Jordan says, “People ask me if I think a Believer can be demon-possessed and, of course, the answer is no. But I can tell you a Believer today can be demon or devil-influenced, and they can be demon or devil-captured.

“Here’s the way—II Tim. 2:26: ‘And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.’

“A snare is a trap used to hold somebody so they can’t get away. A snare doesn’t kill you; it just holds you.

“There’s the old joke from years ago about the two raccoons that got caught in a trap; it snapped and clenched their rights paws. They realized that if they were still in their predicament come morning when the trapper arrived, they’d be dead meat.

“So, the female raccoon says, ‘Well, the only option we have is just to gnaw our leg off and live with three legs and not be killed.’ And the male raccoon agrees, ‘Okay, I can see that.’

“So, she gnawed her leg off and went on about her business and came back a half-hour later to find the male still in the trap.

“She says, ‘Well, I thought we agreed we’d gnaw our leg off and be free?!’ He answered, ‘Well, I’ve gnawed three of them off and I’m still in the trap!’

“Satan can’t kill you as a Believer, but he sure can snare you. He can cause you to be entrapped by error. Notice he takes you captive by ‘his will.’ Satan has a will for Believers.

“His opposing will for the Body of Christ is to neutralize you so you can’t effectively function as a member of the Body; you can’t function in the identity God’s given you. You get your mind off who you are in Christ, vacillate and move away.

“When Paul talks about ‘instructing those that oppose themselves,’ that’s the condition of a Believer under satanic influence. What does it mean when he says ‘oppose yourself’?

“It means you are one way—you’re a saint of the most high God—but you’re living another way as if you’re not. You live in opposition to who you really are. You’re saved but you’re living like you’re really lost. You’re living in the Spirit but walking in the flesh.”

*****

The Apostle Paul says the way you demonstrate the sincerity of what you’re doing as a Believer is not in any emotional release of the moment; it’s in the day-to-day living of life. He tells Philemon, “The communication of thy faith—I want it to become effectual.”

He writes in I Thess. 2:13, “When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”

Jordan says, “Working effectually means it gets inside of you and produces its work in you so that when your feet hit the ground, you’re off doing what God’s Word says you should be doing. How do you that?

“How do you get from where it’s just stuff you know in your head to stuff that lives in your life? Well, there’s one word and that one word’s not religion. It’s not rules and regulations and performance systems. The word is believe.

“The long and the short of it is, folks, when you read a verse of scripture, that verse says that this action and this attitude ought to be the action and attitude you take as a Believer because you’re a Believer and this is the way it should live in your life on a daily basis—this is what God would live in you and how He’d act in you.

“And when you don’t do that, you know why you don’t do that? Because you don’t believe the verse. That’s all there is to it. There’s not any other excuse. You’ve got misplaced dependencies. Your confidence is not in God’s Word, it’s not in who God’s made you in Christ; it’s in you, or someone else, or in what you want and not what God wants.

“You want the verses to work in your life—believe them! That’s all you got to do. The only response grace will accept is faith. And when you believe them, you know what they’ll do? They’ll transform your life into what they say. The reality of what they say will work in your life.”