Planted to Flourish and Grow 3

 Psalm 92:13 “Those who are planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.”
There is another aspect of the importance of being planted in the house of the Lord. We get to flourish in the courts of our God. The Random House Dictionary says that the word court means among other things: a. A place where justice is administered; b. A judicial tribunal duly constituted for the hearing and determination of cases; c. A session of a judicial assembly.

One of God’s purposes for our lives is to raise us as warriors that advance His Kingdom on earth and come against the wiles of the enemy and his tactics to derail us from fulfilling His call for our lives and from developing our ability (unction) to influence others for Christ . 1 John 3:8 says in the Amplified version, “[But] he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done].” AMP

Jesus did this as He walked on the earth realm doing good, healing the sick, and casting out demons (Acts 10:38), went to the Cross and died, and then got the keys of death and Hades and rose again (Revelation 1:18). In the same manner we have been given an apostolic mandate to come against the works of the devil and take back the dominion God mandated from the time of creation when He said in Genesis 1:28 after blessing man, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man]; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth” AMP.

God Himself teaches us to fight. He can do this through our leaders and other mentors He places in our lives as well as when we come to Him in our personal time of communion with Him (Psalm 18:29, 34). This is done through prayer (Psalm 91), and the reading of the Bible to learn the warnings that will let us know of the attacks of the enemy and to be acquainted with His arsenal and weaponry that He gives us for every attack of the enemy (Jeremiah 50:25). Much worship is also necessary to come against the enemy and his assaults against us. By spending precious time praising and worshiping the Lord, we can receive specific strategies that will give us the answers that destroy the floods of the enemy because we focus on Him as the answer to everything we need and our circumstances then start looking smaller (Psalm 149:1-9).

Being planted in the house of the Lord and submitting to the leaders appointed to us will also help us learn to fight corporately because the bible says that one can put a thousand and two ten thousand to flight (Deuteronomy 32:30). In other words, there is power in the numbers, and God doesn’t add, He multiplies the blessings and the victories when we come together in unity to fight against the wiles of the enemy. Matthew 18:20 says, “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them.”

There is also the issue of learning to get back the promises of God stolen from previous generations that for one reason or another allowed the enemy to steal them. Many times we receive insight about these promises and how to get them back during our leaders' preaching and teaching, and other times from our time in communion with the Lord, or from the revelations given to other sisters or brothers. This makes it important to seek the ways of the Lord, and to not forsake seeking His wisdom in mature people of God and those who desire to grow strong in the Lord as iron sharpens iron (proverbs 27:17).

The Bible is full of encouraging examples of how God gave victories to His people. But one thing they all had in common is that they sought the Lord for strategies and were able to obtain them because they sought first and foremost God's help in the situation. By obeying the word of the Lord and trusting Him they were able to walk in triumphant victories (Proverbs 3:5-6). The Bible says these triumphant victories are our inheritance from Him (Isaiah 54:17).  One of the ways this is manifested in us is the ability to discern what is of God and what is of a contrary spirit even when the information from the contrary spirit sounds like truth, but is not.

Isaiah 11:2-4a says, “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him--the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord--And shall make Him of quick understanding, and His delight shall be in the reverential and obedient fear of the Lord. And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, neither decide by the hearing of His ears; But with righteousness and justice shall He judge the poor and decide with fairness for the meek, the poor, and the downtrodden of the earth; AMP.

The Scripture explains that the spirit of the Lord leads us to discern what is of God and what is not.  That is another reason why it is essential to walk led by the Spirit of the Lord.This is also part of warfare because there is a lot of talk in the air that wants to settle in our minds, but we need to take heed of the call of wisdom for our lives to avoid the traps and plots of the enemy (see Proverbs 1:20-23; 2:1-16). More on next week’s post. To Him alone be all the glory.