SPIRITUAL SELF DEFENSE 101

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

James 4:7-8

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Every day, we are engaged in a war whether we believe it or not. In fact, this war has raged on so long in most of our lives that we have normalized it in many ways. We’re numb to the ongoing assault we go through day after day after day.

The Apostle Paul was very wary of this spiritual battle happening within himself, so much so that he wrote these words of testimony:

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”  Romans 7:15-25

Paul, like the majority of most people, longed to be good and do good things. He wished to live right and righteously before God. But Satan doesn’t want this to happen. Rather, he works against God to produce wickedness and sinful behavior. Thus the tug of war between the flesh and the Spirit.

So what are we to do? How are we to defend ourselves when we are engaged in spiritual warfare daily?

Maybe we should go back and see what Paul discovered. What strategy did he employ?

Well, as we see in the following verses from Ephesians, chapter 6, Paul shows us that in order to ward off the attacks of Satan, we need to prepare ourselves spiritually and he uses the battle armor a soldier might put on to explain what every person needs to do. Look at his words here:

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” Ephesians 6:11-18

In eight verses, Paul gives us a primer in Spiritual Warfare 101, providing instruction so we can ward off Satan’s attacks. We find additional guidance in our verses from the fourth chapter of James’ epistle. He writes:

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”  James 4:7-8

James exhorts us to submit to God and this submission should lead us to purify our hearts, turn from sin, and put on our full armor. Fully surrendering ourselves to the Lord will allow us to resist the devil, and when he sees a believer is well defended and protected, he will flee because he stands no chance against anyone who is near to God. After all, there are plenty of other people who have not donned their armor and placed full trust in God who Satan can attack and do so with great success.

Do you want to ward off the advances of the devil in your life?

Follow the Bible’s guidance and put spiritual self defense 101 into practice. For God’s word gives us all we need to know in order to defend ourselves against our enemy, the devil, and keep ourselves from falling prey to his evil schemes. All we have to do is follow the Lord’s guidance for if we do, we can proclaim the same words Paul used:

“Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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UNFRIEND THE WORLD

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In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that He jealously longs for the spirit He has caused to dwell in us? But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

James 4:4-6

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

If you are one of millions of people who have used Facebook, diving into the deep end of social media, you know about the concept of friending.

The way it works is that you start by making a page and populating it with posts, either using your words, your pictures, videos, or a combination of them. Then you can send friend requests to people and they can also send them to you but here’s the thing. Either you or they have to accept the friend request before you can officially be Facebook friends and this has caused a great deal of angst and problems between people, especially if someone intentionally refuses to friend another. It’s the social media equivalent of rejection and no one likes to be rejected.

Here’s something else that happens a lot and ends up causing issues. It’s called unfriending.

In this case, one person decided at one time to accept another person’s friend request. These two social media friends remain connected unless one unfriends the other and believe it or not, it happens quite frequently, mostly when two people find themselves in a digital dispute with each other. Unable (or maybe even unwilling) to settle the disagreement, one person makes the choice to unfriend the other which serves the purposes of severing the social media relationship. Think of it as an online breakup.

What does this have to do with the Bible and today’s verses from the 4th chapter of James?

As we see, the matter of befriending is central to our passage. Look again at it here:

“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that He jealously longs for the spirit He has caused to dwell in us? But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”  James 4:4-6

Here we find the matter of friending narrowed to two options for each and every person. Rather than having a buffet table of friends to choose from, the scriptures give us two: the world and God. Note that it’s impossible to be friends with both at the same time. You are either a friend of the world or you are a friend of God and when you are a friend of one, you become a natural enemy of the other.

In fact, we learn that God expects us to friend Him and Him alone. We are not to stray from Him to build a relationship with the world and its ways but unfortunately we don’t stay faithful to Him. We too often are an adulterous people who choose the world and antagonize God in the process, becoming His enemy. Friends, that’s not a place anyone should willingly go. Ever.

And yet, we do. We turn away from our relationship with God who loves us and provides for us perfectly in accordance with His will for us. And we do so because we can’t be satisfied with what God gives us. Rather, we allow our own desires to override our sensibility and place ourselves in the crosshairs of God’s judgment as a result.

Frankly, He should just wipe us all out for our disrespectful, sinful attitude and behavior toward Him but He doesn’t. He gives us grace, a grace that we don’t merit and yet He still extends it to us, a grace that is truly amazing.

If you’ve turned from God and made the world your companion, listen to the scriptures and unfriend the world. Return to the Lord, give thanks for His goodness and grace, and never turn from Him again. For in Him and in Him alone do you have everything you could ever hope for, everything you could ever need.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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WHY YOU MAY NOT BE GETTING WHAT YOU WANT

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In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

James 4:1-3

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

We’re a society that wants things now. We hate to wait and that intolerance is growing to epidemic proportions.

