“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:12-13)

This morning as we sang our opening hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers”, my mind raced back to discussions in some quarters a few years back questioning whether hymns loaded with military images such as this one should continue to be sung by the church or not.

The fear was that the triumphalist tone would promote a form of aggression that is not appropriate for followers of the Prince of Peace.

You must admit that such a possibility does exist. However, one cannot dismiss the fact that Scripture does not shy away from portraying the Christian life as a battle.

The Armour of God is totally unnecessary if there were no need for combat, amen? Consider also that Paul refers to Epaphroditus as my brother and fellow-worker and fellow-soldier. (Philippians 2:25)

The concern regarding triumphalism that leads to aggression against people of other faiths (as in the Crusades, for example) is easily addressed when we consider who our enemy really is in this battle.

When we see a person or a group of people as the enemy of the Christian life, then we are missing the point of the military metaphor.

It may appear to the naked eye as though the battle we are waging is against a member of our family or church family, a co-worker or boss, the leader of a nation or a person of another faith.

However, as the apostle Paul reminds us, when we stop to take a closer look through our spiritual goggles, we discover that we are not warring “against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

The “enemy of our souls” is the one behind all attempts to take our eyes off Jesus, get off the gospel train tracks and bring dishonour to the Body of Christ.

Paul alerts us to be aware that whenever we are tempted to lose our cool, to give in to temptation or to indulge in un-Christlike behaviour, then it is the powers of darkness that are responsible.

It is a bit like an act of terrorism that is attributed to a particular group such as Al-Qaeda. Experts in the field are able to tell by the nature of the attack who is behind it.

Similarly, when a Christian marriage is under attack, when a follower of Jesus is tempted severely to give in to an urge to get drunk, watch pornography, retaliate with slander, force, violence or whatever else the case may be…the first thing to consider is who we are really fighting.

When we see the enemy’s fingerprints all over it and realize that “we are not unaware of his schemes” (2 Corinthians 2:11), then we stop fighting against the flesh and blood of the person who attacks us and start putting on the armour of God.

As you move further down the road to your destiny, you would be wise to exercise this discernment.

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist…” (Ephesians 6:13-14)

In a hurry to get Sulojana to work on time this morning, I made an executive decision that I would live to regret just a few minutes later.

I decided that I could not afford to take the time to put the belt through the loops on my shorts. After all the shorts were fitting snugly around my waist. No problem.

After dropping Sulojana off, now it was time to pick up some groceries.

What do I do with the IPhone? Put it in a pocket, of course! You don’t want to miss an important call or text that might come through when you’re in Aisle 7, do you?

Grab a shopping cart. Pull out the shopping list. Start with the Produce Section. Red Peppers? Check. Cucumbers? Check. Spinach? Check.

Hey, what’s that sensation around my waist? The shorts are in rebellion. They are tired of sitting snugly. They want to move down in the world. A little slip. A little slide.

After doing a quick 360 to make sure no one was looking, I pulled them right back up to where they belonged and continued with the shopping. Oranges? Check. Burgers? Check. Greek yogourt? Check.

Oh, oh…I sense the symptoms of rebellion again and hear Paul Simon singing: “Slip, sliding away.” Repeat the restoration to waist procedure.

Cut short grocery shopping. Head to check out. Get outta there as quickly as possible.

Note to self: Never, ever leave home wearing shorts without belt ever again. Escaped embarrassment and public humiliation this time. Next episode might not turn out so well. Do not, I repeat, do not risk a charge of indecent exposure in future.

I thought I heard laughter when I sat down in the car. Sure enough, it was Holy Spirit.

“Did you find that funny, Holy Spirit?”

“Yes. You thought no one was watching when you did those 360’s, eh? You didn’t escape our all-seeing eyes, ha, ha!”

Before I could come back with something clever, He continued: “We were not just laughing at you, Jeeva. We were shaking our heads in disbelief over the number of Christians who’ve got all the armour on–the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—and somehow think they can get by without the belt of truth around their waist.”

Was He referring to the fact that truth is being seen more and more as being relative, even by followers of Jesus?

Was He implying that we are not upholding the uncompromising moral and ethical standards of Jesus anymore?

Was He reminding me of His words: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free?” (John 8:31-32)

After all, they were spoken by the One who is “The Way, THE TRUTH and The Life!”

The truth of the belt is that the belt of truth is what holds it all together.

Without truth, the rest of the armour can simply slide off the Body of Christ and cause embarrassment. Even worse, we are now exposed to attacks of the enemy.

That is not worth taking the risk, is it?

Dear DWOD friend, as you advance toward your destiny, would you please make sure that you do so “with the belt of truth buckled around your waist.”

“Behold, I am coming soon!  My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelation 22:12)

“I am sorry, but you have no more than six months to live.”

What would you do if you received such a word from your doctor?

I heard about a man who immediately quit his job and decided to cross off everything on his bucket list. (For our readers who may not be familiar with the term, it refers to a list of things a person wants to do before they “kick the bucket”, i.e. die).

So, he and his wife did such things as travelling around Europe, skydiving, taking a cruise, etc. and made it back home just in time for him to breathe his last.

Would they have done all of that in such a short period of time had he not received his “death sentence” from the doctor? Absolutely not.

The fact that they had an, er, deadline, to work with motivated them to get all of these things done that under normal circumstances would have taken a number of years, if not decades.

That, my friends, is The Urgency Factor at work.

The Christian life is a journey that is meant to be lived with a sense of urgency.

In the first place, it is because we are born with an “expiry date” that is unknown to us. As we read in James 4:14: “You do not know what will happen tomorrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”  

More importantly, though, it is because of the promise that Jesus makes about His Second Coming in verses such as the one quoted above from Revelation 22:12.

