Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!

'Get Thee Behind Me, Satan!'  We all say that sometime...when I say we, I mean Christians.  So recently,  the Spirit of gave me an opportunity to see something about this quote. Let's see the story behind the saying.

Matthew 16: 13 -23, When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying,“Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”

So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.  And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.  And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

 Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. 

From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

You see, Peter has just been commended by Jesus for the revelation God gave him identifying Jesus as the Christ...(it takes the Holy Spirit to know that Jesus is the Son of God).  Jesus prophesied on Peter, declaring what God will do through Peter in the near future.  Well, Satan heard those words and he didn't waste time to strike by using the same Peter to try dissuade Jesus from fulfilling His mission on earth. Imagine, Peter trying to rebuke Jesus to stop Him from getting killed.  Well, Jesus knew it wasn't Peter talking and immediately told the devil to be gone.  Why didn't the devil speak through John, James, Phillip or any other apostle...why Peter? It is because Jesus prophesied over, connecting him to the Church He will establish on earth. Satan came to do his job on Peter, those words from Jesus were red alert. This is what Jesus told Peter in Luke 22: 31-32, "And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren."  
We need to be careful when we receive prophecies so we do not get deceived by the devil. We ought to be prayerful, vigilant and allow the Holy Spirit direct us so we do not make wrong decisions that can keep us away from fulfilling our destinies. Remember Abraham was told by God that he will have a son, well what did he do? He and Sarah decided to help out by involving the maid Hagar to get pregnant, the world is still suffering from the result of that pregnancy.  Maybe Peter allowed the prophecy to get to his head and decided to caution Jesus, the moral of this story is for us all to allow the Spirit of God direct us in everything, our words, thoughts and actions.  God bless you. 

Hearing By The Word!

Romans 10 verse 17 is a popular verse for most Christians, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."   I love this scripture and I know most pastors love it. I hear them quote it all the time. They always teach us to pay attention to the Word of God, so we can have and grow our faith; which by the way is very important because without faith, we cannot please God...Heb 11:6.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  As you study or your listen to the Word of God, you are receiving and increasing your faith; God also gives you the capacity to Hear by the Word. You can take this physically or spiritually. A deaf ear can/is unstopped by the Word of God. You may be going through a situation that you absolutely have no clue on what to do, and all of a sudden; you find your spirit giving you answers on how to tackle the problem as you are meditating on the Scriptures.  That's why it's important when you study the Word of God, don't do it in silence! Open your mouth and declare the Word. Your Spirit man, that is the real you, needs to HEAR THE WORD. THERE'S POWER IN CONFESSING GOD'S WORD. Your Spirit man must be fed to be strong, so you can reign in life over sickness, disease, infirmities  poverty  failure  devil etc. That spirit man only feeds on the Word because it is born of the Word. As we take care of our physical body, we also need to take care of our inner/spirit man.

Our Lord Jesus said in Mathew 13: 13-16, ^"Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.   And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive;  For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear."

15 Just like one can be physically deaf, one can also be spiritually deaf and spiritual deafness can only be healed by the Word of God. To be spiritually deaf is worst than physical deafness...it is the reason why some people never understand the Scriptures, they make a mockery of God's Word, they don't see the power of God's Word, the importance of the Holy Spirit, the miraculous etc. To them Christianity becomes a mere religion, void of power. If you find yourself in this situation, you need to make a change fast. Start paying attention to the Word, ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes, ears and to give you understanding of the Scriptures so you can have fellowship with the Him and live the life of the miraculous that you and I were created for.

The Word of God is wonderful and you can never go wrong with it. The Word of God is alive, when we hear God's Word, it produces faith, sharpens our senses, minds, spirits, it sanitizes our spiritual ears to hear more from God. We are able to catch signals from the spiritual realm. We start seeing things differently, viewing life from the mountain top and the issues of life become bread for us.  The Word of God is Christ given us in a message and is energized by the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is the Power of God that saves us completely in all things..Romans 1:16.