Author: marquitabp

To know me is to accept me, and to love me is to help me.
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Daily Devotion

Devise Your Defense

Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

I know I have not written in a long time, and truthfully it was because my thoughts were on my own situation, and during my hiatus I have been able to draw closer to God.  However, He quickly brought to mind that this is something that I should be doing, because not only does it help me, but I have the fortune of helping others.  I pray that all is well with each of you and that God has been keeping you in the interim.

The scriptures referenced above are most frequently referenced when a pastor does a sermon or series on spiritual warfare.  They do prove most appropriate in that context because it tells you who your true enemy is and how God has equipped you to be a victor.  Lately I have had to realize just who my enemy is.  He has roamed about like a lion, jumping from person to person that unknowingly allowed themselves to be used.  Some close to me and not so close have all played the puppet and it has served as a discouragement to me.  But once I realized that it wasn't the people (rather it was their own sin that made them susceptible to being used by the enemy) but the enemy trying to keep me from my destiny, I had the heart to pray for the people and myself.  See as long as you are focused on what the person did to you and not how you may have played a part in contributing to what they did, you will not be able to see what God wants you to see.  I had to look at each situation in two ways: 1: that the enemy was trying to discourage me but 2: that I had helped to contribute to the situation!  In a defensive strategy, you cannot have any holes or else the other side will break through!

It took me going to God and asking Him to show me myself for me to forgive the people and actually come to a place of prayer for them.  But I had to really see through the people to the devil trying to knock me back to who I used to be.  So in devising your defense, you have to have your best player (Jesus) involved.  You have to know the playbook (the Word–the scriptures to confess and how to use them against your opponent).  You have to know your weaknesses (how you may be contributing to the situations that are happening; what sin have you not acknowledged in your life) and that is where you get your best player to fortify you at.  You must definitely recognize and know your opponent because you aren't fighting against that physical person, but as said above, against principalities and evil rulers in high places (the devil).  Listen to your coach (God) and don't be defeated–because your best player already won!

"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."  1 Cor 15:57 KJV

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Daily Devotion #2

To Believe or Not to Believe?

'Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,' John 11:25


I think I was hurt the most recently to hear (or read rather) that one of my best friend's brothers decided to no longer believe in God.  I was so hurt that I asked to talk to him.  That ended up in me being very angry because he accused me of only believing in God because I did not want to go to Hell.  I was infuriated!!!  How dare he simplify my suffering to merely not living in Hell?  Then the next day, I saw an article about a black man being an atheist.  His belief, of what I could skim, involved him being responsible to himself for his actions.  After that, I decided to write, but only after I had time to gather my thoughts on this topic.

To Believe or Not to Believe?  I asked myself this question.  Could I live my life not believing in God?  I immediately realized I could not, because I have experienced and witnessed too many miracles amidst great suffering in my only 26 years on Earth.  I cannot and will not ever doubt that God exists, because I have felt and seen His hand move in my life in many different ways.  I think I have experienced about every emotion known to man, and from every one that was bad, God has pulled me back from.  From losses to gains, God has been present in them all.  I can recount every situation in my life and in the lives of my family that show that God is real, and He exists, but most people that don't believe would try to reason them away with some scientific or philosophical jargon.  The truth is, I believe because I have a real-lationship with God.  I know that He is real because I have experienced enough situations that had God not been there, I would have been dead and gone.  It is so crazy how the near-death experience, or in my case, almost near-death, will cause the blinders to come flying off, and it is there that you see God's glory.  I won't, however, act holier-than-thou and say that I have not doubted that God heard me, because He has shown me in the lives of those close to me and in complete strangers that He is real.  It is only in growth that I realized that God did answer and maybe my ears were too clogged to hear Him.

I am a firm believer in accountability.  If only everyone would hold themselves accountable to how they played a role in the lives of those around them, I think people would see life differently.  Prime example, if a boy is told by his mother he will never amount to anything–and he actually never amounts to anything, is it his fault wholly?  No!  We must hold the mother, and undoubtedly his environment accountable for his failure in life.  Of course at some point he could have chosen to try the opposite, but can you really expect him to do opposite of what he has known his whole life?  However, had he known his worth as a child of God, maybe his life would have turned out differently.  Yet still, people tend to do what they see, and as a child, you feed off of the words of your parents. 

I don't know what experience my friend's brother had in a church, let alone much of his life. Maybe it was the strong hand of judgmentalism and Biblically unsound traditions like I experienced in various aspects of my traditional Baptist upbringing that would cause any free-spirited person to turn away from God.  Maybe in an extreme case he was abused by someone in the church in a position of power to make him doubt God.  Or maybe it is all the evil in the world, like he stated, that he 'doesn't see God doing anything about', or maybe it is like my opinion, he just hasn't held himself accountable for his role in the state of his life.  When we get tired of blaming God, He often hands us the mirror so that we can truly see ourselves, and how when we tried to run our lives, we miserably missed the mark.  He then shows us how much easier life is with Him, than it is to spend eternity without Him.

In having a better relationship with God now, I understand the purpose of my suffering.  I don't like it, I don't like it, I don't like it (did I say it enough?) but I know it is only in the midst of difficulties that these impurities of my character are extracted and God continues to mold me more into the likeness of Christ.  I believe God exists because in His awesomeness, He finds ways to show us how much He loves us everyday.  I know there is much evil and poverty and unfairness in the world.  I don't try to reason them away that because a person sinned, they are doomed to their state forever.  I do know that just as God is real, so is the devil.  I know that anyone willing to be used by the devil, both rich and poor, young and old, black, white, yellow or blue, will be used to bring his ultimate desire of dooming humanity to eternal suffering.  But at the end of the day…believing all comes back to accountability.  At the end, we all have to go before God.  We can choose to live our lives how we want, 'responsible to ourselves' and blaming the world for everything wrong.  Or we can believe in God, His word, His Son, and let Him lead us to make a difference and change it all.

"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."  John 3:18 NIV