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Have you ever been overwhelmed by circumstances in your life? That things you were facing seemed insurmountable and unchangeable? It is easy to become despondent when we look at such circumstances. One of the best tactics in warfare is the use of propaganda. Propaganda is information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a perception, the goal being to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented. If you can get your enemy focused on their circumstances and get them to identify with your propaganda you can easily defeat them because they believe the lie. It is so effective because it takes away their hope, skews their perspective and isolates them. So often we allow this tactic to work on us in regards to faith. We believe a lie that makes God intended for something to happen, that He seems smaller and less powerful, less able to help out or at least unwilling to do so. We begin to identify with the enemy's lie and believe it is the truth. We begin to identify more with the lie and the things of this earth than we do with God.
Why does the enemy try so hard to make us believe that we are strangers to God? If we can think we are isolated and on our own he can defeat us and destroy what God intended to be our portion. In Psalm 145:18 it says "The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,to all who call upon Him in truth." We are not strangers to God and He is not far off. His desire is for us to walk in relationship as His sons and daughters in the earth. Ephesians 2:19-20 says "19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone." To be a citizen means to be an inhabitant, one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman. God does not just call us citizens though, He calls us members of his household which means we do not need to be overwhelmed by circumstances. We are not powerless to confront these things that the enemy lies to us about to make us hopeless. We have resources that are well above and beyond this earth and that can overcome anything and everything. We don't need to look elsewhere for the power to be victorious. Luke 17:21 says "nor will they say. ' See here! or See there! For indeed the kingdom of God is within you."
I recently was facing some daunting circumstances and to be honest I felt totally overwhelmed. I felt like I was facing a tsunami and it was as if I could see myself lying on the ground curled into a ball just preparing to be pummeled and I felt powerless to prevent it. During a time at church I heard a message that shared a similar vision but they said that they also saw Jesus standing against the approaching wave and holding it back with His hands. It was then that I felt the Lord prompt me to stand up. I realized that I had been accepting the fact that this wave was going to topple me and that I would have to endure much pain and hardship because of it. I had believed the propaganda of the enemy that nothing could be done about it, that I was alone and powerless. I realize now that the enemy prompted me to believe an emotional response rather a rationale one based on the truth. God never says that we are just going to have to deal with the hurts, losses and pain of this earth so we better just get used to it. No, He says that we have the ability to stand up, to refuse to allow circumstances and perceptions to dictate to us and create an emotional response. Rather, He says that we are not strangers but citizens, members of His own household, that we have power to overcome and be victorious! In Ephesians 1:18-20 it says "18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,"
I have determined to stand against the wave and speak to the storm just as Jesus did in when he was in the boat with his disciples in Mark 4:39 "Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm."
I will stand and speak to the waves in my life "Peace be still!" and I hope you will as well. Let's choose to believe the truth in John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”