Yet, if we are honest, we would admit that our everyday lives have not always been marked with such a sense of urgency.

We tend to live our lives as individuals and as followers of Jesus with an attitude that seems to say: “We have all the time in the world.”

We neglect our significant relationships, waste time on television and the internet, withhold forgiveness, nurse grudges, and ……………………………………. (please fill in the blanks).

We commit our time and resources to matters that do not lead to fulfilling the Great Commission to make disciples of the nations.

We are known for sniping at one another and even destroying one another with “friendly fire” rather than wage war against evil in all its forms with Holy Spirit Fire!

If Jesus were to come right now, would we want to be seen as being complacent with the Great Commission? Would we want to be caught slinging mud and shooting bullets at our brothers and sisters? Would we want Him to see us wasting time and money on meaningless pursuits?

Could it be that our lack of urgency about His coming leads to such unChristlike behaviour?

Dear DWOD friend, what would happen if you made a decision to live with the conscious awareness that you do indeed have a deadline to meet and an expiry date that could be today, tomorrow or the next?

What would happen if you chose to live as though Jesus is coming any time at all now?

Would you change the way you spend your time? Your money and other resources?

What would you do more of? What would you do less of? What would you add? What would you eliminate?

Please feel free to share your responses with the rest of your DWOD family.

Sing them over again to me,
Wonderful words of life,
Let me more of their beauty see,
Wonderful words of life;
Words of life and beauty
Teach me faith and duty.

    Refrain:
    Beautiful words, wonderful words,
    Wonderful words of life;
    Beautiful words, wonderful words,
    Wonderful words of life.

Do these words ring a bell? They are from a great hymn that at least some of you may have sung at least once in your lifetime 🙂

You may wish to listen to the hymn in its entirety here  or simply read the rest of the lyrics.

Clearly, the “beautiful” and “wonderful” words to which the hymn refers are the Word of God recorded for us in the Bible.

But, something happened last night in Toronto that offered a revelation on how the Holy Spirit gets these words into our spirit so they can teach us “faith and duty.”

Sulojana and I were at a gathering of Tamil-speaking Christians whose roots are in the Church of South India. We had an opportunity to meet and greet the present Moderator, Rt. Rev. Dr. G. Devakadasham and receive words of counsel and blessing from him.

We began the evening with a time of Praise and Worship—a blend of Tamil hymns and contemporary songs in English.

As we started singing, Sulojana and I were both amazed at how words we had not sung for 30 plus years started coming back to us. Even though we had a song sheet in front of us, for some of those songs at least, it was unnecessary.

As a matter of fact, in one of the Tamil hymns, the text had been altered slightly and no one was more surprised than me when I was able to spot it 🙂

It reminded me of how we sing the “wonderful words of life” into our spirits. Over and over again.

The hymn in question is based on Luke 24:29, where the disciples on the road to Emmaus say to Jesus: “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.”
(For the benefit of our Tamil-speaking DWOD subscribers, I am referring to: “Varum Ayah, Pothahareh” by Vedanayagam Sastriar)

It dawned on me that songs such as this which are based on Scripture are a way in which we sing our faith. And, since we sing them repeatedly, we tend to remember them well. They come back to us even decades down the road.

Today, I am sensing the Lord wanting me to encourage you to sing those “beautiful words of life” in addition to reading them straight out of the Bible.

One habit that Sulojana and I have developed is to listen to praise and worship songs as we are driving and often sing along and worship the Lord.

On more than one occasion, those words we sang have come back to our memory exactly when we needed them…and by singing them one more time, we have seen healing, freedom and peace come—to us and to those receiving ministry through us.

Has this ever happened to you? Please share your experiences with the rest of your DWOD family.

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13)

Let’s be honest. Most of us learned how to pray by asking God for what we wanted Him to do for us.

“God bless Mommy and Daddy.” “God, please make my kitty well.” “God, can you please get me a bike?”

You get the picture?

Of course, there is nothing wrong with saying to God essentially: “God, I want You to do this or that for me.”

After all, such a request is not entirely out of line in a relationship between a father and a child, is it?

As a father, I am more than willing to give my children what they want. But, if the only time they call on me is when they want something, that makes me sad, because I long to have them come to me for no reason other than to simply say: “I love you” or just to do something with me or spend time with me.

When our daughter Priya was away from home for nearly 6 years in South Korea, she could come home only once a year and for a few weeks at that. Priya has numerous friends in Canada that she would have loved to visit every time she came back. But she always made sure that at least two-thirds of her time was spent with us.

This made my heart glad, because she valued her relationship with us so much that she simply wanted to be with us. Sometimes we would travel together as a family when she was home, other times we would just stay at home…it did not matter, she simply wanted our company.

If I as an earthly father feel that way about my child, how much more does our heavenly Father desire us to come to Him, not just when we want Him to do something for us, but simply because we want to be with Him, because we want Him?

We value God more for who He is and not for what He has. We treasure His presence, and not just His presents. We seek His face over His hands.

In Luke 11, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray. He takes his time explaining to them what it means to pray to “Our Father.” Considering that God is addressed as Father only 3 times in the entire Old Testament, this was necessary teaching for the disciples who would have viewed it as revolutionary revelation.

After impressing upon them that God is a loving heavenly Father who gives His children what they need and want, He then declares that what the Father really desires for His children to receive is not anything that He has in His hands, but His Holy Spirit.

Since Holy Spirit is also God, the third Person of the Trinity, Jesus is really saying that God wants to give Himself to His children. And when we get Him, then we get all of Him, including what He has in His hands…wow!

He wants us to simply want Him and not focus on what we want Him to do for us.

What would you rather have? Just what He has in His Hands? Or All of Him?

The choice is obvious, isn’t it?