Facing Opposition
I feel in my spirit I need to write a blog about this subject. This is kind of a candid entry and this is a new style of writing for this blog, but I am willing to go with the flow and do what the spirit directs me to do. To be completely honest with you I am what you would call a new believer. I really gave my life completely over to God in the beginning of January of this year. I also have had a short falling out period during that time where I was being attacked from every side and the pressure just got to be too much. I made a choice to turn away from God again. I was really under a lot of pressure with where I was living, but let's just say it was not a supportive environment. I am back to living in a supportive environment again now. When I finally did turn my life back over to the Lord I found it was harder to get back to that place which I had already been when I started to bear fruit in my life. I really let everything and everyone get to me and sway me. I was simply not strong enough in the Lord yet to experience the kind of opposition I experienced. I was not deeply rooted enough in the word and in the Lord. I simply did not have enough time walking with the Lord to be able to handle the kind of challenges I had to face. I know some people probably look at me now and might think who does this girl think she is? She is a NEW BELIEVER and she thinks she can write a blog about God and think she has any idea what she is talking about? Well I'm here to tell you that I don't know what I am talking about but GOD KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT. Everything that I write is what has been revealed to me through the Word (the Bible) and also through prayer and fellowship and what I have learned in church. I am of the belief that you don't need to go to Bible College to talk to someone about God. The Holy Spirit empowers you if you let him. So basically what I am saying to you is 2 things.
1. You NEED to get rooted in the WORD to really start to experience changes in your life. And that needs to happen pretty early on. It's like the parable in Matthew 13:3-9 that Jesus told:
3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Jesus was referring to US! When you hear things that are of the Lord and his kingdom, THE TRUTH, these are the seeds that are planted. Sometimes those seeds lay dormant in us for years. Look at me! It took me until I was 30 to really give my life over to the Lord despite growing up in a Christian home. It takes everyone different amounts of time for those seeds to really grow. The sad fact of life is that sometimes those seeds that are planted never really take root and the person dies without ever giving their life over to the Lord and those are the souls that are lost.
We have to remember this life does not last forever. This life will end, that's a reality. And to be honest neither you nor I really know when our last day on this earth will be. You don't have the time to play around with your eternity! And yes the decision is always up to you, but this blog is all about honesty and I want to tell you about my experiences. If you're always waiting to give your life over to God because you think you can do it tomorrow. You are not guaranteed tomorrow! Sometimes it really takes your life to really turn pretty crappy to become fertilizer for those seeds to grow.
So my advice is do WHATEVER YOU POSSIBLY CAN to really get rooted in your faith. If you have given your life over to the Lord and you don't see any changes something's not right! I am here to be honest with you. Am I perfect? No! Am I really qualified to give you advice? Yes, I think I am because I have been there. If I was just some holier than thou person that just is interested in making myself look good I would not reveal the hardships I've been through. There are many more that I can and will discuss when I think it's necessary. I think it was necessary to go through some of the things I did so I can help others.
My other piece of advice is to NOT GIVE UP ON GOD when you don't see results right away. And that can mean different lengths of time for different people. God is faithful. He WILL REVEAL HIMSELF to you, but it happens in his timing not ours! I think he wants to see just how faithful we are first to show us how faithful he is. If we continue to seek his face he has PROMISED in his word he will reveal himself to you.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The next thing is:
2. Things of the spirit are spiritually discerned. Not everyone is going to understand or agree with you, and I think you know that's kind of understatement.
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
When you serve the Lord there will be opposition. We live in a fallen world and I think it's naive to think you can surround yourself in enough of a bubble that it won't affect you. But the thing it is doesn't have to destroy your faith or sway you. I just love this verse. It really helped me when I was going through the hardest of opposition.
2 Corinthians 4:8
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
The thing is the Lord will not give you more than you can bear or let you be tempted past the point of being able to resist if you pray for it! In the Lord's prayer we see that Jesus modeled prayer for us when he said:
Matthew 6:13
And lead us not into temptation,[a]
but deliver us from the evil one.[b]’
Finally I will just say we also should not give this too much thought because we are victorious when we submit ourselves to God!
1. You NEED to get rooted in the WORD to really start to experience changes in your life. And that needs to happen pretty early on. It's like the parable in Matthew 13:3-9 that Jesus told:
3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Jesus was referring to US! When you hear things that are of the Lord and his kingdom, THE TRUTH, these are the seeds that are planted. Sometimes those seeds lay dormant in us for years. Look at me! It took me until I was 30 to really give my life over to the Lord despite growing up in a Christian home. It takes everyone different amounts of time for those seeds to really grow. The sad fact of life is that sometimes those seeds that are planted never really take root and the person dies without ever giving their life over to the Lord and those are the souls that are lost.
We have to remember this life does not last forever. This life will end, that's a reality. And to be honest neither you nor I really know when our last day on this earth will be. You don't have the time to play around with your eternity! And yes the decision is always up to you, but this blog is all about honesty and I want to tell you about my experiences. If you're always waiting to give your life over to God because you think you can do it tomorrow. You are not guaranteed tomorrow! Sometimes it really takes your life to really turn pretty crappy to become fertilizer for those seeds to grow.
So my advice is do WHATEVER YOU POSSIBLY CAN to really get rooted in your faith. If you have given your life over to the Lord and you don't see any changes something's not right! I am here to be honest with you. Am I perfect? No! Am I really qualified to give you advice? Yes, I think I am because I have been there. If I was just some holier than thou person that just is interested in making myself look good I would not reveal the hardships I've been through. There are many more that I can and will discuss when I think it's necessary. I think it was necessary to go through some of the things I did so I can help others.
My other piece of advice is to NOT GIVE UP ON GOD when you don't see results right away. And that can mean different lengths of time for different people. God is faithful. He WILL REVEAL HIMSELF to you, but it happens in his timing not ours! I think he wants to see just how faithful we are first to show us how faithful he is. If we continue to seek his face he has PROMISED in his word he will reveal himself to you.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The next thing is:
2. Things of the spirit are spiritually discerned. Not everyone is going to understand or agree with you, and I think you know that's kind of understatement.
1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
When you serve the Lord there will be opposition. We live in a fallen world and I think it's naive to think you can surround yourself in enough of a bubble that it won't affect you. But the thing it is doesn't have to destroy your faith or sway you. I just love this verse. It really helped me when I was going through the hardest of opposition.
2 Corinthians 4:8
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
The thing is the Lord will not give you more than you can bear or let you be tempted past the point of being able to resist if you pray for it! In the Lord's prayer we see that Jesus modeled prayer for us when he said:
Matthew 6:13
And lead us not into temptation,[a]
but deliver us from the evil one.[b]’
Finally I will just say we also should not give this too much thought because we are victorious when we submit ourselves to God!
James 4:7
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
And that includes all the tricks and attacks from the enemy and opposition from other people! Bottom line is God wins every time. Do you want to be on the winning side or not?
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