SPIRITUAL PUSHOVERS

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”. Ephesians 6:10-12.

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There is no mincing words, life has its battles. We live in a world of forces, ones we encounter in the physical realm and those we cannot encounter  physically but in the spirit realm. We are well aware of the forces of friction, gravity, magnetism, electricity, and of course the push-pull forces we exert on things in the natural world. These forces impact our world and we daily experience their effects. We know from Newton’s first law of motion, the law of inertia, that objects maintain their state of rest or uniform motion until acted upon by an external force greater in magnitude than the maintaining force. That law shows that the stationary object is already acted upon by a force known as its weight, therefore if it must be set in motion, there must be the application of a push or pull force greater than its weight. A similar explanation can be adduced for an object in uniform motion, if it must be brought to rest, a greater force known as the damping force must be applied. Well, that is a matter for the science class to bother about, but I hope you get the understanding that there is always an interplay of forces in the natural world.

Furthermore, the famous scientist, Isaac Newton went on to state that for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. Hence, for a body to remain at equilibrium, Newton’s second law must be obeyed. equilibrium is distorted when there is an imbalance of action and reactionary forces. In these principles can also be explained the forces humans exert on each other. People are always trying to take advantage of other people, either positively or negatively, and in order to achieve this end, forces are exerted. The force of persuasion is one of such means. The force of appeal is another. Brute force is another of such means humans employ to have advantage over others. The application of brute force gives rise to acts of bullying, fighting and warfare. Hence, we live in a world of forces. The magnitude of force applied or released determine the effect that will be felt and therefore determines its power or efficacy. A weak reactionary force has no power to withstand or overcome the applied force.

This brings us to the subject we wish to consider. A pushover is a term that is used to describe an individual who lets himself be picked or bullied on without defending or standing up for himself or herself. It describes an individual who exerts no reactionary forces to counter the brute forces others exert on him or her. He is a person who is inconsequential, a trifling, and very often an individual with low self esteem. It is a sorry thing to have people who are pushovers, because they suffer so many abuses and have their rights trampled on by others and they lack the power to resist this cruelty. Pushovers will not even take advantage of the laws put in place to protect their rights and hence they suffer despite the laws. So many reasons may be responsible for the pushovers situation, but a very prominent one is their cowardice. It is instructive to note that even though a Christian must not repay evil for evil done against him nor avenge himself (Romans 12:17-19), yet he is not a pushover since he exerts the force of love on those who persecute and abuse him (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:28). The Christians self denial is deliberate and is done in pursuant of the Lord’s command to leave vengeance for Him and often their bullies have been won over by the love and forgiveness the Christian returned for their mistreatment (1 Peter 1:1). However, a pushover exerts no force but is cowed and intimidated to submission.

The case of spiritual pushovers is even more regrettable and pitiable. Just as we have noted about the interplay of forces in the natural or physical world, there is also an interplay of forces in the spiritual world. You need to understand we live in a two dimensional world, the physical and the spiritual. So many people are oblivious of the existence and reality of the spirit world. They think the talk of it is fictional, but they fail to realize that there is more to everything in the physical world than meets the eyes. There is a spiritual dimension to every reality in the physical world. Hence the first spiritual pushovers are those who are unaware of the reality of the spiritual world. Unfortunately their ignorance or unbelief of spiritual realities make them vulnerable to spiritual abuses. the fact remains that despite these people’s ignorance or unbelief, they are more than the bodies they can feel, they are spirits and also exist in the spirit world. Such people are inconsequential and suffer so many spiritual abuses they do not realize the origin nor can stop it.

The spiritual world has an interplay of two forces, evil and good forces. Satan’s evil forces are in perpetual conflict with the good forces of Jehovah, the almighty God, creator of the heavens and the earth. Before the creation of the world, the war had been fought in heaven between Lucifer with the fallen angels and the angels of God with the host of heaven. Lucifer, who is Satan, lost that battle and was cast out of heaven along with the fallen angels who are now demon spirits operating in the spirit realm (Revelations 12: 7-9, Isaiah 14: 12-15). When God created the world and made man in His image, man was made a spirit being with a soul occupying a body. Man’s spirit was in constant communion with God. He had no barrier of access to the spirit realm, and when Satan saw the glory man had with God, he moved in to tempt man into disobedience and sin which cut off the spiritual fellowship man had with God (Genesis 3:1-24). from that time, Satan’s evil powers had access to hold the human spirit in bondage. God saw this and He made a way to restore man and the only way He could do it cost Him the sacrifice of His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to bring man back to his lost estate. Hence, through the redemption by the blood of Jesus Christ, man’s spirit now has access to God and has authority and power over Satan’s evil forces.

