He knows that faith is the key. His only hope is to destroy faith...but how?
Satan is deceptive. Many times he turns us away from God by turning us toward something else. This is his plan concerning faith.
If he can cause a Christian to turn toward worry or fear, then that Christian is without faith and has left himself unshielded against demonic attacks. Worry, stress and fear breed worry, stress and fear. We must break that cycle and here's how.
Breaking The Cycle
We must daily walk in faith. We must decide not to worry. It is a choice. Jesus would never command us to do something that we did not have the ability to do. That would be cruel and not His nature.
When Jesus said "Do not worry," He knew we had been given the power and authority to not worry. We must make our choice: worry or faith.
Choosing faith may not always look easy, but that doesn't matter. We are to walk in faith and not by what we see anyway. To stand in faith is to stand in truth, and linking ourselves with the truth will always break bonds and set us free.
We are in a spiritual war. The enemy will attack when it is to his advantage, when we are at our weakest point. He will rarely attack our strength but rather our weakness. But we have a great advantage. We know in advance that even though the battle seems to be raging, we have already won the war.
When Satan tempted Jesus, it was after Jesus had been fasting for forty days. Satan evidently felt this would be the best time, while He was physically weak. Yet Jesus did not yield.
The Bible tells us, however, that Satan did not give up. He merely retreated, "waiting for a more opportune time." As Christians, we need to know this, but we are not to worry about Satan's attacks. "Greater is He (Jesus) who is in us than he (Satan) who is in the world" (1 John 4:4).
You see, when we are in fear and worry, we are not in faith. In Mark 4:40, Jesus said, "Why are you so fearful; how is it that you have no faith?"
Stand in Faith
Usually when a Christian "stands in faith," he takes a scripture and claims it for himself. What this means is that he takes a verse or passage which applies to his situation. This scripture then becomes his focal point of belief.
For example, if a person has a decision to make concerning finances, he might take Isaiah 48:17 and "stand" on that verse. "I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go" (Isa. 48:17).
In that verse, God said He would teach us to profit. He also said He would show us the way we should go. Business wisdom and guidance are the two promises. Now, when a Christian takes that verse and says he is standing on it in faith, then what he says is only true if he does not worry or fear. If worry and fear are involved, then faith is not involved and the statement "standing in faith" is only empty words.
God's Word is true and God's Word works for us, but faith must be involved. Jesus could do few miracles in His hometown because of the lack of belief of the people. In other words, they had no faith.
The Word says without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Even though we turn from pleasing God (in faith) to not pleasing God (in worry and fear), somehow we still expect God to come through.
The True Meaning Of Prosperity
As you read this, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I am not saying if we Christians put our faith to work, we will all be extremely rich, just so we can live in the world and squander our money on our own pleasures.
What I am saying is that we do not have to be as poor as dirt.
In James, the scripture says that true religion is this—that we give to orphans and widows. How can we give if we don't have anything?
Steal it? Does God want us to steal so that we can be obedient and give?
NO! Of course not! He wants us to prosper.
Why? So that we can give. And the more we give, the more we prosper. The more we prosper, the more we give. We can then support the ministries of God because we prosper. And then we end up defeating Satan instead of him defeating us.
It's easier to feed the child and bless the mother when you are prosperous. It's harder to feed and bless when you need food and a blessing yourself.
We need to understand these things in order to keep the enemy of our soul from deceiving and destroying the Church.
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