My Coffee Cup Can Preach

The truth is, things aren't going to get better. The entire New Testament testifies to this. There is an important "but" to consider. It won't get better, but Jesus will come back. There will be a New Heaven and a New Earth and a new me. If you have trusted Jesus, there will be a new you too. This is real, even if it seems far off. The darker it gets, the closer the dawn.

That is where I am placing my hope. Our enemy wants us to despair in the last couple weeks, but our Father wants us to increase our hope.

Ephesians 6 lifts the viel of reality by letting us in on the fact that we are fighting a spiritual battle. The trick is recogninzing it and responding. We want to fight physically, we want to do something, but God is doing something. What He asks us to do is clear in this passage. He tells us to stand firm with our armor but there is one more action that we often neglect.

Once we stand firm, we are to Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. Prayer enters into that unseen world, that spirit world. We don't usually see it working, so we think nothing is happening. Every time we pray, something happens. God hears us.

Every prayer declares that we believe God. That shoots a shaft of light into the darkness.

This simple act beats our enemy. He wants us wrapped up in our fears while Jesus is inviting us to participate in evil's demise by praying and aligning out hearts with God's heart. This is the best thing about prayer. It works on two levels, addressing the circumstances themselves and working in our hearts to align with God's thoughts and purposes.

I'm inviting you to flip the script on the anxiety you feel about our world, about the world your children or grandchildren are growing up in and turn that worry into prayer. That is how we fight. Talking about it doesn't change things - praying about it can.

I'm going to go one step farther. Pray for your enemies. That's what Jesus said to do. That man that killed the beautiful girl on the subway, the man who killed Charlie Kirk...do you know their names? Jesus is telling us to pray for them.

I feel free to tell you, I don't like it. Am I doing it anyway, yes. Because 2 Peter 3 tells us that God doesn't wish for anyone to perish without knowing Him.

I don't know if those two men or the others who are too many to list who have committed evil crimes might repent. I can't see their hearts. I'm not suggesting that justice not be served, in fact that justice might encourage their hearts to repentance. I know that my God can save to the uttermost.

What I know for sure its this:

"The Lord in not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness,

but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish,

but that all should reach repentance."

2 Peter 3:9

Jesus is coming back for us, He isn't slow, He's always right on time. For my part while I wait I am taking this to heart:

"...what sort of people ought we to be, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God..." (Verses 11&12)

While we wait, we are to be people of grace and truth. We are to pray without ceasing in the hopes that we are hastening the coming of the day of God.