No Truce

We must understand that there is no truce in the invisible war. There will never be a moment from the instant we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ until we go to be with Him that the enemy is not on the offensive. We are active participants in the battle whether we like it or not.

Every day billions of battles are fought in this war, fought by believers on every continent of what we call the kosmos diabolicus, the devil’s world. Every day each of us faces the issue of whether we will glorify God or gratify self. This is always at the heart of the struggle in the angelic conflict. Every day we have the chance to win either eternal glory for the Lord or temporary gratification for ourselves. Jesus said, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow after" (Mar 8:34). Taking up the cross means that we identify the plan and purpose of God for our life, dedicate ourselves to it, and never quit. This demands a tremendous amount of self-denial.

We have to keep in mind always that the path from the cross to the crown is an upward path. That is why Paul uses in Phi 3:14 the words "press on." The Greek dioko means "to pursue, to search for, to seek, to set as a priority." We have to set our priority and press on from the saving grace of the cross to the living grace of day-to-day life, to the supergrace of spiritual maturity. Always we keep pressing on, always growing in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And as we do, we will come to understand that the provisions of grace, the assets of grace are greater than we ever imagined. But only one thing will force us to see this, and that is greater need.

Therefore, we have to learn to live one day at a time, We have to live our lives the way a marathon runner runs his race. If the runner thinks of all the miles stretched out ahead of him, he will be inclined to give up—especially if he remembers the pain of the last race, So he starts the race thinking a mile at a time. But after a while he stops clicking off the miles and starts thinking in terms of half-miles, then quarter-miles, then yards, until he reaches the point where all he can think about is putting one foot in front of the other.

In the Christian life, we start out in a burst of energy, running for all we are worth. Then somewhere along the line we realize that this is a marathon and we had better slow down and dig in for the long haul. Isa 40:31 talks about those who "wait on the Lord." He uses qawah, the strongest Hebrew word for faith. The first thing they do is "mount up with wings as eagles," then they run and do not get tired, and eventually they walk and do not become weary.

As we mature, we learn to pace ourselves. We learn to deal with our adversities a day at a time. We know that grace is sufficient moment by moment, and so we learn to go through crisis, tragedy, and difficulty one day at a time. We learn to deal with our areas of weakness, our frailties, and our temptations one day at a time. We do not ask ourselves, "How will I deal with this the rest of my life?" We ask, "Can I make it through this day?"

At night, with success behind us, we lay ourselves down, commit that day to eternity, and rest. We have won glory for the Lord Jesus Christ. And the next day it starts all over again. We will have days when we bring honor to Christ, and we will have days when we do not. We will have times when we struggle to sustain honor and integrity for just five more minutes, and we will make it, and maybe at the end of those five minutes we will fall flat on our face, But as Jeremiah reminds us in Lam 3:22-23, every time we see the sun come up we know that God’s mercy has been renewed and restored for that day. We know there will be tests and trials and difficulties that day, but there will also be great joys and blessings. And we keep on keeping on because we know Who it is we believe and why it is we fight.

This material was originally a highlighted topic in "The Basics".



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