You will notice in Ephesians 6:10-14 that we are exhorted to stand 4 times in regard to our walk with God and our resisting of the Devil. We need to constantly remind ourselves that we are in a war in which the battle has been won already. The epistles show us that Satan was defeated at the cross but he is still around and will only finally be eradicated when he is thrown into the Lake of Fire after Jesus returns.
There is a lot of hopelessness out there at present, but we Christians mustn’t lose hope. The Bible says that ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for.’ If we lose hope then we lose our faith and this doesn’t please God. It’s faith that overcomes the world. Without hope we become like salt that has lost its savour and are then just ‘Oxygen Stealers.’ Not much use for anything, trampled under foot by the enemy. Did you know that any thought in your mind that doesn’t inspire hope isn’t from God?
Let’s look at Paul’s prayer in Romans 1:8-10 in the King James Version. He asks God to give him a prosperous journey to Rome. “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers; Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.” When you look at Paul’s journey to Rome, from the world’s point of view, it was far from a prosperous journey, for everything went wrong, but from God’s point of view it was great and glorious. The trouble is our perception of ‘prosperity’ and God’s can be very different. We need to see things from God’s point of view.
When a famous evangelist spoke to his very sick grandfather about the Lord on his death bed, the Grandfather’s reply was. “Don’t worry about me son, I’m a Scotch Presbyterian.” It was true, for he was born in Scotland and went to the Presbyterian Church and then came over to Argentina. The trouble was he loved his ‘Scotch’ more than he loved his ‘Presbyterian’ and died that same day from liver failure believing the popular myth about what makes a person a Christian. Here are some of the myths that people believe makes them a Christian.
If you look at the rest of Paul's teachings on our life in Christ, you will see that there is something else that he is trying to get us to understand. Yes, there will be persecutions and suffering in the Christian life, but I think there’s more that we need to understand in verses like Romans 8:17. It’s understanding how we were crucified with Him on the cross and identifying with His sufferings This is the key to a victorious life. You will always feel unworthy if you don’t understand this truth.
“And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for all God gives to his Son Jesus is now ours too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.” Romans 8:17 living
