When Life Feels Like A Battlefield

Recently, news circulated globally about Kanye West’s recent conversion, shining light after the shadow’s of Toby Mac’s son, Truett’s death.

It seems not a week passes that we don’t hear this back and forth motion; a famous person like Lacrae getting baptized, then the next, a pastor declaring athiesm.

The world seems like its one big teeter-toter, switching rapidly between transgenders teaching sexual fluidity to Preschool children, to the unbelievable, Hollywood actors renouncing their sins.

What is happening to our world?

Better yet, what is happening in our own lives, when this bi-polar-like world shifts rapidly between extremes of victory and defeat.

Is God uncertain? Is Satan unleashed in a way no one can keep him? Are heaven and hell fighting for victory over who will lead completely?

Scripture says, the enemy has already been defeated. Victory is won. God is on His throne and He cannot be thwarted…

By you, me or anyone else eagerly aching to make themselves more important than Christ.

I have stumbled upon Scripture over and over again in the past few years. The proud will come down, the humble will be exhalted.

And yet, we want to try to label who is worthy? Who is redeemable? Putting catagories on musicians, the affluent and even Christian leaders?

We think because someone preaches far and wide, they are holy, good or repentent on the inside.

Or we mistakenly think because someone is marked with sin, they are irredeemable or are incapable of repentence, a grace the Bible says is sufficient…even for them.

It seems as if the goats and sheeps are dwelling together. The wheat and chaff are gathered and God is cleaning out what is worthy to be collected.

Did God count Esther worthy? Yet. He esteemed and exhonerated her almost as if in a day. Did King Saul have a purpose? Yes, He was annointed. Yet, before He finished his Lordship, a new King had been appointed.

It wasn’t by chance Saul fell. It was pre-written, pre-planned, allowed to happen before the unraveling of it all.

David was called, while young and seemingly useless. And I wonder, who of the weak and seemingly small, God is about to use today?

Could it be the hot and cold, ebb and flow, rapid excelleration and shifting of every intent of this earth, is God’s pre-planned perfect design?

When the fire gets hotter, the chaff burns faster. When the weight become heavier, the wheat becomes separable.

Goats and sheep dwell together. But there will be a day, God will whisper. The sheep that are His will hear his voice and respond in obedience.

We can fool a lot of people alot of time, but we can’t fool God.

And when the mighty cry from heaven turns the eyes of every heart upward, we will also know what’s holy and what is not.

We will see the ugliness of our very own hearts and we will know in that hour…We can never save ourselves. Only grace is sufficient to survive the power or purpose that comes from the Lord himself.

And yet, so many turn. Their eyes shift from the Father to their brother or sister. We judge and weigh or condemn those that don’t look worthy of what we think could be God’s purposes.

We box in His plans or mission. We use the ultimate wickedness, “control” as Jezebel’s of unrighteousness and miss the plans of God.

We love to wall up wells wanting to overflow with His unfailing mercy and immeasurable goodness.

Is there any way to stop the river held back and damned up year after year, generation after generation?Do the prayers of our forefather’s go empty without God hearing them?

No, Scripture promises us He hears every one of our prayers and carries every tear in His hand.

We are not forgotten.

When the balance beam of life makes us feel like we are barely hanging on. When the world shifts and those at the bottom start to surface.

When those once highly respected fall from their self-made Kingdoms, we must remember…

No one knows the heart of man, except our Lord himself.

And I have seen the bubbing up, within my own heart. The war of “just fight” or “control”, the lie that says if I just do “good”, I will get what you want.

But nothing and no one is good except God.

None of us are righteous, no not one. And none of us can earn favor or grace from Him.

We can’t live right to better pave our way closer to The One that Scripture says, His blood was shed as the payment that delivers us.

We are not heroes in our own stories, warrior in some self-made journeys. We are servants. Coming to the feet of a Holy God….

Recognizing high or low, good or bad….God doesn’t change, still, He longs to change us.

His ways are higher. His love is Greater. His victory will swallow up death and every evil will bow at the sound of His name, Jesus.

Holy. Righteous. Perfect.

Jesus, King alone. So let’s rest in His promise, step back and watch as He brings down the proud, purges our hearts and reveals to us all, the One alone who is…

True Victory.