Challenge

The word “challenge” has been on my heart for several days now. I hear people say about their present situation that they are overcoming a challenge or that they are challenged. According to Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, the Greek root word for challenge is “call.” The definition of challenge is: “Literally, a calling, or crying out, the primary sense of many words expressing a demand, as claim. Hence appropriately, a calling upon one to fight in single combat; an invitation or summons, verbal or written, to decide a controversy by a duel. Hence the letter containing the summons is also called a challenge. A claim or demand made of a right or supposed right.”

Well, now, isn’t this whole definition interesting. We have an enemy, satan, who challenges us to a fight, who demands our rights, to take them from us in combat. And many Christians answer the call to fight him. And you think I am going in one direction, don’t you, when I am actually going in another. Jesus has already fought him and won the victory, won the battle. There is no more combat. If we allow ourselves to be pulled into this particular kind of fight, we will accomplish nothing other than a lot of bruises and battering. Satan is a bully and he doesn’t fight fair or alone. He brings his gang of demons with him. And actually, most of the time, you are not threatening enough for the big boy to come. He just sends his little fellers, those low-level demons. He knows that they are enough to “do most people in.”

Since when does a king go to battle. He sends his troops to do the battle. We are kings according to the word of God. Jesus is King of kings. Who do you think these kings are? They are all those who are born again, those who have accepted the King Himself. As kings we do not fight an enemy who has already been defeated. In the natural, in real life, if a king fought a defeated foe, we would think there was something wrong with him for wasting his time on such a battle. Jesus has won the battle. He took on satan in every category in which we would need victory—sickness and disease, poverty, lack, unbelief, doubt, fear, defeat, failure, failed relationships, all manner of sin, etc. Victory is ours because of what Jesus did for us.

What we do is turn the tables on satan and challenge him with our letter, the Word of God, which states that we are the victors, that we have won the victory through Christ Jesus our Lord. Over and over in the New Testament, particularly Paul tells us about our victory and what we got as a result of that victory. We use the Word of God as our weapon to maintain the victory that has already been won. The Word of God is our offensive weapon to stand our ground and not let the enemy take it. As we all know, it is called the good fight of faith. Faith is saying the same thing that God says, thinking the same thing that God thinks, doing the same thing that God does. And what is God doing now? He is resting. We enter into the rest of faith. That rest of faith is our statement that we are resting in what Jesus did for us and continues to do for us as he sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, which, by the way, is where we are seated. We are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus.

So, what are we to do when we are challenged? Are we to run quickly to the Word and start spouting a lot of scriptures in machine-gun style? Are we to drop to our knees immediately and start praying in tongues as fast as we can? Are we to grab a praise CD and start praising as loudly as we can to drown out our fears? Just what are we to do? Here’s what we are to do. Act as if nothing has happened. That drives satan crazy. Just start laughing and thanking God for what He has done for you. Then ask the Holy Spirit what you are to do to maintain your victory in Jesus. He will show you, and the victory for that situation will manifest on this earth. Sometimes it is not always as fast as we would like it, but there are things in our own lives that have to be moved out of the way in order for the Lord to get to us what we need.

What we all must do is trust our Father. Some of you won’t remember this, but during my younger years there was a program called, Father Knows Best, which all of our family loved. That program says it all. Our dear Heavenly Father, Who loves us dearly, knows best for us. And best is always health, happiness, well-being, prosperity, families in order, financial stability, relationships of love and order. He has already supplied all of these things for us by the death of His Son Jesus in our place. What we have to do is to trust Him to get them to us, even in the midst of seemingly impossible situations.