[Course 16 Index] [Prayer-School Index] [Prayer Mini-Series Index ] [Prev Lesson] [Next Lesson]


-- © GodSpeak International 1998 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONTRIBUTING RESOURCES
Author: Teresa Seputis <ts@godspeak.net>
Editor: Al Vesper

Prayer-School Course #16

Dressing For Intercession

or

How to Avoid Holes In Your Armor

Lesson Two

Don't Disqualify Yourself

RECAP FROM LAST LESSON

We learned that Satan tries to "take us out" before we ever get dressed for battle by trying to disqualify us. He does this because our prayers are effective, so he tries to keep us from praying. We learned this is a common strategy Satan uses against intercessors. He does not want us praying because as we build God's kingdom, we tear down his, and he does not like to lose ground.

So, Satan tries to disqualify us in three ways:

  1. disqualifying circumstances
  2. trying to get us to disqualify ourselves
  3. sidetracking us by burdening us with unreasonable expectations

Last week we looked at how Satan uses circumstances against us to try and get us disqualified. We saw that he uses three different types of circumstances to disqualify us:

  1. he capitalizes mistakes we make (we keep on paying for the mistake over and over, or we pay a much bigger penalty than the mistake merits).
  2. false accusations/lies/unfair punishment (being falsely accused, gossip/slander, misjudged, unfairly treated and not even given the opportunity to share our side of the story).
  3. trying to make our ministry look/feel irrelevant to ourselves or others

We learned that God will work in the midst of these circumstances to bring His glory into the situation and to assure that we end up in precisely the ministry/calling He ordained for us. The enemy may give it his best shot, but He is not able to disqualify us because God is for us and He will work His glory into each situation! (Romans 8:28)

Disqualifying Ourselves

When Satan cannot disqualify us, he tries to get us to disqualify ourselves. This is probably his absolute favorite strategy to use against intercessors. Unfortunately, many of us seem all too ready to cooperate with him on this. Sometimes the people who seem like the least likely candidates in the world to feel unworthy or disqualified are the very ones who fall prey to this strategy.

Satan tried to get Job to disqualify himself. Job stood firm for a while, but he finally did disqualify himself. Now, Job is probably the last person on earth who folks would expect to give up on himself. He was a prophetic intercessor and a very godly man, one who pleased God greatly and who saw a lot of God's power and blessing in his life. Let's look at Job's story in the context of Eph 6 and preparing to put on the spiritual armor.

Finally, Be Strong In The Lord And In His Mighty Power. (Eph 6:10)

Put On The Full Armor Of God... (Eph 6:11)

Lets look at Job chapter 1 together. From verse 1 we see that Job lived a godly lifestyle. Verses 2 and 3 show how his very life was a prophetic "acting out" of God's message/glory. Job had 7 sons and 3 daughters. Now 7 and 3 are very significant numbers. 7 representing the Holy Spirit and three representing the one and only Triune God. We see this repeated again in verse 3 in his possessions: 7 thousand sheep and 3 thousand camels. There is the 7 and 3 again. Job was not a prophet, but he lived a prophetic lifestyle; modeling the spirit-led life. He was a prophetic type of what God was doing, even down to the number of children and possessions he had. In addition to that, Job was a leader in his community and was respected by others (verse 3). Job's family was in order (verse 4). His children liked each other and got along well with each other, e.g., they walked in unity. And most importantly, Job was an intercessor (verse 5). He prayed regularly for his family. Putting all this together, you can see that Job was an effective prophetic intercessor, one who walked in intimacy with God and in holiness.

God was so pleased with Job that He actually boasted about him (Job 1:8). This does not sound like the type of man who would ever disqualify himself. Yet Satan launched out on a strategy against Job designed to get him to do precisely that. Let's take a look at how Satan attacks.

...When The Day Of Evil Comes, You May Be Able To Stand Your Ground (Eph 6:11)

First, Satan tried to disqualify Job to God. Satan accused Job of only honoring God because God prospers His servants (Job 1:9-10). Now, Satan's accusation against Job was false, but it is true that God loves to prosper His faithful servants:

Deut 5:33
Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.

