After going through some challenging times, I went to the Lord and told him I would like to coast for awhile . . . There was silence from heaven. Can you just picture God sending one of his angels to Satan with a message like this: “Could we call a cease-fire. . . . my followers have had all they can take and they need some time off from the battle!”
John Eldredge (Waking the dead) and some other authors have recently confirmed the reality that we are in a war. God is calling us to become worshipping warriors -- people who know how to love God and submit to Him, and how to fight for the Kingdom of God. This picture from the book of Nehemiah 4 speaks to me:
13 I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. 14 After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "Don't be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes."
15 When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.
16 From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah 17 who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand andheld a weapon in the other, 18 and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked.
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Each of us is commissioned by God to do specific things in the Kingdom, but we all have to keep a sword by our side. The sword is the word of God, it’s the prayers we pray and it’s the way we protect with our lives the ones that are precious to God and us!
Steve Mitchinson and I set out to put Psalm 144 to music in a fresh way – a way that we could sing together, and in a way that conveys the urgency of our need to recognize the battle that we are in!
I love songs of intimacy and songs of the Father’s love and I will continue to lead worship with those songs. But there is a time for music written to awaken the dead – songs that are designed to help us realize that there is a very real battle going on all around us. |
