ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS

The Apostle Paul reminds us in Ephesians 4:17-27 how we must live our lives as followers of Christ, being renewed in the spirit and having a new nature created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

In the last part of this passage, verse 27 admonishes us to “neither give place to the devil.” The Greek word used for “place” in this verse is “TOPOS (τόπος )” which emphasizes that believers can actually give ground in their lives to the enemy’s control. We have the power to allow these spirits to take control over us by living in sin. And we must realize that the power of sin is in the love of it.

Dr. Paul Caram said “unless we allow the Lord to give us hatred for sin, the problem will continue. We will tolerate the sin and the enemy will continue to have an advantage in our lives.”

The scripture tells us that not only can we give the enemy an advantage, but we can also oppose ourselves. 2 Timothy 2:24-26 says “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”

According to Dr. Brian Bailey, in his book Soldiers for Christ, if Satan cannot prevent us from accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, he then seeks to prevent us from receiving a full reward and everything that God has for us. He wants us to miss God's mark for our lives.

How does the enemy seek to take advantage of a Christian? The enemy always devises snares and traps to put us into a disadvantage.

1. Pride

“…not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.”
(1 Timothy 3:6)

Pride is seeing ourselves as someone greater than who we really are. It always demands commendation from people. We can say that we are humble because we are not boastful but our hearts may still be full of pride. If we get offended even by the littlest of things, then we still have pride in our hearts. This is one of the enemy’s snares because it is what the enemy is – full of pride. The reason for Lucifer’s fall is pride.

In Acts 5:1-11, Ananias and Sapphira, a married couple, both died as they have lied and conspired to keep a portion of the money they had received from their sold property. They proclaimed to the community that they gave all the proceeds from the sale of their land to the church. They did not just lie to the Holy Spirit but because of pride, they also deceived others to appear to have given much more than they actually gave.

2. Evil or Unrighteous living

“Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.”
(1 Timothy 3:7)

God calls us to live a righteous life. If God tells us to do something, we better do it because it could be a trap to us if we don’t. Disobedience is a trap. There are pleasures of sin but there are also wages of sin. There is always something in return for what we are not doing. Something is always at stake if we delay our obedience to God.

3. Unforgiveness

“...lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”
(2 Corinthians 2:11)

Paul was telling the Corinthians to forgive the one who offended the whole church so that Satan will not gain an advantage over them. There may be people who have hurt and offended us, people who have disowned us and rejected us in the past. The Bible tells us to not to harbor unforgiveness in our hearts, because if we do, then we are giving Satan the advantage over us.

Unforgiveness is a self-inflicting wound. It is a voluntary way of putting ourselves into prison where the only one who is in bondage is the one who got offended. It is something that God wants us to be set free from because unforgiveness breeds bitterness that hardens the heart.

4. False Doctrines

“For many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we do not lose those things we worked for, but that we may receive a full reward.”
(2 John 1:7-8)

Anyone who professes Jesus as not God or not man is antichrist. False beliefs and false doctrines could snatch out our crown. We don’t want to lose those things we worked for as they are our valid rewards that we have gained in our lifetime when we were obeying God.

Paul warns us in Colossians 2:18 to let no one cheat us of our reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. The spirit of deception will come in the end days and the people would only hear what and who they want to hear. Those who profess “God will bless you, God will love you, you will have this, you will have prosperity, etc.” are the ones people would want to hear. They would gravitate to these messages not knowing that it is a trap because the Word is not preached in its fullness.

Also, in his book Soldiers for Christ, Dr. Bailey, says we will receive condemnation if we accept false doctrines that do not glorify Christ. Our doctrines must come from the throne of God so that we may receive a just reward for our labors.

There may still be areas in our lives that we are not keen to surrender to God. These areas could be an advantage for the enemy to have a place in our hearts. We want to make sure that Satan does not have a foothold in our lives. James 4:7 says submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you.

The problem with us is tolerance. We tolerate and belittle sins as if they are not sins. We need to allow God to deal with our tolerance. 

In the time of Joshua (Joshua 13:1), the Israelites had so much land yet to be possessed because instead of taking the land in full force, they learned to cohabitate with the foreigners of the land. Sometimes that is what we do with sin, we cohabitate and tolerate it not knowing that we are giving the enemy an advantage over us.

We talk of taking possession of the inheritance that God has for us but shouldn't we take full possession of our own lives first? This is a time to submit to God and to have zero tolerance for our enemy.