“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
James 4:7
I am keenly aware of all the disorder going on in every community I am planted in. The unease I constantly feel about what is missing is one that is hard to ignore.
Then again, I don’t believe I am supposed to ignore anything in this realm of grace and glory. So still I beg for more grace to withstand the lack of order in front of my eyes. I hear the mandate of God to pay close attention.
I am told to pay attention to what is, and what ought to be. At first, amidst these revelations, I did not realize that I had begun to worry more, pray less, and shorter even.
Unknowingly, I had began to doubt the promises of a Faithful God in this short time. It was no ordinary thing that in my search within, I no longer felt like myself.
I felt lighter, weaker almost, like power and confidence was being drawn slowly out of me.
Then suddenly, it dawned on me that the adversary was at work and I had not been resisting him hard enough. I had stopped tapping in to the All-mighty grace and power of God to resist the enemy until he flees.
I wonder how absent-mindedly we often are about the subtle, yet powerful attacks of the adversary over our visions and especially over our minds. In my awareness now, I was able to see how much the war waged against what I was hearing and seeing, which started to affect that which I was thinking and then saying.
Friend, are you paying attention? Are you attentive to how weighed down you feel by the lies of the adversary?
Clarity surfaces when the Holy Spirit of God begins to stir you up again in prayer and longing for the word of God like you once did.
I urge you to pay attention to the memories that God is bringing to your awareness.
Are you remembering times you woke up each day expecting God’s best and moving confidently in that expectation?
Are you remembering times when your faith was so unshakable that nothing was impossible to you in the name of God?
Are you remembering times when you clung to the truth in your thoughts, words, and deeds, that you are nothing without God and His will for your life was all you were after?
Friend, this is how we resist the adversary!
Remembering the truth of God and realizing that the only way to fight back the lies of the enemy is being fully equipped with all that is God – His truth. His Word. His will.
What has the Lord said to you? What has the Lord promised you? What has the Lord said about you to you?
Are these the things you meditate on day and night?
Or do you become so distracted with the pace of a restless world that you are unable to live in the peace that is the truth of God?
I pray for us today. May the Lord of Hosts pour again His truth, His refreshing eternal word of peace, joy, and love, into our Spirits. May our backs be straightened once again and our heads lifted high in confidence again as we resist the enemy until he flees in Jesus name. Amen.
