If you say you’re a Christian, but you’ve never shaken your fist at God, or ugly cried and said mean things in your heart to Him, or even about Him, you’re doing it wrong. Every, single person who calls themselves a follower of Jesus and who is also willing to be a real human and admit they’re not perfect, will have pockets full of stories about times they raged against God in their confusion, pain, anger, because of injustice or life being full of crap and whatever else. If not, you’re either lying or you are missing the point. To quote Westley/The Man in Black (ahem, The Princess Bride), “Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
Fast Food Faith = Spiritual Malnourishment
Have you ever notices how feeling victorious is often a distant, secondary experience to actually being victorious? “We walk by faith and not by what we see,” (2 Corinthians 5:7) so “victory” is often times a faith experience, rather than a natural one until God breaks through and helps you bust some heads. Amen!
If you are going to be a person of victory, you’ll have to fight wars against the continual attacks of Satan – against your family, your health, your finances, your friendships and relationships, jerk bosses, rude people at the laundromat. If you believe in the Bible at all, internalize this: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) That’s just the long and short of it.
Food for thought: If no evil spiritual force wants to fight a Christian, how much of a threat can that Christian actually be?? Any real evil nemesis is itching to fight and will bring hell right to you hoping you’ll stay occupied with writing nasty Facebook posts at people, shaking your fist at God, fainting dead away, becoming angry and bitter, hateful or filled with doubt that God is tough enough. But. If the enemy brings you to it, God will get you through it. Do you believe God’s Word or the words of the devil? That’s a choice we must all make every day, sometimes every moment.
My REAL point is this: If you don’t know how to use your weapons, how can you expect to win? Fighting in faith for your life and the things that concern you is a f.i.g.h.t. and you’re going to need more than a 5-minute devotional or verses you heard on K-LOVE to get you through. You’re going to need more than Sunday sermons and Pandora playlists. Fast food faith will not nourish your spirit. Until the answer you need arrives, you must fight- and your primary weapon is the Word of God.
“For the word of God is alive, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) When Satan tries to catapult your life into hell, he’s not going to grab coffee while you run home for your “Purpose Drive Life” bookmark with all the right Scriptures. You must keep the Word of God on the tip of your tongue, and that’s only going to happen if you read it, mediate on it and absorb it. Then, when Satan comes in, you’ll have an “IT IS WRITTEN” to stab into his eyes, like Jesus did. (Matthew 4)
“Therefore submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” James wrote. (James 4:7). Get into the actual Word of God daily and feed your spirit food that will strengthen you for a real fight. While it’s not as popular as hearing affirmations about what a good person you are (bygones…), the truth is, you can’t submit yourself to God, nor resist the devil with any real, believable strength if all you’ve been eating is McNuggets of faith and sugar coated truth. And you’ll need to do both if you want to win. So…. nom, nom!
