Activity/Field Trip #2 Pt A
Field Trip 2 pt A: ON THE BATTLEGROUND – PRACTICE GUARDING YOUR HEART
BY GARDENING (BREAKING UP FALLOW GROUND OF YOUR HEART AND PROTECTING IT FROM WEEDS)
Every day we receive an onslaught of missiles thrown at us. We are bombarded with words and innuendos. Sometimes it is a bold assault. Sometimes it is subtle. ALL THE TIME we must be prepared to push back, or else we can end up with a garden full of weeds and hardened ground.
I tend to use garden terminology, but that is because this is what the Holy Spirit has been using to help me to see the importance of seed planting.
Jesus spoke about the planting of seeds in Matthew 13:24-43. Jesus was talking about gardening which is farming on a small scale. He said, “the field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.” In this module, and on the same scale that Jesus used but even smaller, the ground is our hearts and the seed is the words and thoughts that are planted in our hearts through what we hear and what we see, and what we meditate upon.
Read Matthew 13:24-43
In this field trip, we will time travel back to February 3, 2020, where you will get a chance to see what I experienced on this particular day which was so unexpected. I was preparing to relax and enjoy some family time. I did not know that the adversary who walks about like a roaring lion seeking to devour, was going to choose this moment where I just wanted to rest and recreate, as a moment to try to subtly attack my heart.
Here is what I wrote about the experience:
I believe God’s Word to be true. So, I will not excuse any of it not even to make myself comfortable. Therefore, if God, through the Holy Spirit sees fit to check my behavior in his word (as He has recently done in the area of the type of food I consume), then I will listen to obey.
Obedience is better than sacrifice. Plus, this is what it means to wash in the word of God. Clean me up, Lord. I desire to be corrected by You because You discipline those whom You love.
Now I mention this because of the attack that I just came under and what it revealed to me that I need to always be mindful of what I watch and listen to. ALWAYS.
The Date is February 3, 2020, and this was my experience:
NOTHING IS SAFE TODAY, ESPECIALLY NOT ON TELEVISION
When I was younger, my mom used to watch Star Trek.
I mention that to say that Star Trek was a part of my formative years. We even went to the theater to watch The Wrath of Khan.
Those who are Trekkies (fans of Star Trek) will know the characters that I mention. If you have not watched any of the Star Trek series (and there are many) you can still follow me on this because of the fact no television program is exempt from what I am about to share – not even children’s television. The adversary is very busy planting weeds.
So imagine my surprise when I actually sat down to watch the new Star Trek series that we call “black girl magic” because it shows an African American female as the leader and I am told that this one has the first gay couple.
Me: “Now I don’t want to see any of it.”
My reaction to the warning didn’t go over well with my family whose thoughts, in telling me, were to give me a heads up because they know how I am when it comes to watching television. Maybe, I should say, “How I have become about watching television.”
I say this because the more time I spend in the presence of the Holy Spirit allowing the Lord to change me through the Holy Spirit because I am beginning more and more to believe and receive the Word of God, the more sensitive I become to the things which God’s Word tells me that God disapproves of – the works of the flesh.
Television bombards us with the very things that the Word of God tells us that if we practice them we will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Read Galatians 5:19-21
Is this a little thing?
Read 1 Corinthians 15:33
What does the Bible say about our associations?
Who we spend time in association with we become like. This association is not limited to what we watch on television. It includes what we read and listen to.
Read John 8: 31-32
Jesus Christ said that we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. So, with these next questions, it would be to our advantage to be honest with ourselves on how we answer them.
How much time do I spend watching television? Is this daily?
How much time do I spend reading God’s Word? Am I reading God’s Word every day?
Here is yet another area where the adversary has been very busy planting weeds. But as more and more light is shone on the wiles, schemes, and tricks of the adversary, the more equipped we will be to take our stand against him.
Now, I find myself questioning what was really being spoon-fed to those of us watching the televised series as it relates to those who were in costumes as aliens and the fact that there are different aliens who are in relationships.
Me (thinking): “Is the fact that the characters who are presented to be in a gay relationship are also supposed to be aliens supposed to make it easier for me to watch this? Really!?” If they are supposed to represent alien communities then why have two males playing these roles? Why not have them in costume so that it cannot be determined visually what gender the alien is?
Is this bestiality that is being spoon-fed to us without our knowledge because what we see is costumes?
Is the portrayal of humans entering into relationships with aliens a subtle nod at what happened in the days of Genesis when the Sons of the True God forsook their natural positions to come to earth and mate with the daughters of Adam born from his fallen position?
Is, in our watching these things, a subtle nod of approval?
Read Romans 1:28-32
We are being baited by the adversary who is very busy planting weeds.
At the end of the day, knowing how God feels about sexual immorality, whether it’s fornication (which is sex before marriage and which the bible says is a sin against your own body), whether it’s adultery (which is sex with someone other than who you are married to), whether it’s homosexuality (which is unnatural sex – men with men, women with women), or whether it’s bestiality (humans mating with animals), if I am not going to entertain humans doing this, why on this green planet would I entertain aliens doing this?
Right now, I have to thank the Lord that the television is again on the channel I normally have it on. (Off)
The entire time that I was writing the above, the battle was happening
“on the battlefield.”
People were getting in their emotions, but I was taking a stand and fighting the best way I knew how – by writing, keeping my eyes off the television, and trying to divert my inner ear from the onslaught that was happening to my outer ear. This was a difficult battle because this was supposed to be “family time.”
I am being taught how to battle on the battlefield without taking any casualties. What this means is that the attack was not just against my heart. It was also against my relationship with those in my home.
The adversary thought he was going to get two-for-one in this battle (if I would have watched the program), and he was willing to get one (if I would have took a stand in such a way that it would have caused a rift in my relationship because of what I am beginning to understand).
What the adversary didn’t count on was the fact that I was paying attention to the lessons that I was being taught not just in spiritual warfare but in how to take up, put on, and activate my whole armor of God.
I submitted myself to the Lord and resisted the devil so that he had no choice but to flee. But this didn’t mean that I was to get comfortable. I am clear that he simply departed until he could find another convenient time to strike again.
Read Luke 4:13
I have got to stay alert because the adversary is very busy planting weeds.
We have to learn how to fight these battles so that the enemy does not even win one.
If I would have fought this battle and won in that I took my stand, but it caused a rift in my relationship, then I still lost.
What I will not forget is that this is just training.
I bring to my remembrance Revelation chapter 20 which reminds me that the devil is bound and King Jesus is in control.
I am being trained for warfare, trained how to use each piece of my whole armor of God, trained in how to fight because this is a war that I have never experienced before, I am being trained for…
Judges 3:1-4 English Standard Version
3 Now these are the nations that the Lord left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. 2 It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before. 3 These are the nations: the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites and the Sidonians and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal-hermon as far as Lebo-hamath. 4 They were for the testing of Israel, to know whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.
Please Proceed to Module 3 Activity Field Trip 2B
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