So where does that leave us and how do we go forward? I started this book with the story of my stepfather’s involvement in the invasion of France. That story was perhaps the most dramatic of his lifetime; but he was not a person immune to pressing the battle. After the war, he won and lost fortunes, owned businesses, invested in real estate, fought a battle with cancer (which he won), and served his church. The years that I spent with him were influential in my own walk with the Lord; his nature was one of forgiveness and endurance. He also taught me the trade of bricklaying which was something he worked in up until his death of natural causes. It was in that business that I learned from him the most valuable lesson about pressing the battle: Trusting in God.

We had a small construction company, with just enough equipment that it all fit in the back of a pickup. I remember one big job that we received; we were going to lay the brick of a 5 story church. This particular size of a job requires the use of a mixer, scaffolding, and a large crew; we had none of these things! It was a family business and we never had more than 4 or 5 people working in the company. To my stepfather though, this never mattered. He had developed a trust that God would provide what we needed. We stood on Philippians 4:19,

“But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

We started out with just that pickup truck loaded with our equipment and our small crew, but you know what? As we continued to believe God, the money for scaffolding, a mixer, and manpower came in and we were able to finish that job; even when a storm destroyed the work, forcing us to start over, We got it done, praise God! God showed Himself strong as we stayed faithful to his promises. Time and time again these acts of faithfulness manifested in my stepfather’s business and life and he expected them to happen.

This is what I want to leave ingrained in your spirit: Trust in the promises of the Father. Do not look at the circumstances around you and say, “My situation is terrible and I will be overcome.” No! Instead, you must live with a childlike trust that God has already promised you everything you need according to His riches and glory! It says in Ephesians 1:3,

“Blessed by the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ;”

This is our Father in heaven. He has already given us these spiritual promises! As we walk them out, believing in His ability to manifest them, we can trust that He will give us all these things, because He is a real father. A real father will keep his promise. It says in Romans 8:32,

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”

Remember that no matter the circumstance, no matter the failures or shortcomings you face, there is a God who has your success in mind. The success of His kingdom on this earth is connected to your success and He will provide for you. Whenever you press the battle trust in Him! Be like a child and depend upon Him!

As we press our battles in the kingdom, as we continue to advance and take ground, do not forget He gives us the victory because He has already won! We may have to fight here on this earth to advance the kingdom, we may have to push back into the enemy’s territory, we may have to resist the counter-attacks, but bless God, we already have seen the back of the Book and it says we win!

With this as our assurance I tell you that it is our time Church! It is our time child of God! Let us use our weapons mightily against our adversary. Like never before, Let us press forward with our banner lifted high in agreement with Romans 8:31,

“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”

PRESS THE BATTLE!

When the devil sees aggressive faith he responds by fleeing. Jesus told us about this type of faith in operation in Matthew 11:12,

“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”

This is a precedent! There is an aggressive attitude that is required to receive the things of God! It is this kind of attitude that fosters persistent pursuit in the Christian walk. We purpose to take ground. We go after the things of God by a persistent “take-it-by-force” attitude!

Let us say you are the coach of a basketball team with one minute left in the final quarter. You are ahead by 2 points and the opposing team just gained possession of the ball and is at their end of the court, out of bounds, with the ball ready to come into play. Win this game, and you take home the championship trophy. You have a choice. You can station your players to wait at your end of the court, near your goal, and try to defend yourselves against the other team’s attempt to score, or you can call for a full court press.

In a full court press, you have your players ready where the other team is about to put the ball into play. You are “in their face,” aggressively resisting their attempt to enter your court. This is a high risk move, if the other team can get a step ahead of you, but it is the way to make them fight and earn their way down the court. You also run a good chance of getting a turnover and scoring on them! That is what we have to do in our lives as believers. Go for the full court press on the enemy. He can’t get a step ahead of you, unless you let him. So, if we are standing on our Father’s promises we do not have to wait for the enemy to come onto our turf to defend ourselves, we press the battle against him!

Let us go back to the children of Israel. They had something to decide when they stood facing Canaan land. They must have been asking themselves, “Do we have the courage to take the land?” We, as believers, must ask ourselves the same question. Do we have what it takes to move into our destiny? Can we take possession of what God has promised us? Joshua 5:12 says,

“…and the manna ceased on the morrow…”

“But Mark, I love the old corn. I grind it up and make cornbread, and I love that manna. Oh, it is so wonderful. I do not want to give up the manna and I know if I cross the river, the manna will cease.” I have some shocking news for you. If you do not cross the river, the manna will cease! Did you ever notice this in the Word? The manna, the provision of God stopped coming to the children of Israel when they entered the Promise Land. The only way for them to get more food was to seize the land. It is obedience to God that takes you into higher levels in God. Not pressing on means that you lose by default! If you fail to press the battle, you cannot maintain your position. The stakes are winner-takes-all.

