Tag: Spiritual

What Keeps Us from Seeing God?

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Perhaps you’ve encountered this famous line penned by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins aimed all of his poetry at helping people see that we live in a world drenched in divine delights — a world that everywhere reveals the glory of God. That is a wonderful reality, but for the child of God, the wonder goes even deeper.

For the Christian, the glory revealed in the world is not the glory of some generic deity; it is the goodness of our happy Father. “The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord” (Psalm 33:5 NASB). And so, the pleasures we experience in the world are paternal pleasures. The beauty of the world is our Father’s smile in stuff. And, wonder of wonders, our Father delights in our delight in his gifts. Like a happy dad on Christmas morning, the Father of lights lavishes on us all things richly to enjoy so that we might be happy in the Giver of all good things (James 1:17). Who then could resist reveling in the pleasures of God?

We do — daily! Like fussy children, aren’t we often too greedy or self-focused or distracted to enjoy our Father in his gifts? Consider yourself for a moment. Did you enjoy the sunrise this morning? I’m not just asking if you saw it. No, did you marvel as the sun vaulted the horizon? Did you delight in the fanfare of light and color? Or maybe you’re not the “outdoors type.” In that case, did you find pleasure in a cup of coffee? Or the comfort of a good pair of socks? Or the smile of your child? Did you really attend to any of our Father’s gifts?

As you can see, there is a reason C.S. Lewis called enjoying God the difficult discipline of hedonism. Joy is hard work, but eternally worthwhile. In Letters to Malcolm, Lewis writes, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito” (101). And pleasures are his footprints, reminding us that he is here. “Pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibilities” (121).

So, if Lewis is right, if we can nowhere evade the presence of God, then how do we so often — consciously or unconsciously — evade the pleasures of God? How are we so easily distracted from enjoying our Father’s gifts? Lewis gives three reasons well worth pondering.

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The Sword is the one weapon that is quite different from the rest of the weapons. The sword is more an offensive weapon than a purely defensive one. To fight the devil in your life, there are no short cuts. In fact, there is no other effective way than to take the sword of the spirit in your mouth. In order for you to get there, you need to spend a lot of time meditating the word of God and memorizing portions of it. That is the way you have an abundance of Word when you need it. You cannot tell the devil, “Hey devil, hold on, let me find out which word will stop you”. No! You have lost the battle already if you do that. You need to get trained to use this weapon so effectively that the devil will not mess with you anymore. It is the only way to drive the devil off.

Are you finding it so hard to fight with the enemy? It is not as hard. The only thing that you need to be aware of is your position in Christ and the privileges you have in the Lord. The devil is already defeated. He cannot stop you from doing God’s will in your life. But you can stop him. Jesus has given you the power to trample over serpents and scorpions and nothing can by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19)

The source and the nature of the Sword of the Spirit:

1. It penetrates:

Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”.

God’ word is so powerful to penetrate to every area of a human being. It divides the soul and the spirit, the innermost area of human personality. It goes to areas where no missile on earth can reach. It does much more than any human inventions can do.

2. Comes out of the mouth of Jesus:

John the disciple saw a vision in Revelations 1:16 when he had a vision of Jesus in His glory as the Lord of the church, one of the things that he saw was a sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. “In his right hand he held seven stars and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword”.

3. The only weapon Jesus used:

Matthew 4:1-11 says that Jesus used this weapon all the three times the devil talked to Him in the wilderness. Every time Jesus encountered Satan personally, the only weapon He used against him was the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Jesus had no doubts about the scripture. He knew it so well that if he uses the scriptures, there will be divine manifestations. Satan also never questioned the authority of the Scripture. He never will. The devil knows the power of the Word of God. The temptation that Satan threw at Jesus was for Him to doubt the Word of God. Notice Satan starts each question with an “if”. That means he calls for doubt.

Beloved, this is the same strategy the devil uses against us. He will cause us to doubt the Word of God as he did to Eve in the Garden of Eden. Once he gets there, then it is easy for him to work on us. That is why we need to hold on to the Word like an anchor even when the going gets tough. No matter what your situations are, the Word of God is the same. God’s word is perfect, powerful and reliable in every situation.

