Spiritual Warfare

How can I prevent becoming desensitized to sin?

How can I prevent becoming desensitized to sin?

We can do so by seeking with all of our hearts and minds the truth that God has provided. This means reading, studying, and meditating deeply upon God’s Holy Word, the Bible. This should be done with much prayer, always seeking God’s will for our lives. A good Scripture for us in this regard is:

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Tim. 2:15)

How can I prevent becoming desensitized to sin? Read More »

Our Perceptions Govern Our Lives

“It is all about how you look at things.” Ever hear that expression? We’re often advised to think positively, to believe in ourselves and to have faith in God. All of these things speak to our perspective on any life issue. All of these pieces of advice can feel like they’re easier to say than be lived, right?

When I was a little girl, living on the farm, come late summer and early autumn, our farmstead was besieged with grasshoppers. I tell you, it was a tiny snapshot of what any locust plague must have looked like. It was hard to walk anywhere without there being a grasshopper right there, almost crunched by my foot.

Our Perceptions Govern Our Lives Read More »

Falling for the “Bad Guy”

“Everyone falls for the bad guy.”

Yep, that about sums it up. A lot of you ladies know exactly what I’m talking about.

We see him, the rebel, complete with dreamy bedroom eyes, tousled hair and a certain taboo nonconformity, brooding in a dark corner somewhere; we’re smitten.

There’s something alluring, dangerous and promising about the bad guy, isn’t there? Its intoxicating argument of an exciting, romantic and perfect life, however that’s defined, leads us into taking the bad guy up on his offer. We make some choices- and, let’s face it, they’re not exactly great choices for us, are they?

Falling for the “Bad Guy” Read More »

When Our Beliefs are Called into Question

The Physical, Mental and Spiritual Disciplines

Speaking from experience, Philip Yancey writes, “For nearly everyone, doubt follows pain quickly and surely, like a reflex action. Suffering calls our most basic beliefs about God into question.” Suffering often causes us to doubt, to question our beliefs, to wrestle with everything we ever thought we knew about God: about who He is, about what He is up to, about the very nature of His heart. All these doubts and questions can be fertile ground for spiritual growth. Go ahead and out, question, wrestle – just be sure to use this time and out to seek to know him desperately. He will keep your heart open to God so that you can hear the answers to those questions.

How do we keep our hearts open? How do we grow closer to God in our trials, instead of crashing down into bitterness and despair? That is where the physical, mental and spiritual disciplines come in.

The Physical Disciplines

Taking care of our bodies

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

When Our Beliefs are Called into Question Read More »

Are You Experiencing True Guilt or False Guilt?

We must differentiate between true guilt, and false guilt. Listen to how Paul differentiates between the two:

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness; to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.2 Corinthians 7:10-11


Before we investigate these types of guilt, I would like to give you an overview.

  • 1. True guilt. Corinthians calls this Godly sorrow in the NIV, or sorrow that is according to the will of God in the NASB.
  • 2. False guilt. Corinthians calls this worldly sorrow in the NIV, or sorrow of the world in the NASB.
    Within false guilt I see two categories:

      a. Deliberate pretended guilt.
      b. Imposed guilt. This is guilt that we, the world, and other people impose upon ourselves.

    • Let’s explore.

    Are You Experiencing True Guilt or False Guilt? Read More »

    Asking for Support: Getting the Help You Need – Part 2

    by Dale & Juanita Ryan | see: Part 1

    We resist getting help

    In spite of the abundance of God’s love and grace and the many ways in which love and grace are available to us, we do not easily reach out for the help we need. Even when we have acknowledged our need for help, we may find ourselves hesitating, finding excuses, resisting. Resistance to getting help is often the result of a mixture of fear and despair and shame.

    Fear

    It can be frightening to get help. In the process we feel vulnerable and exposed. Jim’s Dad had made cutting remarks about him all his life. Jim was so accustomed to hearing that he was lazy and stupid and irresponsible that every time he shared in his support group, he expected to hear these same hurtful comments in response. Even though people didn’t respond this way, Jim imagined that everyone must be privately thinking these things about him. As a result, he would sometimes begin to share only to freeze with fear and find himself unable to talk.

    Asking for Support: Getting the Help You Need – Part 2 Read More »

    Is Fear “Normal?”

    We take fear for granted.

    I think we live in a culture of fear. We’re quite literally immersed in it. We’re so accustomed to being afraid that we don’t even realize how much this embedded fear drives our thinking, attitudes, and choices.

    For all of our talk about freedom we seem obsessed with power and control. We have this insatiable need to manipulate others and control our environment, and I believe it’s mostly rooted in insecurity and fear.

    How much of your time and attention is devoted to avoiding every conceivable risk—or even the appearance of risk? How much do you worry about “threats” that aren’t meaningful threats at all?

    How much energy do you expend controlling others? How much do you seek power through some form of coercion, as though it’s just the way it’s supposed to be?

    What’s the cost of all that fear?

    Is Fear “Normal?” Read More »

    God Fights for His People

    There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel. Joshua 10:14


    We don’t have to attack and subdue physical cities – which in any care aren’t walled today, military technology having changed since Joshua’s day. Paul said that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” 2 Cor. 10:4, and that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Eph. 6:12 We fight, we struggle, but not against physical enemies. Even when the church faces persecution from human beings, with very real guns, very real prisons, very real torturers, and very real executioners, the very real struggle isn’t against those tools of Satan, but against the spiritual wickedness which impels men to act so barbarically.

    And we’re not in the fight alone. There may be no armed and armored armies beside us, and there may be no massive forces to back us up, but we’re not alone. On the contrary, the Lord fights for us.

    God Fights for His People Read More »

    Asking for Wisdom – How Are You Praying?

    A verse that often comes to mind is James 1:5:

    If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.


    When was the last time you asked for wisdom? I have been to a great many prayer meetings over the years, but I don’t recall hearing many prayers for wisdom. Either church folk are content to be stupid, or else they assume that they are wise.

    The interesting thing is that no strings are attached to praying for wisdom. We are simply to pray in faith. At the same time, we are told how important wisdom is: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom” (Prov. 4:7). We are also told that wisdom is a blessing (Prov. 3:13); it is better than rubies and everything else (Prov. 8:11); it is the foundation of the good life (Prov. 24:3), and so on and on. Very obviously, God regards wisdom as necessary to the good life, and also promises to give it to all who ask for it.

    Asking for Wisdom – How Are You Praying? Read More »

    Hold Fast !

    Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I come. Revelation 2:25


    Jesus asked, “when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8 Sometimes, as we look around us, we wonder if He will. There are so many – individuals, congregations, denominations – who haven’t held fast anything, but have piece by piece or wholesale given away the most precious truths in the universe, exchanging the Word of God for a bowl of weak, watery, unsatisfying something.

    Jesus has called us to hold fast what we have. We don’t know everything about God’s will, His plan, His purpose, or His activity, but what we do know, we are to cling to. We have His Word – I could reach out my hand from my chair right now, and touch or pick up 15 separate copies of the Bible, plus what’s on my computer – and we are to hold fast to it. And this isn’t merely the physical printed Book. As wonderful as it is to be able to own 15 copies of the Bible (there are places in the world where a single copy, or a single book of the Bible, has to suffice for an entire congregation), it’s not enough to own them, or even read and study them. Someone who’s drowning in Bibles, yet lets what it says slip through the fingers of his mind as water slips through the fingers of his hands, might as well never have seen a Bible in his life.

    Hold Fast ! Read More »