Spiritual Warfare

My Pastor has been preaching a three-part sermon series about spiritual warfare. I believe he was inspired in this. Our Church has been engaged in a variety of godly endeavors to much success. As my previous posts detail, I have been on my first Mission Trip. Ever since that trip, I have been engaged in various support functions fueling the needs of that Ministry. Missions trips just don't happen, there are details which must be attended to in order for the good work of helping those in need to continue.

It begins with prayer. As I get closer to hard deadlines and pressures have mounted to successfully complete the goals set forth, I have found it necessary to pray in a new way. Just as I did when contemplating my Mission Trip last October, I realized how much I need God to be my focal point. Apart from Him, I can do nothing. I beseech God in every aspect of this work.

As I have been praying, the burdens of leadership have fallen upon me. I understand now why churches always pray for each Ministry. It is because responsibility entails stress, hard decisions and even temptations. Staying true to God entails spiritual maturity and discernment, especially against the plots of Satan.

There are many with spiritual discernment at my church. There were a number of women who have come to me privately to warn me to be aware of the spiritual warfare to come. The Bible affirms another realm besides that which we can sense through our five senses. If we could see our own spiritual realm more clearly, we would see some of the underlying issues blocking our progress in certain situations.

Through prayer and an understanding of the heavenly realm, we can get through some of the stressful things in our life. Studying the Bible is key to getting the full picture of what spiritual warfare is and what it is not. The British scholar, author and lay theologian C.S. Lewis said that believers usually fall into one of two camps when dealing with the demonic. We either deny its' existence or we get fascinated with it.

He had a point! Today many people, including some Christians do not believe that angels or demons are real. On the other hand, there are those who can not get their fill of films depicting the devil, demons, and the battle between good and evil. Our list of obsessive fascination with the satanic sphere would not be complete without mentioning wizards,vampires, ghosts and paranormal activity. Many successful films and film franchises on the above topics have made a lot of money and furthered Satan's inroads into our lives.

It took me a long time to finally get these teachings right. I had to sort through what the popular culture, and my family had impressed upon me and take time to study the Bible. What I found was that the Bible was the only thing that made sense. The Bible perfectly explains all the things I have seen in a lifetime and consistently helped me understand and cope with my life. My relationship with God has always improved my life but I had to give up some of my bad habits first.

I have been coping with a sick husband, friendship shake-ups, and the details entailed in getting 150 handmade scarves to children living abroad in three group homes. Maybe you have been coping with some things too? When an animal is weak or imfirmed it can be preyed upon by some enemy lying in wait. The devil also lies in wait for times of weakness in our life. He strategically attacks us when he wants to take us out of the game because we are so effective for the Lord. What a chess player he is!

The Bible tells us trials will beset us but to cheer up because Jesus has overcome the world. We have to keep that in mind. The devil is subordinate to the Lord so don't fear Him! However, he can play some nasty tricks but, only if we allow him to. The Bible tells us to resist the devil and he will flee. In order to resist him we must know how he operates. He knows the whole truth about us and he will use that to tempt us to sin and stop following God.

It is sometimes difficult to determine how much of our travails are the devil, just life and how much is us giving into sin. This is spiritual warfare. God is faithful to us if we turn to Him during times of trouble. Have I and my church encountered spiritual warfare? Yes, but the good news is that Satan is attacking us because we are doing a lot of things right. A friend of mine who does not believe in the devil asked me if the devil is real why hasn't she ever encountered him? I told her that it was because he is pleased with the way she is running her life. What a wake-up call for my friend and what a wake-up call for us. Let's make every day count for the Lord, and let's ask Him to strengthen us to be our very best! The devil is real but he is a defeated foe. Let us rejoice because of the victory we have over him because of Jesus! Thank you Lord.