Category: Thoughts and Meditations

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.” – 2 Corinthians 10:3

As Christians, we are constantly engaged in a battle, but it’s a spiritual battle and must be fought spiritually. Many Christians get excited at the language of spiritual warfare, then try to conduct it with the tools and techniques of the world. That’s a trick of the devil! Our battle isn’t one that can be fought with harshness, anger, or violence. It isn’t a battle won by “shock and awe” or overwhelming force. It isn’t won by bending someone else’s will to our own.

We must wage this battle with prayer, meditation, and praise. We must wage this battle inside the church and out with profound Spirit-given self-control of body, mind, and spirit. We must wage this battle with love, truth, and compassion. We battle against the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil that would pull us away from our mission to make disciples of all nations. We battle against the yielding of the church to the ways of the world in a hopeless quest for greater approval and acceptance. We battle against the myriad false teachings flooding our social media, email, and TV channels that distort and undermine the unchanging truth of Scripture.

If you’re a follower of Jesus, then you’re in a battle, make no mistake about that! Are you fighting it? Did you know there was a battle going on? Are you fighting it like Jesus, the Lamb of God, fought with sacrificial love? Or are you fighting in the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil?

“Then they believed his words;
they sang his praise.
But they soon forgot his works;
they did not wait for his counsel.”
– Psalm 106:12-13

What the Psalmist writes about Israel could easily be said about us today. We humans can swiftly move from mountaintop experiences of faith, praise, and worship to the valley of practical atheism as quickly as Sunday turns into Monday!

Hard as it can be to believe, we can be full of zeal for the Lord one day and quickly be acting as if God weren’t present, relevant, or interested in our everyday lives. Hopefully we aren’t blatantly asking, “What has God done for me lately?” Nonetheless, we too easily live our lives at work, school, home, in community, or on travel with God as a mere afterthought. We decide and act without prayer. We make decisions, then perhaps ask God to bless them as if He were wielding a divine rubber stamp.

That isn’t how we should relate to God! God is Lord of the universe! He’s intimately familiar with and concerned about all the details of our daily lives. He calls us to lives of seamless faith from Sunday through Saturday. He invites us to pray without ceasing. How we live each moment of each day should reflect the wondrous words, works, and realities of our life in Christ. Learn from the Israelites and always remember the works of God. Invite Him to guide you and be glorified in every moment of every day – you won’t be disappointed!

“In that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean on him who struck them, but will lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.” – Isaiah 10:20

Throughout biblical history and down to the present day, God has proven faithful over and over again to “the remnant” who loves and follows Him. Not all who have claimed or thought they were “God’s People” were actually faithful to Him. Therefore, times of testing, times of suffering, and times of judgment have come to reveal those who are faithful to God and those who are not.

God always restores the faithful remnant! He’s always there for those who turn back to Him and seek Him with determination. In our own age, we’ve seen a rapid diminishing and fracturing of Christ’s church, particularly in the Western world. While there is much to lament about this, we should also recognize that it’s the continuation of an age-old pattern. We are in a time of winnowing when casual Christians, nominal Christians, ethnic Christians, and worldly Christians likely find no social or economic advantage in calling themselves Christians (indeed, quite the opposite!). What will remain is the faithful remnant who leans on Christ rather than man.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and may well be the necessary step prior to another Great Awakening, a glorious movement of the Holy Spirit that bring many more to genuine faith and enlarges “the remnant”. Let us pray diligently that it would be so and that a spirit of awakening would soon sweep across all the nations of the world!

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” – 2 Corinthians 6:14

This is a hard teaching to process! As followers of Jesus, we’re called to be in the world, yet not of the world. We’re called to cultivate friendships with those who don’t know Christ, but also be on guard as to how deep that friendship goes so that it doesn’t steer us off the path of following Jesus.

Why is this even an issue? Because followers of Jesus are new creation, the righteousness of God. As such, we’re called to avoid becoming yoked with (attached to in a way that joins our direction, journey, and fate like two farm animals) old creation that hasn’t yet become the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

So what would constitute an unequal yoking? Any sort of binding association, partnership, or relationship that would, over time, tend to result in a substantial clash of values, ethics, dreams, vision, goals, or worldview. An unequal yoking could be a long-term business partnership. It could be a deep personal relationship (including, but not limited to, marriage). It could be an organizational membership. It could describe a church’s entanglement with secular groups, organizations, or politics. Anything where the two parties are committed to traveling together through life over a long period of time, even as their fundamentally different natures should be driving them apart.

History is clear that unequal yoking between children of the world and children of God doesn’t produce greater righteousness, but less. It doesn’t produce more fruit for God’s Kingdom, it produces less. It doesn’t produce spiritual growth and strength, it produces weakness. While this teaching may offend our 21st century sensibilities, we defy it at our own peril!

“And he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” – 2 Corinthians 5:15

Jesus died for you. You. You! He died on a cross for your sins and was raised back to life on the third day so that by God’s grace, through faith in Him, you become new creation (verse 17). You are reconciled to the God Who loves you (verse 18). Christ’s righteousness is credited to you and you become the righteousness of God (verse 21).

Because Christ did this for you, it isn’t about you. It’s not. Not anymore! If you’ve put your faith in Jesus Christ and received the extraordinary blessings and benefits of a life united with His, it’s not about you. Not any longer. It’s about Jesus.

For everyone raised to new life in Christ, we can’t be living for ourselves any longer. It’s not about us. Our life, our purpose, our passion, our mission can’t be about us. It must be about Him. We’ve been raised to live for Him. We’ve been made new to love Him, share Him, proclaim Him, serve Him. We’ve been raised to become His hands and feet, caring for the poor and those in need, loving the unlovable, sharing hope with the hopeless, speaking life to the spiritually dead. We must no longer live for our kingdoms and empires, but exclusively, 100% for His Kingdom. May His Kingdom come and His will be done!