Three Things That Gives the Devil Fits

Romans 14:17--NIV--For the kingdom of Got is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

#1--If you will meditate on your righteousness in Christ and God's righteousness toward you, it won't be long before you become a spiritual giant. Nothing will be impossible to you.

2 Corinthians 5:21--NIV--God made Him Who had not sin to be sin for us, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

The Greek word for 'righteousness' means--that which is acceptable to God. Jesus became our sin so that we could be righteous and acceptable to God. The only thing that we need to do to become righteous and acceptable to God is to confess our sins and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That's all. Jesus did all the hard work when He took our beating, bore our cross, went to hell in our place and rose again to sit at the Father's right hand. The sin question is more than answered. It is under the blood of Jesus and removed forever from our lives. God said that He would never remember our sins again.

We all understand God's part in righteousness, but what do we have to do to be righteous with God?
The answer is found several times in the Word of God. Genesis 15:16, Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6 and Romans 4:22. Abraham believed God and it was credited him as righteousness. That's all Abraham did. He believed that whatever God said was going to come to pass just like He said. Jesus even commended Abraham in John 8:56 when He said that Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus' day.

How did Abraham see Jesus' day? The creation story had been handed down from generation to generation. And in that creation story they repeated the curse that God had put on the devil (the serpent). God said that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent, Abraham interpreted that to mean that one of his kids was going to destroy the power of the devil and free mankind. Abraham believed the Word of God so strongly that he day-dreamed about one of his kids whippin' up on the devil. Just because that was what God said.

Can you believe that Jesus would tell the truth? Would He tell the truth about prayer? Would He say something about prayer that He didn't mean? Of course He told the truth, especially when it came to prayer. In Luke 11, He taught that men ought always to pray. He wouldn't lie about something He told us to do constantly. And He never said anything that He didn't mean.

Look at Mark 11:24--NIV--Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. This is exactly what Abraham did. He believed that what God had said was going to come to pass. So he day-dreamed about one of his boys whipping the devil. And Jesus commended Him on it.

Now, would Jesus commend Abraham for something and beat us down about doing the same thing? Of course not. We need to get it into our head that God loves us and wants to answer every prayer that we pray. He might not answer it exactly as we thought that He should but He wants to answer every one of them anyway.

So it wouldn't be wrong to meditate on your children being saved, healed and married to Godly spouses. It's not wrong to think about every need of yours being met in an overcoming manner. It's not wrong of you to think about your child being healed, and so on and so forth.

When you start meditating on receiving the answer to your prayers instead of thinking about how awful the situation is right now you will begin to free your mind from doubt and fear. The gear of faith will begin to kick in and you will begin anticipating good things happening instead of dreading the bad things. It will take some time to overcome all the negativity but it is well worth the effort.

And the best part is that the devil hates it when you continue to imagine yourself living in answered prayer instead of wallowing around in doubt and fear. You'll get enough courage to start talking trash to the big dummy because you'll realize that you're more than a conqueror and he's more than a loser.

Pull yourself together. Meditate on Mark 11:24 for a while until it becomes second nature. And that will bring us to the second 'devil buster'------peace.