December 16, 2012
Take up the whole armor of God . . . praying always . . . —Ephesians 6:13,18
You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God, and wrestle in prayer for other people; but to wrestle with
God in prayer is unscriptural. If you ever do wrestle with God, you
will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and
wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way
that doesn’t meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of
joint (see Genesis 32:24-25).
Don’t become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be
someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because
“we are more than conquerors through Him . . .” (Romans 8:37).
Wrestling before God makes an impact in His kingdom. If you ask me to
pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes
nothing. But if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all
the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness— “take up
the whole armor of God . . . .”
Always make a distinction between God’s perfect will and His
permissive will, which He uses to accomplish His divine purpose for our
lives. God’s perfect will is unchangeable. It is with His permissive
will, or the various things that He allows into our lives, that we must
wrestle before Him. It is our reaction to these things allowed by His
permissive will that enables us to come to the point of seeing His
perfect will for us. “We know that all things work together for good to
those who love God . . .” (Romans 8:28)—
to those who remain true to God’s perfect will— His calling in Christ
Jesus. God’s permissive will is the testing He uses to reveal His true
sons and daughters. We should not be spineless and automatically say,
“Yes, it is the Lord’s will.” We don’t have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength.
No comments:
Post a Comment