If you’ve been a believer for very long, you know how constant worry and stress can drag you down and keep you from living life to its fullest. The enemy knows what buttons to push in us. He uses all of these torments to stifle our faith, so we cannot rise up and live in victory.
Here’s the thing about stress, and it’s critical you realize this: You can’t live a life where you’re constantly worried about something and still enjoy the peace of God. It’s absolutely impossible.
Peace is a gift given by God. We can’t earn it ourselves, and we’re not automatically born with it. We take hold of it from the Holy Spirit when we abide in Jesus, our Lord and Savior (Galatians 5:22). And we keep it through our deliberate action to grow in intimacy with Him.
Jesus gives us His peace, but yet, we must make a conscious effort every day to choose it. We have to desire peace above anything else; otherwise, it can be easily overturned by the enemy’s attacks.
That means we have to focus on things that promote peace rather than things that lead to fear and anxiety. We have to direct our minds to the things of the Spirit, so we are empowered to obtain His holy fruit in our lives.
Stress is obviously a weapon used by the enemy on our minds. But God has given us the ultimate weapon of war to fight the enemy on this front, and it’s contained in the blood of Jesus. If we make Christ the one true focus of our heart, we can use our words to scatter the camp of the enemy and prevent him from ever gaining a foothold.
~Roone Acree
Christ Fellowship