Then to wait until His enemies should be made a stool beneath His feet.
HEBREWS 10:12,13
Why is it so important that Christ is seated in heavenly places and that we are seated there with Him waiting for His enemies to be placed under His feet by the Father?
This issue does not relate to us as strongly as it did to the ancient Jews. Under the old covenant, the Jewish high priest had to go into the earthly Holy of Holies once a year to make atonement for his own sins and for the sins of the people, which he did by sprinkling the blood of animals on the altar.
Within the earthly Holy of Holies there were no chairs because under the covenant of works the people were not allowed to sit down and rest. The Sabbath rest would not be instituted until after Jesus had gone into the true Holy of Holies and sprinkled His own blood on the heavenly altar: For Christ (the Messiah) has not entered into a sanctuary made with [human] hands, only a copy and pattern and type of the true one, but [He has entered] into heaven itself, now to appear in the [very] presence of God on our behalf (Hebrews 9:24).
All the time the Jewish high priest was in the earthly Holy of Holies, he had to be ministering to the Lord. God had commanded that bells be attached to the skirts of his robe: …and its sound shall be heard when he goes [alone] into the Holy of Holies before the Lord and when he comes out, lest he die there (Exodus 28:35).
Under the old covenant, the covenant of works, the high priest had to keep moving while in the Holy of Holies; he was not allowed to sit down and rest. But once Jesus had finished the work of salvation through His shed blood, when He entered into heaven His Father did not say to Him, “Stand up, Son, and keep moving.” Instead, He said to Him, “Well done. Your work is finished. Sit here at My right hand until I make Your enemies Your footstool.”
That is the same message God is giving you and me today. He wants us to know we are seated at His right hand with His Son Jesus Christ. That is a part of our inheritance as the saints of the Lord. Now instead of running around trying to please God and win His favor through works of the flesh, we can enter into His throne room and find rest for our souls.
REST FOR OUR SOULS
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease and relieve and refresh your souls.]
Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.
MATTHEW 11:28,29
Just as we can be involved in outward activity, we can be involved in inward activity. God wants us not only to enter into His rest in our body, He also wants us to enter into His rest in our soul.
To me, finding rest, relief, ease, refreshment, recreation, and blessed quiet for my soul means finding freedom from mental activity. It means not having to constantly try to figure out what I should do about everything in my life. It means not having to live in the torment of reasoning, always trying to come up with an answer I don’t have. I don’t have to worry; instead, I can remain in a place of quiet peace and rest.
When something goes wrong, instead of getting all upset and just rebuking the devil, I can speak to my raging soul and tortured mind just as Jesus spoke to the wind and waves by simply saying: “Peace, be still.” (Mark 4:39 KJV.) The Lord has taught me in trying times I can “possess my soul.” In doing this we are walking in authority over Satan.
POSSESS YOUR SOUL
By your steadfastness and patient endurance you shall win the true life of your souls.
LUKE 21:19
The King James Version of this verse reads, In your patience possess ye your souls. That is something we all need to learn to do.
I am the kind of person who likes to be in control. I don’t like it when things get out of hand and start going the way I don’t want them to go. One of my daughters is the same way. She and I have the same kind of personality. We like to plan our work and work our plan. When things start happening that are out of our control, we start getting upset and sometimes even fearful.
All of us need to learn not to let our mind and emotions get the best of us, especially when it involves things we have no control over. For example, suppose we are on our way to an important interview and we get caught in a traffic jam. How do we react? Is it worth getting all upset and unleashing a wild spirit? Wouldn’t it be much better for us and everyone else if we just remained calm, cool, and steady, even if we were late for that interview? If we have done our best, God will do the rest.
One time a lady came to one of our meetings in Louisiana. She told us she had just learned her husband had been injured in an accident and was at that very moment undergoing surgery in a hospital in Arkansas. Yet there she was in the back of the church filled with the peace of the Lord. But why not? It would not have done her any good at all to be worrying and fretting and weeping and wailing, “Oh, why did this happen? Here I am trying to be a good Christian, and while I’m in church a tree falls on my husband and causes a disaster in our lives. I just don’t understand why such things happen to us believers.”
One day a lady was sitting in a boat reading and quoting Psalm 91:11 which promises that the angels of the Lord will take charge over us and defend us and protect us in all our ways. Just then something happened to the chair she was sitting on, and she fell over and cracked her head on the side of the boat. It hurt so bad her soul leaped up, and she started complaining to God, “I don’t understand how this could have happened. Here I was reading and quoting Psalm 91:11 about how You send Your angels to watch over me and protect me, and look what happened! Where were You, Lord?”
