Knock down the gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
James 4:7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today is the day I finally figured out Jesus\u2019 statement to Peter: \u201c and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.\u201d (Matthew 16:18). <\/em>(Note: please tell me if I\u2019ve missed the point!!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve always wondered how \u201cgates\u201d are used as weapons against the church. It didn\u2019t make sense. Well, of course that shouldn\u2019t make sense! Gates can only keep you in or out. They\u2019re not \u201cweapons\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Satan is a con artist, appealing to our base instincts, lying to us about how attractive we are, how much fun we\u2019ll have, how good we\u2019ll feel. \u201cCome to me baby, I\u2019ll make you feel special!\u201d Knock down the gate. James 4:7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into… Continue reading Knock Down The Gate<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[206,204,203,205],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devo","tag-draw-near-to-god","tag-gates-of-hell","tag-james-47","tag-resist-the-devil","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sharp.men\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
NOBODY gets conned without deciding to accept a lie. \u201cDid God say you\u2019d surely die?\u201d The serpent was 100% truthful. Man made up the lie that he could actually be like God. He walked through the gate and closed it behind him.
That gate swings both ways. To \u201cresist the Devil\u201d all we have to do it draw near to God. He is NOT hiding from us! In fact, He provides everything we need to cleanse our hands, purify our hearts and make room for Him in our lives. Of course I\u2019m going to cry and mourn when I find out that I deceived myself. Of course I\u2019m going to cry after being unfaithful. But I\u2019ll be filled with JOY when I\u2019ve blasted through that self imposed gate and submit my life to Jesus!
Father, give me the courage to knock down that gate! Show me what I need to cleanse from my heart in order to make room for YOU!
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"