We must destroy the destroyer. And that is possible. It is possible because The Son of God did it for us first. He over came this world and not only ours but in his time he overcame the biggest and fiercest one of his time the Roman world. We have not yet been forced to bow to a Caesar and fear our death if we do not. However things play out for us in our time, we can face all of these events, unrest, disease (ebola) and destruction ( planes falling from the sky) and "rage against the machine." Our governments failings, big business controling way too much and the disappointments of life, the struggles to get ahead and so forth.
We destroy the destroyer when we make a conscious decision to turn over our lives to the one who is ultimately in control of all of these things. And this is achieved by grace. And we make a leap into another kingdom. We are in the world but not of it. Jesus, makes a new creation, when the Holy Spirit descends upon us and fills us to the point of surrender and we turn our lives over to him and the Spirits's leading. Just like Peter, Paul, James and those who went before us has testified. A witness that is strong that to this day it stands. But it is up to you (personally) you will decide if it is so. No one person can change that fact. Yes we can be influenced but ultimately it is a choice of surrender and belief that there is a justice greater than our own.
We are translated from a kingdom as a prisoner of darkness that blinds us to the truth and into a kingdom of light where truth begins to take shape and the words of Christ are empowered to us by appointment of Christ himself, and we become clay all over again able to be molded by the one who know us the best.
14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”[a]
Martin Luther King held protests in his time to stand against the wrongs inflicted upon his race and did this peacefully and eventually won the battle, though he lost his life. He had stength of conscience to do so. And I believe the strength lies in biblical understanding of God's ways and his principles. Where as in contrast Malcolm X tended to use fiery rhetoric to stir up protest. In stirring up he caused violence to rise in the hearts and minds of men instead of turning the other cheek and not resisting an evil. There is a great power in standing in Christ. As the scripture attests above, we as Christians are to be as obedient children and put on holiness in living our lives before the eyes of men.
As Paul preached "fight the good fight, we have not yet resisted to the point of blood." The good fight is Christ's
Suffering might endure in that we watch with heartbreak the events of our time but know there is as with hope a better ending. We are caught up in a play of acts pre-written and unfolding daily to a course that is pre-set but can be altered by us. Make sense? We have the ability to alter pre- destination! It's our decision to insert ourselves in the acts of the play. We are not on a unalterable course but a pre designed course where we know what is to unfold by the will of the one who designs it. Like an Arnold Palmer designed golf course Arnold knows the slopes and turns and all of the traps that lay ahead and so there is no surprise.
Four-hundred years before Christ entered the city of Jerusalem on a donkey, the decree went out, the decree of Cyrus to re-build the temple and 483 years later a Messiah would be "cut off" 3 and one half years into his ministry. (Daniel's 70 weeks.) But he would rise to change the unalterable that is (death) forever.
So we believe that though we live in a time of turmoil and events of extreme violence throughout this world we have escaped the destroyer through Christ. We do not not live as Satan wishes us too! I can do all things through Christ.
We resist with the help of the Prince of Peace.
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