There are tides in the affairs of men, tides of restlessness and awareness; there are thin threads of thought that reach out across the distance and, like the threads of a weaver, are drawn together tight.”
–Louis L’Amour (The Key-Lock Man)
“Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.”
–Hebrews 4:1 (NKJV)
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How to Live in a Pagan, Apostate, and Foolish World
Key Verse: “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” –1 John 5:19 (NASB)
Do you ever wonder if you’re going to make it? This old world is tough sometimes, and it can wear you down. Disease, sickness, suffering, sorrow, battles, storms–shall I go on? The fight is there, and it is constant. Oh, there may be a slight reprieve from time to time, but those moments are dangerous for they can lull us to sleep, they can place within us the opinion that we can take care of things ourselves, and even with the reprieve the enemy is working. Are you ready?
Turn your minds to the following Scriptures and meditate on them. Get them down deep into your souls.
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
–1 John 5:4-5 (NASB)
Remember the words to the chorus of the old hymn by John H. Yates:
“Faith is the victory! Faith is the victory!
Oh, glorious victory That overcomes the world.”
Friend, we live by faith, not fear. Faith is the core of our walk with the Lord. We believe in Him. We want to please Him and that starts with faith. We may understand the enemy’s tactics, locate his snares, fight the good fight, but we do not look to the enemy for Christ is the focus of our faith. Faith is not some super-hype, or a gimmick, or something magical that we can conjure up to fight the devil. But faith is our victory!
“This belief that He is the Son of God and all the consequences that follow from that belief, enables us thus in practice to overcome the world.”
–D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Faith is both passive and active. Oh, we like to see the “active” part. But when we have to put it to use we groan, or we murmur and complain. Grumbling becomes our lot that the Lord would dare put us through a situation and we can’t “claim it away.”
First, the passive part of faith. It is simple. There is no special ritual, no incantations that give us faith. Yes, it is true that we receive faith by reading, studying, and growing in the Word of God and this is part of that passive simplicity of faith. Christianity is so easy–eternal life is so easy to gain. The price has already been paid. The sins of the world, of all time, were laid upon Jesus at the cross–the easy thing now is simply to believe–simple, passive faith.
This faith is when we abide in Christ. Come what may, we know that He is with us. Life or death, He is there. Defeat may come at times in our life, especially if we do not run to Him, and I want to say–running to Him (abiding in Him) is the strategy of faith. The simplicity of it all–we can go to Jesus. When we realize our weaknesses and helplessness–we cry “Jesus!” We do to Him!
“I need Thee every hour;
Stay thou near by;
Temptations lose their power
When Thou art nigh.”
–Annie Sherwood Hawks