The Bible says we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but we wrestle against principalities and powers and rulers of darkness, and so the forces of darkness are what we are fighting against, not flesh and blood. My fight is not with the flesh and blood people that run our government; it’s with the rulers of darkness that want to use the government to shut down the Church.
Jesus says to the disciples, ²²You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” And they say “We are able.” And He says, “²³ You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; (Matthew 20:22-23 NKJV).
Here is the point of our Christian being and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. When you receive Jesus into your life and ask Him to become the Lord and Saviour, two things happen to you. First, you identify with Him as Lord, and then you identify with Him as Saviour – when you identify with Him as Lord and Saviour, you immediately drink the cup. You drink of the knowledge that He is the One that died, He is the One that has been raised again by God, the Father. You drink that, and that is why the Bible says when you take communion, “You drink of My cup, and you eat of My flesh. You remember Me in the Lord’s death until I come again.”
That’s why we have communion. We continue to remember that we are baptised into His body and receive life from His body. The whole reason for us baptising people in water is because we identify with Him in His death as people go under the water. It’s just a symbol, but it’s a very powerful obedience. It’s a symbol of baptism into His death and a baptism into the resurrection. As you come up out of the water, you recognise Him in resurrection life.
When He came into the resurrection life, He received a whole new status. He received a new body that He could live in. He received a new authority and new power. And so it is when we get baptised in water. If you have the faith and you understand the power of that baptism, you can say, “I take all of my habits, all of my patterns, all of the bad things that I’ve done in my life, and I bury them with Jesus. Then when I’m resurrected again and I come up out of the water, I identify with the freedom that death and all of the death patterns and all of the things that were in my body no longer can control me. I have all the power over all of the things that my body has tried to keep a hold on and keep me down.”
Jesus says,25“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. 26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, do you want to be great? Let him be your servant. In other words, if you want to be great in the Kingdom of God, be a servant. 28Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, so He came to show His disciples and all of humanity, the will of the Father (Matthew 20: 25-28 NKJV). He loved them. He came to heal them. He came to feed them. He came to give them life. He came to teach them and show them the true way of the Father. It’s in personal, deep, intimate relationship.
That is the ultimate you can give, to give your life. Jesus gave His life to pay the ransom that all humanity could be free from the control of all of the forces, all of the darkness, all of the evil forces that want to dominate mankind.
Here is the key thing: We as the church are the ones that need to bring salvation to those people. How? We need to serve like Jesus served. We need to come and bring the Resurrected Power, the life of Christ that is in us. We need to bring it to people. We need to be prepared to die to ourselves and become servants, slaves as it were, to everyone around us so that we can bring life to the many that require life.
© 2023 – Heritage of Faith Ministries International
TOUCH | TEACH | TRAIN | TRANSFER
