I Hope

  • Thread starter Thread starter gods_kid
  • Start date Start date
  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
G

gods_kid

Guest
May 28, 2014

We are told that the battle belongs to the Lord. We are told to sit still, know He is God, and let Him fight for us. We are told to be courageous for the Lord our God fights for us.

Yet....we are told also to fight.

I pray, every night, for a loved one who does not know God, has no interest in knowing Him, does not believe in God. He lives in darkness, in deception, and is so firmly imprisoned. My prayers feel like battles: I have to prepare, I have to persevere, and I have to be ready for the spiritual attacks that inevitably follow. I have to do battle. Is this my battle? I feel it is, I feel called to fight for this person in prayer and supplication, with faith and strength.

When does my battle become God's? When does God's battle become mine? Or does it ever?

I pray, with every heartbeat, for my own life. For restoration, for healing, for direction, for miracles...for beauty to form from the ashes of my life. I pray with all my heart for this, because it's so difficult living when you're not really living. I am just sitting in the same spot, day after day, night after night, going to sleep each night hoping against hope that tomorrow will be the day my life begins again. I read and hear that I am to fight satan, to reclaim all that's been stolen and destroyed and perverted in my life. I am to not lay down and accept the crumbs I've been left with. I am to take up the sword of the spirit, my offensive weapon, and fight for my stuff back.

So...this is my fight? Or God's?

God is not the God of confusion, but I'm confused. So many battles in my life right now, so many, and it's imperative that I know what I'm doing, that I'm fighting the right battles, and not fighting God's battles. But right now, they all are just melting together into one big exhausting lump of warfare.

I am very tired. I have fought hard to hold onto my faith through the losses that have beaten me up (and down) over the past three years. I have prayed, cried, sweated, studied, meditated, thought, discussed, cried some more....I have sent up praises that have felt like knives coming out of my mouth (if I'm being honest). I've not turned my back on God.

But I'm tired.

I pray nightly for my children, my mom, my family, for my pets, for the people in my life that I love, and for myself, for my own future and my own rising from the ashes. I give thanks, and I do this in total sincerity, because I know how blessed I am in spite of and through out all of the storms. I praise God for who He is, powerful and mighty, the uncreated Creator, my Jehovah Jirah, El Roi, Jehovah Rophe, as Baal Perizim - the God of my breakthrough - as my King, my Savior, my Father. I intercede for a man who resists all ideas of a God, I allow my heart to be broken every night in prayer for this man, and I pray persistently without any outward sign of answer, with no indication that my prayers are helping or changing anything. I tell God (and remind myself) that my hope is in Him. Only Him.

That's something God gently brought home to me last week as I prayed...we say the words, we get used to saying the words, but He stopped me. "My hope is in You, Lord...You're the only hope I have...You are my hope..."

Stop....slow down. Say that again, My child.

My hope is in You. That means only You. Not myself. Not my dreams of what I want my life to be. Not others, not their love, not their acceptance. Not a job, not financial stability. I can hope FOR these things, and God Himself knows I do. But I must not, can not, will not, hope IN them. And that takes conscious discipline. We all do it. We all place hope in what's around us, in who is around us, in what we dream is ahead of us. We even place our hope in our prayers, in our ability to word our prayers just the right way, use the right words, use the right phrases, the right closure...we hope in our prayers reaching God. But we need to actually and only hope IN God.

My hope for victory in all these battles is in God. My hope for the right battle plan is in God. My hope for the salvation of those I love, the protection and guidance of those I love is in God. My hope of ever again having any kind of life that feels worthwhile and happy and purposeful is in God.

God gives me hope and God is my hope.

"The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."
Lamentations 3:25-26



 
My heart bleeds for you right now...in two areas, one the prayers you have on your "Fight " list...and the understanding of your fight vs. His and the combination of the two.

Let me start by saying it is great to get to know you thru this blog..keep those coming.

Ok I always say when in doubt go to the Word right?!! What does God say?
Do you know? The reason I ask you that instead of just telling you is because of the point behind this one....

