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“Writing to Win the Race”!
Sometimes when I write articles, or even brainstorm for them, my mind, heart, and spirit may be inspired to go in all sorts of directions. I then react by writing with the flow and putting down everything that comes to mind. This is absolutely one of those times, and I am happy to tell you that even though I set out to write one thing – I truly believe God directed me to go in a different [or in this case multiple different] directions. I think that there are many integral components to successfully writing for God based on His word, but among the most important is simply carefully and prayerfully following the leading of the Holy Spirit in your writing. As much as I wanted to initially speak about the lies of the enemy in this article, which I did speak of in the initial portion of it, I think God had an all-together different bunch of “talking points” for me to write about on this particular day. I hope you all will enjoy it or more importantly learn something from it, as I feel that this article may arguably be more candid and less filtered than my other articles. Despite this obvious dynamic, I want to assure you that many of the ideas presented here are firmly grounded in scripture, but some of it may also encompass my personal opinion or viewpoints. I hope that it is all uncompromising of God's word, and if anything is unclear I will be happy to take your feedback at [email protected]. The truth is transparency is quite important to me, among other qualities, and I hope that I am not only someone who wants to listen to and write about the word of God, I also want to be a doer of the word. Without further ado, the following article revolves around this free writing idea and jumps sporadically from point to point [in some cases without much correlation]!
It is a great responsibility of ours to ensure that we do not fall victim to the lies of our adversary the Devil and his demons. (See V*1). These may come about in different forms, but one of the purposes of this article is to make sure to prepare ourselves for the lies and act accordingly. Hopefully through a combination of alertness, vigilance, prayer, and obedience to God we can put these lies in proper perspective. When you are alert and prayerfully attuned to the will of God [as well as equipped with the full armor of God; see “Put on God's Armor – Overcome Sin” from 3/21/09] you can be confident that you will resist evil by walking in the Holy Spirit. I highly doubt many true Christians have fallen into the trap of an evil desire at the moments in which they were deeply rooted and equipped in the aforementioned manner. Obviously it is unrealistic to assume that in today's day and age we are always 100% resistant and obedient, after all we are all imperfect by nature. (See V*2). This is where we need to essentially gauge our susceptibility to the enemy, and hopefully act in accordance with the leading of the Holy Spirit and any truth we can grab a hold of during those moments of weakness. (See V*3). In preparation for our moments of weakness, it would be wise to create barriers between us and the potential for sin. Even when this is not specifically done, we should still grab hold of the fact that God always provides a means to resist or escape temptation. At the moment this occurs we should be careful to take God's hand and accept these kinds of windows of His provision whenever possible. (See V*4). This is where the truly faithful and firmly grounded believers will persevere. Those of us that trust in Him and acknowledge the fact that we are privileged beyond measure to be given such opportunities by God himself.
We should also look at the bright side when we are wronged or have a season of trouble, difficulty, trial, conflict, or strife in our lives. Perhaps these are some of the most difficult times to be able to praise God in the midst of storms, but always keep in mind what Jesus Christ went through on our behalf on the cross over 2,000 years ago. He was absolutely perfect and blameless, and yet He still paid the ultimate price for you and I to have the opportunity to accept Him. Once we have accepted Him as our personal Lord and Savior, we can rest assured that our salvation is secure and that we can live in victory and triumph over evil. We are God's blessed children and there is nothing we could ever say or do [and nothing that could ever take away] the free gift of salvation that God has given us through the acceptance of His son Jesus Christ.
With all that said, and that is quite a lot to ponder and pray about, some of you may still be thinking to yourself along these lines: “I know I am saved Victor, and the joy of my salvation is more than enough for me to be happy, however being only human I can only take so much before I feel like the waves of life have me crushed.” (See V*5). If you are in this boat, you can rest assured that you will feel close to God in your toughest times. When you show God that you trust Him regardless of how messed up the circumstances seem to have become, when you are still faithful in the midst of adversity, when you have suffered at the hands of evil, wrongdoers, or naysayers based on your faith [in Jesus Christ] – we all need to absolutely count our blessings! I know what you guys might be thinking now, “but Victor this doesn't even make intuitive sense – why would I be thankful when things are going so seemingly disastrous?” The reason is we are in a special place in God's heart when we suffer on His account or [as in the case of Job for example], when it is a part of God's plan. Many of us as Christians have been called to suffer to an extent in a variety of different ways, some of us in a seemingly higher proportion than others. It is also vital to remember that suffering is a very personalized experience, one that many can relate to or only you and God can – or anything in between those two extreme ends. Only God truly knows to what extent, for what reason(s), for what divine purpose, or the exact state of your mind, body, spirit, and soul in the midst of the suffering or trials. Just as God loves a cheerful giver, I sincerely believe He also loves a faithful servant who suffers because of a higher calling.
A pastor I highly esteem and admire by the name of Erwin Lutzer had a highly thought provoking sermon the other day on the radio. His main message, to the credit of God above all and the Holy Spirit living in this man, was revolving around suffering, trials, tribulation – and how we should be thankful to God for these sorts of opportunities to stay obedient [even when it is a challenge to do so]. He went on to talk about, I believe in the same sermon, how much weight we put into trivial matters here on Earth rather than living with an eternal type of mindset. (See V*6). For example, many of us would get worked up or even highly stressed if our car was scratched while away from our sights in the parking lot. The truth is a lot of us would probably start thinking right away about how it might have happened or who may have been involved. I could imagine myself thinking, “Arghh, I bet that guy that was here before slammed his door into mine while I was away.” Even worse, we may even think someone may have keyed our car simply to deface our property. The truth is these sorts of matters are a constant grind, but I think if we take the higher road and try to put these in their place as trivial matters – we honor God in the process. With that said, it is worthwhile to continually practice this at multiple opportunities and attempt to make it a way of life. I personally think that we would ensure our own well being, but more importantly we will delight God in our actions and that my friends is worth more than I can imagine.
