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Roller Coaster Riding

Jun30

Well, today I am going to be a bit transparent. As I live my life (turning 77 soon!) I’m discovering that life doesn’t, necessarily, improve with age. You might think that the gray hair, wrinkles, and/or physical decline would present the greatest challenges. But for me, that is not the case. I’m learning to accept that as the realities of growing old. Not much fun but it’s reality. I’m learning, with God’s grace, to accept the inevitable. Besides, it’s what’s on the inside that really matters.

However, my greatest struggle occurs when I ponder the future. My husband and I have four children and children in laws, plus ten grandchildren. Yet, they all live in other cities, states, and even continents. Thus, most of our days are spent facing the challenges of maintaining our house and property on our own. In addition, all of which is complicated by our dwindling physical capabilities. While I love my country home and the serenity of its setting, the future is colored with darkened shades.

On the other hand, there are days when my faith surges strong. When I look into the future during such times, hope shines bright, and the darkness is dispelled. But then the fiery darts strike and doubt and fear do their dirty work. It’s like a roller coaster of emotions. My self-centered sinful nature fighting with my God-centered Christlike nature.

Here’s what I have recently determined. I am always going to ride this roller coaster. But on those days when my faith surges, it’s typically because a promise from Scripture sharpened my focus. I had spent time with God in prayer and His word. While He held my attention He reminded me of something I had let slip my mind. For example:

In reading Matthew 6:26, God reminds me He is faithful to sustain the birds of the air. So if He does that for the birds, He will more than do that for me. How can I believe this? Because I am much more valuable to God than the birds.

Additionally, there’s this word in Philippines 4:19, where God reminds me that He will provide all my needs according to His riches. And I can trust Him to keep His promises.

It’s only when I loose my focus of the above truth thoughts, can the fiery darts get past the threshold of my mind. As I am reminded from my book, “Above all, we must be especially alert against the beginnings of temptation, for the enemy is more easily conquered if he is refused admittance to the mind and is met beyond the threshold when he knocks.” FD’s 3rd edition, page 34

In conclusion, I have determined I must do two things: 1) be consistent in spending time with God daily in prayer and His word 2)Take to heart when God’s Spirit points out a truth to me. And by the way, live in the present. Allow God to take care of my future. Don’t allow worry to cloud up my days.

The Voice to Listen to…

Jul23

My most difficult battles are fought within the arena of self! As a Christian, I understand that I am made up of my body, soul, and spirit. My body while alive on this earth is in a constant civil war between my soul (ruled by my flesh) and my spirit (ruled by God’s Holy Spirit at the point when I believed in and accepted Christ). But I must choose who rules. And therein lies the struggle.

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.Galatians 5:17

*For too many years, I experienced more defeat than victory. (Fiery Darts 3rd Edition, p. 14) And it wasn’t until God made me aware of the weapons (fiery darts) of Ephesians 6:16 that I began to understand why.

As a young adult (that’s been a long time ago now!), I succumbed to the enemy’s main line of attack: keeping me distracted from daily spending time with God in prayer and in His Word. I naively thought that by attending church faithfully, reading my Bible now and then, praying often, taking to heart the Truths I heard in sermons, and just basically trying to be a good Christians that would suffice in overcoming the attacks from the enemy. I would have victories, yes, but some of my greatest failures occurred during those years. Why?

By not setting aside daily time with God in prayer and the reading of my Bible, God’s Spirit within me was simply not getting fed enough . I fell prey to human reasoning and false assumptions fed to me by my flesh. The weapons I needed to fight my battles successfully were within the pages of Scripture. By not availing myself to God’s instruction on what the weapons were and how to use them, my vulnerability to the manipulation and deception of the enemy increased.

Now that I’m older and thankfully wiser (due to the instruction from God’s word about the weapons available to me), I am more alert to the enemy’s attacks. Thus my victories have increased. For example, as a 76 year old, I have questions about my future. How much more time I might have left with my children and grandchildren? Will I still have decent health or not? Will I still be able to stay in my home? If I’m not careful those questions (note they are all self-centered) will pop up in my mind and my flesh will attempt to grab them. Fear, despair, doubt, worry, all stand by, on the ready to receive the baton and run.

