Faithfulness & Praise

Lord, You have intended for me to be the head, not the tail. You intend for me to prosper in the midst of all things and be in good health. I have enemies of fear, disappointment, hurt, pain, heartbreak, discouragement, abandonment, bitterness, and criticism. If I turn away from the heritage You’ve given me then You will cause me to serve my enemies… I have been faithfully doing so, like a slave. I can choose to overcome these enemies by doing the opposite of what they demand. They want me to withdraw, mope, mourn and drown myself in sorrow and pain and to be consumed by their power over me. What if I choose to heap burning coals on their heads instead? What if I choose love and trust over fear, hope over disappointment, delight over hurt and pain, restoration and renewal over heartbreak, encouragement over discouragement, unity and reconciliation over abandonment, forgiveness rather than bitterness, and edification over criticism. But in my pain I have chosen to accept the stimuli of my enemies and discontinue in the joy of grace; serving my enemies rather than living in grace and serving You, my Lord. I have thought without Your mind and attitude in terms of defeat rather than Your victory, and in so doing have served the enemy that gnaws on my despair. And yet You tell me that I do not have to serve the projections of the enemy or line up with the initiations of Hell. This stimuli does not have dominion over my mind or authority over my soul or power over my body. I must choose to live with life from above rather than life from below. I must live a life hid in Christ instead of a life hid in Adam. I want to live with divine resources instead of what the flesh and the devil have endorsed for me. Help me to share life because I am living in the victorious Headship of Your divine resource. I am exhausted and burnt out serving the enemy. He has dragged me down and wants to keep me there. He wants me out of the race, out of the church. He wants me to do his bidding. He wants to do me in and use my pain to end me. Yet what he intends for evil, You intend for good. You, my Jesus, were despised, misunderstood, and rejected. You were crushed for my iniquities. You were cut off from everyone, from the land of the living, from your friends and family, and worst of all… Your Father in Heaven. You were pierced for my transgressions that outnumber the stars. You bore my sorrow, my grief, my sadness, my hurt, my pain, and by Your wounds I am healed. I am whole. I can live in freedom. I can live unbound and I can serve You and not my enemy, and be a free man. In You, Jesus, I am free indeed. The prison walls can come down. My praise and reverence is a weapon that can take down the walls and strongholds of fear and all of my enemies. Faithfulness and praise. Those two things gave Joshua  and his army the victory at Jericho, and that same victory is mine to possess because it is Christ’s. That small victory for Joshua, taking a fortified city through faithfully marching around it and blowing the trumpets in praise, points to a far greater victory, where Christ lived a perfectly faithful life and laid it down, in so doing, bringing His Father praise. Forgive me, Lord, for living in a prison of pain while grasping the key. You are my all in all. I have it all in You. You will never abandon me. You will never leave my side. You are the friend who is faithful to the end; steady, unwavering. You always lead me in triumph. If You were abandoned for my sake, surely I can be for Yours. If the cost of just one soul becoming a believer and me getting to watch and live and fellowship closely in all of that for years is the price of my own heart, then that’s what it was, and I can still thank You for having experienced it. There was no greater gift! What a privilege it was, to be used, to have that kind of fellowship, love, intimacy, and friendship. I wanted it to last forever, but only You last forever. Your grace is sufficient. You are enough.

“I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” – Philippians 3:8