Human Reason or God's Word?

You cannot combine human reason (the enlightenment philosophy of our forefathers) with God's Word and expect His Word to equate to human reason and logic.  As soon as you do that, you have a false understanding of God's Being and His Word.  God's ways are always above our ways and His thoughts beyond our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8).  You must choose between the two extremities:  to put your faith in such limited and fluctuating human reason, or the infinite wisdom of God and His Word that He has provided as for our own benefit while the Holy Spirit is equipped to guide and inspire us, speaking what He hears from Christ Himself.  Either extreme is something intangible.  I have found that the latter comes with endless results.  When I rely on my own human reason, I find that I am weak and feeble minded.  But when I choose to put my faith and reliance on the grace of Christ, I find an insurmountable strength I never had before to carry on, as the Holy Spirit is my Comforter.  And so I rejoice in the joy of the Lord.

The Influence of Satan

As Christians, we hear many sermons and read many books that teach what God can, will, and has done for us.  While these teachings are vital and necessary, we often forget the influence of our enemy:  Satan.  We fool ourselves into thinking that Satan is an idiot, simply because he is our enemy and we seek to degrade him.  But I believe it is idiotic to claim that Satan is stupid.  Let me make it irrevocably clear:  Satan is not stupid; he is the evil genius of the world.  If this were not true, then so many people would not become entrapped within his dominions of sin.  Christians are still subject to that spiritual and psychological torment; many people can testify to that, even I can as a past victim of shame and guilt due to my own personal sins.  Let us identify Satan's being:  he is an archangel.  Not was — is.  Hollywood films and television shows portray demons as ugly, disgusting looking creatures.  The Hollywood portrayal is not only inaccurate, but also absurd.  Demons, including Satan, are fallen angels.  They're still angels with immense supernatural powers!  We understand archangels to be the most powerful of angels, and Satan is a fallen archangel.  As an archangel, he is so powerful that he can even "disguise himself as an angel of light" in order to masterfully deceive us (II Corinthians 11:14).  However, there is no reason to fear.  God and our Saviour Jesus Christ are infinitely more powerful than the fallen archangel Satan.

James 4:7 makes it very clear to "submit yourselves therefore to God" and to "resist the Devil, and he will flee from you."  If one has Jesus Christ within him or her, this is very possible.  Resist him with the Word of God just as Jesus did in the wilderness at the beginning of Matthew chapter four.  Satan is the master of deceit, and he will do whatever it takes to twist God's Word to bemuse you and eventually cause you to abandon your faith in God.  He often does this through unbelievers, actually.  Unbelievers themselves take God's Word and throw it at Christians to support their worldly beliefs and inexperienced Christians, or those who are not prepared for this, will fall under their trap.  What these unbelievers do is called proof texting, which is to grab a verse out of the Bible to make it support your belief.  Even Christians do this.  It is erroneous and causes misinterpretation and spreads misinformation because by proof texting, one takes it completely out of context — ignoring the rest of the scriptural context around the verse in which it relates to (and can even be connected from the New Testament back to the Old Testament to explain a verse even further, and vice versa), as well as not understanding its historical context.  Many people make the mistake that the Bible was written to us, but it was not.  Everything we read in the Bible was written to a very specific people in a specific culture at a specific time.  As soon as we understand what audience the words were written or spoken to and how they were to apply it and why, we can then know and understand how to apply it to ourselves in our own lives.  Those who practise proof texting are not intellectually honest with themselves.  It is utterly impossible to fathom the Word of God without God's wisdom, which one can only receive through faith in Him, and which also begins with fear in the Lord (Proverbs 9:10).

