"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" Ephesians 6:12 has never felt so true to me before.   I believe that the devil so greatly wants to turn us from the Lord and discourage God's children.  Since I have been home I have been really struggling with my faith.  I was struggling all together here, I felt as though I had nowhere to rest and nowhere to turn.  All of the people I depended on were so far away and my friends here had pushed me aside.  I felt so alone in the world so I turned to the Lord but the devil did not want that.  He placed a spirit of doubt in my mind and for weeks attacked me with discouragment.  Every church service, Bible Study, or conversation with other believers only brought discouragement because it was constant debating.  We'd debate salvation and how it works, we debated end times, what the Bible really says, etc.  I never left feeling the slightest bit encouraged.  I left so discouraged.  "How can I place my faith in something that is so unclear"  The devil ran with those thoughts and attempted to rip the ground from beneath me.  I couldn't feel God, I couldn't hear Him, I felt utterly alone.  But my God loves me too much to let me go.  Out of nowhere he brought someone in my life who he used SO greatly to encourage me.   It was my friend Jon, we were talking one night and I do not exactly know what led to this topic of conversation but Jon shared with me some of his current struggles and shared some passages that have brought him encouragement lately.  He only gave me the references so I was forced to look up the passages in my Bible, opening it for the first time in days.  As I read I became consumed.  I felt so blind, so confused, I couldn't rely on what other people told me was truth.  I needed to know for myself, I needed to read it from God's Word.  So that night I began reading, I woke up the next morning and read even more.  As I was praying God convicted me, I was not coming to the Lord in faith.  Prayer had not been something very big in my life lately because I didn't have faith in God, there was always a spirit of doubt blinding me to the greatness of God.  Every time I prayed for something I didn't expect God to answer it because I had so much doubt.  So I began reading in Mark and the first thing underlined was "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed."  Prayer is an act of dependence on God, and here Jesus was showing that dependence and yet I couldn't?  I felt so convicted...i read on and nothing else was underlined (which is rare in my bible because i'm always circling and underlining things) but the next part underlined was "When Jesus saw their faith"  The next couple of days I became so hungry for God's Word.  Morning after morning I'd spend hours in His word.  Reading in Genesis, Mark, anything that would rebuild my foundation and help me to figure out what I believe.  Over and over there was a theme of faith.  God requires faith,  God has done it all, we need to just believe.  All through out Mark people are approaching Jesus and because they believe they are healed of whatever they are struggling with.  They come to Him broken and believing he can do what he says and he recognizes that and heals them.  Jon and I continued to write eachother every day sharing with one another what God pointed out to them that day and I was continually encouraged and challenged with each message.  This morning I woke up early desiring to just spend time in prayer and read more but I wanted to deviate from my studies in Genesis and Mark and read from the New Testament just from some encouragement.  For some reason Ephesians came to mind and so i decided to read through it.  I prayed to the Lord in desperation that He would speak to me because I just needed so desperately to hear His voice and be encouraged by the only one who can bring true encouragement.  THe Lord answered that prayer.  All through the book of Ephesians things stuck out to me that brought me to tears.  Pauls prayer to the church in Ephesis became my prayer "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom that you may know him better" Eph 1:17  Also the passage where he says "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have power, together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us to him be the glory in the church and in CHrist Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever amen."  Eph 3:16-20  This passage just showed me that God loves me so much that I could never even fathom it.  When you seek the love of other people it doesn't take very long to realize there are short comings and their love is not unconditional, but to have a love so great that we need to pray in order to understand it.  How incredible is that.  We can spend our entire lives seeking to grasp it but I don't believe we'll ever truly experience it all.  It's too great.  But then I love the part where it says that God can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.  How often I put God in a box, limiting his power in my mind.  Say for my financial circumstances its hard for me to believe that I can roll in a couple thousand dollars in the next couple of months, but is this God of mine bound by money?  No he can do all and he wants to lavish his love on his children, he can provide for me.  But finally at the end of the book of Ephesians Paul warns his believers, "Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you have done everything to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God."  Paul knew fully well that the devil was in an attack against us and here he is warning us to stand strong but our strength is not in ourselves but in all that God has given us.  We are in a battle and its a hard one, but we have our father to fight it for us.  But it saddens me how separated the church has become, everyone is always splitting and debating when we are called to be one body, we need to be united and to build up and encourage one another and fight this good fight with one another.  So dear friends I am pleading with you, use your sword, stay in the Word, do not be lead astray, do not let the devil have a foothole in your life...and "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen" , encourage one another!  We are not of this world, so lets not act like it, live a life that is pleasing to the Lord, I don't know how much time we have left, so do not waste it.  We are here momentarily and for a great purpose, never lose sight of that.