Eph 6:12, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

We attended a bullfight in Spain. I can’t say that it is an enjoyable experience, but it is an interesting one. Having grown up on and around a farm, the kill before butchering was never something that I looked forward to. Some would argue that the death of the bull in a bullfight is as humane as the death in a slaughterhouse. Well, amen, they both happen. After watching six bulls fight the matadors, my admiration for bulls has gone way up.

Religion is religion, and Jesus isn’t a religion, He is a relationship.

As a child, I was never allowed to even touch a bull. There was the temptation when feeding the cows and petting them to do the same to the bull. However, any advance toward the bull was met with a strong rebuke from my grandfather. He had hauled several and seen men gored; he never trusted any bull. The bulls in Spain enter the arena full of attitude, strength, and catlike quickness. They look for anything that is moving and immediately charge. The power is awe-inspiring to witness; they send every matador scrambling behind a thick wooden wall, and then they hammer the wall with their horns. I just had never witnessed that in a bull, nor had I seen that kind of endurance. It is impressive.

Because of the bull’s strength and superiority, the fight would take hours if the bull were not slowed down. Nothing about a bullfight is fair (the only way to make it less fair would be to remove one of the bull’s legs). Carrying a spear, a horseman rides in on a heavily padded and blindfolded horse. The bull will immediately head for the horse. The first bull we saw actually knocked the horse over and was able to gore it, even as the rider, falling down, drove the spear deep into the bull. Next, four matadors begin to wear the bull down by having the bull make a series of charges at the pink cape. When the bull is sufficiently tiring, another matador will come with two colorful skewers. He will let the bull charge him straight on and then jump, driving the skewers into the back of the bull and maneuvering sideways just in time to be missed by the horns. This is repeated three times. Still, the stamina of the bull at this point is awing. The matador, with his large, red cape, will now come out to work the bull until it finally has its strength bled out of it. With an air of satisfaction he draws a sword; the great beast bows its head, ready to charge one more time at the rag that has given it so much grief, and the matador drives the sword into the heart of the great beast. Some are better at this than others, but ideally, the bull’s demise is quick, and it drops, immediately dead. The whole exhibition takes around 15 minutes.
Personally, I think the matadors should wear little tight pants because they fight like girls.

OK, why all this talk of bullfights? I couldn’t help but think about our fight against the “rulers, powers, forces of darkness, and spiritual forces of wickedness.” In Christ, the battle is won. On the cross He did not say, “To be continued!” He said, “It is finished.” We in Christ, like the bull, have the superior strength. However, the bull makes one fatal mistake by thinking the cape, a simple piece of lifeless rag, is the enemy, the source of its pain! I kept thinking to myself, If only you would stop fighting the rag, stop looking down, look up at the head, and move eighteen inches to the right! The battle would be yours. Even to its dying breath, the bull was eyeing the rag as the matador drove the sword deep into his heart. A physically superior creature defeated because of a wrong focus. How often in our spiritual battles the enemy has our focus on something other than him; we never pay attention to his ugly head.

So many times I have talked to couples ready to divorce over absolutely nothing but a rag. However, the enemy keeps poking and making them think that the rag is what is hurting them. It isn’t the rag! It is the one behind the rag. Move eighteen inches to the right, go for the head, and you will see the truth of it. Many times, I will stop in the middle of a situation and just say, “The Lord rebuke you!” I know the issue isn’t the issue; there is someone behind the issue and I want to go for the head. The believer has the superior strength, but it will do no good if it is focused in the wrong place. So many just bow and let the enemy drive the sword deep into the heart. There will nearly always be the need for 20% improvement in any relationship (the rag). Why let the 20% steal the 80% joy? On any given day, you should immediately be able to say three things that are right about your situation and about your mate. Well, again, we need grace to go for the head.

The believers in Spain, as in Portugal, have to labor. Christians are not embraced; Catholicism, with its religious spirit, has driven the least little desire out of the people to look for something spiritual. Therefore, Jesus just isn’t easily considered. I can’t say the people are hardhearted; it is just that their definition of Jesus includes suffering, crawling, misery, bondage, lack of joy, confinement, and total deadness. With that definition, why look any further into the prospect? Our friends have worked here for 12 years, and the end result, in part, is this little meeting that we are going to have in the morning. They have invited their friends and coworkers. They have done everything to make it a beautiful experience for them.

