Stay Ready: Stand and Pray in Spiritual Battle

It's when you are tired and you go to bed at night and you wake up in the morning tired all the more. Because the battlefield is your dreams. There's a battle for your peace. There's a battle for your joy. There there's not a soldier charging the front lines of your home. There may not be tanks rolling up into your place of business, but there is a spiritual battle against your joy. There is a real battle. There's a battle against your faith, and the enemy of your soul wants to attack in such a way that will destroy and bring destruction and deconstruction up to your faith so that you can be derailed and deterred for the plan of god in your life. [00:44:42] (45 seconds)  #BattleForYourJoy

After you've outfitted yourself with the right shoes on your feet, after you put the belts around your waist, after you have the breastplate on your chest, after you got the helmet on your head, after you've armed yourself with a shield and a sword, stand. Don't fight. Stand. An a a battle is coming, and God has told you to stand. He's giving you everything that you need to stand. If you feel like you can't stand your ground, you have the gospel of peace. If you feel like the attacks are too strong, you have the shield of faith. If you feel like your mind is going crazy, you got the helmet of salvation. If you feel like things are falling apart, you have the belt of truth. If you feel like your heart's under attack, you have the breastplate of righteousness. So stand. [01:17:24] (45 seconds)  #StandFirmInTheArmor

But thanks be to god. We have a savior who has won the victory. Amen? He has overcome darkness. He has defeated death, hell, and the grave by his finished work on the cross. He has overcome those principalities and those powers. The Bible says that Jesus put them to shame. We have the victory, but the key for the believer is how to be a victor and not a victim in the middle of your battle. Are you with me so far? You see, I believe the apostle Paul gives us the tools that we need in Ephesians six to have victory in the middle of our battle. [00:45:27] (41 seconds)  #VictorsNotVictims

The Roman soldier wore these sandals that had spikes on the bottom of them. They were kind of like a cleat. And that piece of equipment gave the Roman soldier an unfair advantage. No matter the situation they found themselves in, no matter the type of battle, no matter the altercation, no matter the terrain they were in, their sandals gave them the ability to stand firm under attack, to stand firm in the middle of the battle. The gospel is your unfair advantage. [00:59:47] (35 seconds)  #GospelIsYourAdvantage

One of the things I've realized is that many Christians walk around walk around dressed for peace when you should be dressed for battle. You are not dressed for the occasion in which you are in. I don't know if you've ever been invited to a party, and you are you're invited to this party, and you think that it's casual, but for some reason, no one told you that it was a black tie event, and you showed up in cargo shorts. You looked a little bit out of place, did you not? [00:46:21] (31 seconds)  #DressForBattle

Listen. The weapon that you will strike back with will not be your intelligence. The weapon that you strike back with will not be your ingenuity. You're walking through a battle right now that you can't throw money at. You're walking through a battle right now that you can't fight your way out of, that you can't stress your way out of, that you can't think your way out of. The word is what's gonna get you out of it. You see, the word is our weapon, but it's also a weapon that the enemy knows a whole lot about. And he will use the word of God twisted and contorted against you. It's a tale as old as time. It's, did God really say? [01:13:35] (49 seconds)  #WordIsOurWeapon

The security that you have as a believer is in your salvation. And it's important to remember where that security comes from. It's in from Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace alone. Everything else that we would try to hold up in front of God as it gets tested by the fire burns up. There's wheat and there's chaff. There's certain things that will not stand the test except for Christ alone. Those things are fickle. Listen, church attendance is fickle. You you there there there there's good behavior. It's fickle. Karma is fickle. Crystals, sage, and burning incense. It is fickle. [01:11:27] (53 seconds)  #SecurityInChristAlone

It's the faith of Paul and Silas that though at midnight when they were in the jail cell and they worshiped and they prayed, the chains fell off of them, but it didn't just fall off of them. It fell off of their neighbor and the prisoner next to them, and the doors flew open. Some of y'all know what a contact high is like, but this is a contact faith. That you come into contact with me, you get greater faith. You come into contact with a believer, you get greater hope. You come into contact with the church, you get greater belief. You've got a contact faith, a faith that's big enough and strong enough for both of us. [01:07:04] (37 seconds)  #FaithIsContagious