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The life of a true born again Christian is very inspiring and vibrant in spite of the various temptations and trials.
Challenges of Life
A Christian may face challenges of life such as poverty, hardship, unemployment, disappointment, sickness, disease or setback, yet they keep soldiering on.
Disciples of Christ understand that “many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19).
Having this hope, they learn to endure troubles and do things backsliding Christians or those who have fallen under demonic attacks cannot do.
Yes, many Christians are tempted to fall into sin, backslide or return to the world. In the early Church, a disciple named Demas backslided and returned to the world (2Timothy 4:10).
Spirit of Stupor
Generally, a Christian becomes lethargic at doing basic things he is supposed to do when they are under an attack of the spirit of stupor.
“God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day” (Romans 11:8).
A spirit of stupor is an evil spirit that causes people to be spiritually numb, lazy, blind, deaf, dead to God’s grace and insensitive to the Holy Spirit.
The expression “God gave them a spirit of stupor” means God allowed the spirit to attack them. The people who were given the spirit in the verse were the people of Israel.
Yes, sometimes God permits this evil spirit to attack us when we unrepentantly disobey His commands leading to an opening of a door in the divine covering over our lives.
Signs of Spiritual Attack
First, those who are under the attack of the spirit of stupor become lazy at reading their Bible or listening to teachings of the Bible. They often sleep off as soon as they pick up their Bible to read.
However, they may spend several minutes or hours to read other materials and watch movies and sports without blinking their eyes.
Second, they lose interest in prayer as they become dry in their spirit. Prayer then becomes something meaningless to them.
So they can live for days or months without any urge or inspiration to pray. Remember that a true Christian prayer is a Holy Spirit inspired prayer.
A normal functioning Christian prays without ceasing. He prays regularly in the Holy Spirit either vocally or meditatively, giving thanks to God.
Third, those under this attack stop meditating on the Word of God which helps them to retain it in their heart, act of it and achieve success.
Fourth, an attack of a spirit of stupor weakens a Christian’s desire to act on the Word of God, live or obey it.
This means that the believer knows the right things to do as commanded by God, but he lacks the will power to put it into practice for the glory of God.
Fifth, the fallen Christian becomes unconcerned about witnessing Christ, soul winning or evangelizing.
This happens because he sees himself as unworthy and unqualified to participate in the ministry of the Lord.
Now, there is no doubt that many Christians are under the attack of the spirit of stupor today.
The way out is to repent and return to the Lord by pleading the blood of Jesus and mercy of God after receiving this teaching.
The Lord will not reject you, but accept and restore you to your position of sonship in Christ Jesus. Amen.
By James Quansah
