Know Which Side You’re On

What does it mean to stand on God’s side in spiritual warfare? In this episode, Stormie explains why knowing Jesus as our Commander is essential to becoming a powerful prayer warrior. She shares how a close relationship with Christ helps us recognize the enemy’s deceptions, understand our identity as children of God, and stand strong in the battles we face. Stormie also reminds us that the victory over evil has already been won through Jesus, but we must still engage in prayer to see that victory unfold in our lives. By learning to follow God’s voice, trust His Word, and resist the enemy’s lies, we can live with confidence and purpose as we fight life’s battles through prayer.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Stormy Omardian Podcast, where we explore the power of prayer to change lives, strengthen faith, and deepen relationships. Today, Stormy explains why every believer must understand whose side we are on in the spiritual battle between good and evil. She shares how knowing Jesus as our commander helps us recognize the enemy's deceptions and stand strong as prayer warriors.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hi, I'm Stormy O'Mardian, and I'm speaking to you today from my book Prayer Warrior. This is episode two, Know Which Side You're On. Now every army has a commander who is the top leader, and he's the most trusted and skilled in knowing how to fight the war. In God's spiritual army, he wants you to not only know about him, he wants you to know him. He wants you to have a deep relationship with him that is close and personal so that you can hear him speaking to your heart. He wants you to always be able to clearly distinguish between his voice and that of the enemy. The better you know your commander and the more you look to him for your strength, power, guidance, the better prayer warrior you will be. In a regular army, your orders will come down through a chain of command. In the Lord's army, there is no chain of command. You take your orders directly from your commander. Now imagine you've decided to join the army, and your leader has already voluntarily agreed to die in your place so that you won't ever have to. Not only that, he has taken the consequences for any mistakes you have made in your life or may make in the future and given you a complete pardon so there will never be any need for a dishonorable discharge. Even if you were to do something wrong, you could go to him and confess the mistake and be forgiven and released from any charge that could be brought against you. How great is that? Well, imagine no more. This is the way it is in the army of God, because your commander is Jesus, and he wants to have first place in your life. When Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected, he won absolute victory over death and hell, and he suffered and died, so we don't have to. He has delivered us from any reason to fear death, because when we die, we will go to be with him. We don't have to be afraid to die. We have to be afraid to live without him. We know as believers that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. That's from 2 Corinthians 5.8. We also know that to be absent from the Lord as an unbeliever is no life at all. No one else has ever died for you and rose from the dead to break the power of death and hell over you. Only Jesus. And that makes him the perfect commander. There are other things you need to know about your commander. One of them is that when you receive the Lord, you are a son or daughter of God. In Galatians 4, 4 and 7, it says, God sent forth his son to redeem us. And now we are not slaves to sin, but we are sons and daughters of God, making each of us an heir of God through Christ. That means what Jesus inherits, you will inherit too. And this is no small thing. So don't ever let this truth be minimized in your life. Only a joint heir with Christ can be a prayer warrior. Being a prayer warrior is a way of life. It's not a hit and miss now and then, whenever I feel like it kind of thing, nor is it burdensome. When Jesus says, follow me, he is saying, come out of the world and into the kingdom of God. Come out of danger and into safety. Come out of the darkness and into the light. Come out of stress and into peace. He says, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That's from Matthew 11, 28 to 30. The burdens you have in your heart are laid upon him as you pray about them. The things he wants you to do for him are easy because he does the heavy lifting. And this is just the beginning of receiving your inheritance. There is a war between God and the evil one, and we become part of that war the minute we receive Jesus and are declared a legal citizen of God's kingdom on earth. In this war, we are either on God's side or the enemy's side. We are either in the army of God or in the forces of God's enemy. The battle lines were drawn thousands of years ago. Everyone has to make the decision as to which side they're on. Thinking you can stay neutral, neither choosing God's side nor acknowledging the enemy, puts you on the enemy's side. That's how some people choose the side of evil unwittingly, thinking they don't have to make that decision and can stay out of it. Some people believe they are choosing the right side because the enemy is able to entice the uninformed into thinking that he is God. But when we walk with the true God, living with his word in our hearts and following the leading of his spirit in us, we will be able to recognize an imposter. The more you know your commander, the more certain you will be about whose side you are standing on. And that's because to stand with any other would be unthinkable. Being a prayer warrior is something you do because you love the Lord and want to serve Him. As prayer warriors, we