2023 Our Biggest Year in the Lord, Ep 2-1
Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this first episode of our second season of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies in 2023, we are going to set ourselves up for our biggest, our best, our deepest relationship in the Lord that you have ever had.
We have covered a lot of territory in 2022. We have talked about a lot of demons, which we will continue to do in 2023. We have talked about how demons work, we have met several people along the way and heard their stories. I’ve shared a lot of my own stories, but really, guys we are just beginning.
We ended 2022 with our series focusing on 7 demons that challenge us and weigh us down and working to get those out of our way. So how are we going to start 2023? Well, we are going to start it together. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus tells us, “where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am with them.” So where we are going from here we are not doing alone. Everything leading up to this point has been setting a groundwork. So if you haven’t listened to all the episodes, make the time to go back and listen because there are principles in every episode that we want to have in place.
What is the most fundamental thing we need to know in order to be able to conquer our unseen enemies? This one fundamental thing that if we do not have an understanding of it in place, we will never prevail against the enemy because we won’t have any authority. Without a belief in this one thing, everything else we think we know has nothing to support it? You might be thinking Jesus, or the crucifixion or the resurrection. Those are great answers, but those answers still rest upon this one fundamental thing. This one thing is what the Lord revealed to me that He wanted us to discuss as we step into 2023.
For the answer, let’s see what Paul tells the Ephesians in Chapter 4. This past summer I visited Ephesus and in the next weeks we will be sharing our visit there on our YouTube Channel, so if you want to see that check out “Life Journey with Dawn Simmons”. So Ephesians, Chapter 4. The Chapter is titled, Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ. Let’s start at verse 4, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, (and this is the part where we are going to focus,) one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. That’s it guys, one God, and through Him, we have Jesus and the Holy Spirit. There is a lot of confusion out there on who God is, and therefore who Jesus is. We have to know that. We have to know with every ounce of our being that our world, our universe was created exactly the way God describes it to Moses in the book of Genesis. We have to know without any hesitation that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the prophesies in the Old Testament of a Savior. We have to know without question that the Holy Spirit is the complete and perfect Helper Jesus tells us is coming to us once he was transfigured. All of these things we have to know as well as we know our own voice, our own face, our own name.
Why are we talking about this now? You would have thought this message I would have started off with at the launch of this podcast. No, it wasn’t time yet. All of the episodes prior to this one were to lay a groundwork, to show you and tell you and for some, to help you clean things out, recognize and identify what is happening in your life and your house. We will continue to build on that groundwork and expose the enemy so we can evict him, but we have so much more we can do and it starts with our relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
In order to be able to move forward in understanding what happens in the Spirit Realm, we have to be solid in our understanding of who God is, who Jesus is and who the Holy Spirit is in our lives, in the world and in the church. There is a massive amount of division in the church today. Part of that is because we don’t all believe in the true God of the Universe. We as a global Christian church don’t truly know who he is and that has to change and I am asking that to begin with you. I am going to ask you to make some changes this year that will develop your relationship with the Lord and if you commit to it, 2023 will be your biggest, your best your deepest relationship with the Lord you have ever had. Through that relationship we will be able to develop the gift of discernment. We will be able to focus this year on recognizing the enemy working in your life early, before he has a chance to cause damage. Developing your relationship will help you discern the Lord’s voice through all others. Can you say with certainty that you know when the Lord is talking to you, and that every time it is Him, not you? Maybe you can’t hear the Lord yet. I can teach you about every single demon that exists, at least once the Lord reveals them all to me, but how much better to be able to hear the Lord and begin to move as the Holy Spirit directs.
The episodes this year will cover numerous topics as we learn more about conquering the enemy and his tactics, develop our own discernment, develop our abilities to hear from the Lord and understand who He is and when the Holy Spirit is prompting you. We will also discuss topics like Curses and Blessings so we understand how our actions affect what occurs in the Spirit Realm. We will talk about the Courtrooms of Heaven and how the Accuser works against us. We have so much to discuss this year. Are you with me?
Now I said earlier that I was going to ask you to make some changes this year. I am not going to ask for a bunch of changes at once. I only ask two things of you for now. We will build as we go through 2023. Understand that I am not one who does New Years resolutions. I figure if it is a change I need to make, then I should have made it regardless of the date. So what I am asking is not a New Years Resolution. I am asking you to start a new life in 2023. In this new life I only ask 2 simple things of you. These two simple things are immensely important and if you do not do these 2 things, what we will be building will not have a foundation, so it won’t work. Two things.
First, I am going to ask you to take a minimum of 15 minutes a day, just 15 minutes, to read the Bible. If you do more, great, if you do none, then find 15 minutes at least. It is an investment of your time you will not regret. Now let’s say you can’t do everyday because of your schedule, then make up that 15 minutes on another day. The important part is consistency. So it needs to be on your calendar in some way that means you are consistently spending time, uninterrupted time reading. If you do not have an active Bible reading plan then do 1 of 2 things, start in Genesis or start in Matthew. If you put in 15 minutes you should be able to read about 2 chapters depending on if you read study notes. Even if you have read the Bible 10 times, still do it. We are building something here and reading is important. Or, get a different translation, get a different study Bible, do something differently. I am mentoring a theology student right now and I have asked the same thing of her and for her I actually said, do not read the study notes, just read for relaxation. Can you do that? Can you put in 15 minutes of reading time each day or a consistent equivalent depending on your schedule? As long as it’s multiple times throughout the week, not all on one day, it won’t have the same effect if it’s a weekly long read. So can you do that? I am just going to assume you said yes and move on to the second ask.