Also notice, Jesus did not have different methods to deal with the enemy. He used the same weapon of the Word of God against him. “It is written…it is written…it is written…”

4. Sword of the Spirit is the “Rhema word”:

Ephesians 6:17 says, “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Paul speaks about the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. In the Greek it is ‘Rhema’ which is the spoken word. It is not the Bible that is in your bookshelf or on the nightstand or on your coffee table. It is the word of God you have put in your heart and the Holy Spirit taking the one word and giving it to you in your time of need.

Our part is to deposit the word of God in our hearts. The Holy Spirit will not do that for us. But when we take the sword in faith, then the Holy Spirit gives us the power and the wisdom to use it.

May the Lord help us use the sword of the Spirit effectively in our lives. Amen.

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Ephesians 6: 16 says, “above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one”.

There are many facets of faith. First of all we enter into God’s Kingdom by faith. We perform signs, wonders and miracle by faith. We even prophesy according to our measure of faith. In the scripture above, we notice that faith is also the shield that will quench the arrows of the enemy. Yet there are many who do not understand it and there are few who use it.

Faith is the most visible part of the spiritual life in a Christian. Let us say that a solder is marching toward you with his shield held rightly. It will be the most prominent thing you will ever see about him. In the same way, when others look at you walking towards them, is your faith that prominent? Our words and deeds should bring about faith in others. Sadly, some people have their shields in a place that is hardly seen. Yet some are dragging their shields behind them instead of holding it up against the enemy.

All of life’s trials that come our way are for one great purpose, our maturity. We should therefore embrace the trials as opportunities. That way, each trial the enemy flings at us will actually cause our faith muscle to grow stronger and stronger and it becomes impossible for the enemy to hurt or wound us.

Every soldier must learn to use the shield skilfully. Irrespective of the direction from which the attacks came, the warriors use their shields efficiently so that he will not miss the target from an unexpected direction. We too need to learn to be flexible with our faith. Usage of faith should accompany trust in God and assurance of His victory and never look at situations in doubt and unbelief.

Shields are of two types. One is a small circular, flat one and the other one is a long rectangular shield and is taken from the word for a door because it is shaped somewhat like a door. This is the kind of shield Paul speaks of when he says, “the shield of faith.”

A properly trained Roman soldier uses the shield so skilfully that no part of his body could be reached by the enemy. It gave him complete protection. This is the faith Paul is talking about when he refers to it as a shield.

Satan doesn’t care about the folks that do not cause any damage to his kingdom. He wants to cause trouble to those who will trouble him. The enemy first counterattacks our minds, our hearts, our bodies and our finances. So we need to have a shield that covers us. He will attack any area he could reach. If he cannot attack us, he will attack those closest to us. If you are a married person and the first thing the enemy would want to touch is your spouse. That is why you need to have shield big enough to protect you and everything around you. You, your family, and everything God has committed to you.

Faith is mentioned twice in this list of the armour. First, as a breastplate. The breastplate is faith and love and secondly, a shield is the shield of faith. Each of us of “faith” must be understood slightly differently.

The breastplate is faith for our own personal righteousness, but the shield of faith is for protection and provision for ourselves and all whom God has committed to us. It is that which covers everything. We must hold our shield of faith for full protection and provision.

May the Lord make us strong soldiers in His Kingdom. Amen.

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The heart is the vital organ of the human body. The breastplate of the soldier protects the heart. The Bible declares in Proverbs 4:23, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life”.

Paul speaks about the breastplate of righteousness as a protection of the heart. Ultimately what we have in our heart determines the course of our life, for good or for evil. Therefore it is so important to safeguard your heart. When a soldier in the army of God we need the breastplate of righteousness.

Paul describes the breastplate of righteousness need to be put on. Unless you decide to put on this breastplate, God cannot put this on you.

“But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love.”  (1 Thessalonians 5:8)

Again Paul describes the breastplate but this time on a different dimension, ie., of faith and love.

