THE BATTLE IS ALL ABOUT FAITH

The devil’s threat to the Church today goes beyond the flood of filth being poured out on the earth. It’s beyond materialism, addictions or intense seductions. Our battle is one of faith. The more you set your heart to seek Jesus, the more vicious Satan’s attack on your faith becomes.

In recent months, I’ve heard confessions from godly saints who speak of awful attacks on their minds. They’re plagued by arrows of doubt and nagging questions about God’s faithfulness. Many are just staggering onward, wavering in their faith, thinking, “I don’t know if I can go on.”

There was this letter from a dear 81-year-old woman who wrote, “My husband is suffering with bone cancer, our son is dying of AIDS, and I’m slowly wasting away with diabetes.” As I read everything this family is enduring, I shook my head, wondering, “How could she possibly maintain her joy? This is too much for anyone to bear. Surely God will cut her some slack regarding her faith.”

And then I read the final paragraph of her letter: “In spite of it all, God is faithful. He has never once failed in any word He has promised us. We have given our son over into Jesus’ hands. And now we’re waiting for the day we see our blessed Lord face to face.”

Yes, the battle is all about faith. We see this illustrated in Mark 8, when Jesus had just fed 4,000 people with seven loaves of bread and a few fish. Afterward, He got into a boat with His disciples and sailed for the other side.

“Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf. And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember? When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?” (Mark 8:14-21)