Immediately God spoke to her and said, “Well, you’re not dead, are you?” We often become so upset over what happened, we fail to realize what God protected us from.
We love to confess the Word of God by saying, “My steps are ordered of the Lord” (Psalm 37:23 KJV) — until He takes us someplace we don’t want to go. Then all of a sudden it’s, “I rebuke you, Satan!” What we don’t realize is, God may be taking us right into the middle of a traffic jam to keep us from having a terrible wreck farther down the road.
We need to refuse to get wild. We need to refuse to allow our mind, will, and emotions to rule our spirit. In our patience we need to learn to possess our souls and not give the devil a foothold in our lives.
DON’T GIVE THE DEVIL A FOOTHOLD
When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down.
Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him].
EPHESIANS 4:26,27
Sometimes when my husband wants me to do something I don’t want to do, my soul rises up and causes strife.
Dave and I have a long-standing difference of opinion about getting to the airport. He likes to get there at least an hour ahead of departure time and quietly wait. Since I hate to wait, I would rather get there twenty minutes before the plane takes off — and maybe end up chasing it down the runway yelling, “Hold that plane!” But that is just one aspect of our totally different personality types.
I am a high-energy, hang-from-the-chandelier type who is always in high gear. Dave, on the other hand, is Mr. Cast Your Care. He is always peaceful, quiet, and collected. Nothing is a problem to him; he can adapt to any situation or circumstance.
(Is it any wonder he has always been in the best of health while I always used to be going to the doctor for backaches, neck aches, headaches, stomachaches, and colon problems?)
Every time Dave and I would plan a trip by air, which for us was usually three or four times a month, he would make me arrive at the airport so early it would upset me. Although I might not show it on the outside, on the inside I was wild.
“This is so stupid,” I would say to myself. “Here I am sitting and waiting an hour and sometimes an hour and a half for an airplane to take off. I spend half my life waiting in air
ports. I have better things to do than this!”
I used to try to talk to Dave, to reason with him. I begged him. I got mad at him. I argued with him. But no matter what I said or did, he was unmoved.
“We are getting to the airport an hour early,” he would say. “We are not going to miss our flight. We are not going to go through life running after airplanes or getting to our destination late. It’s just not wise.”
It would have been much easier if I had just said, “Okay. I’ll take a good book and read while we wait or carry a pillow with me and take a nap.” But instead, I fussed and fumed and made myself sick — all because I had not learned to rule my soul rather than letting it rule me.
Dave and I used to disagree about the silliest things. We would come home at night and fight about what to watch on television. When an old movie came on we liked, we would get into an argument about who the actors were.
Dave used to have this funny idea that everybody in the movies was Henry Fonda. Even if it was John Wayne, Dave would say it was Henry Fonda. I couldn’t stand it. It would make me so mad I would say, “Dave, you’re wrong, that is not Henry Fonda.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” he would answer.
“No, it’s not!”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, IT ISN’T!”
We would stay up to midnight waiting for the credits to roll so I could prove to him I was right.
One day the voice of the Lord came to me and said, “Joyce, it won’t make any difference to anybody’s eternal salvation if Dave lives his whole life and comes home to Me thinking every actor he sees is Henry Fonda.” So I had to learn to bite my tongue and let Dave think he was right even when I really believed he wasn’t.
Another argument we used to have was about the location of a certain hardware store. There were actually two stores named Central Hardware in our town. To get to one of them, we had to turn right on our way out of our subdivision, and to get to the other we had to turn left. I thought one of the stores was closer to our house, and Dave thought the other was closer. When we would start out to go buy some hardware, I would tell him to turn one way, and he would invariably turn the other way.
“You’re going the wrong way,” I would say.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are!”
“No, I’m not.”
“YES, YOU ARE!”
A wild spirit would get the best of me every time. My soul would rise up within me and cause a conflict. I needed to tell it, “Soul, sit down, and get back into your place.” Instead, I would start a fight.
Finally, one day Dave and I were driving out of our subdivision headed for the hardware store when the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, “Joyce, just let the man go the way he wants to go.” It was one of the hardest things I ever did to keep my mouth shut and let him go where I thought was the “wrong way.”
Another time while we were ministering in Louisiana, some people sent Dave and me to a restaurant we didn’t particularly care for because it served Cajun food, which we were not used to eating. I had found another restaurant I thought would be better for us, but it was some distance away, and Dave didn’t want to drive that far. So he suggested a third restaurant. I was convinced I would not like it at all, but since it was obvious that was where Dave wanted to go, I gave in. All the way to the restaurant, I had to talk to my soul and ask the Lord to help me keep it under control because I was not at all enthusiastic about where we were going. As it turned out, we had one of the best meals we had eaten in a long time.