1 Kings 2:3
observe what the LORD your God requires: Walk in his ways, and keep his decrees and commands, his laws and requirements, as written in the Law of Moses, so that you may prosper in all you do and wherever you go,

Prov 28:13
He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

Jer 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

God does prosper His servants. God will prosper you too, if you purpose in your heart to obey and serve Him. Does that mean that if you are not prospering, your heart is not after God and you are not obeying Him? Of course not! There is an element of spiritual warfare here. God does take good care of His servants, but Satan keeps trying to accuse them and get them disqualified.

Sometimes things go wrong in our lives when we have not done anything wrong, and God allows this enemy attack. Jesus said, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world you will have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) You see, God allows the attack BUT He promises to be with us in it and to turn it to His glory (Romans 8:28).

So God allowed the attack against Job and Satan tried his best to get Job disqualified. This is what he did to Job:

First he accused that Job only worshipped God because of the material rewards that God had given to him (Job 1:9-11). So Satan stripped away Job's possessions and killed his children, all on the same day. Job's response is found in Job 1:22 -- Job did not sin.

Next, Satan accused that Job wouldn't remain faithful if his health failed (Job 2:4-6). So Job was stricken with painful boils (open sores) over all his body. Even in this, Job had a godly response: he did not sin (Job 2:10).

If Satan had stopped here, Job would have remained an overcomer. He had been through a great deal and remained faithful. Job had stood firm. But the attack was far from over and it would eventually wear down Job's resistance.

...And After You Have Done Everything, To Remain Standing... (Eph 6:11)

Things just kept coming at Job, one after the other. First, Job struggled with depression (Job 2:12-13, all of chapter 3). The circumstances simply wore Job down. It became too hard for him and he became discouraged. Remember that Job has just lost all of his children and was in mourning. He has had some very bad things happen to him and suddenly found himself impoverished. Not only that, but his health failed. My guess is that at this point he could not even afford to go to the doctor and his health problems went untreated.

I think Job began to get his eyes off of the Lord and onto his problems. Satan wanted him to curse God and die (disqualify himself), but even in the midst of the despondency, Job refused:

Job 2:9-10
  1. His wife said to him, "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!"
  2. He replied, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.

So Satan used Job's friends to come along and accuse him. We see this starting in chapter 4 and going through most of the rest of the book. The friends used confusing arguments, accusing words and constant nagging at him (in the guise of comforting him). Many people find the book of Job confusing. They have trouble sorting out what is truth about God and what is inaccuracies. That is because the arguments that Job's friends used were confusing, and I suspect that Job had a hard time sorting them out as well.

Job finally wore down and disqualified himself (Job 17:11-16). The once mighty man of faith gave up and wished that he were dead.

Has this ever happened to you? Have things gotten so difficult that you find yourself praying and asking God to just take you home because it is too hard here? Many great men and women of faith walk through a valley like this. (The trick is that we must keep walking so we will get out of the valley of the shadow of death. This is not a good place to pitch a tent and set up camp.)

I personally walked through this valley a few years ago... let me share a bit of my story with you. Maybe you've been through something similar and my story will encourage or comfort you.

I had been in leadership in my church. Someone came to my pastor with false accusations and I was removed from leadership without even being allowed to share my side of the story. At first I was in shock. Then I hit a denial phase and told myself that if that was the way the church treated its own, I did not need to belong to a church any longer. I was confused about why God would let such an unjust thing happen to me and seriously considered walking out of my relationship with God. I decided I would go back to the things of the world that I was good at. After all, the world seemed to treat its own much better than the church seemed to be treating me.

The same day that some of my leadership stuff was taken away from me, I went to a bridge tournament with my husband. It was the Labor Day weekend, so there were a lot of fireworks. The whole tournament took a break to watch the fireworks show at a nearby amusement park. Everyone else went outside to watch the fireworks. I found a secluded lobby and stretched across a sofa in it and started to cry. I had just decided to walk away from God earlier that day and already I missed Him.

God spoke to me while I lay there crying. He brought John 6:38-40 to my memory. Then He told me how He (Jesus) was the one who was responsible to keep me. I was not responsible to keep myself and even though I thought I had let go of His hand, He would not let go of mine. He was going to keep me and to get me through this and out on the other side to glory. Hope welled up in my heart, but I was still a bit skeptical. I told God that I was not sure I could hold onto His hand right then and asked Him to keep holding onto mine.

The really crazy part of this story was that I had just started a 40 day fast a few days before this all happened. I spent most of that fast deciding whether or not I would remain a Christian and still serve Him. Somehow God kept me during all of that. I had no idea why I remained on that "stupid fast", but I never did break it.

