Unleash Your Inner Warrior
“A man is as free as he chooses to make himself, never an atom freer.” My dear warrior,
If you find that your wings are easily clipped, and your flight is quickly taken from you by discouragements (whether big or small), this letter is for you. You are so good at letting yourself become heavy-laden, so good at taking on the burdens of the world, and becoming wounded by the circumstances of life, but you are not so good at laying your burdens down. Since you are likely very good at negative self-talk, at reprimanding yourself, at flogging yourself with disparaging running commentary in your mind, it seems I have been given the unique opportunity to encourage you back to life.
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“My responsibility is to obey, to surrender my heart and to yield myself to the will of God. It is in the process of obedience that we gain understanding." My dear warrior,
As Christians—as warriors for Christ—we must live with utmost intentionality. The rest of the world may be lazy in their dealings, drift through life, simply get lucky or live any number of ways, but we are not meant to live as the world lives. We are not meant to think as they do. Warriors are intentional about each and every action they carry out: from the way they hold their weapons down to the way they dress, making sure they are armed to the teeth without you ever knowing that they have even one weapon on their person. “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” – Romans 5:3-5 My dear warriors,
On Sunday I had the joy of getting to listen to a brilliant man of God speak about suffering. It is something that has been on my heart for some time now, and I knew I would write about it today. As warriors, as Christians – and as humans – we are frequently faced with the reality of suffering. In these past few months, I have been dealt more than one heavy blow in my own life; I have met a woman who was thrown from a building and had nearly every bone in her body broken; I have met a man grieving the loss of his father; I have met a young woman without a place to call home. Tragically, suffering is part of the Christian life. According to scripture, it is a critical part of our formation, it is a critical piece of us becoming the men and women of God we are meant to be. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. - 1 John 5:3 Dear Warriors,
What if when God said, “be holy, even as I AM holy,” it wasn’t just a command. What if it was an invitation? What if God is inviting us to be like Him? When I read that verse and I hear His voice, I don’t hear an angry, wrathful taskmaster saying “Be holy, or else!” I hear a gentle, loving God whisper to me like He's sharing the greatest secret in the world with me. He nudges me in the ribs and says, “Hey, be holy. Even as I AM holy. Wouldn’t that be awesome?” What if when He said, “You shall be holy unto me, because I the Lord am holy and I have separated you from other people, that you should be mine,” it was a beautiful promise? A promise that says because He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to save us, that we are being transformed in His image. A promise that says He has purposefully set us apart to be made like Him. In those moments, I find my heart is absolutely exhilarated. My heart is set alight as I am filled with a desire to be more and more like my Creator. I want nothing less than to be like Him! “Don’t become like the people of this world. Instead, change the way you think. Then you will always be able to determine what God really wants—what is good, pleasing and perfect.” Dear Warriors,
You have a life inside of you that is completely unstoppable. Nothing can stand in your way - unless you choose to be stopped. It is a matter of choosing to be unstoppable (realizing that Christ is the source of your strength), or choosing to give into despair and giving up all hope. For this purpose, God instructs us to renew our minds each day. What does it mean to renew your mind? It means you must go to Him daily and let Him transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Spend time in the Word. Let Him influence your thoughts for the better, push out negativity, and remove thoughts that would counter what He wants to do in your life. When you renew your mind, you are getting rid of any festering bitterness that is eating you up from the inside out. You say no to anger, no to grudges and unforgiveness. You choose to forgive. You choose love. You choose to make God your focus, and to see from His point of view, to think like Christ. “Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.” Dear Warriors,
The way the world is now, people think they deserve everything, and do not understand that there is a difference between being worthy and being deserving. Have you ever stopped to think about if you actually deserve something? Or if you are actually worthy of them? Dear Warriors,
Have you ever noticed that some people (or characters) just seem to change the atmosphere when they enter a room? It seems that everyone drops what they are doing as their attention is instantly drawn to this one person. I'm thinking of the Clint Eastwood’s, Han Solo’s and James Bonds. I'm sure a few people come to mind. They just seem to command a presence. Perhaps you don’t know any warriors in real life, but think of the samurai, or military commanders; think of William Wallace, Spartacus or Aragorn, who in their rousing battle speeches changed the mood of an entire army! Dear warriors,
You were made to magnify. It is written into your very DNA. Whatever you focus on and give your attentions to, you will magnify. Specifically you were created to magnify your Creator, the Lord your God. The bible calls it "beholding." (To give your attention to) Warriors, it is so important that you know where your focus is. Know what you are magnifying; realize to what you devote the majority of your thoughts. Then, if you are not beholding Him, refocus your attentions (renew your mind!) Introspection can be such a dangerous thing. Have you ever noticed yourself become so lost in your head that you went from having a perfectly fine day, to being ridiculously distressed? When we become impressed by evil, (and by this I mean overwhelmed by, not fascinated by), and our focus is on how bad things are (the world, circumstances in our lives, what-have-you), we become overwhelmed and our worldview gets skewed. Our lens becomes distorted like a fish eye lens. We no longer see clearly, but rather we see through a glass darkly. "Colossians 3:2 says to set your mind on things above, not on things on the Earth. Whatever we focus on, we give power to." - Graham Cooke My dear warriors,
Take a moment to read through the apostolic prayers in the New Testament. What do they all share in common? All of the apostles prayers were positive prayers. You will not find a negative prayer—and you most certainly won’t find any venting prayers! What do I mean by a positive or negative prayer? I mean that you will never see them ask God to remove a negative. Instead, they ask God for an impartation of a positive. "Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service, you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already." - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity "How long will you try to have it both ways? If the LORD is God, follow him” Dear warriors,
