Spiritual Warfare

Joyce Meyer, author, cbn

And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state]…And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always] (Colossians 3:15).

You are waging spiritual warfare when you give radical praise to God in the midst of your need and lack. When you are thankful to God for all He has done and is doing, you are defeating the enemy. When you hold your peace in the midst of the storm, you are warring with spiritual weapons (see 2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you…[Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed; and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled]” (John 14:27). Jesus has given you peace! Put it on, and wear it everywhere you go.

[Earnestly] remember the former things, [which I did] of old; for I am God, and there is no one else; I am God, and there is none like Me, declaring the end and the result from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure and purpose (Isaiah 46:9-10).

There may be times when it seems that you cannot go forward, but at least you do not have to go backward. You may not know how to forge ahead, but you can stand firmly on what you know of God.

Instead of passively yielding to the enemy, you can say, “This is the ground I have gained, and I am not giving it up, devil. You are not driving me back into the hole that God pulled me out of. I am going to stand strong in the power of God until He delivers me.”

Submit Yourself to God

My soul, wait only upon God and silently submit to Him; for my hope and expectation are from Him (Psalm 62:5).

James 4:7-8 gives the best advice on how to wage spiritual warfare: “Be subject to God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him], and he will flee from you. Come close to God and He will come close to you.”

When you humble yourself in the presence of the Lord, He will exalt you and lift you and make your life significant (see James 4:9-10). God will show you how to resist the devil. Spend time in God’s presence, and do whatever He tells you to do!

You Are Loved and Not Forgotten

ARLENE PELLICANE, author, crosswalk.com

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.” Psalm 37:23 (NKJV)

Years ago, my mom was traveling next to a woman who was wrestling with a pie. The lady was trying to take out her work things and get settled while not upending the pie she held in her lap.

My mom offered to hold the pie, and soon a friendship was born. Turns out, the pie was a gift from the woman’s mother. My mom and her new friend, Karen, chatted for much of their flight and exchanged phone numbers. From that day on, Karen often joined us for family meals and celebrations. I even interned for a year at Karen’s workplace as a public relations assistant.

I don’t think my mom meeting Karen on that airplane was an accident, coincidence or good luck. These words imply randomness and chance. Our Heavenly Father is a God of divine order and planning. God never rolls the dice or crosses His fingers, hoping for the best. He spoke the world into existence!

I believe God arranged for the airplane meetup with that pie as the connector. Today’s key verse, Psalm 37:23, says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He delights in his way.”

What delightful thing might God be arranging for you today?

Maybe you’ll meet someone new this week who really needs a friend like you. Maybe you’re wondering where your rent payment will come from, and an unexpected check arrives in the mail. Maybe you’ll write a kind letter to your best friend, lifting her spirit and yours.

Now just because there’s divine order in your life doesn’t mean you won’t encounter difficulty and disappointment.

Right after the key verse, the psalmist David writes, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; For the LORD upholds His hand. I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his descendants begging bread” (Psalm 37:24-25, NKJV).

Falls in life are inevitable but not irreversible. God has a grand plan not just for individuals, but for generations.

My parents celebrated their 50th anniversary earlier this year. We were supposed to take a family vacation to celebrate this milestone. But like many of us, our plans were changed by COVID-19. We stayed home and didn’t see each other. But you know what? Our steps are still divinely ordered. We know all things work together for the good of those who love God and who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28) Who knows? Maybe God has something even better planned.

Our lives are not haphazard. We are not victims of chance, chaos, tough luck or bad timing. We can live in peace even in troubled times because our days are ordered by an Almighty God who loves us. The more you get to know God, the sweeter and sweeter your relationship with Him will become. His plans for you are good. You are loved and not forgotten. He knows exactly where you are and will continue to be the architect of your divinely ordered life.

When Following Jesus Means Going Home

Staff writer, desiringGod.org

We tend to think of following Jesus as leaving behind the familiar for the unfamiliar. But sometimes, like for the man in Luke 8:26-39, the more difficult call is to go back home.

For the first time in a long time he was in full control of his mind. He could think! No rage. No fear. No torment. Peace like the quiet sea. He actually wanted to keep his clothes on.

But the most strangely wonderful thing of all was his sense of cleanness. His soul was clean.

The tomb-man from Gadara looked up at Jesus again. His lucid mind mulled over the words, “Son of the Most High God.”

Who would have thought that the Son of God looked so much like other Jewish men? He wasn’t very big. The tomb-man had beaten off much larger men in his demonic rages.

It was, in fact, his demons that had recognized Jesus. Son of God was their term. What was it that they saw? In all his tormented years, he had never felt anything like the terror that coursed through him when he saw Jesus get out of the boat. It was the terror of the damned. He had thought he’d been living in hell already. Now he knew better.

