Biblical Success - Spiritual Warfare?Sample

The war is happening now

Who are our enemies? What is the warfare about? What are the weapons being used? Scripture teaches us that “We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Our enemies are not other image-bearers, not people who disagree with us or don’t look like us. Our enemies are the devil and his horde of demons and evil spirits. Satan is a spirit being who manifested as a snake in the garden and suggested to Eve that God didn’t really mean what He said about the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Adam and Eve had been given complete freedom to eat the fruit of any other tree but were forbidden just that one. Satan, the "father of lies" lied and deceived Eve, and then Adam, and disobedience and sin entered the world.

All of the evil, pain, and strife that we see today is a manifestation and the effect of those lies and first deception. Anything that harms or tears down people, creates hate or racial injustice or causes mental distortions of reality, is the downstream of sin entering and attacking the perfect world of Eden. That perfect world will be restored when Jesus returns, but until then, the war rages. It has taken different forms at different times. It is a battle for the hearts, minds, and destiny of God's crowning creation - human beings with souls, image-bearers.

A particular target of the satanic attack is, of course, the Christian and the Christian Church. The devil hates Jesus and tried to tempt Him away from and steal His mission and destiny in the desert. He wants yours and mine as well and uses against us the same weapons of lies, distortions of truth, and temptations. These corruptions at their base, propose a way of life apart from God and His way in Christ or an alternative "truth" and many adamantly deny there is such a thing as absolute truth. They are pressed against us as thoughts and ideas that are birthed in the heart of the enemy. Ideas can form into ideologies that would deny God His rightful rule as Creator and King, replace Him with false alternatives, offer false hope of peace and utopia, and end not where promised, but in frustration and death.

As followers of Jesus, we are in this war whether we like it, know it, and agree to it or not. Individually and corporately, we are winning or losing. Of course, we win in the end, but what about between now and then? What does the current trend line suggest? What do you think?