We want our money when we want it and so we have ATMs and you can even get cash back when you go through the checkout lines of most stores.

Speaking of stores, we have normally have express checkout lanes where you don’t have to wait as long if you have 12 items or less, that is if you can find a cashier which seem like they are going the way of the dinosaur as stores replace them with self checkout stations.

Want something to eat. No need to sit in a restaurant and idly wait for someone to take your order and bring food to your table. All you need to do is drive up, make your order, pull around to the window, grab your food, and you’re off.

Indeed, this onslaught of fast service options has had a major impact on our life attitudes and, in many ways, has eroded our patience.

Did I mention we hate to wait?

There’s little question that we do and the spillover of our impatience has impacted our spiritual lives as well as so many believers see our Lord as a fast service God. Just make your order with Him, pull up to heaven’s drive through window, and He will reach out and give you what you ask for.

There’s only one problem with this approach.

God doesn’t act in accordance with our will. He totally operates in accordance with His.

This means that our lives are to be centered on His desires and His wants. We’re expected to be God-centered and not self centered. Do this and you live in righteousness. Don’t and your life will be immersed in wickedness.

This is true today and it was obviously true in biblical times because we find the matter discussed in our scripture passage for today. In it, we see that fights, quarrels, covetousness, and even murders happened in the New Testament.

What was the root cause then (and now)?

The scriptures tell us that it is from within a person, originating from inner desires. This kind of person wants things they don’t have and so they quarrel and fight with others, maybe even killing them to take away what they have. Their drive to quench the thirst of their desires is so strong that they even see it worth taking a life to gain what another has.   

Why don’t they just get what they want from God?

The answer is found in our passage for today which tells us that a person won’t get what they ask of God if they are requesting with the wrong self fulfilling motives. God is not going to provide anything that doesn’t meet His will for the person asking. Putting an order for something that is selfish is a sure fire way to end up not getting one’s order filled.

So how should we approach coming to God with our petitions?

We find the answer in God’s word but in a different New Testament epistle. For look at these words from 1st John:

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him.” 1 John 5:14-15

There you go. Now you know the right way to approach God with confidence so that you might receive what you ask for.

Note that it starts by asking for things that are in accordance with God’s will.

How are you going to know that?

By praying and asking for God’s will to be done in your life and this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, didn’t Jesus to pray by giving us these words to bring to His Father (and ours)?

“‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:9-10

Did you catch that?

We’re supposed to ask God for His will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, we’re to submit to the Lord’s will, not ours. And when we do this, then we know God will hear us and then give us what we need so His will can be done. This is a certainty we can count on.

Note that none of this has anything to do with what we want but everything to do with what God wants for us.

Why don't you seem to get what you want from God?

Maybe you should check your approach to asking.

If it’s centered on you and your desires, then expect to find your requests unfulfilled.

But if you’re constantly seeking the Lord’s desires for your life and asking for His will to be accomplished, then stand by to receive what you ask for because God is not going to place expectations on you that He isn’t willing to help you achieve.

Seek His will, ask for what is needed for that to be done, and then wait for the Lord to provide.

It’s really as simple as that.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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HEAVENLY WISDOM

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In Christ, Mark

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** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.”

James 3:17-18

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As the third chapter of James’ epistle ends, we find God’s word discussing the matter of wisdom, making it crystal clear there are only two types, defined by their markedly different sources.

Yesterday, we looked the first type of wisdom, the one that is not of the Lord, the one that God’s word tells us is unspiritual and demonic because the wisdom comes from none other than Satan himself. We learned that a person embracing this devil-providing wisdom could be identified by their behavior which would be grounded in envy and selfish ambition. The scriptures tell us such behavior breeds disorder and every evil practice. Obviously this is a sin-based wisdom and as we look at our world today, there is no shortage of people subscribing to it.

Fortunately, there is a better alternative, one we find spelled out in the last two verses of this chapter. For the Lord provides His people wisdom from heaven and this wisdom is marked by its purity and sincerity, the peace it promotes, an endorsement of impartiality and consideration of others, an encouragement of submissiveness, and a push toward mercy and good fruit, a drive toward the fruits of the Spirit.  

Where demonic wisdom leads people to discord, heavenly wisdom endorses peacemaking and remember what Jesus said about peacemakers:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9

It’s very obvious here that our Lord wants us to sow peace and to do it in mass quantity. Looking at the divisiveness that we see in the United States alone, it’s an expectation a majority of people are not willing to meet, especially people in positions of leadership within government, the media, and the entertainment industry.

As a result, what are we seeing?

A widespread spiritual famine which has resulted in a drought of righteousness in our land, an indicator that demonic wisdom is trending up while heavenly wisdom is in short supply.

We need a turnaround and the answer, as it has been every single time a society has gotten this way, is found in the heavens and a people willing to humbly turn to God as He requires in the scriptures:

“…if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com