February 23, 2003

"For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." James 1:20

Sometimes we get aggravated and angry at the outside pressures and stresses that annoy us.  We rebuke the devil and tell him to quit harassing us through these other people and circumstances.  We want to blame these other things or people for our difficulty in walking in the love of God, or walking according to the Word of God, like we should.

But what we really need to do is to submit our heart to the Lord and submit our will to God.  We need to quit fighting these outside things, quit rebelling against what we know is right, and quit resisting but rather yield to the Holy Spirit.  You know that we have authority over the devil and we silence him and put him to a stop with simple faith in God’s Word.  We stop him by taking authority over him in the Name of Jesus.  It’s not a difficult thing.  Oftentimes we rebuke the devil and yet we’re still annoyed so we’re thinking we have to enter into this big fight with him.  Yes, we need to put him in his place with the Word of God spoken in faith.  And yes, we need to resist him steadfast in the faith over a period of time.  But many times he’s out of the picture and it’s our own self that is still aggravated and annoyed and we’re looking for something to blame other than what we’ve been allowing to motivate us.

If the pressures of life are mounting against us and we are annoyed at that then we need to go to the Lord.  We need to seek to re-prioritize.  We need to pray and discover the truth of our situation.  We may need to seek to lighten the load of our lifestyle.  It’s not these other people or things that are doing this to us, it’s what’s within us.  And if we’re truly born again and have become new creatures in Christ Jesus then there still may be strongholds or deceptions in our thinking that need to be exposed by the truth and torn down.  These patterns of thinking cause us to act and react contrary to the Word of God and the Spirit of God.

Getting angry at the devil or people or our circumstances will not do anything to get us to overcome in these situations.  But if we ask the Father to reveal to us the inner motives of our heart that would cause us to act and react in an angry and rebellious way then He will do just that.  And when He does and we yield to Him, we will be able to live in peace regardless of the people or situations around us.