"STOP, DON'T YIELD!"

Praise the Lord, Chosen Women!

Blessed Monday to YOU! I know that many of us are in or preparing to go into New Year consecrations. I pray that you be strengthened to endure. It is fasting time, saints! God is ready to do great exploits amongst His people. I saw a great demonstration yesterday, and God said to me, "This is because of the fast!" God is faithful to His Word -- some things are not going to move until and unless we fast and pray! (Matt.17:21)

Today's message of encouragement came to me from a study I recently did on sin. I came across this quote in a study tool, "Adam's sin (Gen. 3:1-6) consisted in his yielding to the assaults of temptation and eating the forbidden fruit. It involved in it, (1) the sin of unbelief, virtually making God a liar; and (2) the guilt of disobedience to a positive command. By this sin he became an apostate from God, a rebel in arms against his Creator. He lost the favor of God and communion with him; his whole nature became depraved, and he incurred the penalty involved in the covenant of works."

As I read and re-read this paragraph what was illuminated to me was a single word -- YIELDING. I thought, "Yielding is what opened the door to all the suffering of mankind!" So, as is my custom, that sent me on a word search! So much revelation comes from simple definitions. Words have the power to heal and to deliver. (Psalm 107:20)

I found that YIELD means -- to produce something; to give something a result; to give a profit; to not be firm or solid; to  stop resisting; to surrender; to pass something on to somebody!

My Lord, I can do a whole message on YIELD! As I have said many times, temptation is not sin. Sin is produced through yielding to temptation. Once we yield to temptation, we must understand that our yielding is going to produce something. The unfortunate thing is that the resulting product is not of benefit to the Lord's side.

When we yield to sin it is as though we just made a beautiful layup for the enemy and sunk a 2 pointer for him. Yielding to sin gives profit to the enemy! I refuse to play on the enemy's team!

When I decide to stop being firm and solid on sin I have just then settled into lukewarmness and am on my way to being vomited out of the mouth of the Lord. Saints, yielding means we have stopped resisting and are now surrendering to the apathetic, limp-wristed, frightened, sub-standard, no standard, weak Christianity that some still have the audacity to label as holiness. I will not be party to this! I am going to heed Joshua 1:7, "Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest."

Yielding will not cause us to prosper -- yielding gives way to forbidden fruit and destiny lost. I choose to sware to my own hurt and keep standing. What about you?

In Service for the Master,
Evangelist Lisa Y. Mitchell