WEDNESDAY: BATTLE ACTION PLAN

Sep 7, 2022
2 min read

Lord, to fight the battle of the daily grind against the world, I must allow You to prepare my mind to be transformed. Please show me Your action plan today, so I can be prepared!

1 Peter 1:13-15

Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

When I get ready to fight a battle, I must prepare myself for it. Likewise, the action I need to be prepared for is living for Christ. There are definite skills I must have to prepare for the battle in the way God wants me to.

To prepare for this battle, I must prepare my mind. I am to be self-controlled, not allowing the things of this world to get under my skin and cause anger and anxiety. I can learn self-control by obeying the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit always points to Jesus, and I am to set my hope fully on the grace to be given me when Jesus Christ is revealed. If my mind is not set on this eternal outcome, I will be vulnerable to the ways of the enemy and lost in temporal outcomes—distracted by the ways of the world and reacting to them as if there is no hope.

These are the same reactions I had when I lived in ignorance. Living without hope is exactly where the enemy wants me to live—in a cold, hard world of darkness and despair. When I lived there, I conformed myself to the desires of the world. The world pressed me to doubt; this doubt was the root of hopelessness, but it was created by my pride and self-centeredness, declaring I had a better solution for my life than God. Those feelings led to anger and a fear that I could not control the world around me, which also led to doubt that God would control the world in the way I wanted Him to.

THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS: The solution for this doubt is faith; not faith in the world, but faith, trust, and belief in the One who called me. He is the Holy One, and because He is holy, He calls me to be set apart and think differently in all I do.

If I’m not set apart, then I am conformed to the world. That’s not faith at all—that’s trust in the world. If I’m set apart for God, then I desire what He wants; I desire to be conformed to Him. This takes continual focus on Him and continual listening for His direction.

Lord, I ask You to work in my heart today and remove any traces of doubt, then replace them with fullness of hope and faith in Jesus Christ. Only through the constant filling of my soul with Your Word will I be set apart and focused on You.

May you be blessed,

Chaplain Wayne Ruckman