Standing Before Your Enemies

As you get up in the morning, shower and shave, and get ready for your day, what enemies are you going to face today? Are your enemies on the outside - a boss that you don't see eye-to-eye with, another call from the mortgage company warning you of impending foreclosure, the colonoscopy you really don't want to drop trou for? Or are your enemies on the inside - a habit you can't shake, really not feeling good about yourself, some difficult choices you need to make?

Enemies are something common to the Old Testament in the bible. God's people fought enemies all the time. They won some and got their butts handed to them in others.

I'm sitting here, searching through BibleGateway.com, looking for Biblical support to confront someone on something that just isn't right in his life. As it usually happens, I've found an awesome piece of God's word that I'd like to share with you about how to defeat your enemies.

Let me set the stage for this story for you a bit. God had just defeated the city of Jericho through Joshua. In Joshua 6 God says to Joshua,

"See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors..."

God also warned Joshua the the men of Israel were not to take any of the plunder for themselves. All the silver, gold, iron, and bronze would be taken and claimed for God. Nothing was to be taken for personal treasure hunting. Everything that was not taken in to God's claim was to be destroyed.

In Chapter 7, they went to battle against another city, Ai. This city was thought to be an easy victory. In fact, the men sent to gather intelligence information reported that they wouldn't need very many soldiers at all. So, Joshua went up against the city of Ai with 3,000 men. They promptly got their butts kicked! Joshua went back to the arc in the temple and had a very frank and personal conversation with God. He was so upset that he tore his clothes off and went face down on the ground! When was the last time you had that kind of intense exchange with God?

This is what God said to Joshua:

Joshua 7:10-13

¹⁰So the LORD said to Joshua, "Rise up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face?

¹¹"Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. And they have even taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and deceived. Moreover, they have also put them among their own things.

¹²"Therefore the sons of Israel cannot stand before their enemies; they turn their backs before their enemies, for they have become accursed. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy the things under the ban from your midst.

¹³"Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, 'Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, "There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst."

There are three things here that I want to share with you. First, God says "Get up"! It's simple really. Get up - stand tall. You're a child of God and you can rest in the knowledge that he'll take care of you.

The second thing God says is in verses 11 and 12 where he says "Look people, you're not living right. And as long as you don't live right I'm not going to be with you!" God was with them at Jericho and gave them the city. Yet, they disobeyed and kept plunder for themselves. When they went to Ai God was not with them and they got a good old fashioned whoopin'.

The last thing God says to Joshua is in verse 13. He says "You can fix this." The word consecrate means to purify - to make the dirty things clean. God told Joshua that if the people of Israel would purify themselves He would be with them again.

What this meant for Joshua and the people of Israel was survival. Being in the desert without God would mean the death and extinction of God's people. God was offering them an all-or-nothing proposition. If you're with me, I'll give you wonderful things. If you're not with me, you die. There was no settlement in the middle.

So, for us as men, when we get out of bed in the morning and face our enemies, we need to make sure that we go with God. It's very simple. Start each day with God and He will take your through your day with His protection and grace. Start each day on your own, using your own strength and your own resources, and your enemies are going to beat you up.

It says so in the Bible.

John 13:17 "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Basic Training - Part Four: Victory!

Welcome to the fourth and final post dealing with the basics of Christianity and how God created us as human beings.  This information is the basis of the Christian faith and the foundation that a Christian marriage is based on.  These are concepts that are taken directly from the Bible.  The material and diagrams are produced by the Association of Exchanged Life Ministries (www.aelm.org).

There are diagrams to the right of the post that go along with the information.  If they seem small on your monitor feel free to right click on them and download. them to your computer.  This is NOT copyrighted material.  Each post will remain here for a week with the respective diagrams.  At the beginning of a new week, a new post will appear with the new diagrams.  The previous post will of course be beneath the new post, but the diagrams for the previous week will be gone.

Again, because this is a blog specifically focused on men - men will be specifically referred to.  Yet the information here applies equally to both men and women.

Part Four – Victorious Living.

I just want to take a moment and thank my wife, Jann for helping me put together and condense the exchanged life material into these four small posts.  She’s been a great help to me.

In the first post we talked about how God created us in three parts – body, soul, and spirit.  We looked at what happens when we’re dead to sin and, because He loved us so much, he offered us the gift of grace, which is the exchange of our dead, sinful spirit for his Holy Spirit.  In the second post we talked about how grace makes it so that we no longer have to be concerned with living our lives perfectly in order to achieve salvation.  We are free to choose NOT to sin because we are no longer slaves to sin.  The third post talks about our new identity in Jesus Christ and how it is Him who lives in and through us.   Yet, we still have to make the choice to follow him or to follow our own way. 

This week I want to close out this series by celebrating this victory over sin.  I’m going to do this by walking through some Bible verses that show how great this victory is.  Again, our victory is complete through Jesus Christ who died on the cross.  He took us with him spiritually on the cross, to hell, and back again through resurrection and has us spiritually seated with him in heaven.  It’s over.  It’s done.  You’re salvation is complete and there’s nothing you need to do but have a ball with it!

Let’s look at some things:

In Romans 8:36-39 the apostle Paul spells things out pretty clearly:

As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How great is it to know that nothing can separate us from the God who loves us?!

In Romans again, Paul explains our freedom from slavery to sin:

Romans 6:16-18

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?  But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.  You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

When you live under grace the Holy Spirit inside you directly effects the three parts of your soul – you mind, will, and emotions. 

In Romans 15:18 Paul talks about how realizing this victory changes the way you think (your mind). 

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done.

It also changes what you want to do (your will).

Romans 13:14

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Remember -  you are free from sin and have the ability to choose.

Victory under the grace system also brings peace (emotions).

Psalm 23:3

He restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Ephesians 3:20, 21 shows us the effect we can have on our corner of the world. 

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.

Phil 4:19 assures us that God is all we need for anything in our lives.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

In the following verses the Bible confirms that God lives inside us and we have His power through the Holy Spirit.

I Corinthians 2:16

For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?"  But we have the mind of Christ.

Phil 4:13

I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

This is the fabulous message of salvation that empowers us to be not only Christian men, but also husbands and fathers living under God’s grace.  Under the grace system we have the opportunity to do wonderful things in the relationships with our spouses and families.  The content of these four posts is the foundation of any information you read here. 

With out God’s gift of salvation through grace anything you would read here would be simply my opinion based on my efforts to be as good as I can be according to the old law of right and wrong.  Because of the Grace of God, I’m able to be used by him, for Him to speak to you through me, and I receive a blessing for it. 

This is not the gospel according to some guy.  This is God speaking to you through me.  If it ever becomes anything else it’s time to shut down this blog (go back and look at Romans 15:18).

Thanks for your time.