by Charlie Wolcott
Sun Tzu in The Art of War says: “Know your enemy and know yourself and in one hundred battles you will never be in peril.”
Every successful general in world history understands this statement extremely well. You cannot survive in a battle if you do not know who your enemy is, what personnel and equipment you are fighting against, who you are, or what you have at your disposal. You need to know your enemy’s strengths, his weaknesses, his assets, his goals, his reasons, his purposes, etc. You need to know yourself. You need to know your strengths, your weaknesses, your assets, your goals, your reasons, your purposes, etc. If you can get a handle on all these issues, you will never be in danger in the battles you fight. And this concept applies to so many different fields. It applies to government, it applies to politics, it applies to business, it applies to sports, and it also applies to our spiritual walks.
Our spiritual enemy comes in three forms: Satan and his minions, the worldly system, and our sinful “old nature.” Satan comes for the purpose of stealing, killing, and destroying. He is not just the enemy of God. He is the enemy of you. And even if you are not allied with God, he is still your enemy. Even if you are fighting alongside Satan, even if he is appearing to be your friend, he is your enemy and he has one goal for you: destruction. If he tricks you into sinning, he won’t have pity for you. He hates you with the purest hate you can imagine, and like The Joker in The Dark Knight, he sees you as expendable, and a tool to see the world burn.
Satan is a liar, a murderer. He has no truth in him. He will speak partial truths, but they will be out of context, misused, and twisted. Satan quoted Scripture too. He tempted Jesus to fulfill Scripture. That is what Jesus was set out to do: fulfill Scripture. But what Satan was doing was a misapplication. It was not in God’s timing, under God’s prompting, or in the context of which the quote was being used. He is a liar and deceiver and every time he speaks of Scripture and towards Scripture it will always be in the form of “Has God really said?” And he will use anyone he can, including those who profess to be Christians to push his agenda.
But Satan is also a defeated foe. He is very brilliant and he knows us and he knows Scripture far better than we could ever hope to, but he is a defeated foe. Jesus defeated him at the cross. The only power Satan has in your life is that which he has permission to have. There are times where like Job, God will allow Satan to harass us. But most of the time, when Satan messes with us, it is because we let him. He is very crafty in how he tricks us into “inviting” him in. But ultimately his power is broken and anyone who is under the authority of Christ can tell him where to go.
That is a very brief description of Satan. For more, check out blog posts by Bill Seng here and here. The worldly system is how this world thinks and acts, and our flesh is our sin that God is in process of working out. I’m not going to deal with that too much in this post. I will now turn to who we are, as Christians. If you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord, if you have not been born again, what I am about to share won’t apply to you. And if you have not been born again, I strongly long that you do - that you let Jesus do his work in you so that you can be equipped for the battle that you are in the middle of. Without swearing fealty to Christ, you can’t wear his armor, and you will be stuck in this battle armorless, weaponless, and very easy prey for the enemy.
So that being said, let us recognize who we are as born-again Christians. We are made in the image of God. We are not a mere “highly evolved animal.” We are a special creation, made in God’s image and with the unique ability to have an intimate relationship with him. That is what we are made for. But sin broke that function and we need God to repair it.
As Christians, we are called children of God. We are also called the Bride of Christ. God sits on the Throne. Jesus (who is also part of the Trinity and is God) is the King of Kings. This relationship makes us joint-heirs to the Throne of Heaven. That means because we bear the name of Jesus, we also bear his authority. But we must also understand the principle of authority. The Centurion got it. He bore the authority of Rome. What he said was as though the Emperor, Caesar himself, said it. But he only had that authority by submitting himself under Rome’s authority.
The same is true for us. We bear the authority of Christ himself, but only if we submit to his authority. James 4:7 says this: “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee.” Most of us love to quote the second half of this verse, but we frequently forget the first half. If we want to be able to resist Satan and his wiles, we have to be submitted to the authority and the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And we can know what Jesus would say and do by knowing Scripture. Not just the Gospels, but the entirety of Scripture. Everything in Scripture points to Christ. John 1:14 says the Word of God became flesh. Jesus is the fulfillment, the personification, the written Word represented in human form. If you want to know Jesus, know Scripture. If you want to understand Scripture, know Jesus. They complement each other and are from the same source (Word of God made flesh, and Word of God made text). Chew on that for a bit. It took me a while to work that one out.
To know yourself in this spiritual battle, you need to know who you are in Christ, and what your position in Christ is. You also need to know what equipment you have. I will get into that next week. I’ll address the Armor of God, and other weapons we have to fight in this spiritual battle. But today, take notice of who you are, where you are in this battle. Take note of who your enemy is. Where is he? What is he doing? What is he up to? Jesus knew what was up. Nehemiah knew what was up. I’ll explain what I mean by this later in this series. But first, we have to know our standard equipment: the Armor of God. That’s next.
by Steve Risner
God is really speaking to me about priorities. Many of my blog posts concern things that I, personally, am working through. My hope in writing about such things is that I'm not the only one dealing with it so maybe someone else can benefit as well. Exactly three days after I finished writing my post last week, A Year To Prioritize, our pastor preached a message on priorities. “Yes, Lord, I think I hear you knocking,” I said. Our pastor took a different approach than my writing from last week and got me to thinking. I decided another post would probably be beneficial—if not for you, then for me.
Thus begins our tale. The story goes that a professor was speaking to his philosophy class several years ago. He had at the front of the room a large jar and a variety of things he was going to place inside the jar—large rocks about 2 inches in size, gravel, and sand. Without a word, he places the 12 large rocks inside the jar until no more could fit. “Is the jar full?” he asked the class. The class confirmed it was, indeed, full. So he picked up a bag of gravel and began pouring it into the jar, breaking on occasion to shake the jar to settle the gravel. The gravel eventually filled in the empty spaces left between the larger rocks. “Is the jar full?” he asked a second time. With a bit of laughter, the students agreed that this time the jar was full this time. Now the professor picked up another bag—one full of sand—and began to scoop the sand into the jar. He did this until every visible space was obliterated. “I want you to recognize that this jar is your life. The larger rocks represent the truly important things in your life—family, health, God, whatever. These are the things that, if everything else was taken away, you would still have a meaningful life. The gravel is the other important things that matter to you in life—your job, your schooling or sports, that sort of thing. The sand is the stuff that is more or less material ‘stuff’ or the meaningless tasks you engage in. Pay close attention. If we were to first put the same amount of sand into an identical jar first, there would be no room for all the gravel and especially no room for the larger rocks.”
The point of this story is really simple and I'm sure you can identify with it. If we don't take care of the big things first, we'll never make room for them. As I stated in my post last week, we are such a distracted people. We have lights flashing and screens lit and devices buzzing to grab our attention all the time. We have games to play on the internet, our phones, our tablets, our TVs, and on the table. We can watch a video anywhere in the world, just about, and at any time we choose. We “pin” this and “#” that and “like” this and we lose sight of the big stuff. I feel many of us have filled our jars with sand so the gravel and the larger rocks are left in a heap somewhere else.
“Boy, I wish I'd tweeted just one more time,” is very likely not something many will say on their deathbeds. I know this because not 5 hours ago I sat with my brother-in-law, whose 33rd birthday is in February but his second battle with cancer seems it will end before then. When he and I sat and talked, he didn't tell me one more video game was the ticket or that another crazy night at the club would have completed his life. No. We talked about meaningful things—of being a good dad and investing in our kids. We talked about wrongs we'd done to each other and we made them right. We hugged and shared our love for each other. You see, priorities are exquisitely in focus when life's hourglass is dropping those last few precious bits of sand. No one yearns for the gravel or sand they had in their jar when life draws to a close. They reflect on the stones—the big ones that really mean something.
If you say that in 2015 getting closer to Jesus Christ is a big deal, I would suggest a few of those large stones should be reading His Word, a daily prayer time, and at least a weekly fellowship with other believers (that's going to church if you're not following). If your claim is to want to work on your relationship with your parents or someone else that is very important, there are certainly some large stones you can place in your jar before the gravel or sand that will help make that cultivation whole. If making sure you're as healthy as you can be is important, there are a few stones to place in your jar—eating right, not eating wrong, sleeping adequately, regular exercise, and stress relief. You can see just with these three important issues—your relationship with Christ, people, and yourself, you've got nearly all the stones in your jar taken care of. Once they're adequately placed in your jar, you can fill the jar with the lesser things that still are important, but not vital. You can decide what merits some of your time or money after you've taken care of these big things. Then, you can dump the sand in to your heart's content. But if you put the sand in first, you'll never fit all the big stones in at all.
