The Battle Within Christians
What does help you to stay strong and steady on your Christian walk?
Are you aware of the enemy’s sneaky ways to steal your joy and peace?
How do you deal with joy-stealers, doubt-raisers and hope-snatchers?
I’ve found that I need to turn to God as soon as I wake up in the morning. Like John Piper says in his recent sermon “every morning there is a war in the Piper household”. Well said. I think there is a battle within every Christian’s heart each and every day. We need to fight the good fight of faith all the days of our lives. Is God still our everything? Do I choose God or do I choose myself and my desires? As John Piper puts it “Am I wanting to look at Twitter before I look at Jesus? It sounds stupid. That’s how stupid sin is.” Yes. Sin really sneaks up on us. We don’t even realize it’s the enemy working on us.
The major goal of the enemy is to keep us from God. To keep us from being spirit-filled, joy-filled, hope-filled pilgrims. Do we let him? Because we don’t have to.
In God we have everything we need to be protected from the enemy.
In Christ we have everything we need to fight the good fight of faith.
In Spirit we have everything we need to be joyous disciples.
How do we do that?
Simply by laying hold of God and his promises.
By receiving God’s grace daily.
By reminding ourselves of the resurrection of Christ.
By abiding in the Holy Spirit in prayer.
By living our faith out here and now.
By grabbing hold of eternal life.
By never letting go of God.
When we stick to Jesus, there is no way the enemy can steal our joy or raise doubts in our hearts. Because Jesus has already won the battle for us. If we don’t stick to Jesus, the enemy will be quick to replace our peace with worries, our joy with bitterness, our hope with doubts. But we are safe and sound in God Almighty. We are protected by the blood of Christ. We are uplifted and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less. (2 Cor.5:5, MSG)
The Spirit of God reminds us of our true home.
Heaven is a reality even thought we can’t access it with our five senses.
The Holy Spirit gives us glimpses of heaven while we fight the good fight of faith.
Hence we will not give up or give in, we will never settle for less. No matter what is going on, we stick to Jesus. By God’s grace we will press on until we get home to God.
Gracious God,
Forgive us for choosing ourselves over you.
Forgive us for not seeking first you in the morning.
Empower us to stick closely to Jesus.
Enable us to fight the good fight of faith.
Equip us to press on until we get home to you.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
Q4U: What does help you to stay strong and steady on your Christian walk? Are you aware of the enemy’s sneaky ways to steal your joy and peace?
How do you deal with joy-stealers, doubt-raisers and hope-snatchers?
Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you keep pressing on until we get home to God!
Image courtesy of Diorama Studios. Linking up today with Thought-Provoking Thursdays and Faith Filled Friday.
6 thoughts on “The Battle Within Christians”
I keep an open line of communication with God & Jesus 24/7 to keep Satan & his evil demons away, but they are sneaky & will blindside you before you know it. God is good, I just have to keep myself strong and rely on Christ my savior.
Thank you so much for sharing, Susan! God is good and we are safe in Him. Grace-filled Blessings!
Powerful, Truth-filled post with practical wisdom. Thank you!
Thank you for your comment love, LauraLee! May God continue to bless you and keep you in his grace!
Ugh! I didn’t read this until I caught up on email and Facebook! 🙂 How silly I am to look at anything before Jesus! Thanks for great insights.
Thanks for sharing, Gail. Yeah, I hear you. But any day is better when started with Jesus. Lovely blessings to you!