Fight The Right Enemy

I spent some time this morning thinking about heaven. I thought about what it would be like to see the face of Jesus. I pondered on the overwhelming joy that would flood my soul as He embraces me and welcomes me into everlasting perfect communion with Him.

And then it happened...our adversary distracted me. The enemy reminded me of the struggles of this life. Satan told me to quit daydreaming of fairy-tales. That is what spiritual war is all about. When you begin to think on the beauty and wonder of God, Satan quickly tells whatever lies he can tell to rob you. He is a roaring lion whose only desire is to devour you. He wants to kill you, steal from you, and destroy you. We must be vigilant because he will use whatever means necessary to distract you from the wonder of God and the purpose of life.

One of the main things that our adversary uses is people. We know that the Word of God tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12) but often times Satan will use people as human shields. The enemy will hide behind people and make you think that they are your enemies. They are not. 

I have not been in ministry for a very long time comparable to some pastors but I have been for ten years. In my time in ministry, I have found that when God wants to do big things, Satan feels threatened. Our adversary will pull out every weapon in his arsenal to stop us from being used of God. One of his most devastating weapons against us is divisiveness and dissension. He will use mundane things to drive wedges between people. He will destroy relationships over trivial nitpickings that should not, and in fact, do not really matter. The adversary does not have to create major rifts between people to create chaos. All he really needs is a toe-hold. All that is really needed is for us to open the door for him by allowing differences of opinion to matter more than they really should. When we think of spiritual warfare, it seems that we often think of doing battle with strong demons. It is a lot more subtle than that. 

Our God is a big God with big plans. Satan is a big adversary with big plans. Satan is not an enemy that should be taken lightly. Although it seems that he may not be waging all out war on us...I can promise you that he is. His battle plan is to wear us out by winning small skirmishes. We may think that these are no big deal until we realize that we have let him have victory on so many small skirmishes that he has won some major battles and is nearly winning the war. As they say, hindsight is 20-20. So wage war on him every day. As an individual and as a part of the corporate body of a church, determine daily that Christ will have the victory. Do not let him win any more skirmishes in your life and in your relationships. Get along with people for the sake of the Kingdom. Again, I have to reiterate that we as believers have more in common with each other than what the enemy would have us believe...because we have Jesus in common. Put aside your differences. Be united with the body of Christ. Realize that the enemy is cowardly and is hiding behind those people that you think are your enemies. Do not allow him the pleasure of hindering the plan of God in your own personal life or in your church because of trivial, nitpicky, non-sensical differences that will not matter in eternity. 

As believers we know that the war has already been won. We know that God is victorious. We know that we are more than conquerors but we have to realize that although Satan has been defeated, he has not given up on taking as many down with him as he can. The Normandy invasion in 1944 has been infamously called D-Day. We know that this took place on June 6, 1944 but do you realize that, although the war was essentially won by the allies on that day on that bloody beach, skirmishes continued to rage on for nearly another year until what is known as V-Day (or Victory Day) in May of 1945? The Axis powers knew they had been defeated but they kept trying to inflict as much harm as they could until the bitter end.

The War has been won for us when Christ stormed the beach of death on Easter and proclaimed victory over the grave but our V-Day is still in the future when Christ leads his battalion to end Satan once and for all in the valley of Megiddo. Until then, keep fighting and realize that the person in the trench (or in the pew) next to you is not the enemy. In fact, they are your battle buddies. Don't weaken the war effort by fighting skirmishes with your allies. Join forces and flank the enemy together with the sweeping death blow of love and unity.

What Did You Just Pray?

Do you believe that God is a God who answers prayers? I am sure as soon as you read that your heart began stirring within you and you gave a resounding yes as if it was as sure as the fact that you are breathing right now. If we indeed believe God answers prayers, then what are we praying for?

All too often we treat God as if He were our cosmic grandfather. We want Him to grant us our desires of fortune and comfort. If God were to answer your prayers today, would your family, friends, and neighbors be saved because you prayed for them to be saved today? Or would you have a clean bill of health, a new car, a new house, and your favorite sports team would be undefeated? There is, of course, nothing wrong with praying for the health of our friends and family. There is nothing wrong with praying for the blessings of God on those we know and love. Why not pray then for the ultimate blessing of the security of salvation in their lives?

In Acts 1:8, Jesus commanded us to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. After this, in verse 14 we find that the disciples went back to their gathering place and devoted themselves to prayer. They knew and believed that what they were called to do was to share the Gospel with the entire world around them. Great power had been bestowed upon them and they immediately committed themselves to continuously tapping into that power. They believed in Philippians 4:13. They believed that God would equip them to do anything that He called them to do. Philippians 4:13 does not mean that you will be able to accomplish crazy feats of superhuman strength. It does not mean that you will have access to every outrageous desire of your heart. It means that God will strengthen you to do what you were made to do.

So while we are praying, we should be praying that everyone that we come in contact with will know of the love with which God loves us. When we are praying, we should be considering ourselves an answer to the prayer. The Word of God tells us to pray for the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers into His fields...we are the laborers. The Great Commission says to "Go therefore" but when you study the language, what it actually says is "As you are going" which means that as we are living our lives, we are praying, we are being strengthened to live as we are called, and we are going with intention in our lives to tell as many people about what God has done for us and what He desires to do for them as we can.

Do not say that you cannot share your faith. You can say that you are too fearful or that you are not passionate about sharing your faith. But do not ever say that you cannot. You have been given the power from heaven to share this good news and if you are a follower of Jesus it is not only a commandment, it is a privilege. You can and you must. The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J. D. Greear, has challenged us to find our "one". Who is that one person or perhaps more than one in our lives we know needs to hear the Gospel boldly proclaimed? Find that "one" and share with them. Pray for them. Do not ever give up. 

Prayer is a powerful thing. To pray is to speak to the Creator of the universe. To pray is to have a conversation with the great and mighty omnipotent God. I am challenged today to pray and speak to God and ask Him to do that which only He can. Today, I am asking Him to bring salvation to the lost and dying. Today the average statistic would say that 7 out of every 10 people that live in the U.S. are far from God. Of that seven, there are surely those who would say that they are saved. There are most definitely those who could speak of some time that they walked an aisle or prayed a prayer but their lives do not reflect the transformative power of Christ. I am praying today that I will have the boldness to speak truth into their lives. That God would give me opportunities to share my faith, my testimony, the Gospel. I am praying that we would not go to church but that we would be the church as Christ intended.

Pray and when you are done pray some more and then go and be an answer to prayer.