Is It Always the Devil? – A Word by Rev. Josephine Marie Ayers

Rev. Josephine Marie Ayers

Email: josephine@flamesoffire.us

Have you ever heard the statement, ‘If you are getting resistance in your life as a Christian, or a minister’, you must be doing something right? Another words, the more the opposition, and the more the devil is trying to upstage, what God is doing in your life, you are automatically assumed to be on the ‘right track’. Yikes! Dangerous thinking!

Recently I have started hearing this again, as if that statement is a guidepost for discerning the will of God in one’s life. This could be a dangerous assumption, and possibly be more trouble that the oppositions one is facing.

What about Job? Yes, God did give the devil permission to cause all the havoc and loss, for Job. He was, I believe wanting to reveal Job’s righteousness to the enemy. I also believe He was also testing Job, and his friends. But GOD “was in” that persecution from the enemy.  I believe, God dumped enormous grace, on Job to be able sojurn that difficult journey. In the end Job was rewarded double, and regained all that he lost. My own personal stance, is that for all the submitted and blood bought Believers, nothing happens to us, that does not pass the throne of Grace, first. How about Jonah? He went the scenic route on his journey! I can think of many biblical figures that dealt with this. What about Joseph?  I believe his training ground for the palace, was in the PIT! God knew exactly what was going to happen to Joseph. Joseph could have either sunk into the ‘pit’ of despair, or risen above it. We all know the story. My bible says, WE WILL HAVE TRIALS, and we also have choices how we deal with them. We will also have the grace to deal with them again. Hmm how does one ascend to Glory without ‘spot or wrinkle’ according to scripture. It’s through the process of life, resistance or not.

When we get resistance does anyone ever ask the Lord the question, ‘Is there anything I need to learn in all of this God’? If not, we should! Not all pain is from the enemy. We are also free to make choices and cause our own resistance, with bad choices.

Do we pay attention to those Holy Spirit checks in our spirit? Or do we immediately assume the enemy is trying to abort something in our lives. Don’t get me wrong, the devil is known to do that. But we need to discern properly, and not ‘assume’.

I am always concerned about these absolute pronouncements that float around Christian circles, statements similar to this. But this one, I really started to ponder, and explore, and write about.

I know in my own life, many times when I have tried to put the ‘round peg in the square hole’, thinking it was a God direction. I was met with what I will call resistance at every angle. I remember the utter frustration when it was, ‘not happenin’. It felt like there was a firm hand on my head, whilst my little feet were running in place, going nowhere, anytime to soon, except down, if you can picture that? I also could sense that ‘something ‘was not right. In those instances, it was the HAND OF GOD, trying to keep me from maing some serious mistakes. It was NOT the devil.

Or how about this scenario, I ran ‘ahead of GOD’ in what I knew was Him, and it did not work. Why? Because the timing was, ‘Not right’.

Every been there? All through God’s Word, there are references to ‘appointed times’, and ‘seasons.’  Many folks are languishing in God’s waiting room, thinking they have been forgotten, or try to make it happen, only to fail. Not the devil, again.

Brothers and Sisters, God leads and guides with closed doors, as well as open ones. How many of us had tried to push the closed doors open, and ended up with ‘bruises’, figuratively. “Pushing against the goads’, as Paul said.

In fact, I have had enormous doors open for me that people would say to me, ‘go for it, has to be God’. The thing about these ‘ doors’ was, I had NO PEACE! After haggling with the Lord, H impressed on me it was not Him. It was not with Rhema it was with, where my peace was, or not. He gave me the following Scripture,” ¹⁵ And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live]. And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always]” Colossians 3 :15-17 Amplified. When I released the so called ‘open door’, peace like a river settled in!

God will have His way one way or the other. So, if we get ‘hiccups’ in our life, even the devil cannot stop His will.

Isaiah 14:27 NKJV:

“For the Lord of hosts has purposed,
And who will annul it?
His hand is stretched out,
And who will turn it back?”

Blood bought, submitted children of GOD, are not at the devil’s mercy, but at God’s. We need not fear moving forward thinking the devil is ALWAYS going to take pot shots at us, or that all the pot shots are from him.

We need to March forward, knowing, Isaiah 54:17 NKJV says,

“No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the Lord.”

And even if we make a mistake, Romans 8:28 NKJV says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

But it takes being really tuned into GOD to know what the resistance is from if we get some as we March forward in the things of GOD. It takes pausing and asking the Lord what the source is. For me years of trial and error in all of this, has my discernment at full attention!

But we need to consider NOT giving the devil credit for every form of opposition in our lives. We need to stop and pause for a moment trusting that God will tell us, from whence the opposition comes.  Sometimes people don’t ask God because they have already made up their minds in the direction they want to go. Uh oh!

Are we humble enough to say we may be wrong in certain pursuits? Give Him praise in the delays, or obstacles. He is faithful always to reveal Himself. We don’t want God’s permissive will, if there is such a thing. To me it is His perfect will, or nothing, that we should always want.

But I think when we make absolute statements to others, we can possibly lead them astray. Remember we may be the only Bible that people can read!

God is always faithful! March forward!

Be blessed!

Josephine Marie Ayers

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