We can press the battle against the enemy in the field of prayer by adopting a strategy of advancing on the enemy and not waiting for him to strike. In natural warfare it is what is known as a, ‘preemptive strike.’ Too many times in the body of Christ we wait for the enemy to do something and then we respond to it. He hits your body with symptoms and you begin to pray for healing. He attacks your finances and you begin to confess scriptures on prosperity. I call this type of response to resistance, “reactionary prayer.” Why wait for him to act? He’s not your leader nor your Lord! Why not take the battle to him? Take a look at John 16:13,

“Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”

The time to confess scriptures on health is when you are well. The time to tank up on prosperity scriptures is when you have enough in the bank. Do not wait, act now! Do not be a lazy Christian. Keep pressure on the devil. Every morning wake up and praise the Lord. Take your spiritual baseball bat and smack the enemy right in the head!

In the Spirit, we can move into the realm of prophetic prayers and hit the enemy before he strikes us. Look at Isaiah 45:11,

“Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.”

The Spirit will show us things that are about to happen. He wants us to be prepared! We have our own Holy Ghost intelligence agency giving us top secret information about the enemy’s movements. We can press the battle on the enemy before he moves, but we must listen to Him! Keep your inner ear, your spiritual ear, open to listening to His voice and be ready to follow through with what He tells you to do.

As I have said earlier, if you are a believer who is ready for battle, then you love a good fight. You are ready to send the devil scurrying one more time. You are going to cause the light of God’s Word to shine into the darkness. You are going to lift the Name of Jesus—at which every demon trembles—and you are going to stand in the authority of the believer. You are not going to allow the devil to have your prayer life, your ministry, or your family. You are going to say, “Devil, no! I am going to press the battle!”

It says in James 4:7,

”…Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

The devil is a coward! He is defeated! The Bible says in Colossians 2 that Jesus has taken the devil’s weapons, brought them to naught, and destroyed them! So when we press the battle against him, he goes on the retreat.

Speak this out by faith: “I will not be passive concerning my pursuit of God; instead I will be passionate. I will be persistent and I will pursue. Even when I encounter resistance I will not stop in my pursuit of the things of God.”

You can look at the Old Testament story of Joseph to see a perfect example of someone who successfully overcame resistance. Faithfulness and persistence were keys to his success but look at all the obstacles he had to overcome to get there; he had a dream of great success and immediately there was resistance: his brothers’ jealousy drove them to throw him into a pit. When they pulled him out, they sold him into slavery!

While in slavery he became the head servant for an Egyptian army captain named Potiphar. While at Potiphar’s estate Joseph became a trusted overseer, but before long there was greater resistance: he was falsely convicted as a rapist and jailed! In this situation, anyone would probably give up, but he kept pressing his battle. After 13 years of contending, he was moved from the dungeon to the presidency, within one second! He was finally fulfilling his God given dream; but what is he doing all along the way? He was pressing the battle at every opportunity. When disappointment came, he did not allow it to turn to disillusionment. So, I say to you, do not allow your present disappointments to turn to deception. Press the battle, child of God!

Years after Joseph passed away, the children of Israel faced resistance when they were enslaved for 400 years. They experienced persecution and suffering at the hand of their Egyptian taskmasters. How would you feel being a slave, owned by someone else as property, for four hundred years? The children of Israel cried out for deliverance so God sent a man named Moses to break the resistance. God, in effect, said, “Moses, I want you to press the battle. It is time! I have heard my children’s cry!”

Let me tell you, that is the first sign of somebody that is coming out of bondage. They begin to cry out to God. They still believe Hebrews 11:6,

“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

They believe not only that “God is,” but that He is a “rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” They are operating in the Spirit to press the battle. They are learning to disregard what the enemy might say to them; they know he is a liar! They are not focusing on what the circumstances might say to them. Instead they boldly declare, “Regardless, I am going to press in to God and find my answer. I am going to find the strength to break through!”

Sometimes we can cause our own resistance. Moses was chosen of God, but in Exodus 2:11-15 we read that he stepped out in his own strength by slaying an Egyptian. This mistake cost him forty years in the desert; but out in that desert he had an encounter with God in the form of a burning bush. It put a fierce determination on the inside of him. He led the children of Israel for 40 years in the wilderness pressing the battle in order to enter the Promise Land. Even though he never entered the Promise Land, you can still sense the vitality of Moses’ persistence!

