Amen is good but HE wants obedience.
Amen is how we get our agreement to a prayer counted or validated or transmitted to the heavenly realms, because it's also one of Jesus' other names [Rev.3.14]. Jesus alone, the Amen, is the Way to the Father, so we say "Amen" to a prayer we make or agree with.
But to Jesus, that's not enough.
Photo by Md Mahdi on Unsplash.
Because a lot of people can easily agree on anything spiritual or biblical that sounds good to their ears. We agree on prayers that ask for more blessings or on bible passages that promise solutions to our problems, and that's really good. Question is, are we willing to have a radically changed life? Because "Amen" means total submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Jesus' Truth Expects Radical Transformation
Can we give up totally our man-made religions and man-invented "biblical" doctrines and be radically transformed by His Word? Nope we don't. We just say amen to everything nice but stick to our man-authored religious beliefs right after. This can't work with Jesus. Watch this passage.
27 As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”
28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” [Luke 11]
In effect, the woman was saying "Amen!" to all that Jesus was teaching. The context shows he was teaching the crowd about the Kingdom, demon possession, impure spirits and Satan. But his intent was to show people the difference between him and their religious leaders--because their leaders accused him of performing miracles with demonic power.
What is God's Flesh? Click here.
And he wanted them to decide radically, not just watch and be blessed and say Amen. Would they continue following their leaders or would they go all out for him?
“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters."
In effect, Jesus was telling them:
Your religious leaders think they know better, but look at how they are lost in their understanding about the spiritual realms. All they know are their rotten human theology and philosophies but know nothing about what's really happening spiritually.
But look. I drive out demons with God's finger! Can they do that? And why am I able to do that? Because God's Kingdom is backing me up. Exactly why God's Kingdom has come upon you.
At least that's how I read what he said.
Jesus further explained that spiritual power is all that mattered in his ministry. It's useless to be doing a lot of "effective" and popular ministries if you cannot defeat the strong man Satan and confiscate his armor. And how on earth do you confiscate the devil's armor? Human theology can't teach you that. Systematic theology can't give you that. It's through the "finger of God" alone. Obviously, only the Holy Spirit can teach you that supernaturally.
Now, how many in church knows the Kingdom principles on using "the finger of God" to drive out demons? Why aren't they teaching this to believers in church? They just say "amen" to sermons about this passage, but forget all about it right after. It's like the woman mentioned above saying, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”
But Jesus wants total obedience.
“When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. 22 But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up his plunder."
Divides Up the Plunder
What did Jesus mean by "divides up his plunder"? First, you confiscate the demon's armor (demons have so much confidence on their armors) and then you divide up the plunder. How do you do this? Are Christians familiar with this Kingdom warfare principle? Jesus won't be talking about this if this was optional or unimportant or if it doesn't concern us much. No Word of Jesus is optional. It's not something we can do without.
Problem is, we're introduced to church ministry without understanding that everything is spiritual and we need to understand the spirit world and our spiritual weapons. They just make us teach kids' Sunday school or join the choir and worship team or lead bible studies or join outreach ministries. Or have fellowship. We don't understand that there's an invisible enemy out there who aims to overpower us and take our armor away.
So we end up like the 7 sons of Sceva, though we never see this due to spiritual blindness. What we appreciate are the "achievements" in the physical realms.
Spiritual Armors
Taking away the enemy's armor was what Caleb mentioned about to convince the Israelites to attack Canaan. He knew that the enemy had protection, but that protection (shield, defense or armor) was now gone due solely to God's go signal. When you operate in the NOW WORD of God (you have God's go signal), you have protection and God (Jesus in you) confiscates the armor of the enemy, leaving him vulnerable. Once God says "go" it means the enemy's protection is gone.
But the Israelites belittled this spiritual knowledge. They stuck to their own understanding and refused to enter Canaan. So God punished those who didn't believe with a plague. But early the next morning, the Israelites decided to enter Canaan because the way they saw it, it was what God wanted. It was. Yesterday, yes, but today was different. God's Word this day was "don't go." God's decision didn't change though. He still wanted Canaan conquered, but not at that time when doubt was still fresh in their hearts and their minds understood nothing about what was happening. But they went anyway, and this was what Moses said.
41 But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the Lord’s command? This will not succeed! 42 Do not go up, because the Lord is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies, 43 for the Amalekites and the Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the Lord, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”
44 Nevertheless, in their presumption they went up toward the highest point in the hill country, though neither Moses nor the ark of the Lord’s covenant moved from the camp. 45 Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and attacked them and beat them down all the way to Hormah. [Numbers 14]
We plunge headlong to ministry often out of "presumption" not realizing we have no protection. If the Lord's not with us (though we're doing his will, but at the wrong time and with the wrong heart), we lose our spiritual protection. The strong man has become the devil and he takes away the armor in which we trusted and divides up the plunder he took from us.
How do we turn the table against the enemy? How do we keep our armors secure and confiscate that of the enemy's? Moses said obedience was the answer in verse 41. Jesus said it's being solidly all out for him, a radical decision 100 percent for Christ.
It's useless to agree or say Amen without a changed life, a radical transformation following it, a radical decision to leave the rotting Pharisaical religion and its doctrines and join Jesus all the way, embracing only his radical teachings in the bible as his Holy Spirit reveals them to you. This was how Jesus put it:
43 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” [Matthew 12]
Simply put, he said that being swept clean and in order is nothing if you remain empty or unoccupied. You have zero gains even if you've been blessed by a sermon, felt good and inspired and said "Amen" a lot of times, if you just go back to your old religion afterwards and never leave man's religion and radically change. You can be fully agreeing with what Jesus says and still be fully against him, too.
“Whoever is not with me is against me."
7 And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech, “Bring me the ephod.” So Abiathar brought the ephod to David. 8 And David inquired of the Lord, “Shall I pursue after this band? Shall I overtake them?” GOD answered him, “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake and shall surely rescue.” [1 Samuel 30]
Plundering the enemy starts with desperately seeking the Word from God. A wholehearted quiet time with HIM seeking for a sign or go signal.
David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep.
When God reveals the go signal, we have to apply whatever he says to us. Here is where binding and releasing comes. What we bind or release on earth will be so in heaven. We got heaven's backing. But many do not believe this. They say it's out of context to see the passage this way. So no plundering the enemy happens. But the bible says:
3 God, your God, will restore everything you lost; he'll have compassion on you; he'll come back and pick up the pieces from all the places where you were scattered.
4 No matter how far away you end up, God, your God, will get you out of there
5 and bring you back to the land your ancestors once possessed. It will be yours again. He will give you a good life and make you more numerous than your ancestors.
6 God, your God, will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children's hearts, freeing you to love God, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live. [Deuteronomy 30]
Surrendering to Jesus
“‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’ 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4]
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