Category: Be Aware of Spiritual Warfare

⁹ Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. ~ Joshua 1:9^KJV

God says, “Be strong and courageous and Do Not Be Afraid!” Why? Because fear is the opposite of faith. Make no mistake; weakness stems from mistrust. You cannot trust someone and fear the results of their decisions. You’ve seen it over and often in the movies. The man holds out his hand to the woman and says, “Do you trust me?” and she will usually say yes and place her hand in his hand. Then they jump from some high building and land safely on the ground or on some floating magic carpet.

Well, that is the same concept. God is holding out His great and mighty hand to us, and He is saying, “Do you trust me?”

If we show fear, we are essentially saying, “No, I do NOT trust you.” A statement that God takes very personally. Because when we say that, we are calling God a liar. An untrustworthy scoundrel.

We are in a spiritual war, a battle for the souls of men. If we show the slightest hint of weakness, the enemy will swoop in and not only eat our lunch but take tomorrow’s lunch money as well. He will strip you of everything you have and leave you broke and naked. And God knows that.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Be Strong and Courageous.

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¹ But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. ~ 2 Timothy 3:1

We are in the last days. The Spirit of God has been poured out on all flesh. All can come to Christ no matter their past or their father’s past. All are called to repentance. There is great hope in these last days, but there is also great difficulty. As grace becomes more and more abundant, so does sin.

Look at the world we are living in today. Corruption is taking over. The world is becoming more and more wicked as it fights to stomp out any trace of light. We are running out of time. Here’s a call for the endurance of the saints. Don’t give up hope now. Hold tightly to the faith that you have and build it. Don’t focus on the terrestrial. Don’t focus on everything that’s going wrong in the world. Focus on the eternal. Focus on Jesus. When your focus is on The Storm Calmer, the waves and winds don’t seem so fierce. You walk on water straight to Him.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Focus on the Storm Calmer.

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¹³ And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. ¹⁴ And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. ~ Luke 8:13-14

Did you catch that? Those who fell on the rock are those who heard the word and believed it. In other words, they heard the Gospel, and they accepted it. They received their free gift of salvation. They are now a part of Jesus’ sheep, but when things get difficult. They’re being teased for their beliefs. Their friends are treating them differently. They’re being persecuted. Troubles have come because of their conversion to Christianity; they fall away. They return to their old ways. They give up their salvation.

Now, for those who fell among the thorns are those who hear, but they give in to the temptations of the world that continue to call at them, so their fruit never matures. What does that mean? That means they hear, they believe, they get saved, but they don’t withstand temptation long enough for the fruit of the Spirit to grow in them. They are never able to produce Good Fruit as Matthew 7 says those who are saved will produce. In both cases, according to Jesus, some people will hear the word of God, become saved, but will turn from those beliefs and give up salvation because of one thing or another.

Tribulations, temptations, grief, and pain will come in life. It’s up to us not to lose faith. It’s up to us to press in when things get difficult. It’s up to us to press into God and build our relationship with Him. Sure, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ. Nothing can remove us from His hands, but we can freely walk away. We can freely choose sin or anger over our relationship with Christ.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Press In Deeper.

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“⁷ Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! ⁸ And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. ⁹ And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.” ~ Matthew 18:7-9

Jesus didn’t say, ‘you know what, life is hard. There are all these temptations. Pretty girls. Cute guys. You know what, if you give in every now and then, I get it. I got you. Just do your best.’ That’s not how it works. Life is one large test, and you only get one chance. And when the test is over, and it’s time to receive your grade, you only have two options. You either passed or failed. And if you fail the exam, the teacher isn’t going to give you an ‘A’ just because they like you. That’s not just. That’s an unjust teacher.

God is a just teacher. And when we all stand before Him on Judgment Day, He will judge us according to His standards, not our own standards. Because it’s not whether you tried or not, it’s whether you did or did not. Either you did it, or you didn’t do it. It’s as simple as that.

We’re intended to be the Bride of Christ, so then in a sense, we are currently engaged to Christ because we have yet to have the marriage. So, let’s put this into perspective. Imagine you’re engaged to someone, and they cheat on you constantly, and whenever they’re caught, they say, ‘You know I love you. You know you’re my number one. It wasn’t my intention to cheat; I mean, I tried not to. But does that really matter, though? Cause, I mean, I love you. Don’t you love me? Don’t you want me to be happy?’

Do you see how insane that sounds? This is the main problem with the statement ‘I think God just wants me to be happy.’ God wants more for us than to be happy. See, happiness is a relative term. Happiness means something completely different to each person. And sometimes, happiness will lead us to our own death. Why? Because happiness isn’t a trustworthy emotion. In the moment of committing the sin, we are happy, but that soon fades as the shame and guilt kick in. Then we return to our sin, and we’re happy for a short time, then shame and guilt kick in again. It’s an endless cycle that never leads to joy. It only leads to a quick ending, never satisfying false happiness.