I am not trying to sound all high and mighty either, on the contrary I make these same mistakes myself. I actually have a personal example of one of my own experiences where I fell into such a trap recently. Not long ago, my mom hired a worker to clean the driveway with a pressure-cleaner and do a couple of outside tasks around the house. In their initial talks she explained what she wanted done, and he set out to begin the job of pressure cleaning the driveway. Now assuming he did an admirable job, my mom thought she would definitely proceed to have him do more work in the future, but alas this was not the case. To make a long story short, his work left a lot to be desired – and my mom felt it was too pricey for the kind of effort he put in to make it happen. This led her to terminate the idea of asking him to doing further work, but she did pay him as promised for the portion that the laborer completed that day. The very next day, as if by an extreme coincidence or some sort of odd revenge, she found that a large portion of the front of her driveway was driven over (seemingly on purpose) with a bunch of deep, dark dirt. Now, as soon as I saw what had happened with my own two eyes, my mind started racing to possible explanations. It may or may not surprise you to know that I immediately imagined that the same worker hired for the job might be the culprit – and to this moment of writing there is still a small, unverified possibility that this may be the case – but I have realized in retrospect that this is a trivial matter. My initial suspicion is perhaps a normal, human reaction – however, dwelling on it, getting upset about the instance, or letting it bother me would be akin to crying over spilled milk. Whats done is done, and beyond that time, energy, and effort would be wasted away if such thoughts are not immediately dismissed and set on excellent, praiseworthy, and worthwhile ones instead. (See V*7).
One side note on this story: it is actually quite doubtful at this point that it was the same man who did the job, we noticed after some more careful [and perhaps unwarranted] thinking that the vehicle this man drove did not have a dual-band of tires like the ones on the marks in the driveway. Furthermore, on this day there were service trucks nearby that could have easily and unintentionally tarnished our driveway during their project. Now that I have perhaps satisfied some of your curiosity in regards to the outcome, I can tell you with confidence that regardless if it was him or not is not at all important. The situation was and is still trivial and ultimately it is all in God's hands – trivial or not.
Along the same line of thinking with which I began this article, I wanted to elaborate some more about evil influences and how we should keep ourselves protected and in line with God's word in regards to them. Often times, I would venture to say that it is our fallen, human nature that causes us to have moments or even periods of susceptibility to these sorts of attacks. However, we must realize that there are also other forces at work [namely the Devil and his demons] who attempt to bring us down at any given opportunity. (See V*8). In this set of verses it is clear to me that we are to carefully guard our hearts [among other aspects of our being] from evil. This man, and his wife, in this Biblical excerpt were clearly leaving themselves open for this kind of attack. Unfortunately it meant death for them, but as you can see clearly these forces may exert [or attempt to exert] influence on us on a regular basis. It is up to us whether we ultimately give in to these alluring fallacies or we stand firm in faith and resistance on God's promises when the going gets tough. Have you ever wondered whether a specifically misleading, inappropriate, or generally destructive comment or action by a loved one truly originated from their heart or mind? Perhaps you yourself have experienced some negative thoughts, emotions, or reaction based on what you strongly believe may be an outside influence. Although we should not make a habit of making these evil forces a scapegoat or excuse, nor should we be paranoid or worried about such occurrences, we should be aware that these sorts of influences [particularly against faithful followers of God] do take place. I am willing to speculate that followers of Jesus Christ have a much more difficult journey than the average person. Honestly, in today's world I really think many of us are doing a great job at sinning without having to be misled by the Devil. It is not the fallen ones that I think the Devil takes most pleasure in deceiving, it is in the loyal, faithful followers of God's word that likely have the hardest battles. This particular point is not a firm fact, but I do lean towards this train of thought when I think it through. The take home point though, which I cannot stress enough of course is this: by the grace of God we need not be worried or even overly concerned about the forces of darkness beyond a state of vigilance, awareness, and of course a firm grounding in the will and word of God. When the will of God is on your side [in accordance with your obedience to Him] there is nothing that can come in the way of His plans in your life from coming to fruition. (See V*9). There is also nothing that can ultimately come between us and how much God loves us. (See V*10).
-Victor Nunez
Biblical References:
V*1- “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)
V*2- “For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. 19 For I do not the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this principle: when I want to do good, evil is with me. Romans 7:18-21 (HCSB)
V*3- “So then, brothers, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, 13 for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 All those led by God's Spirit are God's sons. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God's children, 17 and if children, also heirs- heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ – seeing that we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. Romans 8:12-17 (HCSB)
V*4- “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” 1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV)
V*5- “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalms 51:12 (NIV)
V*6- “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is going to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18 (HCSB)
V*7- “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.” Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
V*8- “But a man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a piece of property. 2 However, he kept back part of the proceeds with his wife's knowledge, and brought a portion of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the proceeds from the field?” Acts 5:1-3 (HCSB)
V*9- “Therefore, submit to God, But resist the Devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 (HCSB)
V*10- 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39 (NIV)
Additional Links:
How to be led by the Holy Spirit
God rewards servants
Erwin Lutzer's website:(highly recommended)
Final words/comments:
Thank you all for viewing my article, I hope God has blessed you somehow during the time you took to read all this. I truly feel that He blessed me while I wrote it! I think I can speak for Jim and myself when I say we will keep you – the readers – in our prayers!