Spiritual war not carnal

The speaker begins by expressing their faith in God and the importance of Jesus in their lives. They then mention reading the book of Mark and reflecting on Jesus' ministry. The speaker emphasizes the need to understand the spiritual aspect of battles and not just focus on the physical. They explain Peter's misunderstanding of Jesus' purpose and highlight the importance of fighting spiritual battles through prayer and the word of God. The speaker then extends an invitation for people to accept Jesus into their lives and concludes by encouraging reading the Gospels to deepen one's relationship with Jesus. Hey, everyone. I hope you all are having a blessed day. Today is a good day, as is every day is a good day, because our Lord and Savior, He still rules and reigns. He is mighty to save. And whether we are facing what we're facing, as long as we have Jesus, we can know and understand that He loves us, that He is for us, and not against us. Wow, this morning as I was reading from the book of Mark, I love the book of Mark. I don't know why, but actually I'm going through all the Gospels. I started with Matthew, and I'm going now on the book of Mark. And there's nothing greater than coming back to the Gospels and reading Jesus' ministry, and really knowing and understanding how Jesus operated in the time frame when He walked among the earth. Jesus was a humble man, but yet when He had to be stern, He knew how to do it. I am so grateful in this day to relay the message of the Lord. There's a lot to cover, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will cover everything that God wants us to know and understand in this day. It is 10 a.m., November 10th, 2023, and we are going to get right into the message. And the Word of God comes from Mark, chapter 8, beginning with verse 31. And the Word of God says, And He began to teach them that the Son of Man may suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He spoke this word openly. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But when He had turned around and looked at His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, Get behind Me, Satan, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. Lord Father God, we come to You in this moment, and we just thank You for Your Word. We thank You because Your Word is a road map for our lives. Your Word is fountains of living water. Your Word is manna from heaven. And as we continue to read Your Word and to scrutinize Your Word, we begin to really see behind every word there is a revelation from Your presence. Because Father God, we know that without You, we are nothing, and we need You every single day to illuminate Your Word in our hearts and enlighten us with Your understanding, Lord Father God, and allow us, Lord Father God, to know, understand, and realize that, Lord, You are calling us to a higher calling. You are calling us to do greater works in You. So Father God, those who are hearing on the other side of this podcast, I pray over their lives that they will receive an impartation of Your Spirit, that their lives will be forever transformed. We ask that You will open our spiritual eyes, that You will open our spiritual ears, that You, Lord Father God, will open our hearts to understand what it is You are saying to us in this day. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord forever and ever. We can see here that Jesus was with His disciples predicting His death and resurrection. And now we see also that Peter, among the disciples, he gets up and he rebukes Jesus because he is still thinking carnally. You see, when we bring it back to when Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, and then the Persians came in and conquered Babylon, and then the Greeks came in and conquered Persia, and then after that the Romans came in and conquered the Greeks. This is where we are at in this moment. So God's people, they were seeing it from a carnal perspective, where they thought Jesus was trying to rally up a physical army to go against the Romans to overthrow them. So they still had not comprehended that Jesus came not to bring an earthly kingdom, but to bring a heavenly kingdom to the earth. And the reason why Peter rose up and the Bible says that he rebuked Jesus, and then Jesus came and he rebuked Peter, but I want to reiterate something very interesting that humans do, that when we are face-to-face with something that we think we can do on our own, or we go and try to get the material necessities to try and fight a battle that should never be fought in the physical realm, we forget that there is a higher power that is fighting for us, and his name is God Almighty. And so when Jesus came and he said, Satan, get thee behind me, the difference between Peter and Jesus is that Peter rebuked Jesus physically, and Jesus knew that it's not about Peter, but about Satan. And so Jesus, in thinking spiritually, knowing that the battle is spiritual, he says, Satan, get thee behind me, because he knew that the war was not with Peter. He knew that Peter was confused. He knew that Peter had misconceptions about what was actually taking place, despite all of the miracles that they had seen, and everything they had encountered that Jesus did. Sometimes we can see all of these things taking place, and