Have you ever watched kids play video games? They start out with mediocre weapons and fight weak enemies. But every time you step up to a new level, the enemies become more intimidating and difficult to defeat. Eventually, you get to the top level and there is one huge, hairy demon that you have to fight. You understand what I am talking about. It is the most formidable foe that you face in the video game. Joyce Meyer says it this way, “New level, new devil.” Welcome to a new level! Every time you come into a higher plane with God you will have some new enemies to defeat.

I am telling you, choose today what you are going to do. Will you go in farther and possess what God has for you? Or, will you back off and say, “Hey, this has been great. We have experienced revival, and it is been powerful, but I have had all the revival and refreshing I want, thank you.” You can only make it to the next level when you persevere. It is a choice whether to keep going or to quit. At each new level there will be new challenges, so be ready soldier. There will always be opportunities to overcome but you can make it with God’s help. Let me encourage you; press on to the higher level. Your greatest victories lie ahead. Once you start to press the battle the enemy will begin to actively resist you. You must learn to counter this if you are to go up to the level God wants you to achieve.

Look at Leviticus 20:24,

“But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.” (emphasis added)

According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon, the word “inherit” is from the original Hebrew, yarash, meaning, “to seize, dispossess, take possession off, inherit, disinherit, occupy, or to be an heir.”

God has set the body of Christ in battle formation to secure what He has for them to inherit. That means that you need to strap on the full armor of God, soldier! You are going to have to dispossess the enemy because he is a squatter on your land. There is somebody occupying your property! Receiving this kind of inheritance requires some effort on your part. You are not going to receive it without a fight.

The true believer has a unique quality: they like a good fight. I am talking about a spiritual fight. When you are confident about using your weaponry, when you are sure that the Greater One is on the inside of you, you will have a different perspective on the battles you face. Nothing will satisfy a soldier of the cross until they actively partake in what God has designed for them to do. You are designed with gifts, weapons, and talents. You are designed to use those resources in the field of battle which He is called you to fight in. Nothing will ever satisfy you until you use the weapons that God has provided you!

You cannot win wars by simply maintaining a position. An army that is not advancing is an army that is headed for defeat. After a victory, you must avoid the temptation of laying down your weapons to rest. There will be many battles during the life of a believer – not just one! No matter the number of victories you have, until the trumpet blows, there are still souls to be saved, prayers to be prayed, offerings to be given, and works to be done.

You cannot allow yourself to assume a defensive posture. You cannot say, “I have gone this far. This is where I will build a fortress. I am going to defend this particular doctrine or that one. I like it here.” Once you say this you will find out that you have not built a fortress but a tomb. In the Word there were continual opportunities for men and women of God to say, ‘I quit! I am staying right here.’ But the successful ones pressed on and did not give into that temptation; they kept pressing the battle!

In the spiritual world we see a stark contrast to what my stepfather and the Allied armies faced in 1944. We have already been given the victory through Jesus, we have domination over the enemy and we have ability to do great exploits, yet we do not see the fruit of that being walked out. I want to share with you a great discrepancy I find in the body of Christ.

In our churches today, I see many believers becoming bored, frustrated, and complacent in their walks with God. They are not laying ahold of the overflowing abundant life they are promised. Why is that? And why do so many of these same people throw in the towel whenever the smallest of pressures comes there way? The answers to these questions are simple: They have laid down their weapons and are not pressing the battle. You must put actions to your faith and fight the good fight!

Pressing the battle is this: in the face of adversity, you keep confidently and boldly advancing; in the face of overwhelming circumstances, you keep going forward. Do the right thing, set your face like flint, trusting that He, the Father, will guide you. Fight the good fight and do not quit under any circumstance!

Because we have this charge, it is imperative that we learn how to press the battle against our foe, the devil; not once, or when we feel like it, but every time he comes up against you! Even when it seems like your anointing is gone and you feel as if you cannot go another step, you must press the battle. You will hear me say ‘press the battle’ many times throughout this booklet. I am hoping that it becomes so ingrained in your spirit that the next time you face a difficult situation that is the first thing you will say: Press the Battle!

It is time for we as the Church to take up the weapons of our warfare. We cannot lay down our weapons in this fight. God is searching for an end-time army. He is searching for people who are loaded with his Word and his Spirit, and who will not flee at the first sign of resistance.