God, Fortresses, and Prayer

   The Bible repeatedly refers to God as our Strong Tower, Fortress, Refuge, Shield, and Defender. When we accept God’s provision and protection, He surrounds us with light. The light exposes areas of sin, giving us the opportunity to deal with them. Allowing God to remove the sin in our lives allows us to walk in closer fellowship with Him. God is always with us. With God as our Fortress, we can go anywhere He calls us without leaving our safety behind.

   The Bible also states that the gates of Hell cannot stand before those filled with the power of God. To distract us from attacking him, Satan uses our pride and fears to trick us into building walls around ourselves. Convinced that these walls protect us, we become defensive. Instead of relying on God for protection, we spend our time and energy defending the walls we created. Sin often dwells hidden among the shadows of those walls. Since it is not exposed, it is not dealt with which separates us from God and allows the enemy even more power in our lives. Sometimes we don’t obey God because we don’t want to leave our fortress.

   Prayer creates cracks in the walls. Eventually a breakthrough prayer causes a breach. It is then that we face the hardest part of the battle. At that point, we look around and see the rest of the fortress still standing. The habits we formed while living in that fortress still shape our thinking. If we do not have a revelation of who God is and who we are in Christ, we will give up. Breaches can be repaired pretty quickly but completely demolished walls take longer to build back up. Persistent prayer, humility, and trust reduce the walls to rubble.

More Than Just Words

   What we say is important but what we do is even more important. Words tell what people think they believe or want you to think they believe; actions reveal what they really believe. Talking about God's love with others is great but if we don't show that love to them, our words are pointless and we are just wasting our breath. We should always seek to honor God and reveal His love with both our words and our actions.

The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.

~ Proverbs 15:28
A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger quiets contention.
~ Proverbs 15:18

   How often do we think about how to respond in difficult situations? Sadly, not often enough. Even when we think about what we say, there are times when we don't make sure our actions line up with our words.
   I know my actions don't always line up with what I say and I don't expect anybody else to act upon what they say at all times either. Nobody is perfect so we are bound to make mistakes. However, I do believe that we need to examine our lives carefully. When we are in stressful situations, do we rely on our own strength or do we seek help from God? Difficult and tense situations are the perfect opportunity for us to bear witness that we are not of this world. We have a higher calling that requires us to walk with God, constantly seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and grow more like Christ.

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

~ Ephesians 4:15&16

    For as Christ, who is the head has loved us unconditionally, we also must love each other unconditionally. God's love that He has graciously bestowed upon us, and commands that we exhibit, can only edify and build up. If we are doing something else we aren't acting in love.
   I know this verse speaks about loving those already within the church but surely there can be no better place to start revealing God's love to others than within His own body. After all, if we can't even love our own family, we cannot expect to show love to strangers. When the world sees the body of Christ loving each other unconditionally, they will be irresistibly drawn to the Eternal Source of that love.

 

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

~ 1 Corinthians 13