Long periods of not
worshiping our Heavenly Father, not reading the Bible, not praying and doing
sinful things or just dealing with it; all of this will make a Christ-follower
weak and sometimes sooner than later, depending upon a person’s age, history
and physical surroundings. These
things seem to weaken the soul and make one more susceptible to fear, failure,
doubt and physical sickness.
To stay strong in our
faith requires regular and continued praise, prayer, meditation on scripture
and the fellowship of other Christ-followers. It seems, for those I have talked
with over the years and for myself, that we can begin to feel the affects of
the dark cold discouragement of this world if we let more that three days pass without
actively engaging our spiritual-life. Holy Spirit is strong enough to encourage and keep us
during times of temptation to sin or be fearful if we are consistent with these
spiritual activities.
Satan, the enemy of all
mankind, does pursue us like a roaring lion; stalking his prey. He roars or
rather his messages of fear or temptation are meant to shock us and get us to
panic. He is looking for possible weaknesses to exploit in our relationship
with Holy Spirit and our Father in Heaven. His primary weapon is “thought”. We must “think about” what we think
about. What we think about should match the scriptural test for our thoughts
according to the writer of the book of Philippians. He says this, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and
right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are
excellent and worthy of praise.” This is found in Philippians 4:8 in the New
Living Translation. Fairly simple stuff but very powerful, however it does
require us to “think about” what we think about. Maybe we take a day and just
write down the most common thoughts we seem to be thinking over a couple of
days. It might be revealing.
Those other
thoughts, you know the ones that are not true, honorable, right, pure, lovely,
admirable, excellent and worthy of praise; well I see them as “battery acid for
the mind”. They eat away at the very things in our life that we value the most,
like our commitments to those we love, our passion for life and even our
self-esteem. They slowly destroy all the good if not checked on a daily basis.
To help
myself, I like to practice the following. When I lay my head on my pillow at
night, I like to think of at least 10 things that I experienced that day that
caused me to be grateful for my life. I usually drift off to sleep with a
grateful heart at around number 5 to 7. Try it.
It may work
for you and remember,
Be Life
Giving,
Alex Anderson
Permission to re-post
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