Presently, there is an uneasy calm on the surface of the religious society.  Satan may be digging a tunnel underneath and up to the soft underbelly of Christendom.  After these many years traversing the narrow way, I’ve come to the understanding that when things get quiet, a crisis is about to break loose from its constraints.  Another indicator is that the Holy Spirit has been strongly urging me to get out of the comfort zone.  Oh how we love to settle there.  We enter new territory that our trial brings us to and battle to stay there.  But after we have struggled for awhile, we conquer and settle in.  We would not move on if God did not let us know that we are too big for that little patch of ground.  While we rest and enjoy the bounty of the Lord, Satan is out there working his devilish schemes.  We are not called to rest. We are called to enjoin the battle.   One day we will enter the Sabbath Rest of God.

The Spirit of the Lord has been moving me toward change.  He puts His finger on things in me that I didn’t previously know He was displeased with.  Has anyone else ever known the purging reality of conviction, its fiery chastisement, burning the heart, mind, body and soul, calling for full surrender?  We always feel worthless until we dissolve into His perfect will.  I have also experience that during such times it seems that all the demons Satan can afford to assign to me will find a point of attack and launch their fiery darts.  I encounter contentious people, strange incidents, and even brushes with death.  There is a sense of aloneness, of being isolated in a region of hard people.  And gargoyles in the shadows.  One would think that God had forsaken him if it were not for the promise of His word never to leave or forsake us.

Some professing Christians may not know what I’m talking about.  They do not understand that faith sometimes needs prodded with the sharp goads of spiritual conflict.  Faith needs to wake up.  It slumbers because we are not using it.  We snuggle under the comfortable blanket of sameness and wish away evil.  A window is broken in the middle of the night and we go from sound sleep to full-scale alertness.  The Holy Spirit shakes us.

“Wake up, O sleeper!  There is trouble afoot!”

It’s going to come whether or not we are prepared for it.  I don’t want to awaken to discover that I haven’t the strength to gain a victory.  As uncomfortable as it is to be forced out of the cozy place where I have tried to remain inconspicuous, I know from experience that it is excruciatingly more uncomfortable to enter a spiritual battle without preparation.

The moving on trial intensifies our praying, sharpens our focus and spiritual hearing, and causes us to test the battle worn weapons of our warfare.  During this time I cannot concern myself with the cares of this life.  The body must be brought under subjection.  All that is displeasing to God must be cast off.  I call that “letting the gold shine.”  The enemy fears no flesh covered nuggets, but he gets uneasy when a fire-bathed individual stands in the way shinning like gold with a fiery sword in his hand.  You cannot get to that state of authority without going through the fire.  Anyone that tells you that it can be done with mere positive confession is a liar.  Those lip servants only fight paper devils and revel in mock victories.  They are the reason for the lack of true faith in the majority of professing Christians today.  The real battles are fought by true warriors.  There is no victory without a battle and no strength without a struggle.  Complaining and groaning is the same as surrender.  It is denunciation of God’s word, and the same as saying “no” to any forward progress.

Therefore, I’m getting ready.  I sit here typing these words not simply to inform anyone of that fact, but to encourage them to do the same.  Further, I want people in the same trial to know that they are not the only ones enduring.  It is time to cast off the weights.  If sin is present, it is time to repent and ask forgiveness.  Peace comes with a treaty and there is no treaty with Satan.  We will be in a war until Christ returns.  Therefore, when He says “move”, it’s time to get our feet under us and step out.