There
often comes a time in a believer’s life when they succumb to the wiles of the
enemy and sin. This is to be a battle
that we will constantly face, we see this in the Apostle Paul’s discourse on
this in Romans 7:5-25. This was nothing new to the Apostle, he was
well aware that troublesome times lie ahead of all men. Once sin takes place and we often try to deal
with it on our own, it is not long before we find that we lack much in
ourselves, we lack the power to overcome the onslaught of the enemy. Without strength and without hope we finally
turn to the Word of God and we do find that which we need. The truth is, there is hope and that hope as
always resides in Jesus Christ. In our
last post we began to draw a picture from the Old Testament when Moses led Israel
out of the Egyptian bondage…
Moses
did nothing more than which God had asked him to do. His part was to trust, watch and believe. To fully understand and experience God and
His attributes so that we can fully and completely witness God in our lives we have
to do the same, like Moses, we must trust, watch and believe. We see this in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the
Lord with all thy heart and lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy
ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.” To fully understand this, we must never take
our eyes off of Christ. We need to
understand that God will always be God, but if we take our eyes off of Christ,
He will not always be to God in our lives.
The enemy is on a mission to de-throne God in our hearts and replace Him
with sub-god’s which are not really gods.
Many believers today have fallen victim to the enemy’s ploys as they spend
countless hours in worship these sub-god’s such as self, job, sports, TV,
movies, idolism and the list goes on and on even to the depts of porn,
adultery, gossip, theft and other sins that destroy families as well as
lives. The enemy’s mission is to keep us
off balance, he strives to keep us off kilter if you will so that God is not
our main source of strength, hope and joy.
When
we willingly take our eyes off of Christ we unreservedly walk into sin, we are
all familiar with Matthew 14:22-32
where we read about the Apostle Peter when he walked on water, though once he
took his eyes off of Christ he began to sin.
We too, will soon begin to sink into the mire of sin once we take our
eyes off of Christ. We often fight
against the urgings of the Holy Spirit of God to turn away from our sin, but we
refused and once again became ensnared in sin.
The first step in our way out of sin is to purposely turn our hearts,
our minds and our eyes away from the sin and fix them firmly upon Christ. Once again, our hope resides in our example
of Moses’ and we must follow his lead.
We do so by climbing up on the rock (which is Christ), it soundly rests
between depression’s army and the sea of anxiety, here we must lift up our
hands to Almighty God, then surrender our heart back to Him, and we open our eyes
to see the salvation of our God. The
Apostle Paul was well aware of this as he lays out for us the armor of God in
Ephesians 4:10-24. Here in this passage,
among the articles of armor we find that the Apostle Paul issues three commands. The first is to stand, the second is to pray
and finally to watch which is not much different from Moses’ “Fear
ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.” Both of these scriptural giants tell us to
stand, both encourage us to watch and both emphasize that we are to
believe. The secret is in the fact that
we do not have to DO as much
as we have to BE. Don’t try to do something, BE still, don’t try to hide, BE watchful and don’t doubt, BE prayerful, praying in
belief. The enemies’ goal in placing us
in despair is to leave us like that rag-doll, weak and worn out without the
strength to cry out for help. But God is
greater than our enemy and, in our weakness, He is strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10) and in our weariness, He is our rest (Matthew 11:28) and when we are to frail
to cry out, He is our ever-present help (Psalm
46:1).
We
need not give into the enemy, we need only to surrender all to Christ. The closer we remain to Christ the less
likely that the enemy can gain a foothold of your heart and mind. The more we surrender and keep our hearts
surrendered to Christ the more we fall in love with Him and in turn the more we
see how vigilant a watch that He keeps over us.
This reminds me of one of the old hymns that we used to sing in the
church and I do miss and love the old hymns, the one comes to my mind at this
time is called “All to Jesus I Surrender.”1 The first verse and chorus are noted below:
All to Jesus I surrender, All to Him I
freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him, In His
presence daily live.
I
surrender all, I surrender all.
All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all
When
you are down and out, shaken and beaten down like that dog’s toy with no
strength left of your own remember that He is there ready to help, ready to
step in to do and be all that only He can be. “And he said unto me, My grace
is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most
gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of
Christ may rest upon me. (10) Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in
reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake:
for when I am weak, then am I strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Learn to trust in and lean upon the strength
and grace of our Lord Jesus, He will get us through each trial, He will always
provide a way. This He has already
promised us in His word, “There hath no temptation taken you but such
as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted
above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape,
that ye may be able to bear it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)
This
message is not a cure all from despair but our goal is to provide you with
direction to the right path out and encouraging you to take the first step in
your way out. It has been quoted of old
saying, “The journey of a thousand miles
begins with one step”2, make your first step count by taking a
stand in Christ and firmly fix your heart and mind up Jesus. The one true way out of despair will always
reside in Jesus.
If you
are struggling with despair, we do encourage you to seek help, you do not have
to remain in the grasp of despair. I do
recommend that you reach out and talk to your pastor or the Soul Care ministry
team in your church. You do not have to
lay down in the grasp of despair, there is help, and God will make a way
through. Trust Him and He will provide a
way out of the depths of despair.
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1.
All to Jesus I Surrender -
Lyrics: Judson W. Van de Venter (1855-1939) - Music: Winfield Scott Weeden
(1847-1908)
2.
Lao Tzu Quotes, 6th
century B.C – Great Quotes