FCA’s Jarret Myers on…
Standing your Ground
The second you decide to make the decision to serve Christ, to live the way God intended you to live, Satan will do everything he can to get you to falter, to go back to your old ways. In my opinion, everyone has his own type of armor, and he tries to protect himself by an image that’s not really him, not a godly image. People put up a false identity of who they are—football player, basketball player, Mr. Macho, etc.—and build up this toughness about them because they don’t want to let anybody in.
Well, when you come to Christ, He strips you of that. You’re completely naked and vulnerable in the sense that you’re exposing yourself, not for who you are, but who Christ is in you. And Satan can attack that. I think God wants you to wrap yourself in who He is, and base your image on who He created you to be rather than who you think you are.
Satan will try to pull you in to what you’re used to, so you need that armor to defend yourself. My favorite thing about Ephesians is that it says to be strong. Carrying the armor is heavy, and you’ve got to be strong to do it. So you ask God to give you the strength to carry that armor. And know that when you leave FCA Camp you need to be strong to carry the armor, because you will be attacked by who you were, not in Christ, and also attacked because of who you decided to be in Christ. But, whatever the case is, you can’t be in line with what God wants unless you have a true grasp on who you are in Him.
Climbing the Mountain
I often feel like I’m climbing up a mountain, and sometimes I stumble and fall down. In that case, Satan wants you to believe that you’ve stumbled all the way back to the bottom of the mountain. You look up and say, I’ve got to climb all that again? But God says, no, you’ve fallen down, now stand up, brush yourself off, and get walking again. Because when you fall down, you’re exactly where you fell.
Satan wants you to believe that you’ve got much more climbing to do, that you’ve fallen all the way down to the pit. He says, why even use all that energy to get back to where you were? And God says to get up and get going. You know, you can’t go backward. You might stay on the ground for a long time, but it’s up to you when you want to get up and get going again.
FCA’s Bill Buckley on…
The Importance of Prayer
Any time you step out in faith, whether it’s in a small way or a totally life altering way, there will be opposition. When you move toward God’s will, there will be opposition. When I decided to come down [to the Mississippi coast after Katrina] I was in the honeymoon phase for about 3 months, and then I just felt overwhelmed with the whole process.
In the mornings I would wake up depressed and just want to run. The thing I was able to do was speak truth into the situation. I knew from experience what was going on. It’s really easy to let the enemy isolate you and pull you down into discouragement, but what we’ve got to do as believers is put on Christ’s truth every day. We wake up and we say, What is this? This is not from Christ. This attitude I have right now is not of the Lord.
What I began to do is pray. I got on the floor, on my knees, and I got others to pray for me when I was being attacked. Several people came to my aid in prayer, and many of them with a timely word of encouragement.
The way the enemy wins in those situations is he isolates us. That’s why the Bible calls us sheep. Sheep, when they’re together in the flock with the shepherd, are safe. But when one gets out by itself, it is trouble. That is what the enemy tries to do.
What I’ve learned is that the fellowship of believers is huge. When we’re attacked, if we’re walking in fellowship with the Lord and walking in fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we are covered, not only by His blood, but also by the fellowship of believers.