now become ambassadors for Christ. That's from 2 Corinthians 5.20. The love of Jesus for us gives us no other choice but to live to please Him. The love of Christ compels us, it says in 2 Corinthians 5.14. We can only choose the winning side. Your commander is the only one who has ever defeated the enemy for you. And he calls you to fight with every possible advantage, including impenetrable armor and the most powerful weapons of all. That's why we don't have to be afraid of evil powers. Jesus has completely neutralized them. Through the cross, Jesus destroyed the rule on earth of principalities and powers of evil. That's from Colossians 2, 15. He did not destroy them, but he did destroy their power to torment those who have his Holy Spirit in them. The enemy only has power in our lives if we allow him to. People who are influenced by the enemy are those who have given him place in their lives, either deliberately or out of ignorance. Jesus is Lord, and we can't water that down in our hearts, nor can we compromise on that fact in our minds. Our commander dwells in us by his spirit, and we must never submit to any other. Spend time with God so he can give you the strength and protection you need to stand on his side in the battle. Don't forget for a moment that God is bigger and more powerful than the enemy. It says that in 1 John 4:4. Jesus has won this war, and because you are fighting on his side, you are a winner too. Your commander is the greatest example of a prayer warrior. Jesus is our best role model when it comes to understanding what it means to be a prayer warrior. He not only taught about prayer, he lived it every day of his life. He prayed all the time. He did nothing without praying first. That's how he often faced the enemy and ruled over him. Jesus' private time with his Heavenly Father was what empowered him to do all that he did. His disciples noticed that when Jesus went apart from them to pray, he came back empowered to do miracles. They made that connection between power and prayer. They didn't ask Jesus how to get the power, they asked him to teach them how to pray. And Jesus taught them to pray what we now call the Lord's Prayer. That's found in Matthew 6, 9 through 13. In that prayer, Jesus taught us to acknowledge God as our Heavenly Father, which establishes our personal relationship with Him as His children. We are to enter His presence in worship and praise Him as holy. We pray for His will to be done and His kingdom to be established on earth the way it is in heaven, which means we pray that it will be established in ourselves and in the people we love and care about and in the world we live in. He also taught us to pray that all our needs would be met by Him and that God would forgive our sins in the same way we forgive others who sin against us. And this puts a convicting light on any lack of forgiveness we may harbor in our heart. We are also to ask God for the strength to withstand every temptation and be delivered from the evil one. And lastly, we are to declare that his kingdom and glory are forever. Jesus' desire was always to do his heavenly Father's will and glorify him. We must have that same desire in our hearts in order to be the prayer warriors God is calling us to be. We must be dedicated to communing with our Heavenly Father and fulfilling His assignment to establish His kingdom in prayer here and now. We must recognize that we have the mind of Christ and refuse to be led by our own fleshly desires. We must not let the enemy bully us into doing things we know are wrong and then suffering the consequences because of that. Let us not get hung up on legalism instead of getting swept up with Jesus and what he accomplished on the cross. For if we do that, it will limit what God wants to do in and through us. It's important to also be clear about who your enemy is. Good soldiers know that if they don't recognize who their enemy is, they are destined to lose the war. That's also true for those of us who do battle in God's army. Even though Jesus put the enemy under his feet and won the victory for us, we still must move into that victory. There are still battles to be fought in prayer. One of my family members is in the military and he says every soldier has to know the weaknesses and strengths of his enemy. He doesn't have to be personally acquainted with the enemy. He just has to know the way the enemy works and what his tactics are. We too must be able to identify who our enemy is and what he is and is not capable of doing. We must know the way he operates so we can identify any attempt he makes to influence our life or the lives of others. The reason to know all this is to be able to put the blame for certain things that happen exactly where it belongs. We must never blame God for what the enemy does. The enemy is the one who steals and kills, not God. The enemy is our adversary, accuser, tempter, and father of lies, not God. The enemy wants to destroy the life God has for us. We must recognize these things if we want to successfully stand against God's enemy and ours. The enemy is always trying to lure us into believing or feeling opposite of what God wants us to believe or feel. The enemy accomplishes that by getting us to accept his lies as truth. Because God has given us a free will, we can put a stop to the enemy's lies by choosing to believe God instead. And one of the main ways the enemy draws people away from God is through deception. Don't be deceived by the enemy's angel of light routine. Ask the Spirit of truth within you to keep you undeceived. Because if you don't, you are headed for a painful experience. Each battle is ours to lose by resisting God in his ways. We are joint heirs with Christ and will inherit all his victories, but we still have to live his way in order to receive that full