Strategies of Deceit | Mac Hammond
Recap
Pastor Mac began a brand-new series entitled, “Strategies of Deceit.” Over the years, believers have expressed their frustration that their lives are filled with bad, and sometimes evil, things. Even though they pray and live their lives by faith, they can’t seem to make an end of the bad things. They don’t know how to deal with the situation in which they find themselves. Pastor Mac explains the hard truth that the enemy cannot just arbitrarily bring death and cursing into your life. There’s a reason why the enemy has access into your life!
Dive Deeper
Pastor Mac started a new series entitled, “Strategies of Deceit.”
Pastor Mac introduced his series by repeating what many believers articulate in their lives, how they are puzzled by the fact that bad things come into their lives even though they pray, even though they are living their lives by faith. They do not know how to deal with the situation in which they find themselves.
The hard truth is the fact that the enemy cannot defeat you unless he can deceive you. The enemy cannot perpetrate any kind of evil in your life, nor can he just arbitrarily bring cursing and death into your life.
God’s Word says that we have to choose it. He tells us in His Word that He’s placed before us life and blessing, death and cursing. He says, “Therefore, choose life.”
We have to make the choices that govern the affairs and experiences of our lives. God created us to be free, moral agents. That means we are free to make choices for our lives. Free moral agency is one of the ways He created us in His image and likeness.
God did not make humankind to be automatons. We are free, moral agents. And because He made us that way, He allows us to make choices that are going to determine what kind of lives we live.
So, if you are upset with the way your life is going, it’s easy to figure out where the problem lies. You can’t do anything to correct your path until you acknowledge this truth. He honors your choices.
He doesn’t just dump blessing on you as a matter of course. However, there are times when we don’t deserve the blessing that He brings, but He does it anyway. There is a fairly narrow window in the Word of God for His sovereign operation. (This is in reference to the gifts of the Spirit listed in 1st Corinthians 12.)
Those who have been justified by the blood are to live by faith. If that’s you, that means you are the one that decide the truths you’re going to believe that will guide your life… you decide the truths in which to invest your faith.
Faith is an investment of your belief system in the Word of God. It isn’t a casual reference to an arbitrary religious pursuit, such as the Hindu faith, the Buddhist faith, etc. No, faith means an investment of your belief system in the Word of God.
To experience life and blessing faith has intended to bring you, you have to choose correctly. You have to choose to believe and cultivate your faith in those things.
If you make choices without any regard to what the Bible says, you’re likely to make a choice for death and cursing.
The truth is, nobody intentionally chooses death and cursing. So that means you are deceived. The definition of “deceived” means to act outside the truth, to make decisions based on something other than truth. That’s deception.
Repeat: The enemy can’t defeat you unless he can deceive you!
The enemy knows what the Bible says. He knows that Jesus said your quality of life and life’s experiences will be unto you according to your faith.
When you make decisions based on what your best friend said, or what you learned in school, or what is the prevailing secular wisdom, death and cursing will be the result. In order to experience life and blessing, your decisions must be based on God’s Word.
Consider this: The areas of your life where you’re experiencing death and cursing are a product of having been deceived. God does not put bad things on you. He certainly isn’t going to let the enemy of your soul put bad things on you either. Yet there are areas of your life where you’re experiencing death and cursing. You’ve prayed about it but it continues to occur. It’s an ongoing challenge you face. The most likely probability for death and cursing being present in your life is that you’ve made a decision(s) that enabled the enemy to enter into your life.
However, there is one other possibility for death and cursing being in your life and that’s due to a decision that someone else made who you are in a relationship with. The most obvious example would be a spouse. Being married to a spouse who does not make decisions based on the Word can open your life up to death and cursing. There is a remedy for it but that will be discussed later. (Other relationships might be vocational, etc.)
Yes, death and cursing could be present in your life because of a relationship in your life. However, you must examine your life first.
The enemy will make an effort to deceive you by contradicting what the Word of God says who you are and how to deal with life’s circumstance.
The Bible says Satan is the god of this world, the prince of the powers of the air. Until the end of this present dispensation, Satan has the legal, spiritual right to manipulate circumstance and people to produce contradictions to what you’ve decided to believe in the Word.
The purpose is to get you to back off your belief in the Word because he knows he can’t do anything about your destiny in God unless he can change what you believe.
That’s what the battle is all about—what you choose to believe!
Read About It
1st John 1:7–9, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”