We are to be in a small room in a new “meditation” lodge. We will have four hours of teaching and then a vegetarian meal. Nine people arrive. Two are unbelievers. I have been told by the Lord the direction to take in the teaching. I will spend the first three hours talking about how we live, how we feel, what we think, and the struggles of man. I will not mention Jesus until the end. After three hours, it was obvious that Jesus had, as He always does, the right people there. If He gets all the glory, then He must do all the work, and He does. As I talk about Jesus, everything must be redefined, for the words that we commonly use have one meaning to us but another to them. Nearly every term has a distorted religious meaning. I just stick to Jesus, His uniqueness, His love, His difference, His life, and all that He is. Then we talk about His being our life. Not praying, “Jesus, help me,” but praying, “Jesus, come and be my words, my life, my love, my joy, my everything.” I wasn’t saying anything that I have not said a hundred times before, and yet, when I looked up, there were only a few dry eyes. The one girl, an unbeliever, came immediately up to me, and crying said, “Something has awakened in me! I knew I needed something; I knew I was being called!” The fellow, who we were really surprised even came, was right into it.

As we shifted to dinner, the topic was Jesus. One brother, with a beautiful heart, has labored for years and only has a few couples around Spain that have come to Jesus. He was excited and said, “This approach of life, of getting in the person’s skin, of showing in that context the need for Jesus, will be received. We will pray about putting a conference together for the couples I know around Spain.” Well, amen, I am also tagging along, building on the work of others.

Next we move to the house. I wanted to show my friends how the approach worked individually. That was great fun. Then the two “former” unbelievers showed up with dinner. We talked about Jesus until nearly 1:00 a.m. As I was being driven home, my friend turned to me, “In twelve years, that is the most openness that I have ever experienced with a group of people. It is the deepest conversation that we have ever had.” It excited me, and yet it vexed me, for I could see how he and his wife had suffered here in loneliness, going it by themselves, how much they forfeited to be with these people and to labor in such a religious environment. Again, the ugliest religion in the world is Christianity. There is nothing that will kill the spirit of man like the Christian religion. Why? Every other religion is made to be a religion. Christianity is centered in a great God Who lives through us. Try to make it a religion of lists, and the standard will become so high that the people will be wiped out; they then will focus on some insignificant speck that they CAN accomplish, as though it were of ultimate importance, in order to avoid the fact of their failure to be “like” Jesus. It becomes so obvious that at some time and place during the history of the Catholic Church, it became expedient, to the carnal, to have a “Christian religion.” This religion would stir the pride of the masses and make them forget that they should not be fighting for the earthly kingdom of a man and actually forsaking Jesus. The whole thing tends to sicken us in light of the fact that Jesus is alive (mind you, we wouldn’t have that light without the revelation of the Spirit, and this will always soften our criticism).

I have a silent disgust for all things religious. I suppose that I shouldn’t, in fairness, contain it to the Catholics, but Jesus is not a religion. He never wrote anything, and His emphasis was that there was no obstacle between man and God. Religion is religion, and Jesus isn’t a religion, He is a relationship.

I Tim. 2:5, For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.

Abiding is everything, for in abiding we receive the Everything, Jesus.

Having spoken through hundreds of interpreters and nearly that many languages, I consistently find that the hardest word in the Bible to translate is abiding. Many languages use the word remaining, and yet that doesn’t quite get it. It is an important word, for Jesus didn’t use an analogy of the vine, saying that he was like a vine; He said that He was the Vine. Every vine preaches and teaches Jesus. Abiding is the end result of His work. Abiding is everything, for in abiding we receive the Everything, Jesus. Isn’t it amazing that the whole work of Jesus is revealed in this one word? It would also make sense that the enemy would work to cloud the word. Abiding, holding me in Him, His life in me, cleansing, the revelation of what I know I am, kept safe from so much disease. Abiding, a moment-by-moment existence. Abiding, eternal. Abiding, abiding, abiding. Wonderful!

Through defeat, what was man’s became the enemy’s.

Luke 10:18, “And He said to them, ‘I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. 20Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.’”
When one king defeats another king, the subjects of the defeated kingdom become slaves. Satan conquered the man Adam and became the ruler of the world over which Adam had been given dominion. Through defeat, what was man’s became the enemy’s. However, when the second Adam, Jesus, conquered Satan, things above, below, and on the earth became the Son of God’s. We are in His kingdom, and therefore, what is His is ours. This simply means that we do not have to be controlled by spirits! If you don’t like a spirit, remember that in Jesus’ Kingdom you have authority over it. In Africa an old woman would not call alcohol by that name, choosing instead to call it a spirit. If the spirit of alcohol is controlling you, it is by your permission. I have known those that are controlled by the spirit of suicide, and there simply isn’t any excuse for that. Draw near to Christ and simply tell the spirits to leave. You are in His kingdom, and what is His, He has shared with you. All spirits must now yield to Him. Again, at the highest revelation of Jesus there will be no opposition.