inheritance. So run, don't walk away from any voice that tells you it's okay to disobey God's commandments and also his personal instructions to you. In a weak moment you may have doubt and fall for the enemy's lies, but the point is to not let there be any weak moments. Fortify yourself in God's word and in prayer and in worship and praise. Don't let the enemy win the war for your family. Just because some people become influenced by the enemy and may act like the devil, your true enemy is the evil one. The enemy works through other people who often don't even know they're being used. He entices them through their own evil desires, and they do his bidding. Concentrate on the goodness of God, not the work of the enemy. Don't attempt to understand all the evil things the enemy does outside of what the Bible tells you. You don't need to. You are instructed to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. It says that in Romans 16, 19 and 20. You have to know who your enemy is and what is his intent, but you don't need to dwell on his evil deeds, except as the Holy Spirit makes you aware of something for which he wants you to pray. God has given us a choice. He has set it up that we have a will and we decide what we will or will not do. Will we or will we not worship God? Will we or will we not use God's word as our spiritual weapon against the realm of darkness? We decide. When we align our will with God's will, that's when we see the enemy pushed back. The enemy wants to keep that from happening, of course. He wants to distract you, deceive you, discourage you, and destroy you so that God's purposes for your life will not be fulfilled. Does it ever seem as though something is always coming along to defeat you? If so, it is likely the enemy trying to wear you down and get you off the path of fulfilling God's plan for your life. Remember, if anything distressing happens for whatever reason, God is still on the throne. You may be devastated, but He is not. He still sees His high purpose for you, even if you cannot see it at that moment. You have a good future, but it doesn't happen by chance. You have an enemy who wants to steal your future away. Don't allow that to happen. Become the prayer warrior God is calling you to be and fight for it. Keep in mind the enemy's power is limited, but God's power is without limit. The enemy is not all-powerful, only God is. The only way the enemy has power is because people give it to him. People give it to him because he makes them think he doesn't exist. Don't dwell on how strong the enemy can be. Dwell on the all-powerful strength of the Lord, for whom nothing is impossible. The enemy's power in our lives is limited by what we will allow him to do. The Lord's power has no limits except when we limit his access to our lives. Everything God rules is good and pure. Everything the enemy rules is corrupt. When you see people hating one another, lying to one another, mistreating one another, or enslaving each other, you can know for certain the enemy is in charge. When you see people starving, homeless, or mistreated, with no one to help, you know the enemy is in charge. This all happens when people reject God's truth and allow the enemy's lies to rule. Your prayers can change that. So would you pray with me about this? Oh, thank you, Jesus, for the inheritance you have secured for me, both in this life and in the life to come. Thank you for the great hope I have in you. Thank you that you protect me from the enemy when I live your way and pray according to your will, as you have taught me in your word. I choose to stand on your side in this war between good and evil. Teach me how to be the powerful prayer warrior you have called me to be. Help me to stand strong in prayer against the encroachment of the enemy into my life, into my family's life, as well as the lives of others. Thank you, Lord, that you will protect me and those for whom I pray. Thank you for sharing your power with me as I pray in your name so that I can win each battle and defeat the enemy. Lord, I thank you that you have given all of us everything we need to stand strong against the enemy of our soul. Enable me to always understand who my enemy is and be able to clearly recognize his hand in everything. I know you do not ever bring confusion on us, but you can confuse the enemy. And I know the enemy is no match for you, and the only way he gains power is by deceiving people into believing his lies. Keep me from becoming fearful when I see the wicked succeeding in their terrible plans. Enable me to rise up against the enemy in prayer, as you are calling me to do. In Jesus' name I pray. So we must remember the enemy is not everywhere. God is. The enemy can only be where there is an opening for him. The enemy does not know everything, and he does not know what you think. He only knows what you say. So watch what you say. If you say I hate my life and I don't want to live anymore, the enemy will help you get what you say you want. If you say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, or praise you, Jesus, I worship you as Lord and Savior, as deliverer and redeemer. The enemy is powerless and can do nothing. Remember, the enemy is not even close to being as powerful as God. Only God is all powerful. You know, there's so much more I need to tell you. I pray you will get a copy of my book, Prayer Warrior, so you will have all the knowledge and tools you need to stand strong.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Thanks for joining us. In the next episode, Stormy explains why every prayer warrior must put on the full armor of God in order to stand strong in spiritual battles. You'll learn how each piece of spiritual armor, from truth and righteousness to faith and the word of God, protects you and equips you to overcome the enemy.