A few weeks ago in For the Honor of our King, I wrote about the fact that our lives are not our own. Our lives belong to God, and God alone. One of the greatest weaknesses of our fast-paced, tech-driven, control-your-destiny culture is the fact that we feel the need to be in control of absolutely every part of our lives. From controlling when and how we watch TV shows, to trying to control, manipulate and micro-manage other people in our lives and their decisions—as if that were our call to make. Control is first and foremost an illusion. You are not in control of your life. And neither is anyone else. Putting other people in control of your life simply becomes a means of passing blame onto someone else when things go wrong in your own life. Trying to control other people will only lead to frustration and heartache. Have you ever felt like the more you tried to control a situation, the less grip you had on things, and the more you felt like things spiraling out of control? My dearest warriors,
Last week, I touched momentarily on the difference between condemnation and conviction. I’m finding more and more that people do not understand the difference between these two things, and are unwittingly submitting themselves to lies that keep them from moving into their God-given potential. Rather than becoming warriors, they stay foot soldiers at best, and are casualties of war at worst. To refresh: Conviction is from God. Condemnation is from the enemy. Conviction is when God points to a very specific thing in out lives that is not right; he points to a flaw in our character, an ungodly trait in our lives that He wants to fix. He wants to upgrade us constantly, to remold us and reshape us into the image and likeness of Christ. Though there may be a sting here for not having lived up to His expectations, it is no more than when alcohol touches a wound. It may sting for a moment, but then He applies the soothing salve, a healing balm to make us whole. When God convicts us, He is encouraging us to run to Him, so that we can partner with Him and move forward in our development! “We do not have to make God willing to forgive. In fact, it is God who is working to make us willing to seek His forgiveness” -Richard J. Foster As believers, we all understand that we should confess our sins. At least, that is my hope. Confessing our sins and forgiving one another are vital parts of our walk with Christ. We cannot walk in step with Him if we are clinging to unforgiveness, clinging to anger and bitterness towards other people for having wounded us. Scripture tells us not to quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19). One of the ways we quench the Spirit in our lives is by harboring unrepented sin in our lives. It creates a rift between God and us.
The first question for you then, dear warrior, is this: is there any unforgiveness in your life? If your answer was ‘Nope!’ then sorry, try again. This time, ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind where you need to forgive others; where you have unresolved anger, bitterness or hatred towards someone. Ask Him to point out things for which you have not forgiven yourself, or where you are mad at God, Himself. My dearest warriors,
Have you ever considered your greatest weapon? your strategy? Have you contemplated what it must look like to be on a spiritual battlefield? Perhaps you have. Perhaps not, but you are inexplicably finding yourself drawn to these thoughts, and finding yourself wanting those answers. Warriors are always prepared. They are always armed with their weapons, and are never caught without. The fruits of the Spirit are a warriors greatest weapons. Love, joy, peace, patience/long-suffering, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. To add to those are rest, humility, meekness and lowliness of heart. These are qualities that Christ himself exhibited; He Himself is the greatest example of the kind of a warrior we should be. Today we begin with rest, but we will dig further into the others in the coming weeks. As warriors, we must prepare ourselves: we must first learn peace, rest and stillness. It is in the midst of a storm, in the midst of trial, turbulence and turmoil that God wants to teach us peace. He won't ever teach us peace before, or outside of battle. He will introduce to it - but it is on the battlefield that our peace is established. You see, you can never learn peace unless you practice it in the midst of turmoil. Just like you cannot learn patience unless you practice being patient when your patience is being 'tested.' The secret you must understand is that it is possible to enter into rest, and to hide in a place of stillness where the enemy cannot touch you. A place where you are so deep in God's rest and stillness, that there is nothing the enemy can do to disrupt your peace. “The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us. ” —A.W. Tozer When we talk about the old nature, or the flesh, or our personality, or soulish nature, we are referring to a lost person who only has life through having physically been born. But the moment we are saved, the old man is crucified with Christ, and we gain a new spirit by a spiritual birth! That is why believers are called born again! However, we are told that we will face conflict between our flesh and our new spirit. Galatians 5:17 says “What your corrupt nature wants is contrary to what your spiritual nature wants, and what your spiritual nature wants is contrary to what your corrupt nature wants. They are opposed to each other. As a result, you don't always do what you intend to do.” Since our old nature is at work against our new nature, we must renew our minds, earnestly desire holiness and live by the fruits of the Spirit. We are told specifically what to avoid and oppose in our walk, and what to cherish and cultivate.
Earlier this week, I realized that I had an extremely important tool in my possession that I was carrying with me. As I was chatting with a new friend, I immediately knew why she was sharing her heartbreak with me: she desperately needed what I had. And I realized, I have shared this same tool over and over again -- how many more people are out there who are in absolute turmoil who need to know what I know?
"Be still, and know that I AM God" - Psalm 46:10 Scripture repeatedly tells us to "be still." Yet, in this fast-paced world, it can seem almost impossible to quiet your mind. It seems like you'd have to be a monk on some remote mountain top to get any kind of peace, and yet, even that seems like a foreign thought. But Warriors must know how to still their minds, how to silence the thoughts that rage through their heads, to calm their hearts. |
Check out Michele's new book, now available for purchase on Amazon!
Mere Humanity: Becoming a Mature Christian in an Immature World
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