I must reiterate:  As powerful as Satan is as an archangel, he is no more powerful than God or our Saviour Jesus Christ.  Satan has a purpose on this earth, which we will never fathom.  God will not allow Satan to do more than He will allow him to.  We see this in the book of Job.  At the beginning we see that God and Satan are conversing, and God permits Satan to cause some suffering upon Job.  Critics of the Bible who are not objective will interpret this as God and Satan working together, but if one understands God's nature correctly we will see something entirely different.  As we read the whole book of Job, God makes a grand point through Job's experience to teach Job several things, and ultimately probably all who read the book.  God described Job as having perfect integrity, and although he had perfect integrity we read that Job's sin was that "he was righteous in his own eyes" (32:1), and that "he justified himself rather than God" (32:2).  But it is important to point out that in spite of Job's sins, not once did he ever stop believing in God throughout all of his horrible troubles.  So he was indeed a man of perfect integrity, therefore God proved Satan wrong.

Although God allowed Satan to cause Job trouble, it is extremely important to know that God would not permit Satan to do more than what He would allow (Job 1:12).  In effect, God was telling Satan, "I am the Master of the universe and of the earth.  There is nothing that you can do beyond than what I permit, for anything you do I possess the ultimate power and authority to disrupt, for I am Yahweh."  As troubling as it may seem, God can use Satan for His own good.  In the conversation between God and Satan, it was actually Satan who challenged God about Job's perfect integrity.  In response, God in His infinite wisdom orchestrated Satan to do what He permitted him to do in order to teach Job, and to teach us, numerous lessons.  Not only does this teach us that God proved Satan wrong and always will, but it also teaches us that God truly knows our hearts.  And in the end, God blessed Job double the possessions he originally had before he lost them (Job 42:10-17).  This was, of course, after Job had realised his faults and repented of his sins.

Never forget the influence that Satan has upon the world, and also never forget the infinite power that God and our Saviour Jesus Christ have over him.

Christians Are A Target

When we become Christian, we catch Satan's attention.  He paints a bull's eye on our back and colours it in.  There is nothing that so characterises all the activities of Satan as his subtlety.  This is why James says:  Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance (James 1:2-3).  We are to rejoice because it is proof of our faith.  Trials are often God's way of acknowledging our good faith and because it is good, He tests it.  When there is a network connection problem with our internet after it has been good after a long while, we test its connection.  After we have had good faith in God for a while and a problem causes us to lose our connection with God, He tests our connection.  Or He can test us simply because He can, as we can likewise do with our internet.

The moment we become Christian, Satan is particularly concerned with depressing us, and he has no more successful way of doing that than to make us miserable. There are endless manifestations to make that happen, even our own ignorance of the fact that it is Satan, not God, who makes our lives "suck" even more (as it appears to us).  One of the methods Satan favours using is the persecution we face from unbelievers — them trying to convince us that there is no God.  Why it is their personal mission to make us miserable and cause so much animosity and strife is unfathomable; but all I know is that Satan uses them as a means to an end to make us miserable, and he is really good at doing that.  I used to be a victim of misery.  My misery, however, has grown towards frustration not at the hostile unbelievers, but at Satan's influence upon them.  I do not condemn them, either; rather, I ignore them, for they ignore and deny truth, and such speech of God's Word fuels them to become exponentially hostile and hateful.  They are simply tools of the Devil.  So when you think your life "sucks," first of all remember that there are far worse things that you can suffer from in this world; and secondly, remember that if you continue to put the blame on God — an innocent party of the matter — you'll just fall further under Satan's dominion of misery.

The Christian Lifestyle

A life in Christ necessitates leaving your comfort zone often.  God calls us to live extravagantly in accordance with His will.  Our flesh, being of the world, desires to do the opposite while our spirit with God's Holy Spirit within pushes us to contradict otherwise.  That is why it is a difficult battle each time God tells us to do something for Him, or when we know we should change our behaviour in order to be more Christlike.  If the Christian lifestyle were meant to be a forever comfortable lifestyle, then God would lie to us to meet our desires.  On the contrary, the Christian lifestyle is meant to be uncomfortable, for God reveals to us the truth to meet our needs.  And because the Truth — Jesus Christ — testifies against our evil works of the world (John 7:7), we become offended and uncomfortable.  Your desires may not always be what you need.