And now, with the demons gone, nothing he had ever experienced came close to the safety and peace he felt simply being near Jesus. He had only known Jesus for a few hours, but had already determined to be Jesus’ disciple for life. Life with him would be heaven on earth.

The man looked out on the Tiberius. Pig carcasses were washing ashore and drifting out to sea. He shivered at the disturbing memory. He felt Jesus’ reassuring hand on his shoulder.

A noise made them all turn back toward the hill. A small crowd of people was approaching, with the pig herdsmen leading the way. You could hear alarm in their voices.

A few men went on to survey the dead floating herd. But the rest stopped some twenty feet away. Everyone strained for a look at the tomb-man. He recognized most of them.

He was used to seeing fear in their eyes. But it was different this time. As a herdsman recounted what happened, they kept looking at him and then to Jesus. It was Jesus they were afraid of.

The crowd’s murmuring crescendoed into anxious pleas: “Please leave! We don’t want any more trouble here!” Some were already hurrying back toward the city. For years the tomb-man, this one-man barracks of a thousand devils, had terrorized them. And now here was someone even more powerful. Whatever witchcraft Jesus possessed, they wanted it far away from them.

The tomb-man felt confusion and grief. They didn’t understand! Jesus wasn’t anything like the demons. Jesus’ power was clean, holy. Jesus was potently kind. They were jumping to the wrong conclusions. If they would just listen to what he had to say…

But Jesus motioned to Peter to ready the boat. He was leaving!

The man jumped up and said to him, “Sir, please, may I go with you? I’ll follow you anywhere!”

Jesus looked hard at him without speaking. Then he put his reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder again and said, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.”

The words “return to your home” must have made this man’s heart sink. Home for him was not a warm place of sentimental memories. Home was a place of memories so dark and pain-filled that he likely just wanted to escape them and never go back.

But sometimes following Jesus means being sent back to a place where we once knew desolation and indescribable pain. The thought of returning there conjures up fears of our old demons and the people who knew us as we were back then. But it is there that the grace of God in our lives will shine the brightest.

What Jesus wants us to know is that his salvation and his protection extend to those old, horrible haunts. If he can break the death-grip Satan once had on us and set us free, then he can redeem the places of our former slavery and make them showcases of God’s omnipotent grace.

Do not be afraid. The Good Shepherd will walk with you and protect you on the darkest road (Psalm 23:4). Declare how much God has done for you. You are being sent because there are other tomb-people to free.

Jesus Stills the Storm

From: ligonier.org

“The men marveled, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?’” (v. 27).

– Matthew 8:23–27

Having explained the cost of discipleship to two would-be followers, Jesus and His disciples set out to cross the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 8:23). Little do the disciples know that this journey will give their teacher an opportunity to show forth His identity in a way they have not yet seen.

Because of its geographical location, violent squalls frequently occur on the open water of the Sea of Galilee, especially in the period between May and October. Seasoned fishermen like Peter, Andrew, James, and John (4:18–22) are certainly familiar with such storms, and so their fear, evident in Matthew 8:24–27, shows that the turbulence in which they find themselves is unusually fierce. However, despite the storm’s ferocity, Jesus is able to sleep peacefully as the boat traverses the waves. This indicates His great trust in God and comfort in His faithful obedience because the Old Testament understands sound sleep to be a gift from God to His holy people (Lev. 26:6). Christ’s ability to sleep in the storm is more remarkable when we consider that the boat in which His company is traveling is the customary fishing boat of His day, just big enough to accommodate the small group of men and a large catch of fish. The sailors are completely exposed to the elements. Jesus is not worried like the others even though He feels the storm’s effects no less than they do.

Yet Jesus’ command of the storm tells us about much more than His great faith. In the biblical worldview, the sea and the storm are associated with chaos and destruction (Ps. 69:1–2). Only God can control the sea, and in fact, He sets its boundary and stills its fury (Job 38:8–11). That Jesus is able to silence the storm and still the waves indicates that He possesses an authority equal to the Creator’s (Matt. 8:26–27). The disciples marvel at this miracle because it is evidence that their beloved rabbi is more than just a teacher; He is in fact God Almighty. John Chrysostom writes that “[Jesus’] sleeping showed he was a man. His calming of the seas declared him God” (Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, 28.1).

Returning to Thank the Healer

By: Becky Keife

Luke 17:11-19 – The 10 Lepers

“While traveling to Jerusalem, He passed between Samaria and Galilee. As He entered a village, men with serious skin diseases met Him. They stood at a distance and raised their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ When He saw them, He told them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And while they were going, they were healed. But one of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and, with a loud voice, gave glory to God. He fell facedown at His feet, thanking Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus said, ‘Were not 10 cleansed? Where are the nine? Didn’t any return to give glory to God except this foreigner?’ And He told him, ‘Get up and go on your way. Your faith has made you well.’”

