How To... Destroy Darkness! (2 Cor 10:3-5; Mt 16:19)

Deep within us – where ‘eternity’ dwells (Eccl 3:11) – we are not satisfied with simply containing or incarcerating evil. We know that even if the bad guy is caught, badness might not be contained, and may even be on the increase – drilling down, spawning, spreading, thickening…


We grow tired of ‘covering up’ bad stuff, and something in us – that part of us made in the ‘image of God’ (Gen 1:27) – craves a ‘real’ victory, a breaking in and through of ‘purity’, of true beauty, of holiness. We cry out from deep within for the wind of a Spirit to blow over all darkness – including our past – and sweep through with redemption, a new self, a new start, or as the prophet puts it, ‘a new heart and new spirit.’ (Ez 36:26)


If we fix this today, it will still be broken and gone one day. If we heal this today, it will still fail and die one day… This very mortality that courses through our veins from the day we are born, this ‘death’ we need to destroy! Death is the ultimate expression of all things evil – from the body to the soul, the broken child, the broken heart... Who can destroy evil, who can defeat death? How can we break free – now and forevermore?


Jesus said, ‘Live by the sword, die by the sword.’ (Mt 26:52) The story of Christ is absolutely incredible, unequalled! God became man, and then lay down under the violence of men. Rather than defeating man, he allowed himself to be defeated by man, and used this ‘defeat’, this ‘bloodshed’, to destroy death itself. Yes, when Christ rose from the grave (the innate hope and yearning in every created human being), he brought with it the very ‘keys to death’. (Revelation 1:18) Jesus holds the keys to death – and he is the very doorway to eternal life!


Jesus is life, the Destroyer of death and all darkness. You, too, in Christ can be a Destroyer of darkness. We are told that our weapons – as believers and followers of Christ – are not those of the world (i.e. the ‘sword’, or guns and force). We are told that in Christ we have ‘divine power’ to demolish strongholds, and everything that sets itself up against God – like violence, lust, betrayal, abuse… (2 Cor 10:3-5). Christ has the keys to death and life, but he puts these keys into our hands. He says, ‘I have given you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Everything you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and everything you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’ (Mt 16:19)


This is amazing power, and amazing responsibility! Do you pray? In Jesus’ name you can ‘bind’ darkness that you perceive here on earth, in violent and dishonest people! Do you ‘demolish’ strongholds? In Jesus’ name you can declare that dark powers - and structures and leaders and relationships) fall, and are no more, and that the light of Christ pours in…


We need more warriors! Jesus himself told us to pray for ‘workers’ (Mt 9:36-38), but he also called us to ‘be’ the workers! (Ps 94:16)


Let’s storm heaven and earth in prayer and testimony, that we might see true ‘Light’ and true victory sweep through our hearts, our homes, our nation, our world, in Jesus’ name!
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‘The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea!’ Habakkuk 2:14

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