still not understand that we need to operate in the heavenly kingdom. Hallelujah! We do not need to be operating in the physical world, but in the spiritual world. We do not need to be operating from a earthly kingdom, but from a heavenly kingdom. And because Peter did not understand, he knew that it was Satan pushing Peter to try and tell Jesus that if we can just get an army, we can overthrow the Romans, and you wouldn't have to die. But little did he know that Jesus had to die because of our sins. Jesus had to die and rise again because of our sins. Jesus had to be put in the grave after a horrific death on the cross, so that we would live again, not in the earthly kingdom, but in the heavenly kingdom, which is the heavenly Jerusalem, which is hallelujah, shakamah. But that's in another podcast. I will talk about that. But right now, I want to focus in on something very, very interesting that we all must know and understand, that when it comes to us fighting our battles, we need to fight our battles against Satan and against his demonic spirits that he launches to try and derail us from our true calling. Every single one of us has a calling upon our lives, but the enemy's job is to use people to try and derail us from our purpose. Now, we're not saying that Peter did not love Jesus, but what I am saying is that Peter still could not comprehend that this was not a battle that was going to be fought in the physical realm. This was a battle that started in heaven and will end on earth when it's all said and done, because when Jesus comes for the second coming, he's going to come with his white horse and those who have lived a godly life and those who have followed him all the days of our lives, we will rule and reign with Jesus and come to fight in the battle of Armageddon. And this is the reason why we need to understand that when we wage war, it needs to be done in prayer. When we wage war, it needs to be done in the word of God. When we wage war, it needs to be done from a spiritual standpoint, not a physical standpoint. And that is the reason why when Jesus knew that Peter was now thinking carnally, he had to rebuke the one who was telling him that if you fight this physically, you will conquer. But in reality, whatever we do here in the physical realm will never justify the fact that this is still a spiritual war. This is still a supernatural spiritual warfare, and it's not between you and I. It's between Satan and God, because Satan rebelled against God, and now there's a war between good and evil. There is a war between Satan and God, and God has given us the correct armor to fight with. So I encourage you in this day that if you do not know Jesus, and you have felt oppressed, and you have felt depression, and you have felt sorrow, everything that is keeping you from going forward, I want to encourage you right now, open your heart to Jesus, because only Jesus can help you. Jesus getting on that cross, and dying for all humanity, and being raised on the third day to give us life in abundance, as he is Lord and Savior, and he is mighty to save. I encourage you right now, open your heart to Jesus. Allow him to fight your battles from here on out, because this is not physical. This is spiritual, and we are in spiritual warfare. Whether you are a believer or not, you are still under a spiritual attack from the enemy, because he does not want to see you inherit salvation. But Jesus is extending that mercy and grace to you right now. If you will bow your head and close your eyes, you will make the most important decision of your life today. Repeat after me, this is your moment to open your heart and allow Jesus to come in and rule and reign from here on out. So God, we come to you in this moment, and I believe with all of my heart that you died for me on Calvary's cross. You took my place on the cross, and Lord, I declare right now that you are Lord and Savior of my life. I turn away from my sins. I confess that I have sinned, and I have sinned only against you, and I am in desperate need of a Lord and Savior, and I believe with all my heart you are that Lord and Savior. Lord, I pray right now that you come in and sit on the throne of my heart. From here on out, I will follow you. Lord, thank you for making me a child of God, and from here on out, I will live my life through you. Thank you for having written my name in the Lamb's book of life. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Well, if you said that prayer right now, I welcome you to the family of God. There is no greater joy than that of one who has received Christ Jesus into their heart, and knowing that God is with us every single day of our lives will cause us to walk in confidence, knowing that God fights our battles for us. He conquered the grave for us, and all we have to do is receive His love. He loves us with an unconditional love. I encourage you today to start reading, like I'm reading right now, the books of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are going to help you to have a more profound encounter with Jesus Christ, and you will get to know Him better through His word. What better way to know Jesus than through His word, getting right down to the source of who He is. Well, I pray this has encouraged you today. Until the next time, bye-bye for today.