Fleshly and carnal tenacity is something we’ve all grown up with. When we want something, we can get it if we push ourselves hard enough. But when it comes to spiritual tenacity, it’s a different story. The Bible tells us in the book of Revelation to not be lukewarm Christians, but we can become very hot and cold. One moment we’re really hot for God and the other moment we are very cold.
First Corinthians 2:14 says, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” We may not be disciplined in spiritual tenacity simply because the natural man does not understand. It is only the spiritual man who understands. Every one of us in the church has a spiritual man that needs to be activated. Our spiritual man seems to forever be silent because we have a tendency to put a lid on it, and we try to dictate or control God Himself. So, the natural man seems to take over the spiritual man.
Recently John Matarazzo from AlongTheWay Media in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, interviewed me, and I told him that in the days to come, your NBC, your CNN, your USA Today, all your leftist media will have something terrible to say about the Democrat presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. After the interview, he said to me, “Pastor Reg, that has never happened before. It has to be a prophetic word, but usually they feed the Democrat Party.
By Friday, Michael Moore, director of 911 Fahrenheit, producer and an absolute liberal Democrat, said, “Trump support is off the charts.” He was starting to get nervous and said, “I don’t think that Joe Biden will win this election.” Then CNN’s Bill Maher said the same thing, I’m getting the same shivers and the feelings in my feet that I got in 2016 when we all thought Hillary Clinton would win. Two complete-leftist-agenda journalists are starting to say they don’t think Biden has a chance to become president of the United States. When I brought that prophetic word, naturally it was not received by the natural man. Naturally people would think I had lost my marbles. The natural man does not agree.
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (I Cor. 2:14).
All of us have a certain tenacity. When you want to buy a jacket but can’t afford it, you lay by $10, $20, $30 until eventually the jacket is paid off and belongs to you. We have the tenacity to buy the things we want, and there is nothing wrong with that, but where is our tenacity when it comes to seeking the heart of God?
Maintaining spiritual tenacity is hard, I agree. At times, when you read the Bible or have your quiet time with God, you just feel like going to sleep. I get exhausted by the end of the day because all I do is pray, pray, pray, pray. I have nothing else to offer, so when I keep seeking God at those times, that is spiritual tenacity. Spiritual tenacity will always have to come from God. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
As long as I have walked with God for these 39 years, I’ve often found one thing to be true: If the Spirit of God is in you, you will find that He’s a very tenacious God. He will want you to do this, He will want you to do that, He just keeps on going and going. He’s like an Energizer battery and the bunny on the TV commercial. He won’t give up. That is the tenaciousness you and I also should possess. Instead of being tenacious, we think of God as gentle and kind and imagine Jesus with a lamb and staff just wandering around in green pastures.
But the Bible says that Jesus is the Lion of the tribe of Judah who is able to roar. The enemy comes against us unannounced, like a flood, with an onslaught. Why aren’t the saints of God coming against the work of the enemy with an onslaught like the Lion of the tribe of Judah? There’s a tenacity to the work of the Holy Spirit, to the work of Jesus Christ, and there’s a tenacity when it comes to Father God.
“From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has forcefully advanced, and the strong take it by force (Matt 11:12).
What about when we enter into spiritual warfare or carnally, when you are going through something in your personal life? We have got this thinking that God is love, that God is good. I get that, but there is a part that God will also ask of you, to rise up and not to give up when He wants to give you your inheritance. When God’s inheritance comes to your life, you need to know how to fight for it. It’s not a case of being passive. There is a gentle, loving side to Jesus, but there is also another kind of Jesus. When God wants to give something into your hands, you’ve got to fight it out right to the end, and that takes a lot of tenacity or determination. Nothing comes on a silver platter; everything will be contested.
Genesis 32:22-26 shows that for you to be blessed, you have to have a tenacity. Let’s look at Jacob, who arose one night and took his two wives, two female servants and 11 sons and crossed the ford of Jabbok. He sent them over the brook and over his land. Then Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with a man until daybreak. My professors from different Bible colleges, seminaries and universities reckon the man wrestling with Jacob was none other than God Himself.
When Jacob realized he was not prevailing, the man touched the socket of Jacob’s hip, and the socket went out of joint as they wrestled. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But Jacob said, “I will not let You go, unless You bless me.” That’s tenacity. By that time, the socket was gone, and he did not want to let God go. There’s a refined character that we find, a tenacity in Jacob’s life.
Everyone knows that Jacob wrestled. Everyone knows he got a blessing, but before the blessing comes in your life, there has to be tenacity. Like Jacob said, we, too, can say to God, “I will not let You go until unless You give me a blessing.”
Dr. Reg Morais is the senior pastor of Living Faith Community Church, launched from Anoint the World Ministries, which he founded 15 years prior. Each week he runs seven services, reaching a global audience through social media platforms. Learn more about him and his ministry at regmorais.com.
This article was excerpted from the August issue of Charisma magazine. If you don’t subscribe to Charisma, click here to get every issue delivered to your mailbox. During this time of change, your subscription is a vote of confidence for the kind of Spirit-filled content we offer. In the same way you would support a ministry with a donation, subscribing is your way to support Charisma. Also, we encourage you to give gift subscriptions at shop.charismamag.com and share our articles on social media.
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