You're Strong Enough (5 page)

Return with Honor

The last thing our Heavenly Father tells us before we begin our quest here on Earth is to return with honor. What does that mean exactly? Does it mean we have to be perfect on our quest? No. It means we must try and use all of the tools our Father has given us: gifts, talents, strengths, armor, light of Christ, and the Spirit to overcome Satan, while trying not to do too much damage to ourselves or others. Returning with honor means we have fought a good fight and returned home victorious.

When all is said and done, our Heavenly Father wants to be proud of us and our actions for overcoming our trials and challenges while honestly trying to do our best. He knows we will get bruised and sometimes beaten (overcome). God just doesn’t want us to dance with the Devil most of our life and then at the end think we can just repent (on our death bed), say we’re sorry and feel we are worthy to receive our eternal reward as heirs. He understands that we will mess up many times in our lives. But He doesn’t want us to abuse our free agency and hurt others deeply. Returning with honor is basically repenting for our wrongs, striving to do better, and being honest while doing it.

What righteous king would crown a prince or princess who wasted their quest to living it up in sin, revenge, murder, selfishness, and all other acts conceived by Satan? God wants us to give our best efforts and repent when we fall.
He wants us to build character, find compassion, love the less fortunate, fight for the weak and humbly seek His guidance, so we can return with
honor.

After our Heavenly Father’s final counsel to each of us, He sends us on our way to begin our quest here on Earth. He tells us it is a quest that will never be matched. One with mists of darkness, dragons, deception, temptation, cliffs, uphill battles, scrapes, cuts, wounds, narrow paths, dark dungeons and evil lurking everywhere. Though Satan has planned well for trying to make us fail, God gave us what we would need to succeed: The armor of God, light of Christ, strengths, talents, gifts, the Spirit, prayer, family, and, ultimately, Jesus Christ our Savior.

Your Quest Begins

Your first quest
is to gather proof that you are a child of God and that you are of royal birth. You can find this out by reading the scripture below, praying and noticing how you feel.

Remember in Romans 8:17 the Bible tells us, “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. Ask God if this is true.

Your second quest
is to write down how you feel about being an heir of God. Write down how it makes you feel to know you are a prince or princes of the Heavenly King. What does knowing this do for your confidence and self-esteem? Would you treat yourself better and make wise chooses if you knew you were royalty? Picture yourself as Royalty here on Earth, would your life be different? Why?

Your third quest
is to ask God if Satan is real. Is he our enemy and the one we must conquer? Write down how knowing Satan is real will help you when temptation comes.

Will knowing that Satan wants you to fail make you want to succeed even more? What does knowing Satan wants to knock you off your potential throne and be as miserable as him do for you?

Your final quest
is to ask if this quest is real, if you are on this Earth to be tested to prove yourself worthy as an heir in His Kingdom. Then write down how many pieces of the armor of God you are currently using. If you are not currently using many, commit to adding some in your life.

As we invite God in our life, and use the tools He has given, we will not only feel closer and more secure with Him, but stronger in defeating the dragon, Satan.

You are of royal
birth

You did succeed in your first
quest

You are strong enough to succeed in your second quest here on
Earth

The Purpose of Life

E
xcitement filled the air as we were getting ready to leave the presence of our Heavenly Father, the King of Heaven and Earth, to begin our quest—a quest unmatched to anything we had been through thus far.
This quest on Earth is for continued freedom of choice, for knowledge, for learning and growth, and, ultimately, to be heirs to the Kingdom of
God.

As we are getting ready to leave, our Heavenly Father reminds us that once we are on Earth, we have two main reasons for being there. The first reason is to receive a physical body. The second is to be tested to see if we will do all that we can to prove ourselves worthy to return to our Heavenly Father as heirs in His Kingdom.

Physical body

All those who proved themselves worthy in their first test as Warriors of Light, fighting for the freedom of choice and being on the winning side, were each knighted with a body. The passing of our first estate is mentioned in Abr. 3:26, “And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon…”

This knighting of a body opened up a whole new world to us. For when we were spirits living with our Heavenly Father, we could only experience and feel so much. However, when we were knighted with a body, our feelings and experiences were enhanced a hundredfold. We could now feel and experience all emotions and temptations to their fullest. Being knighted with our bodies allowed us to feel more joy, happiness, love, pleasure, sensation and passion. But, it also allowed us to feel more sadness, hate, remorse, guilt, and shame than our spirits ever could.

Our bodies brought not only enhanced emotion, but new experiences of health, strength, and power, as well as the frailties of pain, illness, weakness and temptation.
Being knighted with a body because of our valiancy in the Preexistence was truly one of the ultimate rewards from our Father in Heaven
, as stated in 1 Cor. 6:19–20, “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God…” Our bodies are so special it is compared to God’s temple.

