Fight for you

If you are anything like me you have faced some challenges and really hard decisions in your life these last few years. We made the move back to Michigan for a handful of reasons, but really felt like God was leading us home. We had been living in Nashville for a few years, we loved it. We loved the friends we made, we were involved in a sweet church there. From an outside observer it looked like we were on a normal path.

The reality was money was always real tight, even with my wife and I both working living is expensive. Rent, food, insurance, cars, kids, jeans, coffee... well the coffee was always entirely worth it. All this to say life was always a battle, but i tried to start with my eyes on Jesus. The days i didn't start right, the enemy would feed me lies and distractions like; you will never get ahead financially, you will never get promoted, you will only loose what you have, what are you really doing with your life... you know the lies very well i'm sure. And i fought, every day to keep my head up, to look for my hope, and i found it in Jesus. When you are seeking, you will find, and Jesus loves to be found by us each day. Sometimes we get so used to fighting our battles, we forget that He fights for us.

"Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us." -Romans 8:33-34

Let us paint a picture of the battle in the spiritual places. The enemy, Satan condemns, accuses, calls us names, wants God to abandon us. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy. He wants to kill our hope, wants to steal our joy, wants to destroy our potential for ministry. BUT while Satan attempts to condemn us before God we have the best attorney that ever walked this earth, Jesus. The one who was there when the foundations of the existence was spoke into being. Who was co-author of light, to whom all knees will bow and all tongues confess Him as lord. Yeah, i'm glad he is on my side. I am glad he lived a perfect life and died and was raised from the dead, and he sits at the right hand of God the father.


What does this mean for our worship?
It is easy to think about ourselves, it is easy to spend that one min we have in the morning to try and focus on God. It isn't easy to live our entire day with an attitude of worship, at least not at first. When we are focused on OUR battles we will stay focused on ourselves. We must first remember that He, Jesus fights for us. We don't need to take that on, we need to trust that we have the best and only blameless attorney in Jesus. Once we remember that our response should be worship, always our go-to should be worship. Our worship and our love, our obedience, thats what He wants.
All that time i spent fighting battles, i thought they were my battles, and the world told me they were, that was the cost i had to pay in life. Honestly those things don't matter in the big picture. I was following what God had told me to do, and that obedience had a purpose in retrospect. My family is in a wonderful place now, my marriage is stronger than ever, my kids amaze & challenge me every day. I have more love in my life, and i owe it all to Jesus the one who fights for me. So it is Him i will worship.

This is our battlefield, the stage where we join together and remember who has already won.