by Jacob Ninan
With a title like this, people expect to hear verses such as Exo.14:13,14. There are many preachers who think they are encouraging people with verses like this, saying that we don't have to do anything, but that God is going to miraculously give us victory! The impression they give is that whatever be the challenges we face, all we need to do is to pray, or ask the pastor to pray for us, and then we can expect God to do a miracle for us. But many times, the end result is that victory remains away from us. We become people who have to end up accepting a life where we constantly fall and then have to ask for forgiveness, instead of experiencing victory over our temptations.
We must understand that the people of Israel were like babies, spiritually speaking, when they came out of Egypt. They hardly knew God. So, God did many miraculous things in order to convince them that there was nothing He could not do. When they had the Red Sea in front of them and the Egyptian army pursuing them from behind, God gave them a miraculous victory which was entirely a work of God. But later on, when they came to occupy the Promised Land, they had to fight their way through and overcome the occupants of the land. Isn't that similar to the way God deals with us?
But what many Christians expect, because of the way they have been told, is that when they pray, especially with fasting, they will see the miracles God will do for them. For example, when someone is in a bad debt, he thinks that God will somehow wipe out that debt, through winning a lottery, someone leaving him an inheritance, or an anonymous donor coming and leaving money in front of his door. A couple who is going through a crisis in their marriage is not thinking about going for counselling and learning how they can set things right, but only about getting the pastor to pray for them. Then they think that suddenly the husband will start spending time with his wife and listening to her conversation or that the wife will stop arguing with him and just do what he says! Another person who is struggling with sin in his life, such as sexual lust or homosexual desires, hopes that God will suddenly take away such inclinations from them. Because of the false hopes they have been given by the preachers, these people do not imagine that there are things they need to repent of and how they need to change their own thinking and behaviour.
As God did with the people of Israel at the shores of the Red Sea, even now we have testimonies of people who have received miraculous answers to prayer. He does this to leave a witness for Him, but that does not mean that He will do like that with everyone. He wants us to grow up. We must understand that sin started when Adam and Eve chose to discard God and live their own way, and now salvation begins with forgiveness for our past sins, and then God teaches us to deny ourselves and do what He wants.
"Blessed be the LORD, my rock, Who trains my hands for war, And my fingers for battle; My lovingkindness and my fortress, My stronghold and my deliverer, My shield and He in whom I take refuge, Who subdues my people under me" (Psa.144:1,2). Have you heard this verse from preachers telling us about what God is trying to train us for? War! When it comes to our life on earth, we are a people of peace. But when it comes to fighting against the sinful desires in our flesh, we have to be at war! God is our fortress, stronghold, deliverer and refuge, and He promises to subdue these enemies in our flesh. But let us notice here, 1) we are involved in fighting the battle; it is not God fighting the battle, 2) we can't win without His strength, 3) He does not give us victory on a plate, and 4) He wants us to win the battle. God tells us a similar thing in Psa.18:34. These are not things that popular preachers talk about. But the fact is that we cannot experience this part of salvation over our temptations except through battle, and God wants to strengthen us and teach us strategies and tactics for that.
We should not think that this is merely some poetic language used in the psalms. The New Testament is also very clear about our role. "Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Rom.6:11-14). We must not just catch on to v.14 and treat it as a promise of what God will do for us by His grace. There are five things we can separately see in this passage. 1. We must take the position of being dead to sin. When we are born again through the Holy Spirit, He gives us a new heart because of which we who were dead in sin now don't want to sin. 2. We have the responsibility not to let sin reign in our body. 3. We must stop offering the parts of our body as instruments of sin as we used to do. 4. Now we must present ourselves to God, to do His will. 5. Now we must present the members of our body as instruments of righteousness to God.
We can see three similar things from Eph.4:22-24. 1. We must put away the old way of life. 2. We must become renewed in our mind. 3. We must put on the new way of life. We can see that there are responsibilities on our side, and that if we don't take them in a practical sense, we cannot hope to experience salvation as God wants us to. Look at what Jesus said in Lk.9:23. 1. We must deny ourselves in order to do the will of God. 2. We must take up our cross daily, or in other words take the position of death to our self. 3. We must follow Jesus in the way He lived. Jesus won the victory over sin and Satan. If we are to experience that victory practically in our life, this is the way we have to follow Him. Victory, of course, does not mean that we continue to sin and ask for forgiveness, but that we get trained to overcome when temptations come. That is how we can become like Jesus.
Victory is not automatic. It is not even merely through prayer. Through our prayer and fasting we express our inability apart from God, and ask for His wisdom and power. He answers our prayers by 1) giving us wisdom and understanding, 2) giving us strength to deny ourselves and do His will, and 3) giving us training in this process. That is why Php.2:12,13 is very important for us to see in balance.
If, on the contrary, we keep waiting for God to do and win the battle for us, our battles will be actually going on and on, and we will keep waiting for some 'breakthrough' to happen to us, which never comes. Then the chances are that we become discouraged or disillusioned with God. But when we recognise our responsibility and seek God for wisdom and strength for the battle, He will grant that to us. God is very patient, and He does not give up on us easily. He keeps teaching us and hopes that we will find the right way.
A tendency we have as human beings is to blame God when our battles go on and on. Questions come up in our mind wondering if He really cares for us. Let us remind ourselves that God is never at fault, and that there must be some things we need to learn right. Let us not ask God why He is letting bad things happen to us, but instead, ask Him what we should do from our side in our situations. Many people have gone through life before us, and there are many good examples we can see from them. Looking at them, we can learn to run life's race with endurance, not giving up (Heb.12:1). Let us also ask God to show us where we are going wrong and then we can learn to correct them.
Jesus said once that the people of this world are sometimes more shrewd that the people in His kingdom. We can see many people around us taking responsibility for their lives without even dependence on God, and trying to manage their lives well. If we are just leaving everything to God and not even doing what these people are doing, we have to recognise that we are being lazy and irresponsible. It shows us that we are really not too keen on salvation.
Let us learn to work out our salvation, depending on the wisdom and grace of God to help us. God wants to train us for this battle of our life.