Recognizing Your Dna: Destiny, Nature, Authority

Open your Bibles to Luke chapter 11. I want you to do me a favor today, will you? I need everybody to kind of get your right hand out, get your right hand out like this. Everybody get your right hand out. Got it out? This is what I want you to do. I’m putting my thinking cap on. Tell somebody next to you, "I’m putting my thinking cap on today?" I want you to tell them this message is not for the weak hearted.

Got your Bible’s out? Got your notepads out? You’re gonna need it today.

Luke chapter 11, just two verses, verses 21 and 22. "When a strongman armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all of his armor wherein he trusted and divideth his spoils."

I wish you could just laugh with me a little bit right there. Yeah, I wish somebody could just laugh with me right there a little bit. Just turn around to somebody and just give them a big laugh. Come on. Just laugh at them a little bit.

In the gospel of Matthew, verse -- chapter 12 and verse 29, the same story repeated by Matthew goes like this. "Or else how can one enter into a strongman’s house and spoil his goods except he first bind the strongman. And then he will spoil his house."

I am teaching you today on recovering your identity and your goods. Some of you have been in a season of losing. There’s no sense for us to kind of boast and pat ourselves on the chest and say, "Bless God. Nothing effects me and nothing bothers me." You’re a liar. Cold is cold to everybody. Problems are problems to everybody.

The believer is never expected to go through life without problems. He’s expected to go through life with the ability to solve problems. Everybody faces crises. Downtimes. Pressure. Everybody is affected in the thought life. Maybe there are some things you won’t do but you’ve thought about it. Maybe there are some things you don’t give into, but those birds have been flying over your head.

To deny it is to lie. There’s no sense denying things. You might as well admit them. But you might as well -- with your admitting, admit this. That if God be for me, who can stand against me? That’s the secret of overcoming in the Christian life. It’s not denial. It’s facing up to it and knowing that God is able to do anything that he said he would do in His word.

And I believe the enemy has really hoodwinked and fooled many of us to not really accept who we are. That’s why I’ve been teaching you about your DNA. We don’t really know who we are. And in this season that we’re entering into, just in the next two weeks, two weeks from today will actually be Easter Sunday. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday. We’re in the resurrection season. I want to talk to you about that resurrection life.

Why should I wait till Easter when I’ve got to a message from God? I might as well give it to you today. Amen.

This is a time of resurrection life, and I believe there’s a fresh Word from God for all of us. In the scripture verses that we just read, Jesus has been performing miracles. And the religious crowd who, by the way, were the people that gave Jesus most of the problems, Jesus didn’t have a problem with sinners. He didn’t have a problem with down-and-outers. He had a problem with up-and-outers. He had a problem with those people that didn’t understand that He came to change the religious system.

And so they were angry at Him, and they accused Him of casting out devils by the devil. They called Him Beelzebub, the Prince of Devils. And Jesus made a very interesting statement in Luke 11:20 that you may want to underline in your Bible. He said, "But if I, by the finger of God, cast out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God has come unto you."

I have always been impressed with the fact that Jesus talks about the power of the devil and the power that He had over the devil by expressing his little finger being able to cast out the devil. If you had the time to open your Bible to Isaiah 53:1, you would see this scripture. This is what it says there. "Who hath believed our report?" And the next phrase is so telling. "And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"

Imagine, Jesus said He could cast out devils with a finger. But when He had to take the Plan of Salvation and complete it, He had to have an arm. It ought to show you how small and literally insignificant Satan is in the whole program of God. If it took an arm to bring salvation but only a finger to cast out devils, then the devil that’s been hoodwinking you is about to be exposed today.