So second. I am asking for another 15 minutes. This time, however, I ask that you just pray. Now we are not talking about 15 minutes of praying for other people, 15 minutes of praying for your needs, or 15 minutes of praying for that new job you want. Nothing like that. I want you to just pray and speak to the Lord from the heart. We aren’t asking for anything, we are just spending time with Him. If my grandfather were still alive, I would love 15 minutes of a conversation from the heart. If my sister were still alive I would love 15 minutes of conversation from the heart. Although, in both cases I am sure I would be asking questions about heaven, so maybe that wasn’t a good example, but I think you get my point. Just be with Jesus, no agenda, just be. You can even spend that 15 minutes just singing to Him if you want, it’s about quality time. I want you to get that in as a habit. For some people, they spend their commute time as their alone time. Just do it. This one, however, I don’t want you to double up on other days. This one should be done everyday no exceptions. You will need this later. We are developing habits. In order to know when you are hearing the Holy Spirit as we move forward, this is necessary. Are you with me?
That’s it. That’s all I ask of you and I guarantee if you do this consistently, you will see change happening. We are going somewhere with this and we are not doing it alone. Jesus will be walking with us this year as we develop our relationship with Him and no matter what you are going through, you will know He is with you.
Ok, so what do we need to have in place today to move forward and develop our relationship? This is essentially our Top Show Points.
1. Understand what Paul is saying in Ephesians 4:4-6. Take that scripture and pray on that this week if it will help you to focus on who God is in our lives, who Jesus is in our lives and who the Holy Spirit is in our lives.
2. Find 15 minutes a day for reading the Bible. Start reading and stay consistent. If you can do more, great, but at least start with the 15 minutes.
3. Find 15 minutes a day for prayer time, alone time with the Lord. Just sharing your heart and spending quality time with Him.
4. Commit to listening to this podcast because we are building our relationship with the Lord to be bigger and better and deeper than it has ever been before. Reminds me of that old song, deep and wide. I think I sang it in Sunday school as a kid. That’s the attitude we need to have right now, like a kid coming to the Lord to build our deep and wide. Anyhow, we will cover a variety of topics intended to develop discernment, gain knowledge in the Spirit Realm and know without a doubt when the Lord is speaking to you versus your own voice.
I want to leave you with a story, a miraculous story to encourage you to commit to what I am asking of you and move forward in developing your relationship this year.
I have shared with you that I mentor people and this particular woman we will of course call, Jane, came to me as pretty much a clean slate. No knowledge of the spirit realm, just wanted to learn more about the Bible and developing her relationship with the Holy Spirit. This was probably into the second year of working with her and I could see she was wanting to learn more about the spirit realm, so I began to share more with her and tell her about how powerful prayer can be and that in times of need, prayer can make anything possible. I don’t know how much I have shared with you about my gifts, but I will tell you now that I am a seer, I can see in the spirit realm and so I have shared with her my stories of what I have seen. When I mentor someone I share everything about an event so there is a complete understanding of how, when, where, why, whatever relates. All of that is important for development of the person. So the story begins with her and her family on a trip with their truck, a dually I think, pulling their 5th wheel I believe it was in Northern CA. They were in a remote area and they were in desperate need of gas. I shared in another podcast a similar story involving a gas station, which I am not sharing here, but if you heard it in the previous podcast you know what happened there and she knew that story. I know that story was pretty difficult to believe but when Jane was going through her situation here she remembered that story. At the time Jane was going through this, she was working on her faith. That is important to know. Anyhow, so they were in a remote area and the truck was on E, the stress was high as you can imagine. So Jane did the only thing she knew to do, she prayed. She prayed they would make it to a gas station, but she knew the nearest gas station was several miles a way, I want to say it was about 30 miles away. I shared with you the truck and trailer situation so if you are familiar with that setup, they were getting I want to say it was something like 8 miles to the gallon and they were already on E, so to get another 30 miles was not going to happen in the natural. But, Jane prayed. There literally was nothing else she could do in that situation. Her husband I think talked about parking and walking and that was just not a safe thing to do so she asked for the Lord to help them make it to the gas station. She took a stand on her faith and just believed. When we stand on our faith and just believe the Lord will be there for us to meet our needs, He will show up. It isn’t always the way we want it or how we think it should be, but He shows up. For Jane, the Lord showing up took the form of an angel, an angel that she could see in front of their truck pulling their truck. They were completely out of gas, but the truck was still moving forward at the same speed because this angel kept it moving. Jane had never seen an angel before and was completely astonished. I’m going on memory here but I believe Jane said it was about 15-20 minutes until they made it to a gas station. Once they made it, the angel was gone. I can tell you when Jane prayed, I don’t think she had any idea how the Lord would answer her prayer, she just knew he would.
I want that to be an encouragement to you that if you invest the time in the Lord, He will be there for you in ways you never imagined. Join me in 2023 to have this year be your biggest, best and deepest relationship with the Lord you have ever had let’s see how He moves in your life this year.
We encourage you:
· To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment.
Also, we just dropped a video from our Turkey travels on our YouTube Channel where we are doing a series on the 7 churches Jesus sends a message to in the Book of Revelation. Check it out!
Also, I want to encourage you to visit our website and join our Warrior community. I am working on planning some live events and the only way to be included in that is to be a part of our Warrior Community. Just visit our website, www.conqueringourunseenenemies.com, and join from the Home page or the Resources page.
I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!
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