By John Eldredge
O God, you are my life. You have breathed into me the breath of life and I have become a living being (Gen 2:7). My very existence and my being flow from You. In You I live and move and have my being (Acts 17:28). You are the Vine and I am a true branch of Yours (John 15:5). Father, you have made me alive with Christ (Eph 2:4-5). Jesus has become my second Adam a life-giving spirit (1 Cor 15:45). He came that I might have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). I have Jesus Christ, and I have his life (1 John 5:12). Christ is now my life (Col 3:4).
Dear Father, restore this frail branch in full union with the trunk. Restore my full union with Christ and with You. I return myself to You – my body, soul and spirit. I return myself fully to the Source of Life. May I be one with You even as Jesus was one with You (John 10:30, 17:21). Let Your life flow through me, and flow and flow throughout this day. O Life, live into me. Encompass me and all that I am. Well up within me, O Spring of Life let Your river flow through my heart, soul, mind and strength (John 7:38). You are the God who gives life to the dead(Rom 4:17). And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in me (and You are living in me), he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to my mortal body through his Spirit, who lives in me (Rom 8:11). O God, fill me with the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in my body, soul and spirit.
For it is Christ in me that is my hope of glory (Col 1:27). It is the triumphant life of Jesus Christ that has become my life. I live by Him. I reign in life through Him, by the life of Christ in me. For if, when I was Your enemy, I was reconciled to You through the death of Your Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall I be saved through His life (Rom 5:10). I announce that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:2).
I now claim the resurrection triumph of Jesus Christ against all forms of death and destruction come against me. By Jesus Christ and his great work I cut off every attempt of my enemies to steal, kill or destroy my life. As Jesus said, no one takes my life from me (John 10:18). Death has no mastery over Jesus now (Rom 6:9) and death has no mastery over me, for I am united with Christ, one Spirit with him (1 Cor 6:17). I am in Christ (1 Cor 1:30). And Christ is in me (Col 1:27). I claim the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus now against every black law of sin and death and every foul power of destruction aimed against me. By the authority of Jesus Christ I bind and banish all forms of bondage and death from me now – all spirits, all witchcraft, all foul powers. I cancel all claims against me by the work of Jesus Christ (Col 2:13-15).
I take my place in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in his life. I claim the resurrection of Christ against my enemies and their devices and I bind them from me, and send them to their judgment, in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ and to his everlasting glory. I choose to live by the strength of Jesus Christ, and by his mighty life. In Jesus’ Name.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Thursday, May 05, 2005
The Enemy
I wrote this several weeks ago when I was having computer trouble and unable to post.
The past two weeks have been hard, that is probably an understatement. The past two weeks have been an all out assault on my heart. I try to find time to write, but it just is not there. When I do have a moment, I am either so tired physically or worse tired spiritually that I have nothing to write. I grow angry and frustrated and lose site of what is true. I forget that life is hard, that things here in this world are not what they were meant to be. Most importantly I forget that I have an enemy that wants to kill me. And you do to. John 10:10 tells us that. “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.” How come I forget that? Instead of standing firm against him, I get mad at my wife, the dog or just about anything that comes across my path. The phrase “mad at the world” takes on new meaning for me when I get to this point. You have probably been here to. Things are not going as you had planed. Life has turned out different than you dreamed. It seems so unfair, so heart breaking. We want to find someone or something to blame. Unfortunately we often blame the wrong person. The last few days my wife and I have been mad at each other. We both want more for our marriage or hearts and it just seems like something always gets in the way. Is this her fault, no, we have an enemy but I forget that and then suddenly the person I love most in this world becomes the focus of my frustration. We have an enemy and he has set his sites on us. His goal is to destroy our hearts. To steal, kill and destroy all that we love and all that we desire to be. He is set against the work of God, he is an active enemy and we must stand against him. I forget this so easily. Jesus promises us abundant life in verse 10 of John, but he also warns us that the enemy will seek to destroy that. I need to remember that daily, I need to know that the enemy of my heart, Satan, is the one I need to stand against. Remember that today as you go through your day. When you want to blame your spouse, your boss or maybe even the dog. There is more going on than meets the eye.
The past two weeks have been hard, that is probably an understatement. The past two weeks have been an all out assault on my heart. I try to find time to write, but it just is not there. When I do have a moment, I am either so tired physically or worse tired spiritually that I have nothing to write. I grow angry and frustrated and lose site of what is true. I forget that life is hard, that things here in this world are not what they were meant to be. Most importantly I forget that I have an enemy that wants to kill me. And you do to. John 10:10 tells us that. “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.” How come I forget that? Instead of standing firm against him, I get mad at my wife, the dog or just about anything that comes across my path. The phrase “mad at the world” takes on new meaning for me when I get to this point. You have probably been here to. Things are not going as you had planed. Life has turned out different than you dreamed. It seems so unfair, so heart breaking. We want to find someone or something to blame. Unfortunately we often blame the wrong person. The last few days my wife and I have been mad at each other. We both want more for our marriage or hearts and it just seems like something always gets in the way. Is this her fault, no, we have an enemy but I forget that and then suddenly the person I love most in this world becomes the focus of my frustration. We have an enemy and he has set his sites on us. His goal is to destroy our hearts. To steal, kill and destroy all that we love and all that we desire to be. He is set against the work of God, he is an active enemy and we must stand against him. I forget this so easily. Jesus promises us abundant life in verse 10 of John, but he also warns us that the enemy will seek to destroy that. I need to remember that daily, I need to know that the enemy of my heart, Satan, is the one I need to stand against. Remember that today as you go through your day. When you want to blame your spouse, your boss or maybe even the dog. There is more going on than meets the eye.
Breaking the Silence
“I can never share that” how many times have we said that to ourselves? We take an event, a thought or a time in our life and we build a wall around it vowing never to let anyone into that area of our heart. We think we are protecting ourselves from more pain, rejection or condemnation. We doubt the hearts of those who love us, believing the lie of the enemy, that they will hate us, reject us or abandon us. This is such an evil lie of the enemy. These secrets we hold onto are the very things that are killing us inside. I believed this lie for so many years, cutting myself off from those I loved and those that loved me. For a large part of our marriage, I kept my fears, my pain and my failures from my wife. It almost destroyed me. It was literally killing my heart. The more I isolated myself from her and others the deeper I sank into despair and into addiction. The truth is that as long as we hide ourselves away from others we will always live with the pain of being alone in our hearts. We were not meant to live this way. Jesus did not live this way. He surrounded himself with 12 dear friends and he shared His life with them. When he was in the garden on the night he was betrayed he brought his disciples with him. As he agonized over the death that was before him He did not hide it from others. He wanted his disciples with him. God has done a great work of healing in my marriage, even in the last few weeks as Jody and I have shared our hearts with each other walls have come down. We are beginning to see a new intimacy between us. There is life in the sharing of our burdens and healing as we release our fear and our failures. Letting the one you love or those with whom you have a deep fellowship into your hearts is truly a gift from our dear Father. It will free you and draw you closer to those you love. We were never made to walk this journey of life alone in and silence.
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