For the past several months, my husband and I have found ourselves slowly becoming "casual Christians," and "at ease" with everything. This was a dangerous and scary thing because as Christians, we are called NOT to be complacent and "not needing God's care or other's prayers." We are always in need of the Lord, and we always are in a spiritual war. This hit us suddenly when we realized we absolutely don't have control over everything and we were completely shut down and humbled by the Lord in the midst of drastic life changes that we weren't expecting. It's as if God said, "hello, it's been awhile, remember me?" What a wake up call! When Jesus said, "take up the cross daily and follow me," He didn't mean, take it up when things get rough and you need to pray, but let it sit and be a decoration while times are "fine." We are supposed to actually recognize our need for Christ every day. We need to actually listen to that command literally and take up our cross daily, plunging into the world with the whole armor of God and the front of our hearts and minds.
Throughout this year, my church has been going through a deep study on Ephesians. I've never been so convicted, amazed, and encouraged all at once in so many lessons. This book is RICH with encouragement and knowledge. The very end of the chapter discussed how we need to be armed for the spiritual war we are presently in. I'm not going to go fully into it simply because it would take pages and pages, and probably someone who is more equipped and able to theologically and apologetically teach it - however, I will say that after life-lessons from the Lord, I realize that the biggest time to put on that armor (besides all the time) is when you actually think like is "fine" and you don't need the Lord. Those days where you think "hmm, Lord pease forgive me for that sin. Thanks for a great day, k bye!" and your prayer life stops there until Sunday morning. Or those days where you scroll and scroll through Instagram and the closest you get to scripture is someone's pretty penmanship of a verse that you share because it's gorgeous and the message is "nice." In these days, you don't realize you aren't showing fruits of any salvation, you aren't showing the adoration that God is worthy of, but because you aren't committing heinous crimes and you live in a cute house with a cute dog, you think you're okay.
Never, EVER, do we not need God. Sin is a tricky, silent and deadly disease that we all have, and our faith and perseverance with the Word of God will help us fight the battles with sin. We can fight the temptation to gossip, lie, cheat, etc. We can pray and run to God and remember our Beautiful Savior when we might get caught up in drinking or thinking inappropriate thoughts. How often do you actually sit down with your Bible and pray, "Lord I NEED this today, help me and my heart speak and see your truth, help me understand what's in the shadows of my heart that I need to repent from." Even if Facebook thinks your life is picture-perfect and there's nothing going on, are you still running to the Lord? Is He your priority in the chaos of "fine?" My Pastor once said, "being a lukewarm Christian is the most dangerous place to be with our faith." Please, be mindful about your actual need for the Lord, and run to Him if you realize you haven't ran to Him in a while.
We are not in control, and praise the Lord because we are riddled with sin and deceit so whatever we try to control will fail time and time again, but the Lord is good. He is forever faithful and holy, and always in control.
Ephesians 4:17-5:14; Ephesians 6:10-20
Matthew 10:37-39
John 15:18-27