with thoughts of grander, success and happiness. These individuals began to develop cares for this world, they are deceived into chasing riches and began to desire other things. It can be very easy for you to think that YOU are thinking, " I'm ready to get married and have a baby." even when you aren't even dating anyone. Those are thoughts that came into your mind. They may seem self induced but they really are not. The thought has an origin. Sometimes Satan uses our friends and families. He'll put the thought in their minds and suggest, 'ask her how old she is and when is she going to get a man?' Before you realize it, you start lowering your standards, ignoring what God says about being unequally yolked and then hooking up with someone Satan KNEW you would like. He is cunning and crafty and wants to take ALL of us back from God. We must watch getting caught up in the cares of this world. Sometimes we have to reduce our lifestyle, not take on 2 more jobs for material matters. Time is necessary to implement the vision of God and to learn and be feed the knowledge of God. Jesus tells us that thorns arise on our good soil and it begins to choke the word out of us
Rest assured the person Satan brings into your life is not going to be interested in you or them going to church. Thorns make you forget about God's word. You begin to make your own standards and become 'wise in your own eyes'. Once we begin to run after money we forget, ' No man can serve 2 masters'. We forget, ' he will either love one and