You have an Adversary!
The Bible clearly shows that as a believer you have an adversary and it is Satan or the Devil. Satan has two goals the first is to convince you to reject God. If he can’t do that, he will try to destroy your fruitfulness in God and make you an ineffective Christian. All of this takes place in an arena referred to as “Spiritual Warfare”. Show More
Spiritual Warfare?
When I use the term spiritual warfare, what kind of mental picture do you have?
- Is it a picture of Christians dressed in armor with swords battling against the devil and his demons?
- Is it “rebuking” or rebuffing the devil with carefully chosen scriptural words?
- Or is it about taking authority over cities, towns, and neighborhoods using your authority over the evil one?
- Finally, are you going against the principalities, powers, and dominions of the air which are mentioned in the Bible?
I am not criticizing or mocking these endeavors, because I’ve been there! However, these endeavors may make people feel good that they are taking some kind of action. But the battle is not “out there” the battle is “in and for control of your mind”. That is why it is rightly called the “Battlefield of the mind”!
The Devil is real
In western cultures, the devil doesn’t want you to believe he exists. He has convinced many that he is a myth or fairytale, created by people to “scare” children into walking the straight and narrow. He would rather have you think of him as some cartoon figure dressed in red with horns and a tail.
The Devil is not some harmless being, he wants to destroy you and will use any means possible. Remember he is spiritual, not physical, therefore the only weapon he has is the weapon of suggestion or temptation. Having said that, believe me when I say that he is good at his craft. He is a consummate liar, and deception is his primary tool.
In the Garden of Eden listen to what Eve said to God after she ate of the forbidden fruit, Genesis 3:13 And the Lord God said to the woman (Eve), “What is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent (devil) DECEIVED me, and I ate.”
You see deception at hand in the first encounter mankind had with the devil. And, don’t forget John 8:44 Jesus said to the religious rulers about the devil, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father (devil) you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. The devil is a convincing liar and a master of misdirection.
Misdirection
In theatrical magic, a misdirection is a form of deception in which the performer draws the audience attention to one thing to distract it from another. A common trick is called the “coin drop”. The performer drops a coin on the table. He then he appears to sweep the coin into his hand, what he is actually doing is sweeping the coin onto his lap. He then holds up the hand, blows on it, and presto… it’s gone! I’m sure you have seen examples of that. Well, the devil is a master of misdirection and he wants to draw your attention away from himself and on to people. I like what Pastor Jack Hayford said, “One of the church’s greatest demands is to discern between the spiritual struggle and other social, personal, and political difficulties. Otherwise, individual believers and groups become too easily detoured (or misdirected), “wrestling” with human adversaries instead of prayerfully warring against the invisible works of hell behind the scenes”.
Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in 2 Cor 10:3-8 about spiritual warfare, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled”.
Let me paraphrase what Paul is saying. He is acknowledging that we are flesh and blood human beings, but because the battle is spiritual our human concepts of a battle strategy and weaponry will not work. What is available to us are the weapons that God provides, our faith in Jesus Christ, and the working of the Holy Spirit, and our prayers.
Strongholds
The strongholds, mentioned, are the fortifications of lies and deceptions that we have accepted as true. Which the enemy of our soul, the devil, has built into our lives as a result of living in the world. The battlefield of the mind involves destroying every thought and idea that is contrary to God’s way of thinking. As we cast down the lies, we replace it with God’s truths revealed in the Bible and by His Holy Spirit. Finally, once the Body of Christ, the Believers, have come into the unity of truth we will then be able to deal with the evil in the world today.
The two points I’ve been trying to make today is that:
- There is a battle for your soul, it is a spiritual battle with a spiritual enemy and it is for control over who you will believe. The deceptions of the devil or the truths of God! You must decide.
- Because it is a spiritual battle only spiritual weapons will work and the weapons you have are your free-will to make decisions, prayer, and faith in Jesus Christ alone.
In closing, I want to leave you with this thought, which spirit are you listening to? The spirit of other people, the spirit of the devil. or the spirit of God! More about that in our next post.