I ended up in Toronto to visit some friends and attend meetings at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. This trip had been scheduled before any of this craziness had started, and I decided to go ahead and go there. I figured that if there was anywhere where God might meet me, that was likely to be the place. They were good services, but God did not seem to meet me there. I was getting more and more frustrated and more and more despondent. And I was struggling with bitterness and unforgiveness at how I had been treated by my church. This was a real issue for me and I kept replaying things in my mind, wondering if I could have done or said something different to have prevented this. I am not proud to admit this, but I also found myself imagining ways to get back at (or hurt) the ones who hurt me so deeply. (Fortunately, I never did try to implement any of the strategies, but my mind did dwell on them.) It was such a time of struggle for me. And it was made worse by the fact that God did not seem to be meeting me or helping me, not even at Toronto which was where people came from all over the world to meet God.

Not only that, but I was horrified at the emotions I was struggling with. I knew that bitterness and unforgiveness were sin, but I could not help myself. I did not want to sin, but it took me a long time, months, to be able to fully forgive. And I had a lot of sleepless nights during that time.

The false accusations spread, and many of my friends who I hoped would support me shunned me instead. It was a very difficult time for me. I was not even sure if I would be able to remain a Christian. I was such a mess and I was convinced God would never use me again.

Job also struggled with inappropriate emotions during his attack. He experienced:

Despite all this, God did NOT disqualify Job.

Instead, God met him in the midst of his despair (Job 38:1-3). God helped Job to adjust his attitude to line up once again with God. So, Job repented of his attitude sins towards God (Job 40:1-5, Job 42:5-6). THEN GOD RESTORED JOB!

Restoration Instead Of Disqualification

Job had given up. He was a broken man before God and did not foresee any sort of future at all. But God did not give up on Job.

First God restored Job's ministry by making him an intercessor for his friends (Job 42:7-10). Do you realize that Job was asked to stand in the gap for the very ones who had just finished abusing and misusing him. And if Job had refused to intercede for them, the wrath of God would have fallen on them. Because of what Job had been through, he had gained a spiritual authority to bless and to intercede effectively. Job's ministry was not only restored, it was heightened. He was given a greater measure of authority in intercession and a broader scope, praying now not just for his family but for these other people.

After Job stepped back up to his ministry and calling, God restored everything else that pertained to Job, his possessions and his family and even his prophetic lifestyle:

Job 42:10-13
  1. After Job had prayed for his friends, the LORD made him prosperous again and gave him twice as much as he had before.
  2. All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought upon him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.
  3. The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.
  4. And he also had seven sons and three daughters.

Job ended with double of all of his possessions, with one exception. He was back to 7 sons and 3 daughters. The 7 and 3 of the prophetic lifestyle. For God had put him right back into prophetic intercession and back into the call and ministry God had ordained for his life.

Application

Has Satan been trying to get you to disqualify yourself? Have things been going wrong? (Maybe you started a God-ordained prayer project and suddenly attack sprang out at you from every side. Everything that could go wrong did, as well as a few things you did not think could go wrong.) Has this left you struggling with depression? Are your friends misjudging and misunderstanding you?

Have you begun to struggle with inappropriate emotions?

Has the struggle with those emotions left you feeling horrified with yourself and you feel guilty for struggling with them? Are you afraid that God has disqualified you because of this? Have you given up and disqualified yourself?

Be assured that God has NOT disqualified you. Romans 8:28-30 is God's plan for you:

  1. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
  2. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brothers.
  3. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

God wants to raise you back up into your destiny. You have been predestined for His glory. He wants to work that in your life, right now.

God wants to restore your hope. He wants to forgive any area that needs forgiveness and to bring His healing into them. He wants to restore to you all that the enemy has stolen. He has not disqualified you. He wants to raise you up to walk in your destiny. He wants to empower you and give you hope. God is present right now to do that.

If you have been struggling with this, or if any of this resonates in your spirit, then bow your head right now and invite the Holy Spirit to meet you. He will meet you and He will empower you to stop disqualifying yourself. He will do this because He loves you and He has not given up on you. God has NOT disqualified you. He has a plan and a destiny for your life. Rise up now, with Him, and step into it.



-- © GodSpeak International 1998 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from <copyright@godspeak.org> --


[Course 16 Index] [Prayer-School Index] [Prayer Mini-Series Index ] [Prev Lesson] [Next Lesson]