But God has taught me a cleaver trick. He asks me a question of His own when those questions arise. “Whose voice is speaking to you?” Because I have learned from time spent with God in prayer and His word, I have been made aware of the following:

God gives us the ability to think. We are capable of our own independent thoughts and we will frequently have thoughts such as “I’m hungry” or “I’m tired.” But it’s also important to keep in mind that the enemy will also speak to us in the form of thoughts in the first-person singular, such as “I can’t do this.” We must take those thoughts and determine if they are consistent with God’s word.

Thus I knew that thoughts of my future that invoked fear, despair, doubt, or worry were not consistent with God’s word. For example, God tells me in 2 Timothy 1:7, that He has not given me the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a strong mind. In Philippians 4:6-7, I’m reminded, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. These are just two examples (they are in abundance in the Scriptures) of how to distinguish between God’s voice and the enemy’s voice.

So when these negative questions arise originating in my flesh and influenced by the enemy, I counter them with this prayer based on Isaiah 54:17, May this weapon formed against me not prevail… It stops there. The battle is won.

But allow me to add those fiery darts will return again and again. It’s not a one time battle. As long as we live we will wage war with the enemy. He won’t give up, until we are secure in heaven. It’s just the truth of the matter. But thankfully God sent Christ to secure our heavenly home and equip us with the weapons we need to fight successfully against our enemy, Satan, while we live here on earth.

*Remember, my book Fiery Darts: Satan’s Weapon of Choice can be purchased as an e-book. If you are interested, please check the sideboard.

Dispelling fear …

Oct14

Are we living in the last days?

One might think so as the war in Israel progresses.

Therefore, we need to get some things clarified.

As Christians we believe not only that Jesus Christ was born, lived a sinless life, went to the cross to satisfy God’s wrath concerning sin, and was resurrected bodily (brought back to life). The reason we can call ourselves Christian is because we not only believe this but we take it personally. In other words, we confess that we are a sinner and understand sin separates us from God. By accepting Jesus’s death as payment for our sins, our relationship with God is restored. Therefore, when we die, we are assured our eternal destination will be heaven. That is, if we are true Christians!

But there is something else we sometimes overlook. The Bible reminds us over and over that Jesus is returning to earth. And for those of us who are Christians and are still alive at that point, we won’t experience death in order to arrive in heaven.

So what’s the point?

Either death or Jesus’s return, will determine our modus operandi into heaven. So, let’s make sure that if we die before or after Jesus’s return occurs, either way we will leave this earth bound for heaven.

Which begs the question, are we sure that we are saved, you know, a Christian? If we claim church attendance, whether sporadic or consistent, as proof that we are a Christian, well, I think we are in trouble. Because since going into a garage doesn’t make us a car, then neither does attending church make us a Christian!

Oh, and by the way, we might even think our baptism is proof solid of our being a Christian. Nope, even that alone isn’t the marker of faith in Christ. Remember the thief on the cross?

I am directing this post mainly to these two groups. Because the enemy, Satan, is diabolically clever in his deception. He can bring temptations to bear upon us in such a way that he can deceive us into believing church attendance or baptism (not necessarily both), are all that is necessary for salvation.

However, the simple truth is that true salvation is marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, guiding and directing the thoughts we think, the attitudes we exhibit, and the actions we display.

Yet, without the presence of God within us via the Holy Spirit, it will be our flesh that guides and directs our thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

It comes down to this.

Most church goers will likely concede that we are living in the last days. (Many prophecies have already come to pass.) And how we react to such knowledge is quite revealing. The strongest indicator that we have the Holy Spirit living within us, is we do not face the future with fear and trembling but with hope and peace.

If we do not have the Holy Spirit living within us, then we have no hope. The possibility that we are living in the last days injects fear into our thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

For those of us who have the Holy Spirit living within us we cry out to God when our world gets upended. We trust God as we face a crisis.

The present crisis in Israel invokes fear, to be sure. But if the Holy Spirit rules our thoughts, attitudes, and actions, then that fear will eventually be replaced with hope and peace, as we pray.

The mandate from God is to pray for Israel! – not to despair, not to loose heart, not to fear, but to PRAY. If the fear remains, then folks examine your heart. We cannot dispel fear on our own!