I have a few friends that live on the other side of the world, giving "all of them" to advancing the Kingdom of Christ. I love them! I was just reading an email from my friend Terri and it was describing two incidents they had recently involving snakes. Not just any snakes but spitting cobras no less. One was hiding under a tire as she walked around their vehicle and one was crossing the concrete in front of their door.
In both cases they were protected from harm. They were obviously praising God.
Something occurred to me as I was reading her story. How many 'spitting cobras' are hiding, lying in wait, for us? We are going about our business, doing our thing, and hiding just out of sight is our enemy! Ready to strike.
Brian, Terri's husband, said he thanked God for making them aware of the impending aggressor so that he could slay it. Brian was looking up! Oh, his eyes may not have been directed towards the sky but his heart was! That's what looking up means-being constantly aware of God's presence through talking and listening AND believing that He IS!
Believing that He IS what? Beth Moore, in the bible study "Believing God" says it this way:
1. God is who He says He is
2 God can do what He says He can do
3. I am who God says I am
4. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me
5. God's Word is alive and active and living in me!
If you say each one of these holding up your hand out in front of you and counting off each; you will end up with a picture of your shield of faith (Ephesians 6:10-18). With the shield of faith, you can 'extinguish the fiery arrows' of our enemy! (Kind of like a strike from a spitting cobra!)
I have an enemy that is lurking in the shadows (did you notice that one of snakes was under the vehicle?) and seeks to harm me. He will strike when I am not paying attention.
Can I share with you what the strikes may look like?
-you have a thought -God isn't interested in you; doesn't have time for you; is disgusted with you! NOT TRUE-"His love endures forever" Psalm 136
-you have a thought that God doesn't care about you! NOT TRUE-"God is close to the brokenhearted." Isaiah 61
-thoughts of 'this marriage is never going to work' NOT TRUE-God says "Is anything too difficult for me?" Jeremiah 32:27
These are a few 'strikes' but there are many more! The point is the 'strikes' come in the way of thoughts many many times.
We can 'slay the enemy'! How?
1. aware that he is there; (be alert; your enemy the devil prowls around like a lion seeking to devour you. 1 peter 5:8)
2. make a deliberate intentional decision to know Christ better; (Philippians 3:10-11 Amplified Bible-For my determined purpose is that I may know Him that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly, and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection which it exerts over believers, and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness even to His death, in the hope, That if possible I may attain to the spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead [even while in the body].
At the beginning of Ephesians 6:10-18, it says that 'our battle is not against flesh and blood'-not people! If we aren't 'life long learners of Christ' then we won't see/recognize the 'snakes' for what they are. I love that last sentence in the verse printed above, 'that lifts me out from among the dead, even while in the body'. Ever heard of 'walking dead men'? That's what comes to my mind when reading it. I have seen many Christians who have endured so many 'strikes' from the enemy that they are just as if walking dead men/women. THERE IS A RESURRECTION!
"Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ" 2 Corinthians 10:5
"Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the RENEWING of your mind. Romans 12:2
I don't know about you, but I need to know what God says to me about my life! It's just that simple. I won't know if I don't choose to make my quest, Him! I can promise you, I would be in a loony bend or worse if I hadn't chosen to make my life about Him in my early twenties, because the 'strikes are just too hard. They are just too poisonous-deadly'. But praise be to God, He resurrects the dead and dying!
I LOVE IT THIS WAY. It's Romans 12:2 from the Message!
Place Your Life Before God 1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Blessings
Bekita
