Spiritual Warfare or Spiritual Weirdness
Spiritual warfare is NORMAL and it reveals REALITY in its highest form. It’s not meant to be bizarre or weird or a taboo subject, especially for Christians. God uses battle language to communicate truths meant for man, woman and child alike. He did it in the Old Testament. He did it in the New Testament. He does it now.
Many of you would agree. In a survey I sent out recently, almost 69% of participants revealed they knew spiritual warfare is real; but they want to build their arsenal of weapons for greater victory. Awesome!
Take a look at the book of Judges Chapter 3 in the Bible, specifically verses 2 and 4. Verse 2 is a commentary statement to reveal God’s motive behind verses 1 and 3. The verse is couched in parenthesis. It says, “(he did this only to teach warfare to the descendants of the Israelites who had not had previous battle experience). God did what? For those who had never battled, He left enemies in their land of promise… big ones… post victory… post settlement. Why? Verse 4 says it was to test if His people would obey His commands.
For the last 5 years of my life, I’ve had to witness and personally experience a horrific spiritual war in my family. The enemy executed a plot for murder. He has tempted hearts to choose evil, vice, and destruction and I’m sorry to say, he seems to have won way too many battles thus far. It’s been a baptism by fire in the reality of spiritual warfare. People I love very much have not recognized the spiritual war or the schemes of the enemy. They have not chosen God’s ways.
We (God’s people) take the bait laid out by the wicked one too often. We respond in the flesh versus responding in the Spirit. I’ve done it; you’ve done it. Dark thoughts fly off human tongues, full of deadly poison (James 3:17). The reality of Galatians 5:17 is a real struggle, flesh is lusting against Spirit control.
Sometimes though, we don’t initiate with our tongue. But we take deadly blows from others. Then, our own thoughts (strongholds) defeat us. Maybe it happens suddenly, maybe it builds over time. But a point comes when we are overwhelmed. We get depressed. We succumb to hopelessness. We become cynical. We conclude that loving sacrificially is not worth the pain or stress involved. We can come out of a situation concluding people are thankless, abusive, too powerful, and way too dangerous to trust. We burn out. We prefer to focus on self-soothing habits and comfort and withdraw. We blame God. This is losing the war too.
How to win? Christians can too quickly say, “Just put on the armor of God!” Like a simple, end of story pat response. It’s not that simple; because a lot of people don’t know how to make it practical. The first and greatest battle to win starts within. And from your place of internal victory, Christ can win those around you. It’s His battle, not yours. From a place of opening up to God, He can whisper healing truth, give strategy and download spiritual discernment, keeping your soul still as He battles on your behalf, and for the other souls He loves.
For those of you who signed up, I will be sending you a spiritual weapon/prayer exercise for you to try. And again, thank you for signing up! Over 22% of site visitors are signing up! It’s a fantastic response compared to the 2-3% typical of website invitations! For those of you yet to sign up, please do! You will receive exercises from that point forward.
Blessings!
