Seek to Submit to God's Word

Take it from me: it is difficult to be in a battle and not realize you are in a battle. There have been times in my life when I have been “persecuted for righteousness sake” (Matthew 5:10). Yet at the time I didn’t know it. As such I did not, in the words of Christ, “rejoice” nor was I “glad” (Matthew 5:12). Rather I resented it, became angry, and even grew embittered.

It was only after the trial, looking back, that I realized what was happening. I truly believe that this is an apt description of us as a church body. We do not see the battle raging around us. We live in a time of great compromise. This is the age of which Christ said, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Paul warned us:

2 Timothy 3:1-5a, “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power…”