Diligence, Vigilance, Excellence
Writer Author Rita Sue Hanks
Christian Article
:
Overcoming Struggles
- Fiction No
Diligently Abiding in the Shadow of the Almighty
With Diligence, Vigilance, Excellence
We who seek to learn and to be strengthened by the words of God given in his Holy Bible love the promises of hope, love and protection spoken of in the 91st Psalm. It is so awesome to know that our great Almighty God who created all heaven and earth would make such wonderful statements to mere men!
PSALMS 91:1-16
"He that dwells in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisy pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shall thou trust.
His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
Thou shall not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flies by day;
Nor for the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
Because he has set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he has known my name.
He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation"
As a very young babe in Christ, I began to take comfort in these promises. Having lived my whole life without the knowledge of the Lord, I was desperately needy of his comfort and grace, and he was faithful to supply a measure of strength and grace. As I continued to seek to learn how to walk with him and grow I had a deep hunger to learn how to know him and to study his word, I began to see that the word offered much greater things than I had yet seen. I had a sincere desire to obey and receive the wonderful promises I was loving, but I was not able to consistently do what the word instructs. I saw my need to be delivered out of the lower life, the things that were hindering the flow of the promises to me. My family members were also desperate for the blessings of grace that God offers to the seed of the sincere disciple. So I began a quest of digging deeper into the word. Then one day I heard the voice of the Lord say "with diligence you shall excel". Now I had heard the word diligence many times before, but I found that it took on a deeper meaning when I began to study the scriptural teachings about the meaning of the word.
DILIGENCE;
PERSEVERANCE, PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO A MATTER; SPEED, HASTE, PASSIONATE (VIOLENT) PURSUIT OF A DESIRE
I learned that DILIGENCE is an all the way through to the end of the matter thing.
2 Peter 1:5 And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:
THAT DILIGENCE IS A PART OF A PROCESS
Hebrews 4:16 And beside this, giving all DILIGENCE, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, and to temperance, godliness.
Therefore, as I diligently searched the scriptures and spent time in studying and praying over the Psalm, I was seeing that it details the conditions to be met before we can see the fulness of the promises.
Psalms 91:9
BECAUSE thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation
Psalms 91:14
BECAUSE he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
When God's conditions are met the promises become "yea and amen". The stipulation to "set our love upon him" and to "know his name" means a wholehearted devotion.
I began to realize that we begin our walk with the Lord while we still have a divided heart, and we live double lives. We are learning that we are loved by God, but we still have our hearts set on other things and people. We are warned in the book of James that the man who remains double minded is in danger. This is a word to be taken very seriously. We must learn obedience and overcome the double mindset. Thanks be to God for his mercies as we journey from our old nature into the the nature of the new man!
After praying these things through, I made a choice to set my face like flint to living the fully devoted life. Many various trials of opposition came with temptations to fall back to my old fears and doubts. Then I began to hear teachings about "Vigilance", and after a word study, learned more about what God was saying to me.
VIGILANCE:
THE ACT OF CAREFULLY WATCHING, THE CONDITION OF BEING ALERT.
As I meditated on this the Lord then began to teach me that it is imperative to walk with vigilance in order to guard the heart's decisions from enemy opposition. In the Mark 4 parable of the sower this truth is made clear. Jesus said "If you do not understand this parable, how then will you understand any?".
Mark 4:13-20
Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? The farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."
A deeper look helped me to see more clearly. This parable makes it clear that if the condition of the heart is not right, we can lose what is given and remain unproductive. A good and honest heart is the good soil one into which the seed is sown and which keeps the word and bears fruit.
I saw clearly that the "good fight of faith" begins and continues to be a major battle to maintain our commitment to dwell deep in God's unfailing love and trust in his word in order to subdue our own worldly fears and desires.
Matthew 11:12
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.
The force the Lord has blessed his children with to accomplish this needed violence is the baptism of fire by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth. He is sent to guide us into all truth.
Through him and by grace we find the vigilance to guard the heart against the strategies of the enemy of our soul to distract, deceive, discourage and destroy. We hold fast to the Lord and our faith through our trust in God's love for us. Through our sincere worship of God we set aside all other agendas and we focus fully on God in Christ. We then learn! to rest in his great love as he fights our battles! Our passionate intimacy with the Lord will cause him to bring us into the promised land of victory which can only be apprehended by consecrated hearts. Through diligent submissive prayers of surrender we learn to resist with vigilance all enemy temptations so that we may achieve the excellence our Father desires .
Be encouraged, for we are not alone in our struggles. Even the great Apostle Paul confessed his own struggle to be set free, saying "Oh, wretched man that I am!", but he finally concluding that only through the Lord Jesus Christ could he find deliverance.He described the battle between flesh and spirit, between surrendering to grace or staying under the law. Without an active walk of faith we cannot please God and we will not see the redemption we have need of.
.We are a work in progress, being formed into a new creation. We are destined to be overcomers by grace. God is able to do above and beyond all we can ever ask or think, but he is limited by the lack of power in believers. Our strengths and blessings can be greatly hindered until we come to the place of a right heart and mindset.. We cannot fight our enemy in an unsurrendered state. Hearts grow weak and hope deferred over the years cause many to end up with a hidden enmity against God, although they may not be aware of it. Our Father is willing to strengthen and to restore the heart of all who her and repent. I do hope and fervently pray that all who are seeking to grow in him might be warned and are greatly encouraged in the new beginnings available to us as we re-position ourselves anew. The rewards are for this life, and for the life to come.
As we go forward on the path he has set out for us, let us be as the word spoke about the formative years of Jesus;
...
"Meanwhile, the child continued to grow and to become strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God's favor rested upon him".
While maintaining our pursuit Of The High Calling!
Jude 120-23 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire,hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.
Editor's Comment:
About the Writer Author
State:
Texas
Country:
USA
Email:
ritahanks@sbcglobal.net
Website:
www.facebook.com/rita.hanks
Profile:
Click here!
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