.".Seek Ye first the kingdom of God...." , along with "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding ; in all your ways acknowledge Him , and He will direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

What is God saying? First let go! So, slave, your saying the fight isn't mine? no I didn't say that! The battle isn't yours yet...It needs to be His first.Isn't He the God of Power? Isn't He the God of the Holy Spirit who convicts and calls people unto Himself? Can you do that on your own? Regardless of the good point behind it?

So we first have to do what Ephesians sets out as a premise in our lives..it describes an order of events in the Christian walk of victory. First Sit. then Walk. Then Stand....

We are powerless against sin on our own, but you knew that from your own powerlessness in your own quest for salvation . So it's not much of a stretch of the imagination when God says we are also powerless to conquer sin in other's too...so we gain Gods power and authority in sitting in things already accomplished in Christ. From that position,,,in Prayer and the word we start the answer that will get the job done.

Let me give an example, as a Police officer, would you go into a fight with your gun not loaded? Some could say well I may not need it, OK let's say in this case you do. Without it you will die, but with it loaded you will be able to save yourself and the others in the situation. Should you have loaded the gun first? or after your defeat?

In the same way we need to prepare ourselves with the loaded victory of Christ in our Armor, as Christ describes it. And there are many pieces of armor. I hear the argument, so you expect me to sit just before I am run over in a car wreck to get Gods victory? Not very practical!

No, although there are intercessory prayers God expects us to pick up our cross daily in the behavior of a pre-placed heart in Him and in His word. That's why He wants us to pray in the mornings for the day ahead...that's why it says......
"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish , and it will be given you." John 15:7

concluding a pre- set position earlier for the win. Ok so it's only Gods fight then...NO it isn't.
This thing we call righteousness means a right relationship with God. A relationship is a combined mix. He talks of the Body, the spirit, and the soul. three things. What is the soul?

That is your will connected to Gods spirit in that sitting in things already accomplished in Christ thing, resulting in the New You in Christ.

It is His History and power you are now apart of in your own being as a new thing. And now this combined new thing or New Man can battle the Lord's fights, with the Lord leading the way. Prayer for a lost soul is a Lord's fight. It is also your fight in the combined: new GOD/YOU.

He says some things don't happen because we don't ask. Some battles He will contend with on His own, based on His will, others are our combined efforts in the New Man. Or Woman.

Prayers are from Him in power when fruit is seen from them. Has your prayers had fruit? Pray in the power of God, and watch that change...Remember too it is God's will. He promises to answer them all, but some answers are NO, some YES, some MAYBE.


There are different prayers as well, I could talk more in private too hit me up sometime..but quickly..we have the intercessory prayers.. the, as you go, prayers I call them, the morning sitting time prayers, and the extended prayers ,with Fasting.

My suggestion ...Surrender to God all your anxiety over this and ask Him to take over. Fast in denying food for a time..no specific time but a time of denial to spend in prayer over the issues mentioned. Then Praise Him for the, yet unseen, victory for praise sets your faith in motion. God bless and my door is always open. My prayers are also with you!
 
I see this was an older post ...so maybe new victory has happened...Amen!
 
Thank you for this comment. No, the situation has not changed. But I have. I no longer have this person in my life, and it was my decision. He created so much pain and brokenness, and treated me with so much disrespect, I just finally told him I could not have him in my life. I'm to blame for my life circumstances, but he played a huge part in what happened to my life. My daughter told me from the start that he was not a good person, that he would hurt me, and she was actually very right. I found out, but I found out wayyy too late. I pray for him, I care about him and I do not want him living or dying without God. But I no longer have any type of regular contact with him. It took a lot of years, and pain, and inner strength, and God's help, to bring myself to the point where I could make that break and keep to it. It's been a long, hard, painful, deceptive road since I met him. I knew God was not approving of my having him in my life. The one and only time I ever attempted to lie to God or to "fool" him, was with this man. I quit praying when I fell in love with him, because I was so afraid God would realize I was happy and He'd take it away. Horrible thing to say, but it's honest, and God already knows all about it, lol. It was no secret to Him. I had had so much pain and loss in my life, and had been so betrayed by people I loved, I just thought I could somehow stay under God's radar with this relationship. Anyway, as we all know, that doesn't work, and my insistence on going down my own path with this man, as much as I loved him, was a fatal mistake. Long reply, lol, sorry....I appreciate your reply, thank you :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back