Satan lost another one

On Sunday November 1 I began a new teaching series at NRN. I began my message last week with these words:

Today we begin a teaching series entitled Identity Theft. Every 79 seconds in America there is an identity theft victim the stealing of someone’s identity. Identity theft is a serious issue.

Random check of credit reports in 2003 50% credit reports checked were victims and they didn’t even know. It is serious 1 of 50 people will fall a major victim to it in 2010. It will take every victim close to $1500 dollars to repair the damage and get things put back together not counting lawyers fees. Here is the tragedy of identity theft- You can spend your whole life building your credit, building your identity credit and in one moment somebody steals your identity and your future is destroyed.

The same thing happens in the spiritual realm. You can spend your entire life building your spiritual identity but all it takes is one moment to forget who you are and make a stupid decision and it will take you and I years to fix what one decision did, because we forgot who we are. I have a confession: This series of messages is more for me than you. Over the past several months I have been fighting some of the biggest spiritual battles of my life. My love and concern for my family and for YOU – the church has been almost overwhelming. This series comes out of very personal experience.

I have listened to many sermons and worked hard on this series. It is influenced by a book by a teaching pastor at Willow Creek, and another book called Identity Theft by Jay Strack of Student Leadership Ministries.

We began by examining the lie that the world and the devil likes to whisper into the ear of our heart and mind. The lie is: "I have to be strong".

The truth is taken from 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 (The Message): My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

We will continue in this series on November 8th with a message addressing the lie: "This is just the way I am." I believe some people are held prisoners in their own minds that they cannot change. When a person opens their heart to Jesus Christ - everything changes!

Here is a clip I recently viewed about how Satan wants to whisper his lies into our heart and mind. Hold on - this is powerful:




If you were blessed by this - but it went a little "fast" for you - you can simply post a comment - or email me - and I will be glad to send you the words of this poem by Blair Wingo.