If this season has discouraged you, drained you, then now is the time to let your faith come alive again. If the enemy has come against you, push back even harder in faith. Lay hold of God’s every promise. Take every Word He has spoken to you and commit your heart to accept it as your only reality.
Now that word “backslide” is an interesting word, because it’s come to mean different things to different people. Arguing that Christ would never let them go, some would say that true believers would never return to their old ways - while others think it’s possible for believers to once again be ensnared by the world because of their own free will. Whatever you believe, and no matter where you stand on that question, it should be your desire to remain committed to Christ for life.
We have the tendency to disqualify ourselves. When God gives us a mission, we recount our mistakes. When God gives us an assignment, we hide behind our imperfections. And while it might seem humble to count yourself out, think of the arrogance of saying, “I know better than God.” Think of the audacity of saying, “God’s power within me isn’t enough to make up for the flaws within me.”
Don’t abandon your post. Don’t neglect your assignment. Don’t allow the enemy to take the city. Sound the alarm. There is a very real threat out there, and we must lovingly warn all. Be a watchman over your home, over your community, over your school, over your workplace. God holds us each responsible for our assignments.
Have the spiritual gifts ceased to be? Are they no longer in operation in the church today? This is a fiercely debated issue, and I’m not going to be able to address every point of contention in just one article. My goal, rather, is to just get you thinking in the right direction, the Biblical direction.
If you could see into the realm of the Spirit, if you could watch the Holy Spirit pray for you, you would see Him with tears streaming down His face. You would hear Him praying with such force that His booming voice, the very same which spoke the world into existence, would shake the room. I dare even say that you would see Him pounding His fist on the floor as He prayed.
As a person will try to make up with volume what lacks in connection during a spotty phone call, so some believers try to make up in emotion and hype what is lacking in connection during prayer. The connection is there, but they allow matters of the flesh to disrupt what would otherwise be a moment of powerful prayer.
Our pleading is too loud. Servants beg. Strangers beg. Sons come boldly with faith. Desperation is a great initiator but a terrible sustainer. Desperation initiates, but only faith sustains. Desperation is what brings me to the Lord, but once I have Him, why would I ever be desperate again? You don’t enter the glory through noisy desperation; you enter through faith-filled confidence. Confident faith, not desperation, is the way to know the presence of the Holy Spirit.
