Do You Tolerate the devil?

 It would be advantageous for all of us if we could actually see the devil, and know what he is plotting. Well for a lot of folks it wouldn’t matter, they would still cooperate with him. The devil is an outlaw spirit and we can’t see him but God can. If we will listen to our Lord He will direct our lives in victory despite all the antics of the devil. We must always be sober and vigilant because the devil is relentless.

Ephesians 4:26 Be angry and sin not: let not the sun go down on your wrath (carnality)
27. Neither give place (opportunity—terms) to the devil.

    The devil has been around long enough to know our weakness and that is what he targets. Man’s weakness is his unredeemed flesh. Our flesh is not speaking directly at our skin and bones; it’s referring to human emotions and desires. All people have an ego, it’s more prevalent in men than women but we all have some. Human ego is an heartfelt conviction to protect ones self from emotional or physical harm. We continually attempt to put ourselves in the highest level of respect. Sometimes honestly and oft times with a fabrication of the truth. If someone challenges our status we become defensive, and ready to fight to protect things we may not have a right to.

    The devil preys on our ego, he knows how to push the right buttons to keep us from walking in the spirit. How do we live in the Spirit? We substitute the Bible for our emotions. We put our ego under the authority of the Word of God who is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a weakness, it takes a lot of courage to allow Jesus to be Lord of your flesh. We can have but one Lord, if Jesus is our Lord, the devil has no place. He is on the outside looking in, well a peeping tom may be creepy but he can’t hurt you.

 1 Peter 5:5 God resists the proud (egotistical) and He gives grace to the humble.

We can’t put our flesh under without His help, and He can’t help us till we ask Him. When we humble ourselves and ask for help to deal with our ego, He gives us His grace. His grace is a supernatural empowerment that changes us from the inside. When Grace has had it’s work God’s word becomes more important than our fleshly desires. If we are no longer controlled by our emotions the devil will struggle to manipulate us.

  11 Timothy 1:7 God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, love and a sound mind.

    The devil’s number one tactic is to use fear to control our lives.  The fear he offers is totally
fabricated, he does not have the authority to do what he threatens to do. He stirs up emotions with lies and if we have an ego we will act to protect ourselves. Inevitably we will be angry with people who had nothing to do with our situation. However, if His grace has had the time to work in us, we do not yield to the temptation to fear. We must use our measure of Grace to subdue all fears, if we permit any fear to operate in us we will give the devil an opportunity. Know your enemy and keep him in a constant state of defeat, give the devil no place, don’t tolerate him for even one minute.