Stronghold of Passivity/Fatalism by Sam Poe

Sam Poe telling a story

Recap: Satan gets into our lives by us believing lies through culture and habitual sinning. We come to believe a lie because we’ve been deeply sinned against. They form strongholds in our lives. The enemy can influence us even though we are Christians. We need to believe God’s word. It exposes the lie and can be demolished.

Sam went on to recap the story of Adam and Eve. Eve ate the fruit in the presence of Adam who did nothing. This is a sexist statement but passivity is found mainly in men. They struggle with it. Adam fell into this in the Garden of Eden when Eve ate the fruit. Satan was lying to Eve and tempted her to eat the fruit. She was seduced by the lie and what did Adam do? He didn’t do anything. He was watching the whole thing. That is passivity in a sinful way. Why didn’t he do anything?

Men are called to be leaders and to take the lead lovingly in families, to lead their wives and protect them. Sometimes men have a huge battle here and can fall into one of two things:
1. They abuse their wives in a bid to show their authority.
2. When they should take the lead lovingly, they do nothing.

Men are made to be problem solvers. When he can fix a problem, he does it and feels good. When a man faces a problem he doesn’t know what to do, instead of taking the lead, he does nothing. Adam wasn’t sure what to do. He is confused and doesn’t do anything. It’s the worst decision he could have made, Almost anything would have been better than nothing.

Men, as leaders, if you don’t know what to do, ask God for wisdom and DO something. The stronghold of passivity is a problem. Men are called to be leaders of their families, leaders of the church and the enemy knows this. The enemy brings in lies and this breeds fear in the heart. Men think they no matter what they do, it won’t make a difference. This is the lie of fatalism. It can develop early from the culture we grow up in.

Sam Poe sharing on the Stronghold of passivity

James 4:7 – 8a “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you,…..”We can submit to God and resist every evil spirit that is not of Him. We need to trust God and have confidence in Him who has given us all authority to cast out evil spirits. As Christians we have choices: we choose to follow God, we choose to resist the devil. We can no longer claim that the spirits made us do certain things because this is a lie. It’s important to see that God has given us authority Luke 10:20. We go through battles in this life, difficulties, circumstances that can discourage us but we need to ask God for wisdom and find a way forward.

Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

 

 

 

summarised by molly manhanga