“Pride {goes} before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.”
Prov 16:18

The other day I was watching a boxing interview. One of the boxers inadvertently threw the flag of the country of the opposing boxer to the ground. It was an accident. However, he had to flee in the midst of bodyguards. The people were in a rage.

I remember doing a radio interview in Ukraine. I was asked by the interviewer what I thought of Ukrainians. I said, “Oh, I grew up hating them. They were the frontline troops for the Russians. We hated the Ukrainians and the Russians. We wanted them all dead!” She looked quite surprised. I continued, “But, then I came to Ukraine. They gave me their food and went without. They gave me their bed and slept on the floor. They heated water for me and went without. They loved and didn’t even know me! I am broken, and I will never allow a government to tell me who my enemy is again.”

We are to love our enemies. That is true. It is also true that we are often told about enemies that don’t exist. In traveling in over 100 countries and staying in the homes, I have discovered that all families worry about the same things.

Governments count on our pride to take attention off their actions and put it onto another. We are angered at the Chinese who stole our military secrets. Is it possible without our government allowing it? We are mad at the Japanese for the trade deficit. Is it possible without our government allowing it? We don’t like illegal immigration. Is it possible without our government? Our foreign aid is being wasted. Is that possible without our government?

Often, I am in a country where the people are so frustrated with the damage that the US has done to their country that it can’t help but come up in the discussion. I feel a defensiveness swelling up in me. First, it isn’t our government; it is their government that allows the abuse.

Second, and most importantly, I must check my pride. It is insidious! Every believer belongs to the Kingdom of God. We have a holy leader. Everything in His kingdom is righteous. We must lay aside the pride of earthly kingdoms and unite in His. I refuse to defend the wicked, and wicked rule the world. I must love my brother and let no one, or any bit of pride, make another my enemy. As believers we have no enemies because we have no enemies. The wicked are nearly genius in getting us to hate each other to avoid thinking about their behaviors.

Why are Christians in so much defeat? Don’t think I’m a heretic; just let me say it through to the end.

Christianity as a religion has failed. Christianity as a moral system has failed. The Bible as a source of power has failed. Truth is not only preached; it is demonstrated. Christian seminaries have failed and could be sued for false advertising; they have not created leaders or spiritual men. Christianity as a teaching is the best option; it has a better book and higher standards.

But what does that mean? Visit churches at the level at which I see them, and you will find that covert, self-righteous deeds of the flesh and covert, unrighteous deeds of the flesh abound. Very little can be found of loving an enemy, allowing another to wound, or blessing those that curse. Some of the rudest people I have met are Bible professors who know so very much.

We must admit it has failed. We have the same rate of divorce as the unbelieving world. Why? Because Christianity has schools, but it is not a school; it has a book, but it is not a book; it has a philosophy of living, but it is not a philosophy; and it has doctrines, but it is not a doctrine.

Christianity is Christ. Period. It was never meant to be another religion; it was always about a relationship with Christ.

The legalists–those who have attained their own form of righteousness–would like to rip two passages from the Bible, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is these that bear witness of Me” (John 5:39), and “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27.)

Man is made for Jesus to be connected to the Vine, not to imitate, but to participate. I’m not a heretic, but I can’t believe how much trouble I get into saying that Jesus is all we need.

“Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of {it} yet; but one thing {I do}: forgetting what {lies} behind and reaching forward to what {lies} ahead.” Phil. 3:13

A friend of mine has a way with words. He can often paint a verbal picture that leaves me thinking for days. He is a bit of a cowboy. One day we were discussing our pasts. He made an interesting observation, “One day I started to dig into my past. I dug fifty feet and hit dirt. At one hundred feet I also hit dirt. At two hundred, dirt again, until finally I reached a depth of seven hundred feet, still dirt. I quit, figuring no matter how deep I went it would just be dirt.”

Well, amen! Isn’t that really what examining the past is like? We never hit anything but dirt. The past has died and decomposed. It is the enemy that would have us believe that there is something in our past, when uncovered, that will produce great release today when, in fact, it is an elaborate scheme to steal the present. That is His job, to steal the present, for the present holds the key to the future. Steal the present and the future is His.

Many times I have sat and listened to believers talk about what it is like to be out of His presence and fellowship. They talk about how they miss it, why they miss it, what happened that they lost it. The whole discussion is a waste of time. For every moment the problem is analyzed, the problem is allowed to continue. Analyzing the problem is actually creating the problem. Stop analyzing the past and seize the present. He is as close as the words in your mouth. Call out, stop wasting time, He is there. Jesus took care of everything.

