Monday, February 9, 2009
Session 76:Spiritual Warfare
Warfare! Warfare! War---Fare! After you say that over and over again, it will get you to thinking. Sounds like a battle to me. A spiritual battle is one you cannot win unless you are a child of God!? Agree? Christ has already defeated satan. He is a LOSER! I hate to lose. I don't even want to be associated with a loser. If my team is losing, I am very quick to want to change teams. As we would say when we were kids: "repick" Satan is upset over the fact that he is not the dominant force of the universe. So... guess where he can be found. That's right....battling against christians. Thankfully, Christ sets us free from the powers of satan. We were once blind but now we see. Once in darkness, but now in the light. We were once under the power of satan but thanks be to God we are now in the powerful army of the Lord. I believe we do have a choice in the matter. We were called by God to salvation and we gladly accepted His offer. There are many who continue to reject Christ because they are in bondage to sin. We often refer to some "christians" as to be straddling the fence. But... I have some bad news for you. You cannot turn to both God and satan as your master. Matt 6:24 We must choose which side we are to be on. We have been equipped for the battle by Jesus Christ our Lord. Living the christian life is a constant battle as we are continually harrassed by satan. Thanks be to God we are given authority over this evil force. Flee,satan! Flee!
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Paul, can you take next week? Thanks!
Yes.
It is warfare. The pitiful thing I see is Christians not making war. We have to war against the sinful flesh of our bodies, not complain woe is me or blame my actions on someone or something else. When in combat your senses are on high alert. A twig snaps and you're ready! Your feet are shoulder width apart shoulders leaning over the toes, weapon at the ready your stance is aggressive, ready to strike! It's WAR! But instead I see "murmur, murmur, murmur"
Satan has no power of us, but he makes a suggestion and we give up our weapon, drop our shoulders, lean back on our heels and get blown over by what someone said in Church.
Like you, Vickie and I have kids in our class who constantly try and change the subject or take us off task when the Word is getting thick. Why? Cause it's WAR! There are kids wanting to hear, so Satan uses others to get nervous and cause disruptions. It's WAR! How long did Gabriel and Michael battle the Prince of Persia? Over the telling of a vision, how much more will they fight to disrupt the saving Gospel message! It's WAR! To the RAMPARTS! The Trumpet has SOUNDED!
Both of you guys have me sitting here with my dukes up. Ready to do battle.
I'll post more later when Alayna takes her nap. (Hopefully)
Stephen says...Spiritual warfare should be an everyday occurance in the life of a Christian. Like Paul said, most Chirstians are not ready for battle because they are to entrenched in the world. Satan need not bring armour or weapons, he just needs to whisper a word of doubt, or disapproval, or of contempt, and we turn our aggression toward each other and away from him. I guess that is why it is said of the church, "The Church is the only place where they shoot their wounded."
We do indeed shoot those who need the most grace, mercy, and love. Satan knows that when we're fighting each other we'll leave him alone and we'll leave God alone too. When we're caught up in our petty differences with fellow believers we take our focus off of God and the work He has for us. We stop praying and start fighting. We're so busy trying to get back at a brother or sister in Christ that we forget we're called to love each other as Christ loved the church. Only God knows the casualty count of fellow believers who have been "wounded or killed" by "friendly fire" in the church.
At our church, just like most churches, when God starts to move and work in the lives of fellow believers, Satan whispers in the ears of the disgruntled and reminds them about all the things the Pastor, and/or Stacy, and/or Billy, and/or the deacons are doing wrong. When our focus is on what I'm not getting, or what I can't do, or what I want to do our focus is OFF of God. As Bro. Brad said the other day,"...the middle letter in the word sin is I." We get so caught up in what we want that we forget to ask God what He wants. When this happens Satan has us just where he wants us. Satan need not worry about us sharing our faith because we're focused on what we want and not God's will for our lives.
I pray every night that God will help our church staff to grow closer together to Him but also to each other. Satan loves to attack church staff members because he likes to cause dissension among the brethren from the inside. Having worked on a church staff, and one that was divided, I know first hand how Satan can use petty differences to bring about strife in the office as well as in the congregation. I don't want that to happen at our church. Our church staff each have things they need to work on, areas of weakness that they each need to address because they are human and are prone to sin. Like us they are imperfect and are in need of God's grace and mercy on a daily (hourly) basis. That being said, our church will only be as strong as our church staff. We need to pray daily for them that Christ will use them, individiually and collectively, to lead our church to fulfill the purpose for which He called all of us...to glorify Him and to reach the lost.
As a fellow soldier in the Army of the Lord I count it a privilege and a joy to serve with such fine people as yourselves.
Hey guys ... I have been reading. I am getting my battle gear ready. I will be back later to post.
