4.26.26 Strongholds & Bondage Pt.13 The Authority of Jesus Christ

In today’s message, we discussed the problem of the loss of our flesh. 1 John chapter 1 talks about the last of our flesh, the last of our eyes, and the pride of life. It teaches us that the deep desires that we have for the things of the world are not from the Father. Until we meet Jesus Christ through believing in his work of the cross and his resurrection from the dead, we have been training ourselves from moments of pain, and our own desires for the things that we want. Essentially, this is what we have used as the building blocks to create our own bondages and strongholds. If we look at the book of James chapter 1, we learn that there is an order of things for us in the change of our life that comes from listening to God‘s word that causes us to begin to bring forth new fruit in our lives. Not the fruit of our old man nature. The order is as follows starting in verse 19 of chapter 1. First be quick to listen. That is to God‘s word. Second be slow to speak. Third be slow to anger because it does not produce the righteousness of God. Then we are to cast away filthiness, and wickedness, but if we’re honest, we did more than we thought before we met Christ. Finally, we must humble ourselves before the Lord and receive his word so that it may be planted in our heart. And so doing we are then to act up upon it and obey the word that God gives us that changes our lives. This shows that we are fruitful believers that do not only hear God‘s words, but also do them. If we take these verses to heart, the old patterns of strongholds and bondage that used to be a part of our normal living, will begin to break and the gospel, which is the power of God under salvation, begins to work to set us free!

-Pastor Jon