Daily Devotional for Saturday September 22, 2001

Spiritual Warfare - Part I

(Ephesians 6:12)

***MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OUR NATION IS A SPIRITUAL BATTLE. DID YOU EVER WONDER WHY THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION LAST DECEMBER WAS LIKE NO OTHER IN OUR NATION'S HISTORY? GOD KNEW WHAT THE UNITED STATES WOULD BE FACING, AND GOD KNEW THE LEADERS WE WOULD NEED TO SEE US THROUGH THIS DIFFICULT TIME. PLEASE PRAY FOR PRESIDENT BUSH AND ALL OF OUR LEADERS. WE ARE NO LONGER REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT, BUT WE ARE ALL AMERICANS. GOD BLESS OUR NATION AS WE ENGAGE NOT ONLY IN PHYSICAL WARFARE, BUT SPIRITUAL WARFARE!***

The enemy is attacking!!! So many of the emails I receive every day are from good Christian people who are looking for God to help them, and wondering why they are going thru the difficulties they are. Unfortunately, there is not always an explanation. I try to encourage and challenge you each day to do your part, because in all honesty, we cause a lot of the problems in our lives ourselves by not following God's plan and ignoring the warnings He has clearly laid out in His Word. But for those living a holy and Godly life, who are still experiencing major battles, you have to understand that there is an enemy, Satan, who is very real and very actively trying to disrupt the work of God. The Bible clearly tells us that our battle isn't against flesh and blood, but that it is a spiritual battle. Over the next 3 days, I am going to try to help you fight these battles. The most important thing you have to understand, no matter how intense the attacks may be on you right now, you have already won if you know Jesus as your personal Savior. The most important battle is the one for your soul. Knowing Jesus insures you have won that battle. That knowledge alone should give you the confidence to wage the battles of this life knowing that in the end, YOU WIN!!! The lesson for today is that as a person who has put their faith and trust in Christ, no matter what you may be facing, in the end..YOU WIN!!!

The reason for these next 3 daily devotionals on Spiritual Warfare comes out of the incredible attacks this ministry and our nation are currently under. God told me when He gave me the vision for this Internet ministry that it was going to be a major battle, since the Internet has basically been Satan's domain and to a large extent still is. Whatever the benefits of the Internet have been, they are currently far outweighed by the ungodly content that dominates this world. You would be amazed at the numbers of lives destroyed over the last five years by the Internet...men and women in total bondage to Internet porn... gambling....marriages destroyed by on-line romances that became real...people lured by the greed of on-line trading and losing everything they had in this world...and every kind of evil and destructive thing has found a place of prominence here on the Internet. I had no illusions that this would be easy work as we try to take back the internet for the Kingdom of God. Likewise, our nation is under attack form those who would love to see us destroyed.

Many of you on our Daily Devotional list that we send free of charge to over 700,000 people worldwide, either signed up on our website or were added by a friend or family member from our site. The night before Halloween in 1999, someone trying to sabotage our site and mailing list, added approximately 300 people who were known witches, warlocks, anti-Christians, and anti-spam advocates to start receiving our Daily Devotional message. Needless to say, these people were incensed when they started to receive the devotional. Rather than just following the simple delete message at the beginning, they began (especially the anti-spam advocates) a very concise and calculated campaign to eliminate Liveprayer.com from the Internet. Unknown to us, there is a group called MAPS in San Francisco that has appointed themselves the policeman of the Internet, and since their mission is to rid the Internet of SPAM, have been able to strong-arm all of the major ISPs in the country to utilizing their self-proclaimed list of SPAM sites. For whatever reason, these major ISP's then shut off the mail coming from an ISP this organization tells them are SPAMMING. There is no due process and no procedure. MAPS is judge and jury, and sole decision maker without ever contacting the parties involved. On Thursday November 4, 1999 at 11:30 EST, Liveprayer was shut off by our ISP because they had been blacklisted by this MAPS organization. From our ISP's perspective, they had a multi-million dollar a month business, thousands of customers they had to protect, and their explanation was rather than fight with MAPS, they just follow their lead to avoid having their ISP listed and cut off from receiving mail from other major ISP's who subscribe to MAPS' list. The bottom line was that we had to pay $5,000 to our ISP to turn the site back on (we were down about 2 hours) as a deposit against any possible SPAM problems in the future. Our chat room is invaded periodically by ungodly people trying to disrupt the spiritual flow there. Attempts to hack into our site happen all the time, much of the time trying to disrupt our live video feed and lock our site up so people can't send prayer requests. Of course, we are all aware of the various attacks recently on our nation. Our embassies overseas have been bombed, the USS Cole was attacked and, of course, the events of September 11th.

I tell you this to let you know something I learned a long time ago in ministry. If you are not doing anything that is a threat to satan, he won't bother you. If you live for a while and aren't being attacked, you probably aren't doing anything that satan sees as a threat. Rejoice in the attacks because it is confirmation you are being effective!!! 700,000 people worldwide get our daily devotional each day, over 15,000 people visit the website, many in their hour of need looking for God to help them, and our live pastor is able to pray with them and give them hope on the spot. I have already won the biggest battle, the battle for my soul, thanks to the faith I have in Christ Jesus. I have nothing to lose, so I am not slowing down but am fighting harder every day to kick the devil's butt. In your life, don't get down when you are attacked. Be encouraged and fight even harder!!!

Our nation has for many years supplied missionaries to the world, those who carry the message of hope and love through Christ to the far corners of our globe. While we are a free country where people are free to believe in whatever they want, we are predominantly a Christian nation, regardless what people may try and tell you. We were founded on Biblical principles, and we have been a nation that has recognized and honored God. While we have done much to turn our back on that rich spiritual heritage in recent years, there is still a huge remnant of God's people who boldly stand for Christ each and every day.

Never forget that "greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world." God is still on the throne and still in control. Liveprayer.com is going to keep ministering to hundreds of thousands worldwide daily, we are going to keep growing, and we are not going to stop until we have such a presence on the Internet that every adult site, every gambling site, every site that is putting people's lives in bondage, have shut down because no one wants to go there anymore. Impossible? Nothing is impossible with God! Our nation will be victorious over those who want to see us destroyed. We have again turned to God in our time of need, knowing that our faith in Him will not be in vain.

I am praying for you and care about you deeply. I can't do this alone nor did God tell me to. You are just as much part of what we are doing in the lives of people as I am. Together we can see lives touched, souls saved, miracles occur, and the Kingdom of God shining brightly in this sin-filled world we live in. As we work together, our nation can continue to be God's shining beacon of light to the world we live in. Thank you for your love, prayers, and gifts, and may His richest blessings be with you today as we work together for His Glory!!!