Coffee With The Lord

The Christian life is not ten days on a Carnival Cruise to the Bahamas. It is not a skiing vacation in the Colorado Rockies. The Christian life is not even a weekend retreat of several power-packed days at an old fashioned camp meeting. Paul describes it in Ephesians 6:10-24 as warfare – Spiritual warfare.

Now if you’ve never experience a spiritual attack – never felt under siege by your spiritual “Adversary,” the Devil – something is wrong! The Christian life is a battle. If you don’t have a sense of being in a battle, it doesn’t mean there isn’t one. It may mean you just haven’t shown up for duty – you are spiritually AWOL!

Satan is a spiritual Osama Ben Laden – a spiritual terrorist. The Bible calls him “the Adversary” (1 Peter 5:8). He is out to rob, kill, and destroy every believer that he can as well as neutralize the Church of Jesus Christ.

Paul is writing to 1stCentury Christians who were living in Asia Minor located in and around Ephesus. They had been delivered from the dark spiritual forces that had once bound them. They were under attack from the Devil for trying to accomplish something for the Lord. Often they experienced ridicule and were belittled by their old pagan friends. For them, persecution was not imaginary. Temptation to compromise and return to idolatry and their old sinful lifestyle was real. They were sometimes bewildered by the multitude of religious and philosophical options clamoring for attention in their day. Even fellow believers, who saw themselves as some kind of “super-saints” because of the unusual experiences they had, were trying to make them feel inferior (read Colossians 2:12 23, the “sister epistle to Ephesians). Living the Christian life in Ephesus was a battle and it’s a battle in our world today!

So what does this great “Spiritual field commander,” Apostle Paul tell his fellow warriors (including us) in this passage? Fundamentally four things:

1. Come to grips with the fact that you’re involved in a real battle with real enemy! (vs. 12)

2. Strengthen yourself for “Spiritual guerrilla warfare” and take your stand! (vss. 10-14)

3. For “heaven’s sake” put on all your Spiritual armor! (vss. 11, 13-17)

4. And PRAY in the Spirit, all the time, with all kinds of prayer for yourself, fellow Christians and your Spiritual leaders! (vss. 18-20)

Listen, let me tell you NEVER HAS THIS BEEN MORE IMPORTANT!

On this “Lord’s Day” morning … “The Lord has remembered us; He will bless us – He will bless those who fear Him both small and great! May YOU be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” (From Psalm 115:12-15 ESV)

“COUNTING THE COST” is an important issue in economics (and business, and athletics, and marriage, and…) … AND IT IS EQUALLY IMPORTANT IN “DISCIPLESHIP”!

In Luke 9:57-62 there were several people who quickly and spontaneously said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go!” Jesus urged them to “Count the cost!” In the same verses, He calls others to follow Him, and they begin to make excuses and procrastinate… “I will Lord, but first let me…”

This morning during “coffee with the Lord” I read Luke 9:23-25… In those verses Jesus clearly spells out the “cost of discipleship”…

“Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?”

Discipleship requires…

• Self-denial for the sake of the Kingdom of God
• Self-renunciation for the sake of the Kingdom of God
• Self-sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom of God

Gotta tell you, those demands run totally counter to popular, cultural, Christianity! Jesus, however, has not changed or compromised the demands. His challenge to me … His challenge to you … His challenge to all is… Count the cost!

Is there a reward … a payoff for the sacrifice? The answer is Yes! Later in Luke Jesus spoke these words to Peter…

“Peter said to Him, ‘We have left all we had to follow you!’

“’Truly I tell you,’ Jesus said to them, ‘No one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18.28-30)