More Than Conquerors

We have access to an incredible source of strength for our daily lives, and when we appropriate God's power and resist the inferior power of the devil, we can experience the victory provided for us by Christ. 1st Peter 5 states:
8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.
10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.

There are resources that God has given us in order to resist the schemes of the enemy, the one who comes, as Jesus said, to steal, kill, and destroy. Those resources include prayer, being clothed in the full armor of God, including the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God - Jesus showed in Matthew 4 about how to resist the temptation that the enemy brings.  We have the name of Jesus, through which we can stand strong against the forces aligned against us. 

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We can know that Jesus is our very life, and because we love Him, we can endure this life from a position of being an overcomer in the Lord. Romans 8 says:
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
36 As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Halloween has become a fun holiday, it seems, but at its core, there are certainly elements of the celebration that are not consistent with the principles we find in Scripture. No wonder that churches, rather than commemorate Halloween, have for years staged alternative events, to offer a more sanitized, God-glorifying, and even evangelistic opportunity.

John Ramirez knows all too well the dangers of exposure to dark practices and involvement in the occult. A recent Christian Post article says:

From the time he was 8 years old, Ramirez, who's of Puerto Rican descent, was caught up in a satanic cult (Santeria and Espiritismo/spiritualist). Introduced to the occult by his father's family, he delved deeper into these practices. Eventually, he became a high-ranking priest in New York City, specializing in witchcraft, spells, curses and astral projection.

Ramirez, who says he was demon-possessed for 20 years, takes the work of exposing the darkness seriously. Consumed by this dark underworld, Ramirez said he specifically targeted Jesus Christ and Christianity, not other religions. No one targets Buddha or Muhammad, he said, because those religions — Islam and Buddhism — are not seen as a threat to the occult or New Age practices.

The article goes on to quote Ramirez:

"There's a quote by Anton Lavey, founder of the Church of Satan, where he says in his own words, 'I want to thank every Christian parent,' not Buddha, not Muhammad, none of that. ... 'Every Christian parent, I want to thank them that [they] allow [their] children to celebrate the devil one night out of the year,' which is Halloween,” Ramirez said warningly, "He's intentionally thanking Christian parents. Thank you for dressing up your kids, changing their identity, sacrificing spiritually.”

Ramirez recognized the potential that Christians had in the spiritual realm, but during his time practicing witchcraft, he saw that Christians were not using what they had been given; he said, “I knew Christians had the anointing, the authority, and the power to destroy the kingdom of darkness, but they didn't know how to use it,” adding “They didn't know how to execute, ... They can win a fight but not conquer anything."

Following a near-death experience, Ramirez gave his life to Jesus Christ and experienced an onslaught of spiritual opposition.  But, he came what he believes was a 30-day time of testing, and is devoted to teaching Christians spiritual strategies to walk in victory over the powers of darkness.  

And, he likens Christians celebrating Halloween to, as the article describes it, "cheating on Jesus." He says, "I teach believers because from October 1 through October 31, that's witchcraft month; it's the high season of witchcraft." The Christian Post piece also notes, "Ramirez revealed that when he was a satanist, the month of October was when he'd perform ceremonies, rituals, and receive recipes from demons in spiritualism."

John Ramirez has been involved in ministry for some 20 years now, and no doubt, he has a desire to teach and equip the Church. He says, “We need to put the devil in his place. We need to expose the devil. We need to take care of generational curses. We need to take care of infirmity devils. We need to take care of stronghold bondages of every kind in our house, in our home, in our family..."

We have to admit that the devil is real and we can see his fingerprints in so much of our culture today.  We have to move beyond complaining and start conquering through Jesus the damage that the enemy has done, appropriating what Christ has done for us.  That begins with prayer and involves standing against the spiritual forces that are at play attempting to oppose the work of God.

It is important that our choices regarding what we associate with are made in correlation with the teachings of the Scriptures.  While there is temptation all around, we can make the decision about the degree of our exposure.  We must take great care to not only recognize the work of the enemy, but to resist him, as the Scriptures teach.