Fighting the Battles of Life

“And do you abide outside the camp seven days; whosoever has killed any person, and whosoever has touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day, and on the seventh day” (Numbers 31:19).

We have an enemy that is against us in every way. The people of Israel knew that and they were forced to right their wrongs. They had been enticed by a nation which led to a plague and death. God said stay outside the camp and purify yourselves and those who are your prisoners. Let them know there is a difference between clean and unclean.

God is serious about His people staying clean and maintaining a holy relationship with Himself. No compromise is expected. We can win the battle and lose the victory if we are not careful.  We are to be separated from all that offends our holy and righteous God we serve. Sin is a horrible pit to fall into.

We have many battles as Christians. Not a day goes by that we do not face temptations, trials, and battles. We are to maintain a constant relationship with the Lord so that we will see His power to overcome. The battles prepare us for the last battle and the last enemy which is death. Live in the fullness of Christ daily and may we see the power of a cleansed and consecrated life in the sight of our God.

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  • He’s Coming

    “…for I have provided me a king among his sons”  (I Samuel 16:1c).

    These are days of immense significance to the Christian Church.  Any of us with discernment cannot but believe the truth of the Word of God, that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back soon to take His people home and thereafter establish His kingdom.  Yet how few of us relate our lives to this significant truth!

    The church machinery is working overtime at a very severe strain trying to keep things going.  There is a great denominational cry for production.  Yet there is very little heavenly reality attached to the product.  The lasting quality of the goods is subnormal, and even borders on abnormal.

    The Lord is still looking, as He did in David’s time, for a man after His own heart.  This ought to be the cry in prayer for the Lord’s work and Word to find such a man.  In these times, before the coming of the Lord, we should be bound to pray for a life that can stand the fiery trials and that can stand against the times.  It is through a Spirit-filled man that is the fastest way to evangelism.

    Remember that the Lord is coming.  He said that the last days would be days of great trial and savagery.  The flesh is more prominent today than ever and yet we are told that “greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.”  Don’t stand down.  That’s cowardice!  Don’t stand aside.  That’s compromise!  Don’t stand against.  That’s contention!  Stand Up!  That’s conviction and courage!

  • The Shepherds: Changed by God

    “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them” (Luke 2:20).

     There was only one explanation for the lives of the shepherds: God! There should be only one explanation for our lives: God!

     The Shepherds believed God. The Angels appeared to them and told them there was a Savior, Lord, the Messiah born and given unto them and for the whole world. They left the scene and searched for the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths.

    These Shepherds were men who were not counted worthy of anything appearing to them from heaven, yet God thought so. They felt unworthy by their peers and yet God said that they were of value. The religious crowd considered them unclean, unintellectual, and unattached, but God appeared unto them and touched them by angels.

    Afterwards the men left in search for the Lord Jesus, found Him lying in the manger and told everyone of what and who they had seen. They went on with God and didn’t stop telling the good news. The appearance of the Living Word changed their lives.

    After we meet the Lord Jesus we want to be like Him. We have a sincere desire for the Word. A man without an appetite for God’s Word causes us to wonder if he is saved. We will desire as the shepherds did to be like Jesus.

    There should be only one explanation for our lives. “God” is the only explanation for what we are and what we are doing. If we can explain it on any other level, we are a failure. Most Christians’ lives can be explained on a basis other than the work of God. The shepherds represent what happens when we see the face of God.

     

  • Is God on America’s Side?

    “Are you for us, or for our adversaries? No; but I am the commander of the army of the Lord” (Joshua 5:13-14).

    Is God an American?  Is He a Republican?  Is He a Democrat?  Is God King and Defender of our nation?  In Christian thought God has been often invoked for political ends, but history shows He will not be so used.

    We are not just another country, but neither are we God’s chosen people.  We should not believe that America is God’s chosen nation.  God established one chosen nation and people:  the Jews.  We are not Israel.  We are not God’s gift to the world.

    There is no doubt we drink from wells we did not dig and we eat fruit from trees we did not plant.  We will no doubt be judged nationally and individually with stricter judgment for “unto whom much is given, much is required.”  We expect blessing, but we have done plenty to expect judgment.

    Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States, was asked whether God was on his side and he replied, “I do not care whether God is on my side; the important question is whether I am on God’s side, for God is always right.”

    Our greatest gift to this country is to return to biblical priorities of the church, and, more importantly, in so doing we will be pleasing to our Heavenly Father.

  • Standing on the Promises

     

    “And I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease, while I leave it, and come down to you?”  —Nehemiah 6:3

         Have you heard the music boxes that plays music after it is wound up? There is one box that plays that old song “Standing on the Promises.” When it is wound up to full strength it chimes with vibrant enthusiasm. The song and sounds are beautiful.

        After a while the music box begins to wind down. It can stop even before the tune is finished. Instead of playing the familiar song all the way through, it no longer is standing on the promises; it is now sitting on the premises! So many christians mistake the one for the other! Standing for sitting

         It is possible to stand on the promises in such a routine manner that we become so orthodox in our teaching, living, and behaving that we really are sitting on the premises. No longer resting in the promises and living day by day in the strength of God’s Word and prayer, we slow down and finally stop. I don’t want to run down in the middle of the song or in the middle of life. I want to stand on the promises of Christ my Lord. What about you?

  • What is a Christian? 

    “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4).
    What does it mean to be a member of Christ’s body?

     

    First of all there is vitality. The believer’s union with Jesus Christ is a living union. The Spirit of God lives in the believer. We are baptized into the body of Christ. It is God who does the work and it is God who gives life.

     

    Secondly, there is unity. We are members of His body. The members of the body work together. They maintain the peace within the body. There is only one body (Ephesians 1:22-23). The church is more than an organization. The church is an organism.

     

    Thirdly, the church has diversity. Though we are one we have different parts to play and to function in the world. The church operates together to build up the body of Christ. When one part of the body separates from its rightful position and place there is a cancer that develops.

     

    Fourthly, the body of believers deals with maturity. We mature in Christ by demonstrating our love for Christ, for each other, and for the lost. I Corinthians emphasizes love while I Corinthians 14 shows how that love should be exercised in the practical activities of the church.

     

    Fifthly, there is ministry. The Lord Jesus works through us, his body, to accomplish what he desires. He ministers and serves as we surrender to Him. We are his spiritual body. The birth of His physical body is found in Luke 2. The birth of His spiritual body is found in Acts 2, both written by Doctor Luke.

     

    We speak of church membership as if it were only a matter of joining the church and supporting the church with our money, attendance, and occasional work. But membership means more than that. We are a part of a living body. We contribute to the strength and growth of that body, the spiritual body of Christ on earth. Membership in the body of Christ means much more than what most think about. May we today wake to the awesome joy of living in Christ.

  • Positive Peers

    “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not” (Proverbs 1:10).

    “I am the peer pressure,” said a young man in high school. He was being interviewed by a reporter who asked him how he lived the Christian life in front of his peers. He pointed out that it was not the culture that swayed him but he the culture. He would not back down or stand down. Who taught him this mode of affront?

    We hear of all kinds of horror stories about the local “goings on” in the public schools. There seems to be a certain death knell that is pervading and depressing many Christian parents about our local schools, even our youth groups in our churches.  There is a modern, degenerate America,  we all know that is before us. And the reasoning given to us today is that we can shelter our children in our “mission schools.”

    The “woe-mongers” are all around us. Their forecast is intimidating. Their language is severe. We who are children of God live by faith, and we are to stand up with conviction with courage and declare with a great emphasis, “I refuse to be intimidated. I believe that our children will be the positive peers!” Parents train, pray, and send them out as arrows that leave their hands.

    It is better to allow tough things for our children to encounter than to take every obstacle away from them. Let’s train our kids to win their peers to Christ and rejoice in that. Let’s train our children to be a catalyst which stops the other sheep dead in their tracks, letting them know everybody’s not doing it.

    The faithfulness of God is to be depended upon and not the faithfulness of a dad and mom who “outthinks” God. Students swimming against the stream, students strengthening the spiritual sinew of their own bodies, who lean hard upon God is the joy of doing life God’s way.