The Word and Warfare

The Holy Spirit is like our General in this war, and the sharper the soldier, with readied weapons, the more powerfully He will be able to use us, with greater damage to the Enemy of our soul.

Of the weapons He has provided for doing battle, the sword of the Word and prayer are the ones for offense. The rest of the armor parts are for protection, for defense, but the Scriptures are to be wielded in attack, often through prayer.

Among the various ways and means that the spiritual soldier can gain and maintain a state of readiness, sword continually sharpened, memorization of the Word is the best.

Psalm 119:11 provides the most basic, foundational motive for memorizing the Scriptures --- “Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.” As Charles Spurgeon noted astutely, it is the best thing in the best place for the best purpose.

As a seasoned Seminary professor I admired once said, “It is amazing the affinity the Holy Spirit has for a trained mind.” In context he was encouraging Seminary training, but there is needed application related to Scripture memory, as well.

The more of the Bible that is lovingly stored away by the Christian soldier, the greater the ammunition available to the blessed Spirit for warfare.

And He is so faithful to bring to one’s remembrance a pertinent verse, or even part of one, at the exact time it is needed most. It would be grievous to know how many times we have succumbed to temptations, or acted un-biblically, or made foolish decisions simply because we didn’t know the Word.

Like Elisha’s servant in II Kings 6:17, may the Holy Spirit open our eyes to see the ongoing warfare that is happening in the spiritual realms even at this moment. Would that He would impress upon us the urgency of having un-rusted swords, by hiding His Word in our hearts for use at any given moment!

Morning Plea

Thank You for the morning, Father.. for the refreshing effect of sleep.. for the protection You provide through the night, when we are most vulnerable...

Praise to Your Name that You never sleep, nor slumber... that we are always before You...

Amazing that You would commit Yourself to such as us.... providing Your Book filled with promises, as trustworthy as Your Name and character..

providing Your very presence in the Person of the Holy Spirit... expressing Himself through producing fruit by grace...

through bringing to our remembrance the things the Lord Jesus said...

through bearing witness with our spirit that we are Yours..

through faithful, needed conviction of sin...

through promptings in our inner man that speak to our spirit for direction and leading...

through speaking peace to our hearts...

through confirming by conversation with others Your will from Your Word...

and all because of the Lord Jesus, and His sinless death and blood atonement for satisfying Your just and righteous anger against sinners!

Selah (Pause & Ponder)

Father, grant that this would be a day in which our eyes are fixed upon You... for when we focus on ourselves and our walk, it leads to either despair or pride.

Forgive for ways we compare ourselves with others... for there, again, we are given to either introspection or self-satisfaction.. neither of which is pleasing to You. Only as our thoughts are filled with contemplations of You, Your blessed Word, Your faithful character, will, and ways, will our perspective be pleasing and our lives usable.

Forgive, too, for the love of ease that fills our days... we see so little sacrifice, know so little of the heaviness of heart You have for this lost world...

No one better than You knows the prayerlessness of our hearts... our thoughts so easily taken from You, and placed on the seen, the incidental, the transitory, the temporal, the inconsequential, the worldly.

Do a work of restoration, Father, that can be explained in no other way than that You did it.

Be pleased to call us back to Yourself... to the days when our love for You was fresh, clean, joyous, thrilled with You, yearning to know You, to tell others how wonderful You truly are!

You know perfectly how desperately we need a personal awakening... and how deeply our decadent nation needs awakening... instill in our hearts afresh... grant the desire anew... to pay the price of godliness, to become usable again, and used for Your glory....

and please move us from fine-sounding words and phrases, to actual obedience.

In the Lord Jesus' Name,

Amen.

The Impact of Absence

As presence, so absence has an impact.

Perhaps it's precisely because of the power of presence that the impact of absence is so keenly felt. And no other time of the year heightens the awareness of this truth as does Christmas.

