Tag Archives: stand firm

Stand And Resist

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STAND AND RESIST

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. To Him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5: 8-11)

‘Spiritual warfare’ is a very current topic in the Christian world. There are all kinds of weird and wonderful teachings around regarding spiritual warfare; we have international prayer movements that teach and write about spiritual warfare; we even have people who regard themselves as specialists on spiritual warfare – generals, they are sometimes called!

But what is ‘spiritual warfare’ if there is such a thing in the Bible?

Unfortunately, many of the ideas about so-called ‘spiritual warfare’ are gleaned from the Old Testament – things like identifying ‘Jezebel’ and other kinds of spirits, identifying principalities and powers and pulling down strongholds, doing Jericho marches and prayer walks, dealing with gates and altars etc., etc. We have to ask, ‘How legitimate is this way of dealing with the devil? Is this the teaching of the New Testament?’

Both Peter and Paul did not deny the existence or the activity of Satan. He is powerfully at work in the world through unbelieving people. But what power or influence does he have in the lives of believers and how do we deal with him and his minions?

Firstly, for those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He rose from the dead and who live by the truth, Satan has lost the power to deceive. Jesus exposed and defeated him through the cross (Col 2: 15) If not, then He died in vain. When He cried out, ‘It is finished!’ He meant it. Believers have been ‘rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.’ (Col 1:13, 14)

As long as we believe and live by the truth, he has no power to touch our lives any longer. The only power he has is the power we give him when we believe his lies and open ourselves to his influence. We are immune from his wicked schemes. So what does he do? He tries to trick us into believing that he still has the power to harm us. Peter and Paul’s answer to his lies? Stand! Stand! Stand in the truth! Don’t fall for his lies. Don’t believe what he insinuates. Resist him by submitting to God and standing firm in the faith.

It is true that our struggle is against principalities and powers, not human beings. They are the agents through which the devil works. It is true that the devil is always trying to destroy us, like a roaring lion on the prowl for prey but, as long as we are aware of what he is up to, and do not allow him to lure us into his ways, we have nothing to fear. We are protected by the power of God’s name. (John 17: 11)

But what about so called warfare against the devil in the world? Are we not supposed to engage the enemy on behalf of the lost? Yes, we are, but not in the way that it is being done. We must take our pattern from the New, not the Old Testament. It is not the so-called spiritual warfare prayers that rescue people from their wicked ways but the power of the truth.

The city of Ephesus is a case in point. When Paul went to Ephesus it was the seat of the worship of the many-breasted goddess Diana, or Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, of wild creatures and of birthing. She was called ‘great’ to distinguish her from all other lesser goddesses of the same name. She had the attributes of Ashteroth, the female counterpart of Baal.

How did Paul deal with Diana-worship? Did he lead prayer marches around the city? Did he hold prayer meetings to discern the identity of the principalities and powers over Ephesus and pray ‘powerful’ prayers to pull down strongholds? Did he pray at the gates of the city? No, he did none of these things. He preached Jesus. And the result? People turned to the Lord; they burnt their books on witchcraft; Diana lost her power and the silversmiths, led by Demetrius, lost their business and set off a riot against Paul.

Jesus told His disciples at Caesarea Philippi, the ‘red light district’ of Israel, where Pan was worshipped by people having sex with goats, that there where the devil’s practices were rife, He would build His church and not even hell itself would be able to withstand it. How would He do that? By placing His yoke, His way of understanding and applying God’s teachings, on the very people whose yoke was the yoke of Satan.

Come on, people of God. Let’s get real. Let the Bible teach you, not those who have invented their own theories and now consider themselves experts. We do not need to be taught how to do spiritual warfare. Every time we obey the word of God and live by the truth, we defeat the devil. Every time we share the message of Jesus and someone turns to the Lord, he loses another battle.

If we spent as much time sharing our faith with others by our lives and lips instead of learning how to do spiritual warfare and engaging in these futile activities, the kingdom of God would be advanced more powerfully than it is right now.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Worthy Behaviour!

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WORTHY BEHAVIOUR!

“Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved – and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for Him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had and now hear that I still have.” Philippians 1:27-30.

That’s quite a tall order, Paul, isn’t it?

It would be if it were given to people in any other religion. Or would it? Take, for example, those who were so convinced that they were right that they were willing to kill Christians for their conviction. They were representing the character of the god they worshipped.

The God of the Jews was, for them, a hard taskmaster. He demanded perfect obedience to a host of petty rules, or else… The gods of the Greeks and Romans were immoral, unscrupulous and unpredictable. It would not be difficult for those who worshipped them to be worthy of them. Nero was a good representative – using Christians as living torches to light up his garden parties, and putting them in the arena to face starving and ravenous wild beasts!

