Who can stand against us?

If God is for His Believers then who can really stand against them? Can anyone separate His people from His love? Can trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, job losses, danger, hunger, or even the threat of death separate them? No! Why? Because God's people are more than conquerors through Him who loved them. Paul's says he is convinced that nothing can separate God and His people. Read the entire context in Romans 8:31-39

As it is written in Scripture "For Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." God loves His people with the most effectual love anyone could ever imagine...He will not let anything get in the way of that love.

I know of so many of my friends, family, and even friends of friends who are jobless right now and many have been unemployed for nearly a year. Most of them the severance pay has run out and the savings is getting low with only a hint of a possible job. You can take great hope in the fact that even though it seems you can only see life through the shadows right now, and everything has a dim fuzziness to it, God is in complete control. He is working all this for your good in the end from the far side of this wilderness you find yourself wondering through. Right now, it may seem dry and hopeless, but just remember who you are living this life for...the glory of God.

Be most satisfied in Christ even on the darkest most depressed day of your life....find your satisfaction in Jesus not in worldly securities...that is our temptation, but "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him"-Piper. The wilderness experiences in life are training grounds...it is boot camp for anyone God intends to use greatly for His glory. Take hope in the fact you will make it to the other side of the desert. Bruised, beaten up a bit, matured, and hopefully "all ears" towards the heavenly call from God on your life. God will make a way through the wilderness for each of His own. Right now, settle in your mind and in your soul, the fact the road ahead may get more rough. The darkness surrounding your circumstances may in fact seem unbearable at times. Keep on the forefront of your mind a promise from God, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you." -Deuteronomy 31:6 Learn to live on the promises of God especially when times are tough just like Moses and David did several thousand years ago.

"When God wants to use His people in a greater way to further His kingdom, a dark and lonely journey through the wilderness is absolute." -A Pilgrimage Through the Wilderness

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Don’t stand next to the edge and you won’t fall in!

Another portion of the model prayer that Jesus used to teach His disciples, is “Lead us not into temptation”. Luke 11:2-4 Jesus used a shorter version of the model prayer to teach them with. The first part of any prayer should deal with God, who He is, His character, His holiness and our relationship with Him. However, in the second part of the prayer we are to deal with our shortcomings, our sin, our forgiveness of sin as well as us forgiving others for their ills against us or even things owed to us, our attitude, our indebtedness, and our selfishness.

What is temptation anyway? I have found from the Greek original text can be an enticement, trial, trouble, an affliction, an adversity, to make stumble into a situation to sin, an examination. The “temptation” is not what the sin is, however, it is what we do with the temptation that can become the sin, the shortcoming, the unlawful act. As it is revealed to us, all Christians, will be tempted…there is no escape from it on a daily basis. It is a necessary part of the Believer’s life in order to become the instruments or vessels God will use. These most difficult and trying situations come in our lives to see how we will react and to build upon. These discouraging events in our lives are there to build us up in Christ, strengthen us in Him, and ultimately deliver us into victory.

Why should we ask God not to lead us into temptation if it is a necessary part of life? That is a very good question. So, let’s jump into that end of the pool for a moment. Remember, Matthew 4:1 it tells that “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil”. So, why should we ask not to be lead into temptation? Well, as one mentor would say he thinks Jesus meant, “we should pray to be kept from unrecognized temptations”. If we know a temptation is coming, then we can prepare for it in prayer and be resistant to it…as we resist it becomes a source of strengthening and growth. However, many places we go and find ourselves at we may not be able to discern a temptation in that moment without asking the Lord to keep us from that temptation in the first place. Many times we fall into temptation and end up sinning, because it has caught us off guard and we had not prayed.

Look at Peter the day Jesus was taken prisoner and crucified. Jesus asked him to pray with Him in the garden. What did Peter do, slept. Peter could not stay awake. Jesus was not asking Peter to pray for Him, but to pray for himself and to use the teachings on prayer that Jesus had taught Peter just days before. Peter was not “prayed up”, as some call it, for the events about to take place in his life and the life of Christ.

What happened that night in the garden…Peter ended up chopping off a soldier’s servant’s ear to which Jesus had to miraculously put back on the servants head. Then near the courts, when Peter was confronted, he failed again and cursed Jesus and denied any involvement with Jesus or that he knew Him at all. Peter should have prayed before all this, but he learned a valuable lesson on why he needed to pray daily and pray that he would not be lead into unforeseen temptations. In Peter’s case, Ray Stedman said “Satan wrung out his courage and hung him up to dry”. We certainly do not want to be caught in this same situation. Jesus has told us how to pray to our God, now, we must simply put that into action.

So, when we pray as we should, we need to think while we pray about what we are praying. Use this prayer a guide to keep us on track and in proper order to be in God’s will. I understand times when we are mumbling to God out of despair, when we cry out in a humble situation, and that takes on a different type of prayer. This is dealing with our daily communication with our heavenly Father. When we come to this part of our prayer time, we are simply recognizing that we are foolishly weak and that we constantly battle to stay out of trouble. We need to admit this and ask God for His assistance in keeping us from the edge of the “well of sin”…show us where the edge is, so that we can stay far away from the edge. If we are not playing at the edge, then it is good to say we will not fall in.

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