THE SECRET TO A VICTORIOUS LIFE: Part 2!

The Peril Of Passive Goodness:

Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from our heavenly Father, including physical and emotional health, joy, peace, success in our pursuit, and financial prosperity. But the Devil’s job is to rob God’s children of every one of these blessings. He takes away your health and puts sickness on your body. He takes away your peace and tranquility and afflicts you with fear, anxiety and insecurity. He Rob’s you of your finances, your employment and material sufficiency and drags you down into a state of want and deprivation.
Too many otherwise good and fine people are unaware of their vulnerability to the enemy, Satan. But St. Paul tells us what you should know and confess with assurance: “We are not ignorant of his devices” (2 cor.2:11). You should be able to say: “I know Satan wants to attack me, to tempt me and to rob me of my blessings. I am completely aware that he is constantly after me, to vex me, my spouse, my children, my family, etc.
But then you confess what God’s word says about the victory that is yours and the weapons the Lord gives you to resist the Devil and to put him to flight. “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7)
But even religious people end up being passive rather than engage in spiritual warfare. Victory comes with using the weapons set down in God’s word for combating the enemy.
“This is the victory that has overcome the world — your faith” (1 John 5:4). But faith in what? Faith for too many in the Church means believing in the mere existence of God and Christ, that God and Christ are somewhere up in the space, up in the sky or on an icon. Such faith is worthless and assures you of only one thing — a defeated life!
You need to straighten out your understanding of faith. Faith is believing in the trustworthiness of God. It is being convinced that God is true to His word and His promises. It is believing in the unfailing promises of God. Faith is acting on the word of God. You can know the word of God. You can read your Bible and even memorize scriptural verses. But if you do not act on what you read, that is, on the word of God then you in effect throw away your chances to be effective and successful in your battles with Satan.
The devil is a toothless tiger and he knows it, but he preys on Christians who do not know this fact and who are sitting ducks because they will not draw weapons from God’s arsenal and put the enemy to flight. If you are one of them, then you are forfeiting the blessings God wants to bestow upon you, your marriage, your family and your Church.
Learn to act on what the Lord promises in His word. God is not some distant and remote being up in space. Neither is He mute. He has spoken in His Son, Christ Jesus, and through His prophets and apostles. The key to health and prosperity is in the holy scriptures.
“Not to know the scriptures is the cause of all evil,” teaches St. John Chrysostom.

May you have a victorious month of July 2020.