Claim Your Possession

¡§Claim Your Possession¡¨

¡§Lay Hold on Eternal Life¡¨

By

Elder Melvin L. Maughmer, Jr.

Claim: - is a transitive verb, which means something is being done to something else- it literally means to ask for especially as a right, to take as the rightful owner of.

Possession: - is the act of having or taking into control, to occupy.

„« To claim your possession is the act of taking what is rightfully yours and having control of it. The word taking/take is to get into one’s hands or into one’s possession, power, or control: to seize or capture physically to get possession of by killing or capturing: to move against to acquire by eminent domain: to catch or attack through the effect of a sudden force or influence: to catch or come upon in a particular situation or action. Claim your possession.

Lay: - to beat or strike down with force.

Hold: - is to have possession of or at ones disposal, to have or maintain grasp of.

Claim your possession/Lay hold of eternal life is not just a pleasing saying, it is not something that would be nice to do, but it is a command given by a general to the soldiers in this spiritual warfare. It is the mission statement for those on the battlefield of the Lord and the command they must follow in order to be victorious.

We must understand that this Christian walk is not all fun and games. Contrary to what has been told to people down through the years, the Christian walk is not a bed of roses. There is not a party going on. Many times we say the phrase ¡§Ain¡¦t no party like a Holy Ghost party cause a Holy Ghost party don¡¦t stop¡¨. That is a great saying when we are under the anointing and the service is great, but that is not what the Bible says about this walk. The Bible says in Matthew 11:12 ¡§And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.¡¨

Therefore when we say claim your possession or lay hold on eternal life, it is not someone knocking on your door throwing confetti at you and giving you a big check, it is not walking up to the customer service counter with a ticket in your hand and getting your stuff. However it is forcibly taking what is rightfully yours from the one that has possession of it now.

I like the song we sing sometimes ¡§I¡¦m going back to the enemies and I¡¦m going to take back what He stole from me¡¨. It is rightfully mine and I am going to go and claim what is mine and in order to do so I am going to have to use force, but I¡¦m going to CLAIM MY POSSESSION.

What is your possession: Remember Possession is the act of having or taking into control, to occupy. However, what are we taking control of? 1st John 2:25 says ¡§And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.¡¨ Our possession is Eternal Life. We must take into our control and occupy eternal life this is what the enemy has stolen from us. Man was created to live forever; however, he was given a choice. He was told he could eat of every tree free but he was commanded not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the day he did he would surely die (Genesis 2:16-17). Adam and Eve, deceived by the devil, ate of the tree of knowledge, which was disobedience to the Word of God. This caused God to punish them, for sin must be punished. Their punishment was to be put out of the Garden of Eden before they ate of the tree of life, which was eternal life. Eternal life is our possession and we must go and claim our possession, we must lay hold on eternal life.

Contrary to popular belief eternal life is not living forever and ever.

Eternal Life: - John 17:1-3 says ¡§These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.¡¨ Eternal life is knowing God for yourself.

One of the greatest desires of a child of God is their enthusiasm to truly know God. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:1 ¡§Wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witness¡K¡¨ What this is saying is that there are plenty of people that have gone on into glory that had the desire to have a relationship with God and therefore have gained eternal life. If we were to look through the pages of scripture we will see how the desire to truly know God is the nucleus of a child of God¡¦s walk with God.