Under Attack Pt. 1 By Pastor Shari Stephens 0

There are times in our lives where it seems things or people are coming against you.  Despite what your intentions are, what you put in place, how you expected things to turn out…everything may all seem to conspire to your ruin.  If you are a very positive person you may struggle to understand what is happening to you.  Why does everything seem to be going wrong? Why are they treating you this way?  Why are you totally under attack?

There are many reasons this can be your reality.  The first is that you actually messed things up.  This is the first thing we must always look at when things go south.  Many times, we blame the enemy for the turmoil that we created in our own lives.  If you are the source of your own troubles, fix it!

Often though, this is not the case.  You have done no wrong and find yourself being targeted.  You find people attacking you for no reason. You find yourself being accused without cause.  This is when you need to take note. You may be under attack.

The Bible has some truths we need to be aware of.  The word says in Matthew 5:44,

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”

This scripture is challenging for most of us, to say the least.  But I see two distinct messages in it.

First, there will be people who will be our enemy, they will curse us, they will hate us and they will despitefully use and persecute us.  It doesn’t say anything about their justifiability doing this.  They hate for hate sake. They persecute because they are in a position to do so.  They despitefully use because they choose to.

This is basically a promise from the word of God.  This will happen! Expect it from time to time.  This is what I would define as being “under attack.”

The first truth shows what may be occurring in our lives at any given moment. The second truth from the passage is the one that shows what we can do about it.

It says we are to love anyway, bless the wrong doers, do good as they hate us and pray for them as they use and persecute us. Normally, we are all quick to defend ourselves, quick to go off, quick to put someone in their place, quick to rebuke.  But this is the exact opposite of what Christ is asking us to do.

He says love, bless, do good and pray.  He also explains why, the whole passage makes it clear Matthew 5:44-48 says,

“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?  And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?  Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

Did you see that huge opportunity stated there when people are treating you bad for no reason?  The opportunity when you are under attack is to reveal that you are indeed a child of your heavenly father God.

How many of these situations do we fail by revealing that we are like everyone else because we cursed the person out who treated us badly for no cause?  How many times are we just like everyone else because we set out to fix the injustice being done to us and did everything but love, bless, do good and pray?

We are going to dive into this more in part two, but for now, identify if you are truly under attack and prepare your heart to actually take advantage of the opportunity presented.