God makes kingdom leaders aware of dominant spiritual conditions in their assigned areas in ways that I call “shared spiritual experience.” In an intercessory context, you experience the spiritual condition so that you can fully recognize and understand it by personal experience. In this way, leaders can discern the difference between the influence of principalities and demonic spirits and the responses of people to those spiritual conditions: a work of darkness and a work of flesh are not the same thing.
Kingdom leaders recognize demons by the dominant traits of their characters. The “spirit of fear” identifies a demonic condition produced by the character of a demon at work; the spiritual condition the demon produces is fear. A leader experiences this because of the position of authority, the authority of assignment; he or she has to confront it.
God begins with personal victory over that spirit. Some aspect of the greater spiritual condition operates in the personal sphere of influence the kingdom has been assigned. As David overcame the roar of lion and bear, he was prepared to face the roar of Goliath; having become expert with the weapon he possessed, he was prepared to wield the sword of a giant.
The stirring a kingdom leader feels, experiencing the dominant spiritual condition at work in his sphere of influence allow him or her to discern by shared spiritual experience what that spirit is and how it works. He or she becomes more aware of its character than ever.
The overcomers that Jesus identified in the seven Ecclesias as John recorded in The Revelation represent those with kingdom assignments, leaders with authority to overcome the dominant spiritual condition of their arenas of spirit. They become the leaders who can overcome by overcoming victories in their own lives and spheres of influence. They mature their leadership by facing the lions and bears of their own valleys so they can run into the valley of giants.
The enemy will always become overconfident of his authority; the demonic both whines and boasts out of proportion to its true measurement of power. Demons are overly optimistic, and they overplay their hand in ways that expose them and their strategies to discerning leaders. What the enemy assumes is victory is really exposure.
The enemy you see is the next enemy you defeat! The enemy overplays his hand and exposes himself. The kingdom leader immediately discerns the vulnerability because of his personal experience of this type or character of demonic activity and strategy. The stone is released. The giant falls. The sword of the giant becomes the sword of the kingdom leader who holds the giant’s head in his hand. At that point, another roar is heard as the army that has been waiting for a champion rushes into the valley to press the battle to greater victory in thousands of kingdom people.
Kingdom leader, What is Your strategy to defeat this enemy? And, what is your assignment in that strategy? What is the next step toward the finished victory? What have you already learned about how this demonic strategy affects people and the dominant spiritual condition of your assigned sphere of influence?
The victory is already there in the Cross but must be applied and appropriated in you so it can be released through you. Of course, you aren’t to carry the whole load yourself, personally, but you do have a specific, vital strategic part in kingdom leadership for the victory.
How do you know you have the strategy? Holy Spirit and confirmation of spiritual leaders will convince you. So convinced that you will experience boldness to execute God’s judgment against this work of hell in your region. The Ecclesia Jesus builds displaces the authorities of hell to work: you establish kingdom and Jesus builds His Ecclesia.
This spiritual condition is ancient. The condition has an ancient source in the rulers of the whole region. So, God will give us a strategy that will “hit the forehead of the giant.”
What is the opposite spirit? If fear, expect a flow of supernatural love, power, and a healthy mind. If perversion, expect a flow of covenantal loyalty. If death, expect a flow of resurrection life. If despair, expect a flow of hope. Never operate in the same spiritual condition with the idea that you will out-fear the enemy or out-despair the enemy. “Overcome evil with good.”
