MESSAGE BEARER MEMO

By Ryan Shaw 

These bi-weekly memos are to provide encouragement, exhortation, and spiritual nourishment in the lives of those who have signed the Message Bearer Creed as you prepare to serve the Lord globally, and are influencing your peers with this vision. 

The Enemy’s Tactics

I have been asking the Lord lately why so many people who faithfully give themselves to Him in consecration and surrender end up going back on their decisions and commitments to follow hard after Him. I see this in many arenas but especially among those who sensed at one time God leading them into full-time cross-cultural ministry. Though I don’t have the space to fully consider in depth the range of reasons behind this, I want to highlight spiritual warfare as a primary one that many people today face, but are not adequately aware of.

When God’s children make firm decisions and commitments to become involved as message bearers in the world, the enemy of our souls becomes outraged. He commits himself completely to do anything possible to bring that person down and somehow make them change their mind about becoming activated in this manner for God. The damage to the enemy’s camp that could take place when one of God’s beloved, full of His Spirit and His authority, gets released into an area of the world where he has been entrenched for thousands of years, is enormous and he knows this full well. Due to this, a more serious barrage of attacks is the sure lot for an individual who makes a Spirit-led and faith-filled commitment to serve God among the least reached of the earth.

SVM2 calls students to make a long-term commitment while they are still on campus to serving Jesus following graduation. In doing a student is thrusting a stake in the ground and announcing to the kingdom of darkness their desire to be one who “takes the kingdom of heaven by [spiritual] force” (Matthew 11:12). But this also opens the floodgates to the enemy’s attempts to bring confusion, doubt, deception, lies, discouragements, and more to get each person to turn the other way from fulfilling this commitment. This kind of spiritual warfare is a reality that we must be aware of and yet Jesus has given us weapons of warfare to overcome every one of the enemy’s attacks.

Unfortunately in way too many cases today message bearers are unaware and the enemy is succeeding. I hear all too often about someone who had made a commitment to serve God in the nations and who is now not pursuing this end because of a host of excuses. Usually these excuses can be traced back to one of the above tactics of the enemy to dissuade you from involvement.

On the flip side, however, a generation is arising that is willing to stand firm in the face of the enemy’s onslaughts and not give up an inch. Stories abound of those who have gone through havoc after making a commitment as a message bearer to the nations and yet have stood strong and prevailed, not believing the lies but clinging to Jesus’ truth. They are impacting people groups with the gospel today and bringing destruction to the enemy’s camp because they would not buy into the tactics of the enemy.

James 1:2-8 teaches us much along these lines. Open up and read this passage. The whole text surrounds the theme of how we respond to testing and trials that arise in our lives. It is an exhortation to rightly view the trials we endure. We find in verse three that one of God’s purposes in our lives is the producing of a perseverant and enduring heart. The Scripture alludes that the primary way that God accomplishes this is through allowing trials and tests. God is after spiritual maturity in our lives and develops this through creating pressure situations that produce the characteristics necessary for true maturity. I firmly believe that God is accomplishing this when He allows the enemy to bring the onslaught upon us when we’ve made a decision to serve Jesus in the nations. If we will persevere in the face of the enemy’s lies, discouragements, and host of other forms of attacks, God knows that we are being prepared for the ongoing spiritual battle of impacting unreached peoples with His fiery love.

This James passage clarifies that God uses pain and hardship in our lives in extraordinary ways. Though most of us shy away from pain in our midst, if we respond rightly to it by fixing our eyes on Jesus and not going back on our commitments, we will emerge stronger spiritually as a result. Pain and hardship in a life are the nuggets of gold that build us as we mature as faithful followers of Jesus. James exhorts and implores us to live in this reality and to view trials and hardships in this light alone.

An all important aspect of enduring faithfully is having the right perspective on our trials and tests. Satan is crafty. He is subtle. He wants you to be totally unaware that it is him who is standing against you and throwing the above tactics at you to get you to back down. Instead he deceives us to actually think that we are doing so for a very good and biblical purpose. To the one who backs down, the reason is very real and the best reason in the world why “God” might be leading me to do something else. These would never dream that Satan was the one actually behind such thoughts. The doubt or discouragement we feel is twisted to make it seem that there is no way God could be really calling us into the harvest fields of the world. Remember that Satan’s foundations are built completely on lies and deceptions. Hence it is critical that when we start to experience the different tactics referred to in the 3^rd paragraph we do not excuse them as being simple thoughts that are worth entertaining but as what they are – attempts by Satan himself to get you to turn back from a commitment you have made to serve Jesus among the unreached. 

It is critical to see our situations and circumstances in light of the spiritual realm and grasp the enemy’s attempts to foil our lives in God and grasp when God is speaking and illuminating revelation to us. When we do, joy is released in our lives as we see our situations not from the earthly perspective but from the heavenly one. These are opportunities to grow and mature in faith and to stand strong in the face of the enemy’s attempts, and as a result our hearts are saturated with joy that the Holy Spirit brings. The end goal of trials and tests and is completeness and maturity. Though the enemy intends to attack us for evil purposes the Lord brings good from them when we submit to Him and refuse to allow doubt, discouragement, confusion, deception and lies to sidetrack us from serving Him in His kingdom pursuits.

How are you doing in your commitment as a message bearer? You receive these Message Bearer Memo’s because somewhere along the line over the past few years you signed the Message Bearer Creed stating your intentions to serve God among the unreached. Are you connected with a long-term sending organization? If not, I encourage you to move in this direction asking the Lord to clarify to you which one you should align yourself with. It’s time to move to the next step to fulfill your commitment of serving Jesus among the nations. Visit www.SVM2.net for resources to help you connect with the right organization.