“Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.” Luke 11:26 (ESV)
If we don’t occupy in this day what it will be seven times worse than it is now! God is moving. He is and will continue to do His part, but we are not just along as passenger spectators! After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness Joshua hears from the Lord. “Arise, get ready for in three days you will cross over into the promised land” (Joshua 1). Joshua responded immediately. He didn’t question how these former migrant slaves would become a mighty army to destroy those currently in the land. No! Joshua obeyed immediately. They crossed over a flooded swollen river and then marched around a walled city. Impossible stuff, but had they not responded in absolute obedience we would not have this amazing story in our history books! CS Lewis said something to the effect that every square inch of our universe is under contest. It is either occupied by the devil’s kingdom or God’s! The determining factor is what we do!
Jesus said that when you cast a demon out you must fill that spot, occupy it with the Holy Spirit. Unless you do that, the person will end up worse than they were, in fact seven times worse! As God moves in our land, unless we follow Him, doing our part and occupy, things could be worse than before. The church needs to mobilize, evangelize and do things differently than we did 2 years ago! Just being back in your Sunday services is not enough. What got us here will only keep us here!
Pray for a holy boldness to come upon the true church as it did upon Joshua and his people. Pray that your church would not simply do as it did in the previous wilderness season. Pray for your pastor to be gripped with a responsibility to reach and transform our city, and not just go back to where we were in pre-Covid slavery. We cannot co-exist with the devil in our city. Pray for churches to step into revival mode! Ask God to pour out His Spirit on our city and to remove every barrier keeping people from responding to the Gospel. Pray that all of Athens would be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit!
