Burdens

Every born-again believer is offered burdens every day of the world.  Who is in charge of handing out all these burdens?  None other than the ruler of darkness, the devil.  The devil lives just to get as much hell as he can into our lives; misery loves company.  I think the only relief the devil ever gets is when he is harassing some otherwise peaceful saint of God!
 
Hebrews 12:1 Seeing that we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
 
The Scripture tells us that there are two things that can hinder us from remaining in God’s will, weights and sin.  I believe most Christians have taken the grace of God and dealt with sin.  What are these weights?  Weights are burdens, these come in the form of pressure, stress, discouragement and they are all the plots of the devil.  For instance, when you are believing for a healing, you were healed two thousand years ago where God is concerned.  God is not withholding anything from you, the devil is doing everything he can do to keep you from receiving because he knows you will give your Lord the glory.  Let me put this in perspective for you, the devil is a jerk, a very heavy jerk!  Jesus went about healing people who were oppressed of the devil.  Oppress means push down or put pressure on someone who wants to arise.
 
Mathew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest for your souls.
 
Jesus is telling us how to deal with the works of the devil, stop going it alone first of all.  Tune the devil out, he has nothing to say that will help you.  Look up with Jesus He has your answers and He knows the way.  If you focus on what the devil is doing and that’s what he wants you to do, he will weigh you down and you will lose your spiritual energy.  We need to train ourselves to consider Jesus every time the devil comes to steal, kill or destroy.  The devil is after our lives and his number one starting place is our imagination.
 
Isaiah 26:3 You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind (imagination) is stayed on Him: because he trusts in you.
 
We can imagine what the devil says he wants to do to us or we can imagine what Jesus died to give us.  When you consider the devil long enough, you will crawl through life with a heavy ball chained to your leg.  When you consider what Jesus did, you live a free life with no weights to hold you back.
 
Proverbs 23:7 For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
 
A mind is a terrible thing to waste thinking about all the ways the devil says he’s going to do to you.  May I remind you that the devil is a liar and the father of all lies.  God is not a man that He should lie, if He has said it He will make it good.  Victory and defeat begins in the mind and we can choose whatever we want, so you will always be where you think you ought to be.  When you yoke up with Jesus, you will plow in a constant state of hope.  Jesus does not know what defat is, so He cannot even offer it to anyone.  You are a winner looking for a place to celebrate.

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