So we see that man’s spirit can be under the control of God or Satan. Those who willingly surrender their lives to Jesus Christ have their spirits liberated from Satanic bondage and have power with God. On the other hand, some people surrender their soul and spirit to Satan and become possessed by demon spirits who control and use them. The free-thinker, the atheist , and the ordinary moral men are then the spiritual pushovers. They neither belong to God nor serve the devil, and are the kick-arounds by Satan’s evil forces. Those who do not believe in Jesus Christ and who do not serve God but trust to their morality and humanity are spiritual pushovers. They certainly have no resistance to Satan’s evil forces. Any human spirit existing in a state of spiritual inactivity is a spiritual pushover.

There are men and women who have yielded themselves to the service of the devil and they command spiritual powers of demon spirits to perpetuate evil in the world. They invoke curses and cast spells on people. They exercise witchcraft, occult and magical powers to gain advantage of people and to cause havocs in the world. They project accidents and invoke incurable diseases on people. They afflict many people with barrenness, poverty, failures, setbacks, and tragedies. Their primary end is to kill and destroy as many human lives as possible. Herein lies the fact that so many spiritual pushovers suffer these attacks but are unaware of the source, they think for instance that the hospitals can cure their disease but wake up too late to discover there is nothing the doctor could do. There are so many broken marriages today which the spouses cannot tell exactly why they had to divorce. Satanic power is real and manifests in all these examples and more, and the spiritual pushovers suffer  these. All except those children of God who dwell in the secret place of the most high (Psalm 91:1- 16) are susceptible to these attacks.

When we surrender our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes upon us and we are empowered to do good works in the world. We are empowered to affect the lives of people positively. we are empowered by God to terminate the works of darkness (Matthew 10:1, Luke 10: 19), to bring God’s healing to the sick, to deliver the oppressed, to save the lost, to restore broken lives and homes. The Spirit of God works through us to bring light to a dark world, joy to the depressed and protection for the vulnerable. We are never ignorant of God’s power upon our lives because we see and encounter more than what is possible with the natural man. No born again, Holy Spirit filled, Holy Spirit led and holy Christian who exercises his or her authority in Jesus Christ can be a spiritual pushover. I wish you note the qualifications I used to describe this Christian, something is definitely wrong to have Christians who are not born again, spirit filled, spirit led and holy. Such people may bear the name Christians just because they attend a church, but they have no spiritual defenses nor spiritual authority to do any good, and so they are also spiritual pushovers.There is the confrontation in the spirit realm that the Lord draws our attention to today in Ephesians 6:10-12. We are up against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places. Nobody can afford not to fight in the confrontation against these forces of Satan. However, the first thing everyone must do is to surrender to Jesus Christ and receive salvation from sin. We must renounce our sins, repent of them, and stop sinning because all who sin are of the devil( 1 John 3:8  ) and there is no way you can fight the powers of Satan if you belong to him. You must move over to God’s side and that happens when you surrender to God and become born again.

 Next, you must put on the whole armour of God which is highlighted in Ephesians 6:13-17. We must take on our spiritual armour, the belt of truth, the breastplate or heart shield of righteousness, the boots of evangelism and christian service, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. What these spiritual armours imply is that as you live a life of truth and righteousness, as you study the word of God and live by faith in God’s word, as you engage in the propagation of the gospel of Christ, you are being spiritually armoured and empowered against Satanic forces. As you put on this armour, God requires that you stand and do warfare against Satan’s dark kingdom through prayers. It is often said that a prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian and that indeed is true. We must through prayers pull down Satanic strongholds and stop Satanic operations and manifestations. As we draw closer to God in intimacy and communion, we will receive more and more power to prevail against and dominate our spiritual environment.

In all, I want us to all realize there are spiritual pushovers and we must decidedly determine not to be one of these. It is terrible to sign up for Satan in order to wield evil and demonic power because Satan has no reward to offer those who work for him. God’s fury and wrath will consume all who work for Satan. their end will be in sorrows and misery and they will be cast into the unquenchable fires of hell with Satan their master (Revelation 19:20, Revelation 20:15). Move over to God’s side today and put on your spiritual weapons and be ready at all times to engage the forces of the foe and the enemy of our souls, the devil.

Realize that there is a great wave of evil all around us and you can only be safe in Jesus Christ. Do not just be ordinary, be empowered by God. There is evil in this world, or how can you explain a case where a charm is placed on a fellow workers seat in the office by a jealous colleague who wants the other dead upon sitting on that seat? Some have died this way because they were spiritual pushovers who had no defence in God. Therefore realize that you need God’s cover at every point in time. Do not break God’s hedge over you by engaging in sin and immorality (Job 1:10). Know that fornication and adultery will rob you of spiritual power because these acts reduce a man to a crust of bread, a spiritual pushover (Proverbs 6: 26). All forms of sexual sins including pornography and masturbation robs those who engage in it of spiritual power. Sexual sins have been the downfall of many vibrant children of God and we must watch against these. Resist the devil ( James 4:7 ) and his temptations to tell lies,to be prideful and arrogant and to commit all other sins. We must take heed to ourselves and be on guard always for he that thinketh he standeth must take heed lest he fall ( 1 Corinthians 10:12). The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ will keep us standing to the end. I pray we shall never be spiritual pushovers in Jesus Christ name. Amen.

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