“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” James 4:4.

When our faith is placed anywhere other than what Jesus did on the Cross, we are at enmity with God.  As I was reading a questionnaire from a deliverance ministry regarding one’s family history, it was glaringly apparent the psychology in the ministry.  Questions regarding emotional, mental, speech and sexual problems, addictions, physical infirmities and occult error are seemingly harmless as the problems are indeed very real.  However, the answer to these problems are all the same for the believer, faith in Jesus Christ and Him Crucified.  Our faith in Jesus’ finished works is what gives us dominion over our sin nature.  At salvation, we are given dominion over our sin nature because of our faith in Jesus.  It is after salvation that our faith gets redirected.  All of the “open doors” from past experience we begin to revisit in an attempt to see where the enemy came in.  Self examination distracts us from God’s Word and God’s will.  The continual examination of our self will glean only what our carnal minds decide to crucify.  Seeking God’s will and allowing the Holy Spirit to enable us to crucify the things the Lord wants us to crucify in order to live out the purpose the Lord has for our lives.  Our faith is directed to schemes of man to cast out that “sin” rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to give us dominion over that sin nature through faith in Jesus Chris and His finished work.

Our battles are not physical, mental or financial – they are spiritual.  There is only one way to have dominion over these battles we all face and that is through our faith in Jesus Christ.  Everything that happens to a Child of God is either allowed or caused by God.  Therefore we rest knowing – and I mean knowing, that you know that you know; that no matter the circumstances, when you say to that mountain “Be thou removed”  Matthew 21:21 and our faith is exclusively in Jesus’ victory and not our declaration, that mountain will be removed.  The Lord will remove the difficulty or make the difficulty endurable.

No matter how religious our efforts may be, if our faith is directed to what we have done (methods of man, class 101-401, etc.) , albeit unknowingly, we have indeed become adulterers and adulteresses.  A relationship with the Lord will never require self examination but psychology will.   When we seek God, He examines our hearts. ” I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:10.  Discern every doctrine and test every spirit…a friend of the world is an enemy to God.  – Donna Warren