I want to exhort you on how to breakthrough dark barriers and I would be drawing my lessons from the lives of Job, Joseph, and Daniel. These are men who broke through the influence of darkness. These are men who lived in places of darkness and faced great temptations from darkness, yet they prevailed.
We have no doubt that we are fighting against darkness and we must breakthrough. We want to study the life of Job, Joseph, and Daniel to understand how they broke through the dark barriers of their time. There is so much that is against the people of God.
There are two main types of barriers that we must breakthrough:
- Active barriers
- Passive barriers
There are types when you know that you are up against a wall but there are other times when you are unaware because of the seeming freedom you enjoy. Even though we can all easily see that there was something wrong with the life of Job; it takes a lot of discernment to recognise that something was wrong with Daniel too.
Job was faced with active barriers of loss, sickness, pain, anxiety, rejection and affliction. We all know that he was faced with affliction, but the story was not the same with Daniel. Though Daniel was carried away captive, he attended the best school, ate from the king’s table, had audience with the eunuch, and lived in his own house; yet he had real dark barriers to confront.
How did they break through the dark barriers?
1. They served God out of a pure heart and motives:
The Bible teaches us to “call upon God with those who do so out of a pure heart”. There are times when many people fail because their motives are wrong. If Job had any other motive for serving God, he would have failed the integrity test!
The real test was about loyalty and faithfulness. Why are we serving God? Are our motives right? The devil accused Job that he was serving God because of things God had given him. Yet Job passed that test and proved that he was serving God because He is God!
2. They had faith in faithfulness:
All three men; Job, Daniel and Joseph, broke through darkness because they had faith in the rewards of faithfulness. These men served with faithfulness and loyally. They had faith in the rewards of loyalty; we will also win when we walk with God faithfully!
3. They were patient:
It will take both faith and patience to win the war and the battle against darkness. We must break through the walls of darkness! We must fight until the barriers crash! It will take patience. A man with a hasty spirit will be poor. He will not win.
4. They prayed without ceasing:
These men and women had a consistent prayer life. They won the battle on their knees. They were in charge because they took charge. The battle is fought better on the knees and the prayer chamber. All these three were men of prayer!
They did not err with their words. Proverb 29:20 teaches that there is more hope for a fool than for a man that is hasty with words. You must learn to bridle your tongue and not speak hastily.
God bless you for reading this message, and may you be even more blessed as you put these 4 keys into practice!
Stay blessed
