Walk by Faith

ἀγωνίζου τὸν καλὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς πίστεως, ἐπιλαβοῦ τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς, εἰς ἣν ἐκλήθης καὶ ὡμολόγησας τὴν καλὴν ὁμολογίαν ἐνώπιον πολλῶν μαρτύρων. (1 Timothy 6:12 NA27)

Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold of the eternal life to which you were called and confessed the good confession before many witnesses. (a personal translation of 1 Timothy 6:12 from the NA27 Greek text)

There are times when this work becomes an agonizing battle just to combat the attacks of our accuser; just to pray and prepare to open God’s Word; let alone dig into the Greek then translate et cetera. I am a mere man upon whom God had mercy January 1986 when I was 34. I was 35 later that year. Here I am now just a couple of months from being 60 years old and when the accuser comes to battle me, to distract me, to belittle me, what do you think he uses for ammunition? Yes, I know that at the cross all my sins were atoned for and that by God’s grace through faith the father justified me. Yes, Amen! I have days when I can take any fiery dart the enemy shoots in my direction with hardly any problem because I am so totally full of the Spirit and, using the shield of faith, extinguish those fiery darts as if they are nothing. However, there are times when I am convinced that God allows the enemy access so that his accusations seem to overwhelm me. I feel worthless. I look at my past sins and then at the task of doing this work and cannot see how God could or even want to use one such as I. 

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Now these things, brothers I made into a figure of speech with respect to myself and Apollos for you, that through us you by learn not to go beyond what things have been written, lest any of you be puffed up against another. (1 Corinthians 4:6-7 a direct translation from the NA27 Greek text)

Pride is an insidious enemy. Any teaching about the Gospel that attempts to explain away the clear teaching of God’s Word in favor of what is not taught there, but is more favorable to what people want to hear is both rooted in pride and feeds it. As you know if you have kept up with what I have been teaching over the last several weeks, we must always stick like glue to God’s Word for our truth, never adding philosophy or the so-called wisdom of the world to it nor the requirement of man’s experience. Those who do these things always place their interpretations on a higher plane than the clear, direct teaching from God’s Word. They do this because they are puffed up in their pride and so are in unbelief in what God’s Word says and in that darkness lash out and attack not only God’s Truth, but also those who teach and preach it. 

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But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28 ESV)

καὶ ὃς ἂν θέλῃ ἐν ὑμῖν εἶναι πρῶτος ἔσται ὑμῶν δοῦλος (Matthew 20:27 from the NA27 Greek text)

There are a group of men who I do not allow to comment on my blog, but who attempt to do so anyway. Their comments go immediately into the SPAM folder. I usually just dump it once a day without reading them. However, once in a while when I know that, through the discernment ministry God has given me, I have hit a precious target of our enemy, certain men in that group start commenting in direct, vicious attacks meant to do one thing alone. That one thing is to discourage me and thwart me from continuing obeying my Lord as His δοῦλος in exposing false teachers and their doctrines to the Body of Christ. It is an interesting way to gauge whether I am on target or not at times. I also find it very interesting that the accusations in those attacks are always meant to rouse me to some sort of self-defense or rebuttal type of response meant to “put them in their place.” When my anger reaches that point I know that my flesh has taken over and it is time to spend some time in humble repentance with my Lord before the Throne of Grace. What is my response to the attacks after that? I simply erase the SPAM and move on. 

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