Our God is a mighty warrior and after reading my morning devotion today I got spurred on to write this for my blog today. It is one thing to talk and read about faith, and another thing to live in it. Duh. The reason we can live in that faith is the undeniable power of God and His care for us, His children. We are the "sheep of His pasture" and He is our mighty shepherd!! Praise God. Praise God!!
In line with this same thought, I must speak to the subject of God taking care of His children and fighting our fights for us. The prophet Jeremiah wrote this in Jeremiah 20:11 But the Lord is with me like a dread champion; Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will be utterly ashamed, because they have failed, With an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten. If anyone doesn't believe this scripture about God then they are waffling in their faith and that just won't work. We must BELIEVE!!! I say this, when daily I waffle in my own unbelief. And I can't figure out why? I know and believe in the Word of God, and yet the enemy hits me again and again to cause me to doubt. My attacks come from all sides and all types, Christian and non Christian. Now that will make you get a little doubt going from time to time. So we move on. The Apostle Paul spoke to this subject from experience and in 2 Corinthians 4 wrote these words 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.12 So death works in us, but life in you.
God is very much able to keep us moving forward in faith and protecting us as we move. I love the encouragement I get from Paul in all of His writing because I know he is writing from experience. But Paul's love for the church remained premiere. When going into a new community Paul would first go to the synagogue and if they rejected his teaching of salvation in Jesus alone, Paul would then go to homes of believers and continue encouraging and teaching them. God showed that He will have a church, wherever that church may be. And boy, Paul's rejections were well documented in 2 Coirinthians 11:25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren;27 I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.28 Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.29 Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?
Wow! I marvel at Paul's faith, but the results are noted as well. God used Him in a mighty way and we Gentiles just have to say "praise God" for how God was mighty in this man. There are many other examples in God's Word of men and women who stood in the path of perscecution and took it and kept going. This is the way of "the life."
Now back to the scripture in Jeremiah 20. Our God is a "warrior" and we can have faith that He will fight our battles for us and woe to all who get in His way. Our faithful God is protecting His children and that prompts the following statement, NUFF SAID!!
Perhaps the following story will encourage the point. When the emperor Valens threatened Eusebuis with confiscation of all his goods, torture, banishment, or even death, the courageous Christian replied, "He needs not fear confiscation, who has nothing to lose; nor banishment, to whom heaven is his country; nor torments, when his body can be destroyed at one blow; nor death, which is the only way to set him at liberty from sin and sorrow."
The Pilgrimage Continues....
David Warren
Comments