First, remember that He is with you always. There is no where you can go that He is not with you. The psalmist said even if he made his bed in hell, God is there.
So, be encouraged - you are never alone.
Secondly, He has given us spiritual tools for both defense and offense. Ephesians 6:10-18 spells out the spiritual tools He gives us. It is referred to as armor. The darts the enemy tries to wound you with cannot touch you when you are suited up with your armor. You must have all the armor on to be effective. Before you suit up, you must first be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. In other words, you can do nothing on your own. You rely on His strength and His power. So often we want to be the ones in control of our own destiny. No, we must by faith rely on HIS might. We must also step out in faith expecting Him to help us. He will not do everything for us. It's a fine balance.
What can sap your strength and make you ineffective? Laziness, not being watchful and aware, doubt and a lack of faith can certainly weaken you as a warrior for Christ. I've even heard it said being over-committed can drain away the strength of a Christian. It makes sense; over-commitment means a lack of time and a draining of physical energy. Tired Christians certainly are not ready to do spiritual battle!
When the term spiritual battle is used, I am not referring to fighting each other. I mean fighting against evil spiritual powers. (Please see my post, Who is the Enemy?) Notice Paul, when writing this passage in Ephesians, simply announces spiritual warfare as fact. It is on, and if you don't notice it, you are probably losing!
Paul calls these evil spiritual powers principalities and powers, but in another passage of scripture we are told that Jesus disarmed these principalities and powers at the cross. Our waging war on evil will be victorious not for what we do but because of what Jesus did - we just need to learn to apply it.
One last thing before I wrap up today's post. I'm not talking about going out to "whup the devil" and seeing a demon in everything that happens. If that is our whole focus, then evil has succeeded in keeping us so busy we can't accomplish what is needed. What I do mean is living for Christ and doing what He has called you to do and standing firm against anything evil might try to throw in your way to trip you up.
You can stand firm when you have your armor on.
More about armor tomorrow, in the meantime, here are some scriptures for further study:
This post is Day 18 of my series, 31 Basics for Believers. You can find all the posts here.
I have known for a couple of weeks that I was feeling stretched rather thin. My prayer life had slacked off quite a bit and I can see now how that has made me less effective as a Christian mother, wife, and friend. SO that I can better fight those battles, I will be eliminating some things that rob my time with God! As usual, Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWonderful post. It was just the right thing for me today. Thank you for stepping up.
ReplyDeleteHi Jerralea! I love your theme today. And especially your caution not to see evil in everything. It takes the focus away from our Lord, and puts on something that doesn't deserve my time. I liked that!
ReplyDeleteBlessings!
Ceil