The surprisingly simple secret of divine protection - Day 2: Thirty Day Meditations to Abundant Life!
The world has been vastly rewired from God's original design. It seems that humanity is ever so focused not on His works nor His intentions, but rather on those of the devil. Bad news sells... the more violence, the more killing, the more stolen, the more fearful, the more vile, the better it sells. Society is synchronized by media around all sorts of issues... natural disasters, economic downfalls, wars and all sorts of other things that bring no joy but rather a foreboding sense of darkness. The tragedy in all this is that God's saints are in the sad business of believing and propagating, not without a sense of deep confusion, that their Lord is in fact the designer of such destruction and death, as if they have forgotten how Jesus said that it is precisely Satan who "comes to kill, steal and destroy" not their Father!
And in such a world, it has been so difficult for the child of God to believe that He is really their shield, that He really provides and promises divine protection. It is difficult for us to believe because we truly don't understand our righteousness... Jesus crucified, made sin, cursed with what we deserved, means that we are now made alive and forever deserving of all Christ deserved, all that is rightfully His as His heir... that's the meaning of being 'righteous'!
But it's not enough to just know that. There is a secret of divine protection... that's just a fancy way of me saying, I think we need to actually do something to benefit from it. I say this because I've become distinctly aware that a poor devotional life - a life where we are not truly connecting with God, really sitting down and enjoying His company on a very frequent and daily basis and, doing so on a very spiritual level so that it becomes a constant state of mind - is directly correlated with less protection and generally speaking a sharply decreased sense of blessedness and more tumult, attacks and problems occurring around us. In such a condition, we fall into despair, anger and bitterness and also confusion. We know what is ours in Christ, but somehow we are failing to lay hold of it.
This idea isn't without scriptural precedent. In Psalm 91, it is written,
This Psalm then goes on to describe how God’s protection provided to all who seek it, shields us from violence, disease, terror(ism) and all other evils. I know God’s grace… God is not rewarding only some this protection and withholding it from others… yet somehow that “dwelling in the secret place” allows us to enjoy this protection, so that those who don't dwell there forfeit what has always been offered to us.
Paul spoke of this too. He spoke about a war that every believer faces with very real and evil spiritual forces that exist in this world (Eph 6:12). If this protection was automatically conferred to us, he wouldn't have mentioned the things he did. He spoke about staying firmly 'buckled' in the truth (the truth about what Jesus did for us and who you are in Christ now). He wrote that righteousness was a 'breastplate', the good news of hearing God's wholesome peace, like boots, our salvation like a helmet and 'above all' our faith, the shield that quenches all of Satan's attacks.
All of these, Paul called the 'armor of God' and a strong, grace-saturated, Spirit-filled devotional life clothes you with all of these pieces of armor. There's no question about it... enjoying divine protection from every sort of evil starts with your state of mind, whether you are abiding in Christ and the power of the Spirit, or still thinking on automatic pilot, in the carnality of your old self. Like everything in the Bible the choice is yours. What will you choose?
And how do you exactly go about abiding in the Lord? Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!
Previous Day: How to have real joy in any circumstance - (Day 1: Thirty day meditations to living life to the full)
David Roiel
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| Photo courtesy of J.Star |
But it's not enough to just know that. There is a secret of divine protection... that's just a fancy way of me saying, I think we need to actually do something to benefit from it. I say this because I've become distinctly aware that a poor devotional life - a life where we are not truly connecting with God, really sitting down and enjoying His company on a very frequent and daily basis and, doing so on a very spiritual level so that it becomes a constant state of mind - is directly correlated with less protection and generally speaking a sharply decreased sense of blessedness and more tumult, attacks and problems occurring around us. In such a condition, we fall into despair, anger and bitterness and also confusion. We know what is ours in Christ, but somehow we are failing to lay hold of it.
This idea isn't without scriptural precedent. In Psalm 91, it is written,
"He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."
This Psalm then goes on to describe how God’s protection provided to all who seek it, shields us from violence, disease, terror(ism) and all other evils. I know God’s grace… God is not rewarding only some this protection and withholding it from others… yet somehow that “dwelling in the secret place” allows us to enjoy this protection, so that those who don't dwell there forfeit what has always been offered to us.
Paul spoke of this too. He spoke about a war that every believer faces with very real and evil spiritual forces that exist in this world (Eph 6:12). If this protection was automatically conferred to us, he wouldn't have mentioned the things he did. He spoke about staying firmly 'buckled' in the truth (the truth about what Jesus did for us and who you are in Christ now). He wrote that righteousness was a 'breastplate', the good news of hearing God's wholesome peace, like boots, our salvation like a helmet and 'above all' our faith, the shield that quenches all of Satan's attacks.
All of these, Paul called the 'armor of God' and a strong, grace-saturated, Spirit-filled devotional life clothes you with all of these pieces of armor. There's no question about it... enjoying divine protection from every sort of evil starts with your state of mind, whether you are abiding in Christ and the power of the Spirit, or still thinking on automatic pilot, in the carnality of your old self. Like everything in the Bible the choice is yours. What will you choose?
And how do you exactly go about abiding in the Lord? Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!
Previous Day: How to have real joy in any circumstance - (Day 1: Thirty day meditations to living life to the full)
David Roiel
The Green Leaf Blog-Discover your inheritance!
Subscribe today to get these posts by email and look for my frequent eBook giveaways!
Just enter your email address below and click the subscribe button. Blessings be upon you!
Follow @DavidRoiel
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