Crystal
We need not only rely on faith, to conquer evil, but active tactics of spiritual warfare are extremely important, and must be lived in a very visible and intentional way. Actions speak much louder than words! When confronted with anger, act to bring calm. When confronted with greed, squash it by giving. Where big egos rule, be a servant to all. When there’s gossip and backbiting, fire back with encouraging words that build. When there is disunity, seek to bring the parties together. Be deliberate in exposing evil, whatever it is. If we’re not safely able to name the evil, we should respond with the appropriate Christ-like actions and attitudes. Those actions and attitudes will reveal the truth when words can’t.
One of Satan’s most powerful weapons may be Christian indifference. Shouldn’t ministry invoke enthusiasm? I pray that we would clothe ourselves in the armor and exercise the freedom and authority that Christ died to give us, that we may stand against the assault of an already defeated foe. I pray that we would outwardly do so, and that someone else might notice. May our lights shine brighter, before a dying world. May God bless all.
Great posts. You guys keep on keepin on!
Are you guys ready to start our own UFC? United we Fight as Christians. As I was reading the lesson this week one line in particular stood out to me. Satan knows he can’t affect our eternity in heaven, so he often works to make us ineffective Christians while on earth. No wonder Satan is always after us, as soon as we try to get closer to the Lord, he jumps up and wants to battle once more. And it that doesn’t work he may put someone in your path that tests you as a Christian –by their actions or words. We have to remember that there are many people out their who say their Christians but live otherwise. Our road to sanctification may be like a Candy land game one day your walking down candy cane land and then something happens and the you fall down a caramel waterfall. The object is to get to the gingerbread house and spread as much sweetness, kindness, and love on the way there. That is not always easy. I just started reading a book called Unchristian. In the book, they conducted tons of research about what 16-29 year olds think about Christians. It is very eye opening. It states that this age group would like a unique spiritual experience. Most of this group has attended a Christian church during there high school years but unlike generations before them many of them stated once that were in there 20’s they may never go back. May be they see how some of us adults act toward each other? I agree with Steven sometimes we spent too much time beating each other up instead of lifting each other up. So maybe this Valentine’s Day we should focus on loving each other more –because let’s face it – Unchristians can see right through us and and if we don’t like each other how to we expect new people to like us.
Have Valentines Day. Love you guys.
Crystal
Just Got In From the Front! Not an hour ago I had to swing by my park in Patterson before I came to my office in Brunswick. As I'm looking over one of our trailers with my maintenance man, I see 2 black gentlemen outside. It wasn't till I stepped out to meet them that I knew it was WAR! The hair on my neck was standing, my heart was going 100mph, I was desperately trying to remember what there belief is, so I could be prepared to counter. I was thinking "Jesus is the brother of Satan", but no that is the Mormons. As we went through introductions, I prayed for God to calm me down and give me what to say, because the fight was not mine. As I'm praying the one guy went into his routine, "why do men seek to do their on thing". I continued to pray and he continued to talk until he made the statement that "at one time Jesus was at the right hand of the Father" and that's when it flooded back to me. Jehova Witness believe we are basically in the millennial kingdom, you have to do the work of Christ in order to live for ever, and they do not believe in hell. Now there is a bunch of other heretical beliefs they have, these are just the ones that came to me.
After letting them give their spill, I took them through God's Law and the Good News of Jesus death and being Justified through Faith, not works, when you Repent and Trust in Christ as your Savior, and when I quoted Hebrews 9:27 they cringed, and when I quoted Jesus saying "all liars will have their part in the Lake of Sulfur that burns forever", you would have thought I threw acid in their face. They sucked lemons and started quoting scripture (out of context), and when I couldn't remember the chapter and verse I said "you have heard it said" "the apostle Paul said" I gave them Romans 3:23, when he tried to convince me you don't have to die, I quoted Romans 8:1(in the context of being justified by faith) when they said you have to do works in order to have eternal life. This went back and forth for 30 minutes until one of the guys said, "look we will have to come back and sit with you another day to reason about the scripture, we need to see others" I then advised him I did not allow door to door solicitation in my Park. He looked at me indignantly and said "Does this mean you are kicking us out?".......I said "Yes, have a nice day Gentlemen!"
P.S. Because voice inflection and facial expression does not work well on a blog, I promise I did all this with 2 Peter 3:15 constantly running through my mind.
Sorry 1 Peter, on the above. It's the scripture written on my heart, not chapter and verse. HA!
In Ephesians look how Paul says "stand firm" 3 times. MacArthur gives the following that we should stand firm against;
1.distrust God
2.forsaking obedience.
3.doctrinal confusion & falsehood.
4.hindering service to God.
5.bringing division.
6.serving God in flesh.
7.living hypocritically.
8.being worldly.
9.rejecting biblical obedience.
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