Being knighted with the body is such a special gift from God. It is one that Satan and the other one-third of his followers will never receive. Since our bodies are a gift from God, God asks us to take special care of them. If you were given a new Lamborghini how would you treat this car? Would you take it four-wheeling, or write graffiti on it, or put water in it instead of gasoline? I dare say you wouldn’t.

Well, our body should be treated with as much care and respect as you would the Lamborghini, one of the world’s most expensive cars. For God views your body as one of His greatest creations and most expensive gifts. No other vessel could be used to go on such a difficult and taxing quest. Nor could you feel and experience all the emotions of joy, happiness, pleasure and pain without your body. Therefore, be kind to it. Be healthy. Take heed of what you put into it, what you write on it and what you fuel it with. Remember this is the only body you will ever be knighted with here on Earth.

To make this gift of our body last forever, our Heavenly Father, through His son, Jesus Christ, has made a way for us after we die to be restored to our physical body once again through resurrection. We will receive not a body that is bruised, broken, or missing limbs, but a body perfect, untouched, equally proportionate and potentially as radiant as the sun. All those who were knighted with a body will be restored to their body again after they die, as a gift for their valiancy in the Preexistence. Resurrection as a free gift is referenced in Acts 24:15, “…that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.”

Whether we make right choices or not, and whether we return home as a worthy heirs or not, once knighted with a body, this gift will never be taken away.
Satan knows this. He is extremely angry that he will never receive a body, so beware. This dragon of lies and deception and bitterness will try to do everything in his power to have you destroy your gift through unhealthy habits, abusive actions and riotous living. This evil dragon will do anything he can to breathe out fire (temptations) in order to help you destroy your body here on Earth and, ultimately, to knock you off your potential throne.

Taking care of our body is part of our quest. The other part is to see what choices we will make when obstacles befall us while on our path home.

Free Agency – The Power of Choice

Remember, during the war in Heaven, we fought over free agency—not over receiving a physical body, but over the power to choose. Ask yourself: Why do you think we fought so valiantly to make our own choices and Satan, with his one-third, fought so valiantly to choose for us?
It’s because there is an energy created when we make choices. That energy produces a type of power inside each of us; it drives us to live and be free.
Try and think of a time when you weren’t given a choice because it was forced on you. Didn’t you feel powerless in that moment? The reason you felt powerless and helpless is because the power of choosing for your life was given to another.

Satan still wants power over our choices. He will slowly and cunningly try to be the puppeteer in our lives through deceit, temptation and negative emotions. Therefore, when we choose what is wrong, we give our power away to Satan. When we choose what is right, we keep the power within ourselves.
When we make choices—whether good or bad—those choices have the power to shape us into whom and what we will
become.

Remember, you fought valiantly in the Preexistence for the freedom of choice. Will you do it again here? Will you keep the power within by cutting the strings of deception that Satan is trying to attach to your soul? Or, will you continue to ignore the fact that he has become your puppeteer because of the poor choices you have made? These poor choices have limited your freedom, just like being puppeted. This quest is yours. Only you have the power within to be successful.

All those who were knighted with a body (i.e., all humans on Earth) were also given free agency. The Lord describes free agency in Abr. 3:25, “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.” Free agency is simply the right to choose between right and wrong. Free agency enables us to make choices every day—whether big or small—that can impact our lives. Because of free agency, we have the option of choosing to use the armor of God, listen to the Spirit, counsel with our parents, make wise choices and stay true to our course. The choice is always ours.
Remember, the freedom of choice is what we fought for in the Preexistence, will you continue to fight for it
here?

Put on the Whole Armour of God in order to Quench Satan’s Lies.

When we were placed on this Earth and sent on this quest, the war began again for Satan. It’s a different war. This time we already have our free agency. However, Satan is still out there trying to do whatever he can to take it away from us through deception, temptation and confusion. When we fall into his trap, we are giving him our free agency and limiting our choices. For example, if you allow yourself to be trapped in a corner (because of poor choices) with the dragon facing you and watching every move, you’ll find your choices have now become limited (i.e. jail, probation, addiction).

Throughout our quest, we will face obstacles, trials, challenges and darkness. These challenges will try to get in our way of completing our task. What is our task? Our task is simply to overcome the obstacles, trials, challenges, and mists of darkness by using our free agency, talents, gifts, strengths, armor, and the Spirit, so that we might come out victorious in the end.

So let’s begin this quest with knowledge. Knowledge of how Satan does his thing and where he hides, and how Jesus Christ does His thing and is out in the open to help us.

Satan

Satan’s plan and main purpose is to do whatever he can to help us destroy our bodies through misuse, destroy our minds through confusion and hopelessness, and destroy our happiness through anger, revenge and hate. Satan still wants power over our wills and choices. He tries subtly to be our puppeteer by using sin, anger and misuse of our free agency. Therefore, we need to watch carefully with both eyes open when making choices. Will this choice lead me closer to my goal of conquering this quest? Or will this choice allow Satan to be the puppeteer in my future decisions?