Sometimes, before you can deal with a spiritual enemy, you need to remove the legal groundwork beneath his feet. This is where repentance comes in. An act that involves accurately judging yourself and owning where you are wrong.
Here’s a trap: ”all or nothing” thinking. Suppose you are mostly right and the other person is mostly wrong? What if you are 25% at fault but they are 75% at fault? Can you do a 25% repentance and reconciliation? No.
But you can take 100% responsibility for your 25%….and this often releases the GRACE on the other person to own their 75%.
There will be other times when you need to ignore the enemy. This isn’t easy. Ever get into a fight where you want to keep at it? The hardest thing to do is to stop and disengage! If you are accustomed to verbally persuading and influencing others, something inside you wants to talk, text or type your way into triumph! But it never works. You can’t ever kill off a spirit by conversation.
And if the spirit has an offended person attached, you are in for a season of never ending verbal volleyball.
That’s where you need to ignore the situation. Bide your time. David ignored the deeds of those who conspired against him…..but told his son Solomon that he needed to deal with those specific troublemakers if his administration was going to succeed. Think of yourself as a combined David/Solomon. David is the guy that screwed up and gave the enemy an opportunity to injure the dynasty. Solomon is the “wisdom” that came out of that screw up (talking about Bathsheba.) Once you get wisdom (often from the consequences of your bad decisions), God gives you a season to deal with your enemies and uproot them.
Revenge is not an option. “…Avenge not yourselves but give place to wrath: for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ ” (Ro 12:19) If we do our best to overcome evil with good, and it does not work, there is always the prospect that God will take matters into His own hands and overcome evil by visiting it with an ax. Isn't that the point Jesus made about the unfruitful tree?
Jesus taught that an unfruitful tree may have a delayed execution, but, if it persists in its unfruitful state, it will be uprooted. What if God does that with areas of our life? He “dungs around the tree” so to speak, but after a while, if thing's don't yield to the master, He uproots it.
This cycle is manifest in David’s unfinished business being taken care of by Solomon.
Be wise. Remove the legal groundwork. Repent of 100% of your 25%, if need be. Bless… do good… Ignore judging – till the time comes, if necessary, to judge… when that time comes.
Lance Wallnau
Lance thank you for this, I have situations in my life where I work that this is the perfect strategy.
Simply Amazing! I am on of those that verbally persuade, it never works! Thanks for the Wisdom Dr Lance
Even if you unwittingly hurt someone you love and they shut off their heart from you, and don’t give you more than non – committal one-liners. There is so much I want to say to try and fix it, and I have to let it go,hoping one day they come around . Great post, very confirming, even though the hard part is to actually DO what it says:)
Thank you for sharing this timely nugget of wisdom. Sold 100%!
I always glean so much from the wisdom of your words am our unique perspective on things. Thank you.
God is good – I needed to hear this, this morning.
Outstanding! The Word was right on time for me. Thank you Jesus. Bless you man of God.
Good word and a mighty blessing.
Yes this is a timely word for me. We recently moved from Charlotte NC to Nashville TN. My daughter for the past 2 years had been a Home School student. She is now in public school. She has been having difficulty in her class with her teacher. It seems that Victoria is in her line light and cannot escape it. She is only 9 years old but her teacher is very picky and writes her up for the least infraction; such as drawing on her hand instead of having her total focus on the teacher while she is speaking. She has only been in the school for less than 2 months and she has had over 10 write ups. I feel the need to go and speak to the authority in charge and see what can be done to help this situation and I request prayer that my words be seasoned with love and grace not accusation of the teacher or her abilities. I also pray that God will release my daughter from her class and allow her to move to another teacher who may have a different method of teaching. My concern is that my daughter who excelled in Home School will now fall behind because of this current method of teaching. Thank you for your prayers.
#humility– thanks for the reminder.