Believing When Winning Takes Everything You've Got (Part 2)
Ephesians 6:13-16 "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked."
- Trials test your faith; therefore, your faith must be protected so that we remain focused on our original hope. Otherwise your hope and your faith will be rethought and compromised to accommodate something lesser. Situations, occasions where God does not respond as we would like etc. threaten our faith by causing us to look differently at situations in the future. Consequently, we come up with all kinds of religious sounding excuses for failure or a spiritual sounding way to express our unbelief.
- It is said that fear is faith in reverse, because no matter what, you do believe in something or someone in a given situation, whether it is bad or good.
- It is important that your faith values be protected or you will believe in the wrong things. Guard yourself against too much logic, reasoning or rationale. Faith is unreasonable.
- Winning battles is a matter of preparedness. Your preparedness enables you to resist evil when evil and failure are presented as options.
- Please note that the armor is not cast in the light as is often referred to in spiritual warfare. Often we cast the armor as equipment to storm Hell, hunt demons and intrude into the enemy’s camp. Rather it is seen in this Scripture as equipment to assure the safety and preservation of the believer who acquaints themselves with it. Note the words: withstand, stand and quench—all in the event of attack, rather than to initiate one.
- The believer, if he is to endure to the end, must equip himself and predetermine himself to stand indefinitely. It is difficult, if not impossible, to make such a determination in the heat of trial. We must be like Abraham:
Romans 4:17, 18 "(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be."
- There was no reason for Abraham to believe he could father a child apart from what God said.
- To Abraham AND Sara, what God said was truth even though Sara’s and his body was dead and infertile.
- His loins were gird about with the truth (God’s word) because, to him, God could not lie. With that conviction, he could receive anything God offered him.
- Because of his preparedness to believe, he was able to prevail over logic and biology. And when all else failed, he chose to stand anyway.
- Our biggest fight is the one that is within ourselves. Although Abraham proved it could be done, we struggle to believe without wavering and staggering. Can you imagine a 100 year old man not even staggering with unbelief that he could father a child at his age? Yet we struggle to believe much less significant things. Fighting other forces such as demons is not our battle, but the preservation of our faith and holding to our integrity until the end is what challenges us.
1 Peter 1:13 "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
- What we believe before we are tested determines our endurance.
- The ability to have a lingering hope is conceived prior to testing.
If I truly believe, I rise and adamantly refuse to surrender myself to a lesser master.
If we truly believe, we defy in favor of what we believe in.
John 15:5 "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."
- All the possibility God could invest is borne into us.
- Still, our attachment to the vine is the condition for fruitfulness.
- We can bring forth much fruit—if we remain and if we can endure the process of purging, correction and removal of other branches that have endeared themselves to us.
- Tolerating the husbandman and His dealings will take all we can tolerate of Him.
- God Himself will offend us.
- The process of purging is offensive to the branches. Correction is offensive and becoming correct is taxing and pure drudgery—until we are finally correct and enjoy the fruit of being right or righteous.
Job 23:10 "But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold."
- We must endure God’s trying us as well as the enemy’s trying us. It is the prerequisite for becoming gold.
- Both sets of trials advance us. God’s testing of us is meant to advance us from the beginning—but it is always taxing and offensive just as the trials of the enemy are.
- Satan’s testing of us was meant to destroy us, but if we endure it, we advance just the same—at his expense.
Phillipeans 2:13 "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings:"
- God’s working in you displaces you and stretches you. And takes everything you have. No one will advance easily.
- Growth, though applauded, is costly and sometimes painful.
- What happens in you also happens to you at the same time. Therefore things do not remain according to what we have become accustomed.
- When God works in you, you will be stretched to the fullest extent of your patience.
- All trial and promotion is inconveniencing. New demands are placed on you.
- The test is passed by keeping our tongue and our heart from evil imagination. That, takes everything we have.
2 Corinthians 4:7-14 "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak; Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you."
- We are already equipped to endure and excel prior to our trial.
- No one is exempt from trouble. It comes from every direction.
- We are inundated with persecution, trouble, perplexity and we are cast down to be trampled. God will not have it though.
- But the apostles’ focus was on Jesus’ suffering and their goal was to suffer with Him. They knew such a degree of suffering would take everything they had.
- They knew that their end would be good.
- We must keep the faith—and that will take everything we have!