Paul’s call to a worthy walk was quite different and far more difficult than for all these others. Believers represented a God of grace – one who stepped in to do for them what they could not do for themselves. He was not a taker but a giver. He not only gave people, and that included those who did not even believe in Him, everything they needed to live on this planet; food, water, clothing, shelter and the beauty and bounty of the world around them. He also gave His Son as a substitute for their sin.

However people defined sin, they could not get rid of it. People today who reject God’s provision of Jesus as a sacrifice for their sin, have to come up with another solution – like going through various rituals, trying to wash their sins away, kissing or touching an object etc. How can that affect their standing before a holy God? Some even come closer to the truth by offering animal blood for their sin. Blood is required, yes, but animal blood has no value to God because no animal can atone for human sin.

But for the believer in Jesus, behaviour and a life worthy of Him is not impossible. First of all, He came to earth as a human being to live a perfect, sinless life. It had to be for Him to take our punishment for sin. The prophet Micah asked a very relevant question:

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow before the exalted God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Micah 6:6, 7.

Of course none of these things can clear a guilty conscience. If they can, why do people keep going through the same rituals year after year?

Then Jesus died as a substitute for our sin. He was even made sin for us! Only a sinless human being could take the place of a sinner and pay his debt to a holy God.

“God made Him who had no sin, to be sin for us…” 2 Corinthians 5:21.

And then, miracle of miracles, He rose from the dead to set us free from the power of sin so that we are able to live a life worthy of Him. Anyone can live like the gods they worship but only through God’s power can a believer in Jesus live a life worthy of Him. Paul’s call to the Philippian church was not a vain hope but a powerful possibility because the very God they worshipped was in residence in them.

This was not a call to self-effort or self-help, ten easy steps to holiness! This was an encouragement to live out who they were, sons and daughters of God, because they were forgiven and set free from the power of sin, and they had the Holy Spirit in them to energise them to be who they were.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

All Or Nothing

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ALL OR NOTHING

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again with a yoke of slavery.

“Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.” Galatians 5:1-4.

Imagine how foolish it would be for a slave whose ransom has been paid and freedom bought by a benefactor, to insist on paying the ransom price again, even though he has been a slave all his life and has never earned a cent. How silly to think that way and yet this was what the Galatians had been deceived into thinking. Although Jesus had paid their debt, they thought they still owed God something. They had to be circumcised to make sure that they were okay with Him.

Paul reminded them that Jesus was passionate about setting them free. That’s the reason why He came. Sin and Satan had enslaved them. This was never God’s purpose. He intended for people to be His sons and daughters in His family, created in His image to live in the joy and freedom of a loving relationship with Him.

The first human pair was ensnared by the devil’s deception which brought the whole world into slavery to sin. God gave the law to show His people just how enslaved they were. They were trapped into disobedience and rebellion by the requirements of the law. When God said, “Don’t!” their sin nature rose up in defiance and said, “We will!” That’s what sin does. How can we ever live in harmony with God when our very nature is against Him?

The problem is that sin brings the penalty of death, not only physical death but, far worse, spiritual death. We were all born dead to God. For most people God is a phantom figure whom they hate, fear and from whom they flee by ignoring Him and pretending He doesn’t exist. The problem is that God created us with an inner awareness that we were made for Him and that we are accountable to Him. However hard we try, we cannot escape that.

So what did men do?  They made up their own gods to try to appease their conscience. Religion is man’s attempt to get to God their own way; like Frank Sinatra’s famous song, “I did it my way.” But it does not work because every religion is a lie, even religion that believes in the one true God but tries to get to Him by people’s own efforts is a lie.

Atheists insist that there is no God and yet they use the very word “God” in their vocabulary. If He does not exist, where does the idea of God come from? Who made it up? Agnostics say that if there is a God, we cannot know Him? Who told them that? Evolutionists have concocted an unbelievably ridiculous story, against all the evidence of a super-intelligent Designer, that the entire universe just happened by chance, and that it took millions of years to happen.  Only fools believe that rubbish.

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good.” Psalm 14:1.

As soon as a person acknowledges that God exists, he also has to acknowledge that he is answerable to God for the way he lives. People don’t like that because they know that they are guilty of going against their own conscience and the awareness of God which He put inside them as a witness to His existence.

“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” John 3:19, 20.

It is impossible to free us from these false notions and the consequences of believing them. Jesus came to set us from our guilt, our sin and our slavery to deceptions. He did it all by dying in our place on the cross. Why would we think we should and why would we want to add anything to what He did?

As soon as we do that, we cancel out His free gift. Paul said when we do this, we have fallen away from grace.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.