Shield
of Faith
Emailed: Tuesday,
September 20, 2011:
It's
tempting for us to think of faith as a kind of magic
formula. Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking
if we muster up enough of it we will get rich, stay
healthy, and live a content life, with automatic
answers to all our prayers. However, the faith
chapter, Hebrews 11, expresses to us a different idea.
After explaining the lives of the faithful, it ends by
saying "These were all commended for their faith, yet
none of them received what had been promised,"
(Hebrews 11:29). This picture of faith does not fit
into an easy formula. Sometimes faith leads to victory
and triumph. Sometimes it requires a gritty
determination to "hang on at any cost." We must note
that Hebrews 11 doesn't hold up one kind of faith as
superior to the other. Both rest on the belief that
God is in ultimate control and will indeed keep His
promises - whether that happens in this life or in the
next. So consider this, are you holding up your
"shield of faith" by searching for a magic formula
which breeds desires in your heart that aren't being
met? If so, consider the fact that there is no such
magic formula - only a call from the Lord for us to
hang on at any cost and continue to trust Him and obey
His commands.
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Helmet
of Salvation
Emailed:
Wednesday, October 5, 2011:
Let's put on
the mind of Christ by kicking our moods out!! Many
times we don't realize that the attitude or "mood"
that we are in affects the way we see life. Thus, it
affects the way the Lord can uses us and is a way that
we are allowing Satan to have a place in our lives.
Putting on the mind of Christ many times means we have
to kick out the moods so that we can distinguish what
Christ wants us to see, think and say. Oswald Chambers
wrote in his devotional entitled, Taking Possession of
Our Own Soul (May 20):
There are
certain things in life that we need not pray about -
moods, for instance. We will never get rid of
moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out
of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some
physical circumstances, not in our true inner self.
It is a continual struggle not to listen to the
moods which arise as a result of our physical
condition, but we must never submit to them for a
second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of
the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that
we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The
problem that most of us are cursed with is simply
that we won't. The Christian life is one of
spiritual courage and determination lived out in our
flesh.
I encourage you to reflect upon is this: Are you
willing to kick out the moods? If not, why not?
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