Everything else is just dirt.

“Through our God we will do valiantly, it is He who will tread down our enemy.” Psalm 108:13,
“Let God arise and His enemies be scattered.” “I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from mine enemies.” Psalm 18:3

Are you finding that life is against you? Do you find that the system is causing you frustration? Do you believe that if the devil wasn’t against you, life would be easier and victory would be possible?

How many times as I travel from place to place, country to country, and church to church I find believers who are always fighting with the devil and confessing that he is against them?

It is really interesting that when Paul addressed the church at Colossae he was enforcing the life, teaching, the resurrection of Jesus. To them it seemed that Jesus was important, but not central; His prestige was considerable, but not preeminent; and so Paul writes to them in an attempt to restore Jesus, the Messiah, to the center of their lives. In this book, he emphasizes the work that Christ has done and places everything secondary to the person and work of Jesus, the Messiah, including the defeat on the cross of the devil and all that was contrary to us.

How vital is our focus, our believing, our understanding of what Jesus has done. It is really important to know that God and the devil are not at war. There is not an on-going struggle between God and the devil. Jesus put the devil out of business at Calvary, and yet it seems that the Christian wants to keep putting him back into business. There is no doubt that we live in an anti-God society that is truly unbelieving and that things are seemingly so much against us. Like Asaph in Psalm 73 we ask, “Does God really care? Does He know what is going on?” Someone has said that God is never late, but that He misses some glorious opportunities to be early.

Let me make it quite clear that this system and the devil are definitely against the believer, make no mistake about that. We hear people say in a real defeated voice, “Oh, Brother, the devil is giving me a hard time,” or “The devil has been against me so much lately.” At this I ask, “Did you think that he would ever be for you?” Be assured that he is not, and never will be, for you, and that in his nature he will always be against you. His mission is to steal, kill, and destroy. He does not have a nature to be for anyone, not even those who serve and fulfill his evil intentions. We see people who serve the devil and whose lives are being destroyed; his evil deception has brought them into bondage and even suicide. The devil is a liar.

However, there is a higher revelation for the Christian, because the devil is secondary and being used by God for His purposes. As my English friend has said, “The devil is God’s sheepdog to bring us to Christ.” In the same way, the world squeezes us into Christ, and then squeezes us to reveal the Christ in us. All these things are against us! How often we have said that, not knowing that there is a greater revelation in the truth that God is in all and to all, and because of Him all things exist.

In Psalm 56:9-11, David talks about all the enemies that surrounded and came against him, and then he said, “When my enemies surround me this I know! This I know! God is for me.” What a belief system that is, what a revelation that is, that when our enemies, modern-day type, come against us, this we know: God is for us!

Let me take you to Romans, Chapter 8, where in verses 35-39 Paul speaks of all the things that are arrayed against us: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, swords, nakedness, principalities, powers, and the list goes on. But he had already made clear the profound truth at which we are looking in verse 31. “What shall we say to these things? If God be for us then who can be against us?” No matter the opposition, who can really be against us? Paul had already reminded us how mighty God is and how He is working in our lives to the extent that (verse 28) “we know that all things work together to them that love God . . .”

Let me emphasize that we have a God, and He is for us, and He is taking all those things that are against us, and they are actually in His hand working together for good as He correctly interprets it.

We know our problems and negatives of life are working for us even though they started out against us from the perspective that we had through the natural senses. In the midst of your enemies, declare like David, “This I know! This I know! God is for me.” Believing this truth will change your lifestyle

“and he had his dwelling among the tombs. And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. And constantly night and day, among the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out and gashing himself with stones.” Mark 5:3-5

Have you ever wondered what the day-by-day life of a demon is like? We often read the story of the demoniac in Mark 5 and relate it to the demons recognizing Jesus, the miraculous deliverance, or the hardhearted people who would rather have illegal pigs than Jesus.

However, there is something else to be gleaned from the story. There is insight into the life of a demon. They were many and therefore “strong”, yet they were confined to living in tombs, among the dead. They didn’t have a dwelling place among the living. Also, we learn that day and night they cry and gash themselves. Obviously, they are in constant pain.

I think they are somewhat like a fish out of water. They were made for heaven but chose a pit. They hate the pit and yet that is all they are suited for now. Therefore they surface into an environment (earth) that is held together by Jesus. That makes the whole world hostile to them. Earth is not comfortable for a demon. This is why we find them among the rocks, less of creation, less of Jesus to witness to them.

Why would they choose to be here? Suffering on earth, with their sworn enemy Jesus, is better than being with their leader in hell.