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Come and Get It
by Duane Huffstutler Ex 23:28-33 28 And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. 29 I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate and the beast of the field multiply against thee. 30 By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land. 31 And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee. 32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee. (KJV) The Lord promised that he would clear out the Promised Land before Israel as they were moving into the land. But he told them that they would have to grow into the land. He would not clear the entire land for them because the animals and weeds would take over and the land would be good for nothing. But he did promise them all of the land in his time. God has promise us that he would fight our battles if we will stay faithful to him. We must stand in faith and serve God with all of our heart, mind and soul. We must put aside everything of the world and follow his directions. But like Israel when they were going into the Promised Land he will not clear everything out as we move in, he will only clear out what we can take care of. You say that is not right. We do everything we can to live a Christian life and follow the direction of the Holy Ghost. But God will only clear out what we can handle? Yes and there is a very good reason for him doing it that way. That reason is thisIf he would go and clear out all of your sinful ways and expect you to keep your life clean but you were not grown up in the Spirit enough to take care of it, the evil spirit would come back and move in again and they would bring seven more even worse than themselves and they would take over then you would be in worse shape than when you first began. You ask: Why is it that we have to fight our entire life just to live the Christian life, Isn't Christ big enough to fight all of the battles and let us serve him without the fight every day? Yes, Christ is big enough to keep the evil spirits from battling with us every day but there is a good reason why he doesn't do that. The reason is thisIf we did not have to fight daily to keep our lives clean and to follow Jesus then most of us would grow lazy and would not produce anything. It is just human nature to grow complacent when we don't have to struggle a bit to get where we need or want to be. It is human nature to get downright lazy when we don't have to fight for something. We would not bring anyone to Christ and most of us would not even believe in Christ if there wasn't a battle involved. We would only think that we have it made and never have to do anything and end up doing nothing for Christ. In that case this life would then be a waste. But as it is we spend much time in prayer just trying to get our prayers through to God so we can make it through one more day. Then as we pray and one answer makes it back to us then we trust God a little more so that we can make it through one more battle. You know it really seems strange having to fight every day just to prove that God is still alive and well and that Jesus is sitting at the Father's right hand making intercession for the sins that we commit every day. He is also sitting there asking God to send help when we need help and have forgotten to ask Christ to help us. He knows before we ask just what we are going to ask for and He knows just what he is going to allow us to go through before he sends us the help that we think we need. He makes us wait so many times just to make us grow up. He wants us to learn how to trust him more every day so that one day we will be able to fight the battle in the Name of Jesus Christ and win. Where do you stand, No battles to fight or fighting just to make it through the day? Isn't it time to step back out of the way and let Jesus Christ handle each situation? Do you hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or do you just wonder what it sounds like? Let's just get on our knees and stay there until Jesus answers our prayers. Sometimes it is just a short time and other times it takes all you can muster up just to make it through the situation that you have been working on. Are you willing to fight or are you just going to keep looking for that easy road? The easy road takes you nowhere. Duane L. Huffstutler, Written 2011, Faithwriters.com Duane L. Huffstutler is the Sunday School Director at Oak Grove Pentecostal Ministries in Bonifay Florida. All scripture is from the King James Version (1611) Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |