Five Tools for Every Christian

Five Tools for Every Christian

Spiritual Arsenal. Tools - The necessities for your Christian walk.

Are you well equipped for your faith journey? Do you have enough tools to tend your faith along the way? Is your spiritual arsenal big enough to fight the good fight of faith?

Believe or not these are important questions. If you don’t have adequate faith skills, you are in great danger to wander away when storms rage. We need to build a spiritual arsenal in order to have a healthy spiritual life and stand firm no matter what happens in our lives.

The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity. (2 Cor. 10:3-6, MSG, emphasis added)

These faith tools are as important tools as any visible tools we use in our everyday lives. We need farming equipments, kitchen utensils, office supplies. But so do we need these God-tools. What could these faith tools then be?

1) Wonderment. Really. Without experiencing holiness and knowing that God is almighty, amazing, and awesome, we are lost. Learning to acknowledge God all around us is the first step to a profound relationship with God. Cultivating wonderment brings us closer to God.

2) Prayerful approach to life. Everything starts with prayer. First prayer, then work and everything else. When we invite God into our life, we will be blessed. Prayer, of course, connects us with God Almighty and his power. When we have experienced the power of prayer, we will never cease praying. This also includes praising and thanking God in every situation, knowing that God’s will is good.

3) Meditative Scripture-Reading. Reading the Scriptures gives us an arsenal of spiritual truths. When we personally have embraced God’s promises, we will hold on to them even when the going gets tough. Praying the Scriptures activates God’s Word in our lives. When we have learned to prayerfully read the Bible, the Holy Spirit speaks to us while reading. Solitude, silence, listening to God opens our hearts to God’s will.

4) Practicing Compassion. Serving others, sacrificing, sharing grace boomerangs Christ’s love right back to us. We will never be short-changed. God’s economy is amazing. Compassion is its language.

5) Sabbath Keeping. Truly. And this does not just mean going to church. There’s more power to keeping sabbath than we might be ready to acknowledge. Obeying God always pays off. Even when it sounds crazy.

These God-tools are not luxuries, they are necessities for our Christian walk. And it’s not enough to have a real arsenal of God-tools if we don’t use them. We need to use them daily. Then interacting with God becomes the most natural way of being. And then, even without noticing it, we are -by God’s grace – living well.

 

Gracious God,
You truly are wonderful.
The more we get to know you,
the more amazing you become.
Be praised forever and ever.
You are calling us to live closely with you.
What an honor.
Thanks for providing us tools to abide in you.
Teach us to use them well and often.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: What would you add to the list?

Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you boldly use God-given tools to abide in Christ!

Giving thanks today for
#651 God’s standing invitation to live closely with him.
#652 God providing tools for us to abide in him.
#653 the gift, power, and availability of prayer
#654 the living word of God reading us as we prayerfully read it
#655 the holy, mysterious rest on Sundays
#656 compassion is God’s language
#657 learning to see God everywhere
#658 God is awe-some
#659 being part of the body of Christ
#660 in God we can live well
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Image courtesy of Nick Schmidt. Linking up today with Linking up today with What’s on Your Heart Tuesdays Wordfilled Wednesday, All Things Heart & Home , God-Bumps and God-incidences , Work in Progress , One Word at a Time: Arsenal Blog Carnival and

19 thoughts on “Five Tools for Every Christian

  1. I struggle with keeping the sabbath. It’s not that I skip church, it’s that between services I’m cramming as much into the day as possible. I’ve spent a great deal of time in prayer over this and God has given me peace. Right now, it’s a busy season of life. Not every season will be like this. The things I do must be done and sometimes there is no other time to do it. And sometimes God blesses me with extra time so I can take the sabbath as it was intended.
    God knows my heart and I seek Him to guide me 24/7

    1. Thanks for sharing, TC! I struggle with that, too. It’s not that easy. But I’ve experienced enough of rest-filled Sabbaths to know that it’s they way it is supposed to be. So I strive towards that. Only by God’s grace….and probably when the kids are a bit older. Peace-filled Blessings!

  2. Yes, I agree with all of these. I think the wonderment is the one that can get overlooked, but without it, it can be a lot of head knowledge and going through the motions. Wonderment makes it real and personal.

  3. I would definitely add praise! It is different than prayer and meditation and we are commanded to praise the Lord, with song, dance, … Lifting our hands, our voices… It gets me through each day!

  4. AMEN! I’m a pretty serious character re: spiritual warfare. Sometimes drive folks nuts. But I know we need to be on guard and on target, so to speak. And learning more and more how to use the spiritual arsenals needed for our growth and the protection of others. As usual, good sharing, Sister.

    1. Thank you, Joanne, for sharing. Yes, the spiritual armor is very important. I had that on my first long list but then decided to emerge things into five. But, yes, spiritual warfare is real and we need to know how to fight the good fight in that realm, too. Always lovely to hear from you, sis. Abundant blessings to you and yours!

  5. I struggle with purposeful prayer and the Sabbath. We do go to church and I am WAY better off after I have been but sometimes when I am on the road all week it is hard to be on for one more day. Something I work on all the time.

    1. I hear you, Sherri. Life can so hectic and crazy-buzy that it is a struggle to keep the Sabbath. But it gets us grounded. Funny how things that are good for us can sometimes be so unattractive. We need God’s help! Thanks for sharing, Sherri. Bountiful blessings to you and yours!

  6. Mari-Anna, what a great summary of the tools we need to use. And you mentioned the Sabbath, this is something that I frequently overlook. I need to be more intentional about it.

  7. I love “wonderment”!! So true that sometimes we just need to stop and really stand in awe of God. The only thing that pops into my head to add is accountability/Christian fellowship. We were made to live in community.

  8. such a great post for our basic tool belts! one thing i find myself reminding those closest to me is to REMEMBER the knowledge of them, He’s given them for our use, daily…blessings & thx, sis, let us all remember GOD’s spiritual armor for we truly go naked & unprotected w/o!~xox

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