If we put these two scriptures together, the breastplate of righteousness is a breastplate of faith and love. In Philippians 3:9, Paul speaks about this kind of righteousness again. “…that I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”

In the above scripture, Paul talks about two kinds of righteousness. One is, his own righteousness that is derived from the Law and says this is not sufficient. But he talks about a righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith in the written word of God. Paul is talking about the second kind of righteousness when he was writing about the breastplate of righteousness.

When we operate in our own righteousness, Satan can find many weak points in that type of righteousness and can often penetrate it with his attacks and could damage our heart. Therefore we must put on a breastplate that is not our own righteousness but the righteousness of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ.

We need to believe the Scripture and accept by faith that we have become the righteousness of God. That is the only kind of breastplate that can adequately protect our heart and our life.  This type of righteousness can only be wrought by faith. It is a breastplate of faith and love.

Jesus prayed for Peter that “his faith may not fail” the night before His passion. There may be times when our faith seems to fail. But that is when we need to pray like how Jesus prayed. . It is so easy to praise God and keep going when everything goes all right. But when everything seems to be failing, that is when the real test to our faith comes. Jesus warned Peter that he was going to betray Him the same night. In the context of that warning, Jesus said, “Peter, I have prayed for you.” Jesus did not pray that Peter would not betray Him. In those situations, under the pressures that would develop and with the known weaknesses in Peter’s Character, it was inevitable that Peter would betray Jesus. But Jesus prayed a different kind of prayer,

Notice that your faith may not fail. If Peter’s faith would not fail, then even though he was going to deny the Lord and show himself very weak and cowardly, all those things could be retrieved. Jesus was giving importance to Peter’s faith instead of the other outward things. Jesus was praying for Peter’s breastplate of faith and love. Faith is the essential element for this breastplate.

The kind of faith we are talking about works only through love. Galatians 5:6 says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision not uncircumcision mean anything, but faith working through love”. One thing that Paul says is without faith that comes from love, you cannot succeed in Christian life. It is an active faith that works through love.

In Song of Solomon 8:6-7, it says, “place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal over your arm: for love is as strong as death, many water cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away”.

See the phrase “love is as strong as death”. Death is the one irresistible thing that we all must encounter. There is no way to avoid death. Love always conquers us from all negative forces like resentment, unforgiveness, bitterness, discouragement, and despair which can corrupt our hearts and spoil our lives. Remember, all that there is in life comes out of the heart.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

This is the breastplate we need, one that never fails. A breastplate in which there is not a single weak point that the enemy can get in. This breastplate will protect you from any evil thing that the enemy can bring to you to penetrate that vital area of your life. Amen.

Let our faith not fail, no matter what we go through in Jesus’ name.

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This is the first equipment in the whole armour of God. When a Roman soldier was required to do something active, such as use his weapons, he would need to take care of that loose garment. If he failed to do it, its flaps and folds would hinder his movements and prevent him from using the rest of his equipments effectively.

Truth literally means honesty, sincerity and openness. We live in a culture and society where people say things without really meaning them from the bottom of their hearts. Why do they say something and do something else? …simply because, they want to sound good. In other words, instead of God pleasers we often become men pleasers.

Often times, we say we will pray for you, brother and then totally forget about that brother. That is a bunch of insincere words and they are like the loose, hanging garment. It gets in our way and prevents us from doing the kind of thing that God ask us to do. Not only that, it becomes a stumbling block for the other items of equipment.

We must put away sham, hypocrisy, saying and doing things we do not mean. Often truth is painful. But it is time to confront the need for real truth, openness and frankness. You need to put on the girdle and tie it around so that the religious insincerities and shams no longer hang around you and become a stumbling block in the way of things God would want to have you do.

“Loins” is often used in the context of reproduction. When we gird our loins, we clothe ourselves in a way that our loins are covered in the spiritual sense. Every Christian married or unmarried must have spiritual children. It happens by “Words”. Words are the seeds to produce spiritual children.

“The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life.”  (Proverbs 13:14)

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit”.  (Proverbs 18:21)  We need to give life with our words.

Jesus spoke about girding your loins with truth:

The Lord said:

“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. “The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”  (Matthew 12:33-37)

What was Jesus talking about? He said in effect, if our words are truth and life, then we must wrap ourselves in the truth. We must love truth as we love our life. Truth should become our treasure.

