The Foothold

"And do not give the devil a foothold" Ephesians 4:27

A new year... Another 51 weeks to go before the new year comes again... Anyway, I really want to thank God for my new class for the next two years! It is really awesome! I mean, seriously, God really answers our prayers pretty fast. During the prayer meeting on the 29th of Dec, '07, Ben, Reuben, Matthieu and myself are in one big prayer group, and when Ben was asking us to ask God what he wants from us in the new year (I think) this part of a song keeps playing on my mind, like some broken record.

The Bright and Morning Star
The Great I Am You are,
Jesus
Jesus

The King Above All Kings,
Creator of all things,
Jesus
Jesus

The song is titled "Jesus" from the Never Stop album. (I think it is in the Saviour of the World album too).

For today's sharing, I would like to share about the book I am reading again "Every Man, God's Man" (was mentioned in my earlier post). Now i want to share about Chapter 8, cos God spoke to me again. The chapter is entitled "Do not give the devil a foothold"

Anyway the chapter starts by talking about D-Day during WWII, it depicts the Allies (USA) trying to take the beach of Normandy which the Germans were trying their very best to hold it out. So it is like, when books describe scenes like that, naturally your mind would wander and try to picture the scene right? Anyway i see machine guns blazing and a lot of men falling. Yeah anyway... the book goes on to describe a period after D-Day started, that the US troops have finally secured one tiny ground on the Normandy beach. (Secured as in "with no bullets shot at them and a safe area to rest) From that tiny ground, the Allies took over the beach in a matter of hours.

My point is not to go fight a war for the fun of it, but my point is that this can be applied into our spiritual lives. For example... argh I'll just give an analogy. P.S if it is related to anyone living or dead, it is totally coincidental ok?

John, a Sec 4 kid, has a great passion for God. He is actively serving as a CGL intern. He has great academic results, popular in school and in church. But, he has a terrible weakness for smoking. As in, he was a passive smoker and he allows his classmates to let him breathe some smoke in once a week. His thoughts are such that :" Aiyah, once a week only mah! I can stop whenever I like" So he just keeps this skeleton in his closet alive.

Soon, one of his xiong dih (hierachy in class) offers him a cigarette stick. John ponders:" God will allow one stick lar... I suppose" John took the stick.

Sooner or later, John was not only smoking, he was sniffing glue as well. By now he felt very distant from God. He keeps thinking:" Oh no! Somewhere in the Bible, God says that our bodies are a temple of God. I corrupted it with drugs!!! Now how? Now how???" John felt very withdrawn from God. He denied the fact that Jesus died for him, since he felt that he was too bad for God to rescue. Soon he left church and a few days later, a newspaper report rose and it read that John had commited suicide.

So what can we learn from this analogy? Personally I feel that this is one case that the devil finds a foothold and starts fighting for the rest of you. In the book I was reading, the author said that the devil will look for your weakness and manipulate it. Once he gets a steady ground, the devil will fight long and hard to get the rest of you down to hell with him. But God will save us. He never failed us once at all. I mean, just ask yourselves, When did God ever fail you? (crap I'm sounding like a preacher... sorry)

During Sat's Youth service, after the message, Euclid prayed for me and he told me this "No matter what you do, it cannot pull you away from God's love" (forgive me if i quoted wrongly, Euclid!) It is SUUUUPER encouraging lar, such an awesome God can love a sinner such as ourselves, He loves us SOOOO much that He could send His own son down to die for our sins!!!

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" James 4:7

God will provide us the resources and the weapons needed to whack the devil back to Berlin (sorry I just studied History today abt WWI and I REALLY hate Germany)... But I suppose we gotta stay strong, bonded by the Spirit of God. I read this from somewhere (again, I cannot remember where)

Stand together, pray for each other and continue to seek God, and the devil will find no place to bombard with his flaming arrows of lies

Yup... that's about all I gotta say... See you all this coming Saturday!!!!!!!!