For thought and meditation

[rl69]

Take up the whole armor of God…praying always… EPHESIANS 6:13,18
You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God, and wrestle in prayer for other people; but to wrestle with God in prayer is unscriptural. If you ever do wrestle with God, you will be crippled for the rest of your life. If you grab hold of God and wrestle with Him, as Jacob did, simply because He is working in a way that doesn’t meet with your approval, you force Him to put you out of joint (see Genesis 32:24-25). Don’t become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because “we are more than conquerors through Him…” (Romans 8:37). Wrestling before God makes an impact in His kingdom. If you ask me to pray for you, and I am not complete in Christ, my prayer accomplishes nothing. But if I am complete in Christ, my prayer brings victory all the time. Prayer is effective only when there is completeness— “take up the whole armor of God….”
Always make a distinction between God’s perfect will and His permissive will, which He uses to accomplish His divine purpose for our lives. God’s perfect will is unchangeable. It is with His permissive will, or the various things that He allows into our lives, that we must wrestle before Him. It is our reaction to these things allowed by His permissive will that enables us to come to the point of seeing His perfect will for us. “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God…” (Romans 8:28)— to those who remain true to God’s perfect will— His calling in Christ Jesus. God’s permissive will is the testing He uses to reveal His true sons and daughters. We should not be spineless and automatically say, “Yes, it is the Lord’s will.” We don’t have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength

[Wayne Smith]

I have several problems with this statement. It is a misrepresentation of two basic scriptures and an arrogant assumption.

First, in the Ephesians passage the question of how we are to fight needs to be asked. What are we to do once we put on the armor? Five times in that passage it tells us - "Stand therefore" "that you may stand", etc. Nowhere does it tell us to be aggressive, but rather to be defensive, defeating the slings and arrows of the enemy. Yes, it can be a fight, but of a very different character than most think. Consider Christ in the wilderness under temptation - he fought by quoting scripture.

Secondly Romans 8:29 defined v.28. In it we are told that it is absolutely certain that we will be conformed to (made like) Christ - there is no avoiding or getting away from this, it is a divine work of God in my life. It is all God's doing and none of mine. The only choice I have is the degree I cooperate with the process.

Never make a distinction between God's 'perfect will' and His 'permissive will' - for God's will is always perfect - we just can't understand it. Our perspective is limited to our existence, His is literally beyond universal - that is He created the universe and time and stands outside both and understands everything well beyond our feeble ability to know. Mankind makes this distinction because we can't understand God - and the arrogance is that we could be so able.