We are living in the last days. The deceiver is let loose. People are talked into things that are not truth anymore. If we, as God’s elect want to stand by the truth, we need to love the truth. That is why 2 Thessalonians 2:10 says, “…the love of the truth”. Only the people who love the truth will not be deceived in the last days. This is the way we wrap ourselves with truth to prove that we love the truth. Or in other words, we love the truth so much that we wrap ourselves in it continually.

A practical way to girdle the truth is to meditate the word of God, the first thing in the morning. It is so important to girdle our loins with the truth.

Just like the people in uniforms get up each day early morning and get ready for that day’s battle, we as a soldier in God’s army need to put on the full armour of God. The first thing we need to do is wrap ourselves in the word of God.

In the Old testament days, the priest needed to wash themselves in the laver first thing each morning. That means the cleansing of the Word.

The children of Israel need to gather manna the first thing in the morning that represents the word of God.

In the biblical times, barrenness was such a reproach. In the spiritual sense barrenness is even worse. We literally loose out ability to reproduce if we do not have enough seed (the word of God) in us. We must protect our ability to reproduce and we can do it only with the “Word of God”. Amen.

May the Lord help us to girdle our loins in Jesus’ name.

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First, in the wilderness, Jesus defeated Satan on His own behalf. He met Satan, resisted his temptation, and defeated him.

Second, on the cross, Jesus defeated Satan on our behalf, not for Himself. He did not need the victory for Himself because He already had it, but He won the victory for us and defeated our enemy. He disarmed our enemy, stripped him, and made a show of him openly on our behalf. Praise God!

Third, it is now our responsibility to keep the devil where he belongs.

Remember: “Jesus Christ has made victory possible for us “always” and “in every place”. Amen.

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“And having disarmed the powers and authorities he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”.  (Colossians 2:15)

“But thanks be to God who always leads us in His triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.”  (2 Corinthians 2:14)

Notice the words “always” and “in every place”. That means, there is no time and no place when we cannot visibly share the triumph of Christ over Satan’s kingdom.

Jesus declares: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 18-20)

Here Jesus says that through His death on the cross, He has wrested the authority from Satan, obtained it for Himself and God has vested in Jesus, all authority in heaven and earth. What is the implication of “therefore?” Jesus says, “I have won the authority, you go and exercise it”. You go and demonstrate My victory to the whole world by fulfilling My commission.”

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These are the laws of Moses. To obtain righteousness with God, we need to keep all the laws as given to Moses. As long as the laws of Moses was the requirement, every time we broke even one of the most minor requirements, we were guilty before God. But Jesus took the law out of the way and made provision for us to live free from guilt. Isn’t that awesome?

“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes”. Jew or Gentile, it makes no difference. Christ is not the end of the law as part of God’s Word. Christ is the end of the law as a means to achieve “righteousness with God”. We are not required to keep the law in order to be righteous.”  (Romans 10:4)

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  (2 Corinthians 5:21)

This is the divine exchange. Once we grasp the fact that we have been made righteous with the righteousness of Christ, the devil cannot make us feel guilty any longer. Satan’s main weapon will thus be taken from him. Jesus disarmed the principalities and powers by His death on the cross. He took from them their main weapon against us.

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The God who does not need us to be happy himself promises to make his people happy forever. At the end of our weak service, the Master says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). Enter into the paradise of triune bliss, the Promised Land of milk and mirth, of honey and happiness.

Does your God invite you into his own joy? I find the unfaithful servant of the story instructive. The Master gave him one talent, and he went and buried it. Why did he bury it away?

Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours. (Matthew 25:24–25)

He did not know the Master who invites into his own joy. The Master who smiles and says, “Well done.” He harbored hard thoughts, buried his talents under hard ground, and received a hard wage: “You wicked and slothful servant! . . . Take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. . . . And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:26, 28, 30).

How vital it is to know God’s heart. How many talents hide beneath mounds of dirt in our backyards? Do you believe you serve a hard and extorting God? Believer, come to the open window and gaze through Jesus’s words: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Stir at your God’s vow: “I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul” (Jeremiah 32:41). Quiet under his singing:

The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)

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