07/06/2025
CONQUERING YOUR GIANTS (1)
There are five giants every person must conquer in order to live a victorious life and end up in God's kingdom. Though everybody must conquer these giants but unbelievers have the extra burden of first and foremost of accepting salvation through Christ.
However, the fact that you have confessed Christ as your Lord and Savior does not automatically give you victories over these giants because accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior is just the starting point. The five giants I will be talking about in this series are:
1. The devil and his evil manipulations
2. Sin
3. The flesh
4. The world system
5. Death
In this first series, I will start by dealing with the devil and his evil deeds and others will come in consequent series.
To start with, we shall be looking at two scriptures:
1. James 4:7: *" Submit yourself therefore unto God. Resist the devil , and he will flee from you"*
2. Matthew 5:38 & 39: " *Ye have heard that it hath been said; An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil;................*
Looking closely at these two scriptures, they appear not to be in agreement with each other, but they are in agreement. We were told to resit the devil but not to resist evil. Man and God must work together to resist the devil and he will flee, but only God can deal with any evil that the devil and his agents may put on our ways.
However, man's role in resisting the devil is to submit to God as we read in James 4:7. Submitting to God seems to be the problem of many Christians because it implies we must obey every law/word and commandment of God and that is easily said than done for many believers because it is a matter of action and lifestyle rather than prayers alone as prayers of any person resisting the devil without first and foremost submitting and totally yielding to God's law and commandments will be in vain.
So it follows that as we submit and yield ourselves to God's way, our Lord will now be the one to confront the devil and he will flee. God said in Exodus 23:27-28: *" I will send my fear before thee and will destroy all the people to whom though shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite and the Hittite from before thee"*. Which means God is the one to drive the devil and all our enemies away from us because He will send His fear before us, but we must totally submit and yield ourselves to Him.
Now, submitting to God and yielding to God are two different things. Submitting to God means that we read the word of God, meditate over it and we purpose in our heart to abide in it which is good. However, yielding ourselves is a little bit stronger than submitting ourselves. Yielding means coming face to face with the reality of our submission that we will still stand by our decision. The example I want to give here is the example of the three Hebrew boys; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They have disobeyed king Nebuchadnezzar by determining in their hearts not to bow to the image that he made. Their yieldedness came to play out when they were face to face with the fiery furnace and they stood their ground. And as they were being tied and carried into the fire, they stood their ground after telling the king earlier that whether God deliver them or not, they were not bothered. We all know the story but let us see the comment of king Nebuchadnezzar about these three Hebrew boys in Daniel 3:28
Dan 3:28: *"Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said; blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who hath sent His angel and delivered His servants that trusted in Him and have changed the king's word, and YIELDED THEIR BODIES that they might not serve nor worship any god except their own God"* This is yieldedness. For those three Hebrew young men, it was not a case of *"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak"*
It then follows that as we submit and yield ourselves to God's commandments, He will be the one to resist the devil on our behalf and the devil will not have other alternative than to flee.
*We will continue next week*
