We're in a battle

Fight,  Charley, fight!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a Facebook status saying this:

"Sometimes it's easy to forget we're in a battle. We lie down and give up trying because things get tough, and life is tough! We then ask ourselves why we are weary and weak, because we've just let ourselves been trampled all over. But what we need is to get up and fight! God gives strength to those who ask! Let that be your strength to carry on."

What God has really been revealing to me over the past few weeks is that life is indeed hard. I never really had to work for anything when I was younger, I took life as it came and to be honest, it was a breeze. But my eyes are being opened to the trials we have to face - and that life isn't a dream. We don't always get what we want, or have things go the way we want them to. But I am learning that when trials come, I know that God is good! The verse that has been implanted firmly in my mind lately has been this:

Matthew 22:37

And Jesus said: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."

These instructions are giving us strong advice and providing us with a form of protection. What we need to do is love God with all of our being. It is then that we will know the beauty, faithfulness, goodness and love of God. We need to believe all of the things that we read about God in the Bible - for he is so good! I am praying for the spiritual armor of God to clothe me against the enemy, and I am asking God to be my strength throughout the storm. I am going into battle; and I will fight against all of the evil thoughts that attack my mind and aim to blur my vision. Let us cling to the truth.

Understanding God’s Love      By Jacob Dann

Almost every Christian book I’ve read, song I’ve listened to, bible verse or preach I’ve heard have mentioned something about God’s love. In fact phrases like ‘God loves you’ are thrown around so much they can sometimes go in one ear and out the other. Or sometimes we just simply don’t believe it. I can definitely relate to that one! From the day I became a Christian to very recently I really struggled to believe that God loved me, every time someone would say ‘God loves you’ I would think ‘how!? How could God love me?’ But in the last few weeks I’ve started to understand that God does love me, and it’s changed my life! Now I get it I just want to shout it from the roof tops, which is why I’ve braved it and decided to write a blog on it. So if you struggle to believe God loves you, please keep reading, because when you get it, it really does change your life!

Firstly it’s important you know where that little voice in the back of your head saying ‘God doesn’t love you!’ comes from, it’s the enemy, the devil, and he wants to do all he can to destroy your relationship with God. But it’s also important that you realise that you have God on your side, who really is greater, stronger and wiser! So what do we do when those thoughts come about? Well it can be very easy to just believe it, give in and give up, but believe me, that helps no one! Instead, pray! That can seem very obvious, but it’s not always that easy, for months I would give in and give up but when I started praying regularly that God would help me to understand his love, he did! The more time is spent with God and the more I got to know him, the more I started to understand that he loved me. Think about it this way, in all relationships it takes a while to truly trust the other person, and believe that there love is genuine, and without spending time with them, how are you going to believe this? It’s the same with God, you can listen to all the preaches and songs telling you that God loves you, but until you start spending time with him yourself, it’s likely that it will just go over your head and that’s when those thoughts can start creeping in. Also spending time with God can strengthen our foundations, and when the devil does attack us, we are more confident to go to God and fight, instead of feeling like we can’t go to him.

Like any battle, you need weapons, prayer can be a very powerful weapon, another one that we sometimes forget about is the bible. The bible is a brilliant source that God lovingly created for us to get to know him better, so use it! Just like praying helps to understand Gods love more, so does the bible, and a lot of the time the answers to our prayers can be found in the bible. So how do we use the bible as a weapon against the devil? Well like I already said the thoughts that God doesn’t love you comes from the devil, but there are loads of verses in the bible that say the opposite, these verses are the weapons I’m talking about! Reading verses about Gods love for me regularly have really helped me to believe it, and when those thoughts do come creeping back instead of listening to them and believing them I can go back to these verses and use them as weapons against those thoughts. This is why it is really important to know some verses, so you can fight!

God Given Strength by Beth Fitz

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog, and I’m actually so thankful for Rachel for requesting one from me - it is something I rarely think about doing but gain so much from, unexpectedly! I totally recommend trying it. God does so much in our everyday lives. If we just stopped, and thought, then I think a lot of us who think that are Christians but don't think of themselves as HEARING from God, would actually be astonished - about how much he is in touch with our lives.

SO, I had no idea what to write about, and I was having a read through my previous emails, and Jez suggested doing a blog on prayer. BORING, right ahha I am kidding, but no. I think one thing that God has put on my heart recently is strength. S.T.R.E.N.G.T.H. that beastly word, often associated with body builders and weight lifters haha. At college all the gym lads talk about the numbers they are lifting, etcetc, and in the human world - they have physical, muscular strength.

But that's not the only side of the word. on the news and such we hear stories, stories of people who are STRONG in character, belief, love and so on - these people are admired! 

Often I think that it is seemed to be a trait which is unreachable; desirable; but made for only a select few. It’s what superheroes and brave, one-in-a-million people have. But, I don't know, I think that God wants to tell us something different. I think he wants us to know that every one of us, each and EVERY one of us has strength - inner strength, that's amazing, and possible of ANYTHING. In the bible, it says in Philippians’ 'we can do all things in Christ who gives us strength' - one of my personal favourite verses. it can be whipped out in all occasions; when there are people moaning about how a maths question that is IMPOSSIBLE, or even when someone just seems too low to get through a situation. However I do not think that it is used ENOUGH as it should be in our everyday lives. The Lord is out best friend, he adores us SO much and it delights his heart to see us relying on him. When we were in Romania, it was AWESOME to see his people so dependent on him - and heck, he delivered! If we let God into so much more of our lives, if we turn to him as our first port of call when the going is good, smooth AND when we hit rough waters, how can we NOT see so much more of him every single day?

We are stuck in this world, full of sin, death and sadness- Jesus knows what it's like. But we haven't been left for dead. We have a MISSION for this world, and that is not just to get through it with a smile on our face. The Lord our God is here, with us, powering us through, even if it feels like we can barely make it through the day! We can do ALL things, through Christ, who gives us strength. We just have to soak it up! We can do that by spending time with him; ask. and you shall receive. :)

 

So yeah, that's just what God has put on my heart. It should be our mantra, that we are, unstoppable. Even when we're going through turmoil - we have been given the power, the backbone the muscle of GOD behind us. Dude, this guy created the heavens and the earth. #crazy he knows the ins and outs of absolutely EVERYTHING. And he's our father? Wow! Yeah!

 

I’m going to stop now, I could go on forever in these things. I just pray that everyone can USE the amazing power we have access through. Whether it's keeping it together through a family crisis, or physically pulling yourself up a mountain expedition.

AMEN:) we have His strength.

xoxoxox