As Christians, we want God to move in our lives on a daily basis, not just when we respond to Jesus’ offer of being born again. The problem: who is suppose to initiate? Is God suppose to tell us when he plans to move or are we suppose to ask him to move? Truthfully, I think it is both!
We have been exploring the significance of Elijah the prophet of Israel in 1 Kings 17. We are dealing with the events and repercussions of Elijah’s prophecy that there would be no rain in Israel until he prayed again. The drought went on for three and a half years, which enraged king Ahab who was a most wicked man. Our title focuses on “When The Brook Dries Up,” so I want to ask the question, “How Do We Handle” when God’s provision is taken away? How we answer this question will, in a large part, determine whether we move forward in our relationship with God or as some have coined the phrase, “Backslide” in that relationship. Please read the first two articles before proceeding.
This subject matter of “Thinking & Doing” with regards to evil is incredibly important. So much of modern Christianity and teaching revolves around our feelings and well being rather than biblical truth. The subject of evil seems to only be addressed with regards to how it affects us personally and not how it affects God and others. My desire for this series of articles is to stir true believers to have a balanced life with regards to living in this broken world. If you have not read the first eight articles please do so before proceeding with this final one.
Spiritual warfare has been a subject that I have studied since I got converted back in the late 1960s. To me, it is so obvious that humanity is in a war with Satan since the beginning of creation and, if your eyes are open, it can seems that he is winning. In the book of Revelation, God will overcome Satan but not before there is great sorrow in the heart of God over so many being lost to Satan’s schemes.
Today I will discuss a subject in which most believers fail to engage: “Spiritual Warfare.” When I say “Spiritual Warfare” I mean taking a consistent stand against evil. I’m not talking about acting like some demon hunter or lunatic that causes other Christians to cringe just being around them, but real Christians acting like real lovers of God. If you haven’t read the first six articles you need to do so before reading on as these articles are linked in a special way and sequence.
We have spent a considerable amount of time delving into our thinking process with regards to evil. In the last article we started to address the doing part. From my experience in Christianity over the last 68 years, professed believers in Christ do more talking than doing. Christianity was always about engagement more than about quoting bible verses or quoting Christian history. When the church was young, some two thousand years ago, people paid a heavy price to say they believed in Jesus.
This is the fifth article about understanding the process of our thinking and reason and now I would like to shift gears into the action we should be engaged in regarding dealing with evil. How and why we think makes all the difference in how and why we should act. From my experience, most Christians don’t have a good thinking and reasoning process engaged in their lives and thus bounce from one idea and sermon to another. Our soul was meant and designed by God to function on our acquired knowledge, experience and wisdom in order to have a successful life. But what happens when we fail to follow through with an actionable lifestyle based on these God-given principles? That is what we will be dealing with in the next few articles.
I read two articles recently about two very different Christian leaders. Both are high-profile men who speak to thousands of people daily yet they are so different in both their personal lives and their weaknesses. They both have learned to live with these weakness, one by covering it up and the other by confessing and leveraging it. They both are respected throughout the body of Christ and you would recognize their names. They are responsible for thousands of people in ministries as well as millions of dollars worth of assets. Now, I’m not so impressed with people who have such influence until I discover what’s going on behind the scenes and whether their ministry and personal lives are honest reflections of themselves as genuine followers of Christ.
Everyone loves to hear a good story. The problem is we don’t think our stories are that good. I have talked to people all around the world and found that we all have the same problem. Unless you’re an extrovert, people struggle with sharing Christ! The truth is, even extroverts struggle with sharing their faith. Why? Because deep down we all know we are flawed. We have problems in life. We don’t have it all together and never will and this intimidates us.
The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone and I hope it brought joy to your family. I wonder, though, if we are more full of turkey or more full of realizing how blessed we are to know God as our Heavenly Father and Jesus our Savior? The freedoms we enjoy living with in America are amazing but our consumer culture always seems to leave us wanting more. If we are more thankful, shouldn’t we consider reaching out to people with the love of God these next few weeks before Christmas? If God loves the whole world as the book of John 3:16 states, shouldn’t we have a deep concern for the world that Christ died for?
