DEEP - Week 2
Day 3
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.” - Luke 11:24–26
We can clean things up without ever filling the empty space. We can stop an old behavior, leave an old environment, or walk away from an old life and still discover that something inside us is waiting to go backward.
Jesus gives us a serious warning.
An impure spirit leaves a person and later returns.
When it comes back, the house is clean.
Everything is put in order.
But there is a problem.
The house is unoccupied.
Satan always comes back to a house that may be cleansed but is still unoccupied.
That helps us understand why following Jesus requires more than stopping bad things.
Something has to fill us.
The Word has to go deep.
We cannot simply clean out the old and then leave our hearts empty.
If our lives are not occupied and filled with the Word, the enemy will attempt to rush back in to steal, kill, and destroy.
This is why obedience can be difficult.
We may sincerely want change while underestimating how deeply old ways have shaped us.
Simon illustrates this.
Simon had genuinely experienced a dramatic change.
He believed.
He was baptized.
He followed Philip.
But Simon had spent years practicing sorcery and receiving attention.
People had revered him.
He had money.
He had influence.
He had been important.
Then Peter and John came to Samaria.
They prayed for the believers, laid hands on them, and the believers received the Holy Spirit.
Simon saw something happen.
And suddenly something from his old life began surfacing again.
Simon offered Peter and John money and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
There it was.
The old thinking.
Simon had been very familiar with the supernatural. Ancient magicians bought, borrowed, and copied from one another. Spells, potions, and tricks were carefully guarded, but they could be bought for the right price.
Now Simon sees God moving, and his old way of thinking tells him:
Maybe this can be bought too.
The old habits were creeping back.
Satan was beginning to steal the Word.
And Peter immediately confronted him:
“May our money perish with us, because we thought we could buy the gift of God with money!”
Peter goes straight after Simon’s thoughts.
That is significant.
God’s Word is what gets our thinking right.
Simon believed.
Simon was baptized.
But Simon’s thoughts were still being influenced by the old Simon.
That is the tension we have to recognize in ourselves.
We can experience God and still have thoughts that need changing.
We can leave something behind and still have an appetite for it.
We can clean the house without filling the house.
That is why some of us are going to need a deeper level of commitment.
A five-minute Beyond Sunday recording six days a week may not be enough for some of us.
Listening to a worship song on the way to work and calling it quiet time may not be enough.
Some of us have been exposed to too much.
Some patterns run deep.
Some appetites have been fed too long.
Sometimes living the lie can even feel easier than doing the work required for freedom.
Many of us will have to pay a heavy discipleship price for our deliverance.
Simon needed to build for what was coming.
He did not.
We cannot make the same mistake.
We need the Word occupying our minds.
We need the Word filling our lives.
We need God clearing out the old stuff and filling us with more of Him.
Because being cleansed is not the finish line.
We need to be filled.
WATCH THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE HERE: https://youtu.be/o2mLEz0ZpTo?si=dT6ZvLDylPv9Z7Sg
