What to Do with a Thief

We need to complete the bruising process Jesus began.  Make sure your feet are properly shod.

Text for Today – John 10:10 – The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

From our Text for Today we can easily conclude who the thief is and who the Blesser is.  We also clearly see what both the thief and the Blesser desire to do in our lives.  I can’t speak for you, but for me, I want the Blesser working in my life, and desire no part of the thief at all.  I don’t know anyone in his right mind who wants a thief in his life, especially the thief in our Text for Today.  Once again we can plainly see what his intentions are.  He, the thief, Satan, comes only to steal, to kill, and to destroy. 

Jesus taught us in Mark 4 that Satan comes immediately to steal the Word when it is sown in our heart.  If he cannot steal the Word, then he seeks to destroy it with persecution and afflictions.  If he cannot accomplish that, he then seeks to destroy its fruitfulness by choking it out with the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts of other things, and the cares of life.  If he fails there, then the Word produces in our life, thirty, sixty, and one-hundred fold.

So, what do we do with a thief?  First of all, make sure the Word sown in your life is sown upon good ground from which Satan cannot readily steal it.  Then begin to apply the spiritual pressure on your enemy that Jesus has empowered us to use.  He has given us the keys of the kingdom.  Note here, He has given us the keys OF the kingdom, not TO the kingdom.  If you have a key TO my house, you can get inside.  However, if you have the keys OF my house, not only can you get inside, but you can freely go anywhere you like inside my house, and access everything in it.  Now think of the tremendous empowerment that is ours by having been given the keys OF the kingdom.

While a single page devotion is not room enough to share all the ways you can exercise your power over Satan, it does permit space to initiate that work.  With the keys Jesus has given you, you have the authority to bind or loose spiritual forces and beings.  The work of binding and loosing what is necessary to be bound or loosed in heaven has already taken place.  But what needs to be bound or loosed in the earth is your responsibility.  It’s like team roping in a rodeo.  One rider ropes the steer’s head, and the other his hind feet, thus rendering the steer helpless.  Well, Jesus has bruised Satan’s head; now it’s up to the body of Christ to bruise the other end.  So, bind that thief, loose everything he has stolen, and walk in your divinely given authority as a joint-heir with Jesus.

Manna for Today – Matthew 18:18; Matthew 16:17-20