As Christians, we are wonderfully privileged to have dual citizenship. We are citizens of earth and citizens of Heaven all at the same time (see Phil. 3:20)! Many believe we receive our Heavenly citizenship only after we die. The Bible, however, illustrates how connected to Heaven we are while living on earth.
For example:
• When we pray on earth, our spirit manifests in Heaven before the throne of God. We read in Hebrews, “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence” (Heb. 4:16). How, then, can we approach the throne of God in Heaven while we are still here on earth? It happens in the place of prayer – the place where Heaven and earth unite.
• When King David prayed to the Lord, “May my prayer be set before You like incense” (Psalm 141:2), we see the answer to that prayer in Revelations 5. This powerful throne room scene depicts the four living creatures and 24 elders, each with a harp and a golden bowl of incense, and these “golden bowls full of incense – are the prayers of God’s people” (v.8).
• Jesus specifically taught us to pray for God’s Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven (Matt. 6:8, 10). Although Heaven is a future reality, as a result of our prayers we are seeing and experiencing increasing deposits of Heaven on earth today in the form of signs, wonders, miracles, and supernatural activity.
Being citizens of Heaven puts us into direct spiritual conflict on the earth. King Jesus is leading a Kingdom invasion through us and displacing what used to belong to satan. Satan lost his authority over the earth at the Cross, but he didn’t lose his power. He still uses his power against us, but we have the name and authority of Jesus to overcome it.
These conflicts appear in many different forms and dimensions, and if we are not aware, we will fail to connect that they are rooted in the spiritual realm. We will erroneously believe we are dealing with just a natural problem, but not be able to solve our problem because it needs a spiritual remedy. We have to consider the spirit of the matter.
Beware the Foul Spirit of Offense
“March is a month to overcome!”
With that said, I began to experience direct spiritual warfare for around two months beginning at the end of December through the end of February. What happened is that I would wake up without warning in the middle of the night feeling a sense of torment and deep offense, something not typical for me. Often we connect the emotion of offense to be an attitude and a state of the heart, but what if it is more spiritual than that?
I bring this out because the Holy Spirit gave me eyes to see in this situation. I saw a demonic spirit behind what I was experiencing and I was keenly aware that every offense trying to get a grip on me was not even real, but a twisted and false perception. Even though I could see and discern this clearly, I still went through all of the feelings that came with it and had to resist it just the same. My battle did end and then the Holy Spirit gave me a clear message.
He told me to tell you to watch out for the foul spirit of offense! This spirit attempts to mesmerize you and bewitch you in your thoughts. It works to create feelings of injustice in order to lay hold of all your emotional capital. It will bait you with phony accusations and then torment your emotions with false perceptions about another person or group of people. Most of the time the reason for the offense isn’t real at all, but a misdiagnoses or wrong perception. Realize that you’re not just having negative emotions, but there is a spirit behind it.
He then reminded me of the prophetic words from many different prophets regarding 2017. Specifically, that 2017 is a victory year, a reset year, a comeback year, and in my paraphrase a “whatever you need, want, and desire” kind of year. He then left me with this question, a question that I am to ask you, “How can you have a victorious 2017, if your eyes are full of offense and not on Jesus Christ?” You see, offense is a devious diversion from prophetic vision.
Is this you? Are you struggling with the foul spirit of offense? If so, what should you do about it? The Bible says, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The word “flee” in the Greek is pheug? (Strong’s Greek G5343) and means to take flight, to shrink, to stand fearfully aloof, and to escape. Here, you have to demonstrate a kind of resistance that causes the devil to want to escape you. It’s a kind of resistance that goes counter to your emotions and reasoning at the moment, which are the two trap doors for this kind of attack.
You must deny offense a voice. You deny its right to speak. You bless those that seem to have offended you, pray for them, and do good to them. This is the resistance that puts the devil on the run. And when he does, your feelings and thought processes will shift into proper order and you’ll wonder what the fuss was all about in the first place.
March is a Month to Overcome
After I overcame this rather strange kind of prophetic battle, and now being in the month of March, I heard a phrase in my own heart over and over. The Holy Spirit said to me, “March is a month to overcome!” We are to overcome the spiritual battles of January and February and we are to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us…” (Heb. 12:1).
I also had an intercessory dream. That’s a kind of dream where you are alerted to something that could happen and needs to be averted in prayer. In the dream, and without getting too specific, I was in a battle and suddenly a man appeared by the name of Mark. I’ve learned to look up the meanings of names in dreams and discovered that “Mark” means “god of war,” which happens to be the same meaning for the month of March.
I then felt this impression in my heart. “We are still at war with the gods of the land (I Kings 20:23), but we will overcome them in the name of the Lord.” Not only are we to overcome personal offense, but we are to overcome the mass offenses trying to sweep our nation.
“Watch out for the foul spirit of offense!”
March, then, is a month to overcome. It’s a month to overcome the thoughts and thinking patterns that have beset you. It’s a month to get out of offense and upgrade your thinking. It’s a month to start dreaming again.
At the same time, God is placing a protective covering over your heart. That means the things that would normally overwhelm you, the things that would typically derail you, now they will not affect you. You are being led to the Rock that is set above you (Ps 61:2).
You are finally getting over it and marching out of March like an overcomer and into the dreams ahead.
Jennifer Eivaz, Executive Pastor
Harvest Christian Center, Turlock, CA
Email: Asst2jeneivaz@harvestturlock.org
Website: www.jennifereivaz.com
Blog: www.jennifereivazblog.com
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