So every area, you'll find God will give you the principles, but you figure out, you've got to be creative how you make it outwork. That's why we can't tell one another, what you ought to be doing in your marriage, what you ought to be doing in your family, you ought to do it this way or that way. You can't go doing it, because God's knitted couples together differently, so they'll have a lot of ways of handling things. There's a lot of ways, so God gives the principles, you've got to figure out how to put this thing into practice, and be creative, and take the initiative; and you ask God to give you wisdom. Then He expects you to think about it, and to talk it over, to ask ideas from this one and that one; then to do something, just do something. Passive men, oh my goodness me. I feel tired just even talking about it. [Laughter] Now you notice here he says: we stretch not ourselves beyond our measure. Now this is the apostle Paul talking. Now you think: here's someone, I've got the mighty power of God, there's all these miracles - but you notice this inside him. He says: I will not go out beyond what God has entrusted to me. I will stay within the boundaries God has given to me. He said: that, someone else is responsible for, this is my bit; and you notice the bits that he's responsible for, are the ones he has relationship with.
So one of the problems that comes, is where we try to take on things God has not given us responsibility for. You'll be burdened. There'll be no grace to do it. You'll be meddling, and you'll create many problems when you do that. What I need to do, is to know what's my business, and do my business. The Bible says in 1 Timothy I think: study to be quiet and mind and do your own business. If we had people minding their business, it would be a lot happier world to live in. We wouldn't have so many people [tap-tap-tap] who have made it their business to be in everyone else's business. [Laughter] The Bible calls them: busybodies. It says, about busybodies, it says: stop being a busybody, and wandering around talking about everyone else's business. Mind your own! Get busy working on what God gave you to do, and let others do what they're going to do; but don't meddle and busybody - you create a lot of problems that way. 1 Thessalonians talks about that, 2 Thessalonians talks about it. Actually it's very clear about men being responsible. This is how clear it is. This is how clear it is: if a man doesn't work, let him starve to death. That's how serious the Bible is. If he shan't work, let him not eat. Well you can't go on long not eating before you want to work. If you connect eat/work together, work/eat together, then you actually get your thinking right, see?
Today we want to have eat, eat, eat, eat and work [Laughter], but you notice that God gave man a work to do, then He said you could eat. Every tree of the fruit of the garden you can eat - except that one. He got into the garden, gave him the work first, and after giving him the work, then He said: do the eating. We seem to have got it all the other way around. Now you see the problem is, our society has actually stripped away responsibility, and when there's stripping of responsibility, you become disempowered. Friend, every time you assume responsibility, there's an empowering takes place in your life; provided it's what God gave to you, and not what belongs to someone else. If it belongs to someone else, then unfortunately, you will empower demons to operate, because they operate outside the law of God. So for example, if I assume the responsibility God has given me, I not only rise up on the inside, I have authority over that area, I can protect that area. I can do all kinds of things in that area, but demons can't get in there, because I'm in there.
But if I let go that responsibility, then they can get in; and if I go somewhere where God didn't authorise me, I'm standing against what God put in place, they can get in there too. Witchcraft is connected to rebellion, resisting what God has ordered. That's all. Whenever you resist what God has ordered, you open up the way for demons - they are authorised to act. It's like the law of gravity, it's just there, pulls everything down. It's got some good in it. Where's the good? It holds you on the earth, so you don't fly off out into space. It's a wonderful thing - gravity, but not so if you fall off a building, or off a bank like I did one time. [Laughter] Horrible feeling to be looking straight up in the sky, as you fall. There's just this very long, long half second. Whoa! Done! I didn't like gravity that day [laughter], but that didn't change it. Whether you like it, or don't like it, it's still there, and it has its place. Do you know what its place is? To hold me on the earth; and so when God sets laws in place, they're to bless us. If you violate them, you have all kinds of consequences; so don't go outside what's your business. So if it's your business - you've got to discover what your business is, and mind your own! Turn to someone next to you, say: I know he's talking about you now! [Laughter]