“Open Doors and Adversaries”
One of my best friends sent this to me yesterday; it is a teaching from an African pastor wanting people to reach their destiny…
The message was on “Open Doors and Adversaries”….his text out of 1 Corinthian 16:9 – Paul the apostle is speaking “But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost because a great door for effective work has been opened to me, but there are many adversaries that oppose me” Certainly he had adversaries in the natural, but at EVERY open door the Lord gives to us, there are demonic hordes, guarding those doors, to keep us from stepping through and reaching our destiny.
We see this again in Genesis 4 with Cain and Abel, where the Lord speaks to Cain “sin is crouching at your door…it desires to have you…you must master it!” Of course, Cain did not, and Paul did! There are levels of adversaries…that keep us from going through the doors. That is the goal. To get us not to go after our destiny and purpose…these are some of the adversaries:
1. Moral Weakness – going back to old sin patterns – which when we have been delivered, is very unnerving when these things raise their head again. When this happens, it is related to the adversaries at the door
2. Anger & Bitterness – this will keep us from going through the door
3. Idolatry and Greed – example of the rich young ruler….we have to go through the door
4. Insecurity, Fear and Intimidation – Peter denies Christ as the door is open for him to lead the church
5. Stubbornness and Pride – we see this in Jonah…he did not want to go through the door to Nineveh
6. Physical Infirmity – we see this with the man that was at the pool of Bethesda for 38 years…he was not interested in getting well and going through the door to healing
7. Unbelieving confession – Thomas, the apostle, who questioned everything and was known as Doubting Thomas – when he came through that door, many churches were started…many people impacted
How do we go through these doors when there is so much resistance?
We need more grace!
We need more faith!
We need more love!
All of these come through intimacy with the Holy Spirit, these are the things that propel us toward our destiny!