Touted by the world as the ultimate time of year when families are to gather intact, and experience a closeness unknown at any other time, any deviances from those expectations are seen as regrettable. So, with such unreasonable expectations, and with so many marriages and homes being devastated by divorce and unfaithfulness, Christmas becomes an occasion for cynicism and melancholy.

Is there an absence here? Yes. The impact of ignoring the One whose presence is at the very heart of Christmas takes a terrible toll. Only as the Lord Jesus is looked to for salvation, and only as He is centralized in the celebrations at this time of year, will peace of mind and spirit be possible.

However intensely the world tries to trivialize this truth, Jesus IS the Reason for the Season.

In His Presence

There is such power in presence!

I recall when the soldiers sought to arrest the Lord Jesus in the Garden, on the night of His betrayal…. And, upon being told that He indeed was the one they sought, “they drew back and fell to the ground,” (John 18:6).
What a sight that must have been! Battle-hardened soldiers, nerves steeled by the atrocities of war, and they are stumbling to the ground, retreating from the presence of a young, unarmed Rabbi. How can this be explained...?

It was a demonstration of deity. The Lord Jesus had said, "I am He." He had proclaimed The Name. Even as in the Old Testament encounter and conversation with reluctant Moses, The Name gave assurance of God's presence (Exodus 3:14). [By the way, Moses, too, found his way to the ground, when brought into His presence].

Such a challenge are these encounters with the living God to the theoretical acknowledgement of His presence in the experience of too many believers. When will we move from vague, mental agreement with the doctrine of His omnipresence, to actually encountering Him...?

May He shake us to the core of our being by His powerful presence!

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Who could possibly deserve our life-long, soul-felt thanks more than the One who laid His life down in abject sacrifice for worms such as us...?

"He was despised, rejected, and like one from whom men hide their face... He was despised and we esteemed Him not..."

"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!"

The greater one's sense of sin, the holiness and wrath of holy God, and the eternality of sin's punishment, the greater the gratitude for Jesus' sacrifice.

Astonishing is the inexplicable love that He would show toward hardened enemies, intent in rebellion, shaking tiny fists in the face of almighty God.

Some are dismayed that He has not elected all for salvation... I am amazed that He set His heart upon any!

So much of the blame-shifting of man, in faulting God for his lostness, stems from underestimating the heinousness of sin in the light of God's holiness. We are so comfortable with sin, so accustomed to its velvet vice-grip, its subtle strangulation, we easily forget His perfect righteousness.

At the foot of the cross, we again see what our sin cost the Son of God... and sense afresh the awesome holiness of the living God.

Thank You, Lord Jesus. Thank You, Thank You, blessed Lord, for doing what we could never have done for ourselves, being dead in our transgression and sin. Praise to your Name for such condescension, such compassion, such submission to Your Father's will.

Ephesians: All of Grace (1:17)

"...that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him."

In interceding for the Ephesian believers, Paul prayed for two things: (a) wisdom, and (b) knowledge of God. We could do no better than to pray the same for one another.

Wisdom, true wisdom, is the ability to view life from God's vantage point. This is possible only for the one who has been changed by the Lord Jesus Christ, who has the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:16), enabled by the Spirit of God in spiritual discernment. As with every facet of the Christian life, the Bible is the key tool in gaining and maturing in godly wisdom. While reliance only upon observing circumstances can cause one to wonder as to the Lord's perspective, His Word reveals His will in no uncertain terms. The one who lives wisely, lives within the parameters of Scripture.

Closely akin to the prayer for wisdom is Paul's requesting the Lord to grant revelation in knowing Him. Paul clearly understood that, for anyone to know God He must reveal who He is. In this issue of learning the Lord of the universe I'm reminded again of the life principle: If it isn't revelation, it's speculation. God does not want His children to guess who He is. And in the inspiring, protecting, and preserving of His Word He has graciously provided the flawless disclosure of Himself. If we would please Him, then we would increase consistently in our knowledge of Him and our love for Him, by learning Him through His blessed Book.