The greatest defense against the enemy is a no occupancy sign.
The enemy, who prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, is looking for real estate within your heart.
He’s searching for vacancy.
Your heart is the place of your meditations and motivations.
It’s from the abundance of that place that we do what we do and say what we say.
In previous blogs that have detailed a prophetic snapshot for this year, I’ve used this word
“overwhelmed” to describe what I believe God wants to do in the lives of His people.
Whatever you are filled with is what will overwhelm you.
Whatever has your attention is what will get inside of you.
The war is always over our hearts.
The enemy seeks to determine your internal reality through external means.
He wants to overwhelm your inside by overwhelming your outside.
He wants you to believe that peace and joy are found without.
He wants you filled with anxiety and doubt by having you focus on all that’s happening around you.
Distraction is his playground.
His primary goal is to erect a fortress within you where the knowledge of God is absent.
He seeks to find vacant lots within your heart where trust has yet to be established.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Trust stops where fear begins.
The writer of Proverbs encourages us to trust in the Lord with ALL of our heart (Proverbs 3:5).
This is only possible if God fills the heart.
God, through the Holy Spirit, comes to live inside of you when you are born again.
But the occupancy that Jesus holds within your heart is dependent upon your faith in Him.
Think with me for a moment…
There are a lot of born again believers that are just as freaked out and full of worry and anxiety as those who have never surrendered their life to Jesus.
Why is this?
Their heart isn’t filled with the knowledge of God.
Simply put… they don’t KNOW Him.
Ephesians 3:14-19 makes this abundantly clear:
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Jesus fills the heart of those that know Him and trust Him.
The enemy cannot occupy what’s already inhabited.
These verses that Paul penned many, many years ago tell me that Jesus is concerned about our inner man and inner woman.
He strengthens that place through the power of His Spirit.
He knows the greatest defense against external forces is to be rooted and grounded in His love.
It’s the knowledge of His love that results in us being filled up with the fullness of God.
The goal of the Christian life… what Jesus called ‘eternal life’ is this: To know God (see John 17:3).
The more I know Him, the more I trust Him.
It’s my faith in Him… my knowing… that causes Jesus to fill every room, every chamber of my heart.
I don’t need life to go my way.
I don’t need everyone to like me.
I don’t need to be exempt from hardship.
I need to KNOW Him.
The weapon of your warfare… your greatest defense is a heart that trusts the Lord.
Seek Him while He may be found.
Make your life about one thing and one thing only — finding Him.
This is the key to becoming completely overwhelmed by God this year.
This is what will safeguard your internal reality from what seeks to overwhelm you externally.
- Brian Connolly, Faith Like Birds Ministries