Choose the ways of righteousness, and you will be satisfied. When you begin your journey, it won’t be easy. Satisfaction and being filled won’t happen overnight, but as we fight, we will be filled more and more each day. God draws near to those who draw near to Him. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t grow weary of doing good, for the reward that awaits us is greater than anything we could ever think of or even imagine.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Stop Chasing Happiness.

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³¹ “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” ³² This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. ~ Ephesians 5:31-32

Statistics tell us that 50% (that is, one in two) of new marriages end in divorce today. I’ve figured out the reason why?

We’ve all been counseled or at least heard at one time or the other that a marriage is 50/50. Right? Haven’t we? Well, I’m here to tell you that is wrong. If you put in 50%, then your relationship will have a 50% chance of surviving. The statistics back me up on that.

A covenant marriage requires 100% contribution/effort/participation/involvement (however you want to say it), but it needs 100% in order for it to work.

So many of us, when we get saved, have this same perspective when it comes to our relationship with Christ. We, the Church, are the bride of Christ. And as the bride of Christ, we have to put more effort into our relationship with our God. We can’t expect to put in 50% effort and succeed. God isn’t bringing 50%. He isn’t even bringing 100%. He brings 100+%. He said I came to give you life and life MORE ABUNDANTLY. He didn’t say I’d take you halfway to the cross, then you gotta do the rest yourself. No. He said, I’ll take you all the way to the cross, and when you’re feeling too weak to walk after, I’ll pick you up and carry you myself because I love you.

That’s what love is. It’s reckless. It’s willingly putting yourself at risk over and over again for the sake of the one you love. It’s putting in 100% and then some, even if your partner won’t, in the hope that they will follow in pursuit of your beautiful, reckless love. That’s how we have to live our relationship with Christ. We have to put our own life, wants, desires at risk for the sake of our relationship with God because our relationship with Him is all that matters.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Love 100%.

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“¹Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘²Honor your father and mother’—which is the first commandment with a promise— ‘³that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’ ⁴Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” ~ Ephesians 6:1-4^NIV

I saw a video from 60 minutes where juvenile delinquent elephants brutally murdered about 30 rhinos. What had happened was elephant families were broken up, and only the young elephants were transported to a different park, and they grew up without adult supervision. These young elephants then formed an elephant gang and were going around harassing and killing rhinos. The rangers were bewildered at first, then they began to look into this and figured out that the young elephants were killing the rhinos and not poachers. This was baffling for them at first; then, they realized that these hooligans had no role models.

Social rules and protocols are not something innate, it is learned, it is taught, it is modeled by adults. Males learn from males, and females learn from females, and, if it is the plan of God in the animal kingdom, how much more in the human kingdom.

So, what the rangers did was to select some big strong male elephant bulls, and after tranquilizing them, they transported them to where the young teenage gangsters were. With the arrival of the adult male figure and role model, the young elephant gang was soon reined in, and peace between the elephants and rhinos ensued. The rhino murder rate fell to zero.

The whole thing, peace thing, according to the rangers, was all thanks to the introduction of the positive role model of the adult elephant bulls. Not only is it important in the elephant community, but it is just as important in human lives as well. Today we have so many young men killing each other. So many mothers now have to mourn their sons’ deaths because they were taken too soon.

We have the power to change the lives of so many people, but we have to desire to change their lives first. We can say that change is necessary. We can hashtag this and repost that, but unless we actually take a stand and do something, we might as well be asleep unaware of what’s going on. The only thing that can prolong evil is for good people not to do anything. If we would wake up from our spiritual laziness and make the conscious effort to change just one person’s life, then we could change the entire world. It starts with you.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Rein In The Wild Elephant.

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¹⁶ The heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth He has given to the children of man. ~ Psalms 115:16

He gave us, mankind, the earth; therefore, He expects us to run it and take authority over it. Genesis 1:26 confirms this. Look at what God decrees over Adam and Eve.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 1:26

Therefore, God uses/needs man to accomplish things on the earth, and examples are splashed throughout the Scriptures.

• • Egypt’s punishment – Thru Moses and Aaron
  • Israel’s rescue – Thru the judges
  • The punishment of Israel – Thru the Assyrians
  • Judah’s punishment – Thru the Babylonians
  • The Babylonian punishment – Thru the Mede’s and Persians
  • And on and on

This is the importance of not only fulfilling the call on our lives but praying and crying out to God. God doesn’t do anything on the earth without first hearing the cries of His people. He knows what we need before we ask, but He never interferes in our lives unless He is asked. And when His children ask, He answers.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Ask Your Heavenly Father.

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