That’s the way the Christian life is. Many times the thing we think we don’t want is the best thing for us. That’s why we need to learn to “go with the flow” and not cause so many problems over things that don’t really matter. After all, what difference does it really make where we eat?
So often we make mountains out of molehills. We blow things up all out of proportion. We make major issues out of minor situations that are of no real importance whatsoever. We need to learn to adapt, to let things go, to quit allowing our souls to rule our lives. We need to learn to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh.
When we get all upset about unimportant things, we throw open the door for the devil. We give him an opportunity to come in and wreak havoc. Often it is really not the devil’s fault, it is ours.
It is amazing what the Lord would deliver us from, sovereignly and supernaturally, if we would choose to honor Him by staying in peace. We must learn to control our emotions and not let them control us. That doesn’t mean we are to have no feelings. It just means we need to manage our feelings and not let them manage us. In the midst of our anger and upset, we are to possess our souls. We are to keep them in their place and give no room to the devil. In trying times we are to be constant and fearless.
CONSTANT AND FEARLESS
And do not [for a moment] be frightened or intimidated in anything by your opponents and adversaries, for such [constancy and fearlessness] will be a clear sign (proof and seal) to them of [their impending] destruction, but [a sure token and evidence] of your deliverance and salvation, and that from God.
PHILIPPIANS 1:28
According to this verse, the clear sign, proof, seal, token, and evidence to our enemies of their defeat and destruction and of our deliverance and salvation is our constancy and fearlessness.
What is the sign to the devil he cannot control us? It is not our great confession of our power and authority over him. It is our constancy and fearlessness in the face of his onset.
Why then does our deliverance sometimes seem to take so long? Often it is because God is waiting to see if we really trust Him or not. If we do, we will remain seated, fully satisfied and assured that God [is] able and mighty to keep His Word and to do what He [has] promised (Romans 4:21). We will say to Him, “If there is something You want me to do, Father, tell me and I’ll do it. The battle is Yours, Lord, not mine. My eyes are on You. On You do I wait, and in You do I trust.”
The devil does not want us to think we can relax, rest, and enjoy life while we are having problems. He wants us to think we have to be up and running around doing something, like the Old Testament priests in the Holy of Holies. He will whisper in our ear, “This is a terrible situation; what are you going to do?” He will send our closest friends and most trusted family members to say, “I heard about your problem; what are you going to do?” In times of adversity, it may seem that everybody we meet wants to know what we are going to do.
Our answer should be, “I’m going to stay seated in Christ and enjoy the rest of the Lord while He handles this situation and uses it to bless me.”
CALM IN THE DAY OF ADVERSITY
Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whom You discipline and instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law,
That You may give him power to keep himself calm in the days of adversity, until the [inevitable] pit of corruption is dug for the wicked.
PSALM 94:12,13
God uses the events and people of our lives to build our spiritual character as well as our spiritual power.
We think God just wants to empower us to overcome every problem of life by rebuking the devil. But the Lord has a much greater goal and purpose in mind than that. He is working to get us to the point where, no matter what is going on around us, we remain the same, rooted and grounded in Christ and His love, standing firm on the Rock of our salvation.
God is working in our lives to discipline, instruct, and teach us so He can give us power to keep ourselves calm in the days of adversity.
With that power, we are able to wait patiently and confidently for our promised deliverance and salvation, and for the impending destruction of all our enemies.
Seated with Christ at the right hand of God in heavenly places, trusting not in the arm of the flesh but in the arm of the Lord, we can truly be anxious for nothing.
Part 2
CAST ALL YOUR CARE
INTRODUCTION
The Bible says we can cast
all our care on God because He cares for us. (1 Peter 5:7.) That means God wants to take care of us, but in order for Him to do that, there is something we must do: We must stop taking the care upon ourselves and start casting it upon Him.
In His Word the Lord promises us if we will give Him our care, He will give us something in return.
BLESSINGS FOR MESSES
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those who are bound,
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord [the year of His favor] and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,
To grant [consolation and joy] to those who mourn in Zion — to give them an ornament (a garland or diadem) of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a heavy, burdened, and failing spirit — that they may be called oaks of righteousness [lofty, strong, and magnificent, distinguished for uprightness, justice, and right standing with God], the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.
ISAIAH 61:1-3
In this passage God promises to give us several positive things in exchange for the negative things in our lives. One of the positive exchanges He promises to make is to give us beauty for ashes. But God cannot give us His beauty if we do not give Him our ashes.
One time the Lord spoke to me and said, “A lot of people want to wallow around in the ashes of their past failures and disappointments, yet they expect Me to give them beauty.”