I stand at the kitchen sink performing my nightly ritual. The water is scalding, but I barely flinch each time I rinse another dish under the steamy stream. Maybe because my hands are used to the burn. Or maybe because I’m focused on a different kind of pain.

I draw in a deep breath, slow and long, willing my lungs to fill with enough air to usher in relief. I find none. My heart pounds faster than it should. My chest tightens. It feels like coffee jitters in the life-pumping part of me—only I haven’t had caffeine since the morning. The beat of my own heart feels like life draining out of me. My mind races with a traffic jam of thoughts—speeding yet stuck. The irony is not funny.

I’m writhing, wilting, screaming inside. I’m pounding on the jail of body and mind. I’m trapped. Yet on the outside, I look fine. I load another blue plastic kid bowl into the dishwasher, scrub harder at crusted bits in the corner of a glass pan.

Breathe deep. Fight the ache. Push forward. Crave normal. No relief.

After months of enduring this can’t-catch-my-breath agony, I finally admitted that I had a serious issue with anxiety.

I looked fine. I wanted to be fine. But I wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

Several years have since passed. Sometimes the muscle memory of those fruitless deep breaths sneaks up on me. Unless I intentionally recall those tight-chest, racing-mind days, I almost forget that I was once stuck in the anxiety pit. I forget how I cried to God who lifted me out of it.

When “healed” becomes your new normal, it’s easy to forget the Healer.

My hunch is that this is what happened to the men with serious skin diseases who called out to Jesus for mercy. As they went to show themselves to the priests, the lesions of their leprosy vanished. Painful blisters were replaced with smooth skin. Deformed hands and feet were repaired to full function. The disease that had ravaged their bodies and ostracized them from society—for who knows how many years—was miraculously gone! What mercy! Praise God!

But only one did.

“But one of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and, with a loud voice, gave glory to God. He fell facedown at his feet, thanking him” (Lk 17:15-16).

Where were the other nine, Jesus wanted to know? Could they have forgotten the answer to their plea so quickly? Taken the miracle for granted already?

As readers, it’s easy to sit in judgment over these nine, seemingly ungrateful, men. The Messiah altered the course of their entire lives, yet they didn’t have the decency to come back and acknowledge the wonder or utter a thank you!

What if, for a moment, we step down from the judge’s seat and into the healed men’s shoes? Consider their joy. Consider their total awe. How utterly astounded they must have been. Surely they must have wondered if their eyes deceived them. The man who healed them said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests,” so without hesitation, they went!

Can you picture it? After being disabled and only able to hobble for years, they could now walk without pain—or better yet, run! Oh, how those men must have dashed and danced into the presence of the priests appointed to bear witness to their miraculous healing. Or perhaps they first collapsed on the dusty road, weeping with relief.

The exact responses of the nine are unknown. What we do know is that one man came back. What provoked his change of course? First, Scripture says he saw that he was healed. He recognized God’s work in his life. Next, he returned. The man didn’t continue on his way—even to the very task Jesus told him to do; he came back to give God glory and profess his thanks.

What a beautiful sight that must have been: the healed worshiping the Healer. Then to hear Jesus offer another lifeline of encouragement and freedom: “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you” (Lk 17:19).

I wonder if the nine men who didn’t return ever regretted it. Weeks, months, or years later, as they labored at a job they never thought they’d perform, as they caressed the cheek of a wife they never thought they’d marry or see again, as they entered the synagogue to worship instead of being banished to the outskirts of town, did they ever pause to remember the agony from which they were delivered? Did they ever long to go back and thank their Deliverer?

I pull my hands from tonight’s hot suds, take a deep breath, and exhale my deepest thanks.

Thank You, Jesus, for hearing my cry. Thank You for answering my plea for freedom from anxiety. You are powerful and good! All glory is Yours! Forgive me for forgetting or taking Your mercy for granted. You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long.

Unlike the ten lepers, God did not choose to exercise instantaneous healing in my life. Instead, He led me to pursue help through counseling to explore the roots and triggers of my anxiety. It was a long road of hard work. But Jesus went with me. Shadows of anxiety still creep in, but I am grateful to have crossed that darkest valley.

Healing looks different for each individual. God is not limited by a particular means or timetable. The source of our cries for mercy can be equally varied. Maybe you’ve asked God for physical or mental healing. Or maybe you’ve begged Him for a miracle of relational restoration, financial repair, or spiritual renewal.

Wherever you are on the journey, pause today to recognize how God has worked already. Identify the prayers He’s answered. Then turn from your regular to-dos and return to Him. Pour out your praise and thanks. And if needed, ask for a greater measure of faith to believe that wellness is possible