Success

People often wonder how I've become so successful thus far in my life — how I achieve every ambition I strive towards.  It's not just a strong sense of self-determination coupled with self-discipline.  Those play a role as part of my temperament, but it's not by my work alone.  I'll explain briefly what it is.  Philippians 1:6, the Apostle Paul writing to the church of Philippi, I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to the completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  That is the Christian life.  We are the people in whom God began a good work; God has entered inside us and is working in us and He will continue to complete the work that He began until the day Christ comes again.  We are not just people who have taken up a certain theory and are trying to practise it; it is God doing something real in us and through us.  Philippians 2:12-13, ...Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.  For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to will and to act for His good purpose.  It is of God's own good pleasure that He is working in us both to will and to act — our highest thoughts, our purest aspirations, and our very righteous inclinations are from and of God, and they are brought into being in us by God Himself.  God has given me each of my aspirations that I possess — past, present, and future — and by obeying Him and loving Him and fearing Him reverently, He has established me, and He is cognisant of my gratefulness.  Again, it is not merely by my power alone, for I have had to come to Him in prayer multiple times to find strength that I could only find in Him.  The glory and the credit all go to God.

Defeat Your Misery

When we're miserable, we choose to remain in that condition.  We have all the reason in the world not to be miserable, but we choose to remain that way and not do anything about it and just complain, living in the lie (although incognisant of it) that others feeding into our self-pity may resolve the issue.  Not everybody continually whines and complains, but there is a certain amount of negativity on their minds that necessitates its elimination.  Eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive.  What helps me when I'm miserable is worship.  I turn on some Christian music and play it loud and sing loudly (which I would never do in public, by the way) — I praise God's name, and there are several psalms that speak to that.  Or I'll read the Bible or a book I have on Christian doctrine.  Or I'll pray and talk with God for 20 minutes or so, sometimes less.  No matter which spiritual approach I take, I am no longer miserable.  I'm not saying these are the only approaches one should take, but just some things everyone should ruminate upon.  A "secular" approach I take, for example, is writing poetry — writing my thoughts and feelings down.  You just have to learn how to displace your negativity healthfully.  There is always a way, and whichever way, God always delivers it to you.

Do Not Be Discouraged

Unbelievers say that to believe in God you must be narrow minded and weak minded — that rationality is stronger than faith.  But I ask:  How?  What makes the Christian mind who believe in our invisible, powerful God weaker than the "rational" mind who chooses to believe only in things you can perceive and are capable of fathoming — materials directly in front of you?  Contrary to popular belief, the Christian mind believes in both perception and faith; the "rational" mind does not accept the latter.  So, who's more narrow minded?  It takes a mental and spiritual strength to believe in and have faith in our powerful God, not the antithesis.  Anyone who believes that the human spirit does not exist is in an foolish denial — our spirit is what distinguishes us from animals.  The "soul" is synonymous to spirit, and being spiritual beings we have spiritual assets required to glorify God.  Set your mind on merely perceptible things, and you will find that your faith set on those attributes are very limited.  God is limitless — He is infinite and exists outside of time.  Completely fathoming His Being is an impossible feat, but because of His amazing grace we can still know Him because as our Father, He desires to know us and He makes that possible.  Our calling is not to understand God; our calling is to love Him, know Him, serve others through Him, and throughout our entire lives give Him glory.  The purpose of my writing all this is to encourage all fellow Christians not to be discouraged by unbelievers.  As I explain in my blog entry, The Armour of God, our enemy is Satan, not unbelievers.  Satan works through their discouragements and deceits as a means to an end; they're simply puppets to him.  But the individual person is not our ultimate enemy; the enemy is Satan.  Rational arguments with the person will bring no resolution to them — no liberating realisation to bring them to Christ, which I also explain in the aforementioned blog entry.  It's a battle of the heart and spirit, not of the mind.  To battle against the wiles Satan uses through unbelievers, practise utilising the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).  Dissension is not the answer.