"OH...Yeah, He Knows!"

Then the devil led Jesus to the holy city of Jerusalem and put him on a high place of the Temple. The devil said, “If you are the Son of God, jump down, because it is written in the Scriptures:

‘He has put his angels in charge of you.
    They will catch you in their hands
so that you will not hit your foot on a rock.’” Psalm 91:11–12

Jesus answered him, “It also says in the Scriptures, ‘Do not test the Lord your God.’”

Did you know that Satan is very crafty and cunning?  He does come to us in the horribly disfigured red hideous creature that we have been led to believe.  If he did, would we be willing to talk with him?  Satan is cunning, clever and comes to us in ways we will willingly listen.  Sometimes pretending to be a close and caring friend ("I'm sorry your marriage isn't working out, but I have a friend who would love to meet you.  It's okay because you're SO miserable." Or "It's okay to take stuff. After all, this is a HUGE company with gazillions of dollars, so who's going to know?")

We must be diligent and we must always be prepared. He will come to us as an angel of light but that veneer will quickly fade when we can also remind him what Abba's Word says. The Apostle Paul reminds us in Corinthians 11:14, "Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."  We MUST be strong, prepared and armed to the teeth with Scripture!  Not just the words of Scripture but with the strength of knowing it is Abba's words to us.

 

Are You Willing?

Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom shall I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go?”And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”
Isaiah 6:8 

I discovered, VERY early in Basic Training, when you Drill Sergeant asks for a volunteer it's best to volunteer or else you will be dropped for push-ups and THEN you will be voluntold.  I was reminiscing with a friend about those days, all we learned, all we endured, all the pranks, all the punishments, and then Joe asked me, "Why did you volunteer? Is sure wasn't for the money or the glamor, and there was no fame, so why did you volunteer?'  I thought about it because it had been a few years (ahem, ahem), and I said, "Because I wanted to become a better person."  Joe looked a bit stunned and said, "No, you bonehead, why did you volunteer for ministry?"

My first thought was, "You think I volunteered for ministry?" But I figured that would be the wrong approach.  I explained that ministry is something I knew, deep within me, that God has been preparing me for.  I told him that I was terrified and felt (still feel) terribly under qualified, but I trust and am still learning to trust God.

There is an adage which says, "God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called."  And it is true.  When God called Saul to ministry, Saul was not even remotely qualified.  He spent 3 years in the wilderness learning from God.  You see, God doesn't expect us to be perfect.  He knows quite well that we don't have all the answers or the ability or the courage or even a detailed diagram of His plan for us.  All God wants is for us to step up and say, "Here I am, I'll go."  Then God will take care of the rest.  We all have a mission.  We all have a ministry.  God has that planned for each of us, we need to be available.   

Time!

No one knows when that day or time will be, not the angels in heaven, not even the Son. Only the Father knows.

Matthew 24:36 

 

 

One of my favorite television shows happens to be NCIS: New Orleans, where the Special Agent in Charge has a catch phrase of "Learn Things."  We, as humans, like to know what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and where it's going to happen.

 

One of the questions I am asked with regularity is "Do you think the end of the world is near?"  To which my answer is almost always "It's one day closer than yesterday."  Why do we worry about such things?  Even Jesus admitted that the ONLY one who knows is God the Father!  And if He didn't share that information with Jesus or the Angels...it's not for us to know either.  In fact, Jesus said in verse 42: "So always be ready, because you don’t know the day your Lord will come."

 

You see, why get all worked up about such things?  Be ready!  Don't wait until the last minute, because we don't know when that will be.

 

My Grampa told me a story when I was much younger:  A young man, who was pretty lazy, wanted to marry the rancher's daughter.  The rancher told the young man to wait outside the barn and he would send out 10 bulls one at a time, and all the young man had to do was catch one of them by the tail, then he could marry the rancher's daughter.  So the young man sat in the shade outside the barn and waited.  First bull came out, the young man just rested.  Second bull came out, the young man rested.  This went on until the eighth bull came out, the young man decided he'd better get up and get ready.  The ninth bull came out, the young man decided to assume his "attack stance."  When the tenth bull came out, it didn't have a tail.  Moral of the story: "Don't wait, be prepared!"  

Armor Up!

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.  For this reason, take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to stand your ground on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand.

Ephesians 6:12-13

In the days of the Roman Empire, soldiers knew they would be in a fight.  They knew they would most likely be executed if they ran away or refused to fight.  On the upside, once a soldiers enlistment was over, the Empire took good care of them.  The Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen (by family purchase) and was accustomed to seeing the Roman Soldiers, and probably interacted with them regularly.  He got to see their armor up close and understood why the armor was SO important to the success of the Legions.

Did you know that we are in a daily battle?  Believe it or not, our faith is under constant attack in order that our faith will become weak and/or so we will lose heart and stop fighting.  Paul was well aware of this and reminds us that we need to ARMOR UP!

Our battle is not with people. Rather we fight against the ideologies that seek to make our faith something to be manipulated and pulled apart.  I wish I could tell you that people study, and learn from, the Scriptures.  But far too many have become "soakers" who believe whatever a pastor or "religious speaker" says without every checking to see if it is actually true.  We have people in the pulpits who give "pep-talks" or motivational speeches or "feel good" talks and may or may not ever reference the Bible.

This is why we must Armor Up EVERY SINGLE DAY!  We have to be prepared for the fray every single day.  Imagine if a police officer arrived on a violent call only to remember that their weapon had rusted from lack of attention.  Imagine the soldier going into battle and realizing that they didn't remember to pack supplies to survive in a hostile environment.  Yet this is exactly what we do when we don't bother to read, study, and check out what we're being taught.

Paul reminds us that we MUST put on our armor and prepare for the battle or we will not survive.

"Never trust one who has no battle scars, for they have never been in a fight."