Choose Your Alignment

Spiritual warfare is real, so real that people often dismiss it as a seasonal troubles, depression, bad days, or the nauseous “it is what it is”.  Even though God does  not cause bad things, He often gets the blame more so than we admit. We can align with the demonic or align with Christ. It really is a choice we have to make and make more than once.

Transcript

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Hello, my favorite people. You are listening to Unfiltered with Jesse B. And I realize it's been about a week since the last podcast, and I do apologize for allowing so much time in between, and hopefully there will not be any more interruptions of this length. But uh with that being said, I would appreciate your prayers as I haven't been feeling the greatest, just super exhausted and can't seem to get enough rest. But sometimes you just have to plow right through things, and so that's what I'm trying to do. So before we get started, I'd like to recognize some new listener locations. We have some listeners out of Tucson, Arizona, Fort Liberty, North Carolina, Wichita, Kansas, Memphis, Tennessee, Valonia, Arkansas, and Albernet, Iowa. And I'm hope I'm pronouncing those last two cities correctly. But I do appreciate all my listeners. And if you like what you're hearing and know of others who would too, go ahead and share an episode or two with them. And of course, don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done so already. So I was doing a little bit of reflection today as I was sitting at my desk and reflecting on the past several months and the things that I've been through and started getting depressed. And I don't know if I was depressed because I was reflecting on those months or getting depressed because we're halfway through the year, and I had hoped to be a little bit farther along than I am. But um anyway, I was just sitting there and I was thinking, you know, God, there are things in my life that you could have stepped in and prevented at any time, but yet here I sit. And almost immediately that still small voice of the Holy Spirit said, Jesse, it's not God who caused all these things. You have an enemy. Now the smart elic in me said, Yeah, I know all about the battle not being against flesh and blood, but the principalities and so on and so forth, and that if verse in Ephesians that we're all very familiar with, Ephesians 6.12, but again the phrase came through stronger as I was having this little conversation in my mind. It is not God who caused these things, you have an enemy. Then another scripture came to mind, Romans 8 28, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. And I started reciting that scripture, and I thought, okay, well what about that? Because it's been months, Lord, and I'm still waiting to see the good. And there again, a little bit different, the phrase was even stronger still. It is not God who is causing the bad things in life. You have an enemy. And so the fact of the matter is we do have an enemy. This enemy will stop at nothing to get us to turn our backs on the Lord, and really that is the ultimate goal. John 10 10, Jesus gave us the MO or modus operandi of the enemy, which is to steal, kill, and destroy. Now I mentioned before that I work in the judicial system and often hear one parent accusing another parent of using the kids as a means to get back at the other. In a similar way, spiritually speaking, Satan does not care about you or I. And don't get me wrong, he hates us, especially if we're Christians, but I do think the ultimate goal is to hurt the father. And there's no better way to do that than through his children. And when you think about it, when good things happen in our lives, God gets or should be getting all the glory for that. But when bad things happen in our lives, God almost always gets the blame. Maybe not directly, but in an indirect manner. So the more I started thinking about that phrase, God is not the cause of these things, you have an enemy, the more I was reminded that everything that God intended for good, Satan intends for the exact opposite. So you can take Romans 8 28, for example, Satan can be expected to do the exact opposite of that. So what does that mean for us? It means that we have a choice in all situations and circumstances who we're going to come into agreement with. Now coming into agreement with God does not mean the absence of trouble. John 16, 33, Jesus said, In this world we shall have tribulation, but we are to be of good cheer because he has overcome the world. Now, how can any of us be in good cheer after having gone through events that may have drastically altered our lives? And speaking for myself, here I am fifty years old and practically starting over, while many of my friends either have kids who are now married, and some of my friends are now grandparents, and they're preparing for the golden years of life, and I'm just trying to reestablish. So, where is the good cheer in this? So, me being a nerd, I had to look up the phrase good cheer, and why would that be chosen? And good cheer, I think, is out of the New King James Version. And the phrase good cheer says that it can mean happiness, comfort, or encouragement. And it's often used to express hope, reassurance, or joy in a situation. So when Jesus said, be of good cheer, so in reality, Jesus is saying, Trust me, I've got this. And I realize that this may be kind of an off-the-cuff uh type of podcast tonight, but we do need to understand that there is a real enemy out there, but we also cannot forget that we have a good, good father. He has overcome the world, he is still sovereign, and he will have the final say, not just at the end of time, but also in our lives as well. We just need to make the choice to partner with him and resist the lies that the enemy may be trying to tell us. So, anyway, I appreciate you guys and love you all and hope you have a good evening. Talk to you later.