Hey there, wonderful children of God! How are ya doing? God is so good, and He loves you so much! Sorry this post is a day late, we were driving home from our regionals all day yesterday, so I didn't get a chance to finish it :P And on that note, congratulations to everyone on how they did at the tournament! There was some awesome competition, and I'm super excited about how our teams are going to do at nationals next month! But if that was your last tournament for the season, I would encourage you to really enjoy your summer break, and to build up that kindling for next season's fire of motivation! Today I'm going to touch on the subject of the daily use of our swords - it's gonna be awesome! It's important to realize and remember that even though we may sharpen our swords regularly (through Bible quizzing!), we still need to practice using them. Luckily, we have the best Teacher we could ever hope for! :P And as a bonus, He's always available for one-on-one lessons. If you want to become an expert swordsman, three things are necessary:
But how do you "practice" the things you're learning, you may ask? It's simple; recognize and fight against the enemy. "The enemy" can come in three forms: himself (thoughts that are completely contradictory to God's Word), persecution/trouble from other people (people who have listened to the thoughts from the devil), and ourselves (our flesh, the part of us that was tainted when Adam and Eve sinned). So we're going to look at these three enemies one at a time, point out their goals, weapons, weaknesses, and how we defeat them, what weapons we use, and what scriptures to defeat them with. Lets look at the most obvious one first: the devil. The convenient thing about the devil, in situations like this, is that he's really predictable - he doesn't take days off when he knows he can do harm and damage, so the trick is just to watch for his lies and attacks, confront, and then defeat him. Simple three-step move :P The devil's goal is to get you to believe lies about yourself, and about God - and unless we know the Word, and what the truth is, we'll fall for it every time. We have to know that we're forgiven and redeemed, that we're children of God, perfectly made, filled with love and power. We have to know that God loves us, so very much, that He forgives us easily when we make mistakes, that He's a good Daddy, and that He would never do anything to hurt us. The devil's main weapon, is God's children not knowing the Word, the Truth. Because once you know the one truth, all other lies can be deflected. The devil's main weakness is his lack of understanding in the spiritual. The devil is completely natural/carnal now; he is time-conscious, sin-conscious, and self-centered. He can't understand what we do, because it works through faith and prayer. We defeat the devil through knowing the Word, remembering it when he tries to sell his lies to us, and then rebuking him with it (putting him in his place). It's good to be mean to the devil! The weapons we use are pieces of scripture, and words that the Lord has specifically spoken to us. For example, when he says that you're not smart enough, rebuke him with a few truths. Say, "Psalm 139:14 says that I am perfectly, wonderfully made. Genesis 1:27 says that I am made in the very image of God (your defeater, by the way, in case you had forgotten ;))." And then it's always fun to follow up by telling him a little bit about himself. Say, "According to 1 John 3:8, Jesus came and destroyed any and all power you ever held over me, and 1 John 5:4 says that I was born with the power to overcome anything you try to throw at me today. You're wasting your time, buddy." See? The devil's not scary. He's been crawling around on his belly since Adam and Eve ate the fruit - that's not a stance of power or dignity ;) You'll find it's really fun to laugh in his face with Jesus. Let's move on to the next one: Persecution/trouble from other people. This is kind of a hard one, because in the end, these people are God's children too. Our main purpose, is to know God and make Him known. We can't be mean to this "enemy", we can't laugh in their faces and rebuke them with distain. We have to love them. It's important to note that the devil tries to work through people to get to you. Remember when Moses and Jesus were born? Satan worked through Pharaoh and Herod to kill all of the children (thinking they could kill the two Satan hated the most), and both times failed to achieve his goal. We have to remember, especially in situations where we face this kind of hardship, that the base of our fights isn't against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities in the "unseen world, mighty powers in this dark world, and evil spirits in the heavenly places." (According to the NLT). Persecution of Christians is obviously not always directly from the devil, but it is never God. The very idea that some people believe that it is just doesn't make sense. No, when it's not directly from the devil, it's just people living in their flesh, in ignorance, and in the hardness of their hearts (which never would have happened without the devil's influences). Jesus said that everyone would hate us because of Him (Luke 21:17). But, like Paul said, since he knows Jesus and His unexplainable, incredible, unsurpassable love, all of these tribulations are but light afflictions in view of eternity with our Lord - and Paul went through and endured A LOT of persecution, as those of us who quizzed over Acts know very well. Their (people's) goal is to hurt, and maybe kill us, because of our faith, and we have to be okay with that. Even in the circumstance of persecution from His children, to His children, I believe God wants us to be loving, as He was when He was being crucified. Their weapons are limited entirely to the natural: our physical bodies. Their "weakness" would have to be their humanity, and the fact that they are created by God and therefore born with the knowledge (according to Romans 1) that God exits - and all we have to do to exploit that is show them His love. And the last one: ourselves. As mentioned previously, what I mean by this is our flesh; the bit of us that was tainted when Adam and Eve first sinned. This is the part of us that died (our "old man" as Paul refers to it) when we got saved, but it's a continual process to keep walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5 & Romans 8) and to keep being transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12). We have to die to our flesh daily (instead of just Sunday :P) in order to live for Christ (Galatians 1:20). The goal of our flesh, is just for us to fulfill it's lusts (evil desires). It's weapon is temptation and "harmless" thoughts, which can and do turn into big sins unless we chop them down at their roots the minute we notice them. But it's weakness is the fact that it's already been defeated by Christ through salvation. The way we continually defeat it, though, and fight against it, is simply to follow what God said about our thoughts. Proverbs 23:7 says that as a person thinks, so is he. Basically, thoughts turn into words, words into actions, and actions into a continual habit that works its way into your character/personality - and that becomes your life. To defeat them, all we have to do is use the weapon of our ability to control and steer our thoughts. Our flesh doesn't really have any power once we get born again, but we have to take the reigns and cause our thoughts, words, actions, and life, to reflect the Word of God and who He says that we really are. In times of peace, at the beginning of the day for example, I would encourage you to take the time to build up some defenses around your heart for the day.
Philippians 4:6-7 tells us "to not be careful for anything, but in every situation by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to present our requests to God. And the peace of God will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Prayer is powerful. If you're concerned about something, give it to God, let go, and enjoy His peace in the middle of the situation. Like I've said before, speaking God's truths over yourself is a great way to remind yourself of who you are, who God is, and the promises that fill your future with good things. Remind yourself of the glorious victories that the Lord has already won for you today. Thanks for reading, guys! I want you to know that working on my "swordsmanship" isn't something that I do anywhere near perfectly - I mess up a lot, and have to keep trying, but that's okay. We're all in this journey together, and I have a great hope that through our quizzing years, we're going to raise up an entirely new generation of the church, and this earth is going to be better off for it. Can't wait to see you all again! So until next time... Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory
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Trending Posts:Author:Mallory is a graduated Teen Bible Quizzer originally from the Southern region, moved to the Northwest, coaching quizzing over the book of Matthew. Check out our
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