Fight BackSample

After crossing the Jordan River into the promised land, Joshua had all the men of Israel circumcised. That's a painful procedure. Now, compare that with Israel crossing the Red Sea.  A few days after that incredible miracle of escaping through the sea, the people who were delivered complained. That was painful for God to hear. The ex-slaves complained, but the soldiers got circumcised. 

Complaining brings pain to God; circumcision brings pain to the flesh. God was teaching a new generation that before they can have dominion over their enemy, they must conquer their own flesh by bringing it into subjection. Before we can ever subdue the Canaanites, we must subject our carnal desires to the will of God. That my friend is painful. 

That’s what Joshua commanded his men to do. Before they were about to embark on the battlefield against the enemy, they had to defeat an inner enemy called the flesh. Circumcising of the foreskin removed the “reproach of Egypt from the camp of Israel” (Joshua 5:9). 

• Deliverance gets the demons out, but discipline keeps them out. 
• Deliverance is what God does for you; discipline is what God does inside you.
• Discipline is absolutely essential to walking in dominion. 

You can’t aimlessly watch what you watch, listen to what you listen to, hang out with whom you hang out and still expect to walk in victory. There is a cutting that must take place for those who are called to conquer. Some can’t conquer their enemy because their flesh hasn’t been cut off.  They can’t live for the Savior because they are not dead to their “self.”

To walk in dominion, we must cut away complaining because complaining is to the devil what worship is to God.