Many of us, I fear, have our jars filled in reverse order. We say stuff like, “When I get the time...” or “When life slows down...” or “When I get the money...” but the truth is we're really saying that whatever I'm talking about is not as important as the stuff I'm currently doing. For example: “When I get free time in the day, I'll sit down in my room and pray” means you'll never do it unless you're in a crisis and it's your only option. But if you carve out the time and put it in the schedule, it'll get done. Then, if and when you have free time, you can fill it with the meaningless stuff you were doing before.
I hope this seems helpful to someone. Getting things in proper perspective is a job sometimes and, at least for a slow learner like myself, a job that often times needs repeated. Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom...” and I think we lose sight of that sometimes. All the other stuff will work out. Let's get 2015 off to a focused start. God bless you this year.
by Logan Ames
As 2015 is now under way and you’re just about a week into whatever “resolutions” you have set for yourself this year, what do you feel you are lacking at this point? As you are experiencing the difficulty in making significant changes in your life, what is it that you desperately need in order to accomplish your goals? I begin with these questions for you this year because let’s face it, we all feel like we need something. We rarely, if ever, wake up and say, “Everything is perfect for me and I don’t need a thing”. If you follow God and believe He is guiding your life, you may be thinking about what you need in order to do what He has called you to do. Even if you don’t follow God, you likely have some goals for this year that will require more than just your will, so you may spend time wishing you could just get what you need to start making things happen.
I’ve been thinking about how much we as a society want, crave, and even need POWER. We have a saying that “knowledge is power”, so many young people make the decision to take on many thousands of dollars in debt just for higher education. People who are blessed to have employment can’t be satisfied because they are always wanting that next promotion, and as I’ve seen it at my own workplace I am convinced it is more about the status and power of being “above” others than it is about the money. It’s one reason that I am so impressed by some of the leaders where I work who go against the grain and really seem to view their positions as opportunities to lead by service. Power is viewed as necessary in politics, as many in the country believe major changes will happen because Republicans now “control” the House and the Senate. Even in sports, teams and individual athletes want to overpower their opponents.
Think about how often we need power for daily routine tasks. I have a friend who was almost in tears over the fact that she may not have her phone for about a week because she uses it for all of her entertainment. Her phone is not charging properly and quickly runs out of power. When our phone or computer system at work loses power, it’s difficult to get any work done. And when an entire town loses power, as my home city of Findlay, Ohio did several years ago when we had a major windstorm that I believe was classified as a “land hurricane”, everyone flocks to those who have generators because we have forgotten how to exist without power!
We know we need some kind of power to accomplish God’s will and our goals for this year. The Apostle Paul knew this as well, but his idea of “power” was a little different than ours. In Romans 1:1-6, he sets the tone for his entire letter to the believers in Rome by explaining that the gospel he is called to share is about the Lord Jesus Christ, “who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead” (vv. 3-4). The Greek word for “power” in that passage is “dynamis”. This is where we get our English word “dynamite”. As a matter of fact, the majority of times that “power” is mentioned in the New Testament, it’s this word. The power of God is like dynamite! Jesus himself said his disciples would receive this power when they were given the Holy Spirit, and that it would propel them to do what they couldn’t do otherwise - be his witnesses all the way to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Here in the Romans passage, Paul is saying that it was the same dynamite power that appointed Jesus the Son of God by raising him from the dead. He is talking about the good news that this Jesus offers grace and power to even the Gentiles. But he doesn’t stop there.
In another one of Paul’s letters to a different group of believers, he declares that the dynamite power available to all believers from the Father is “the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:19b-20). In the context around these verses in Ephesians 1:15-23, Paul is longing and praying that the believers in Ephesus would KNOW this great power along with the hope they have in Christ. In other words, he wants them to know that no matter what they face in this world, they are packing the power of the Holy Spirit. And just in case they’ve forgotten what that power can do, he reminds them it’s the very same dynamite power that God the Father used to raise God in the flesh from the grave. It’s not just any power. It’s not the meaningless other forms of power we chase after that I mentioned above. Paul calls it “the incomparably great power for us who believe” (v. 19a).
Ladies and gentlemen, this is big news for 2015! If you are one who believes in Jesus Christ, accepts the free gift of salvation he offers, and follows him as Lord, you have power that is INCOMPARABLY great at your disposal! That means that no other power can truly come against it. No matter what struggles you are facing already in 2015 or what struggles will come against you, they can’t compare to the power that resurrects the Son of God!
Friends, the issue has never been that we don’t have this power. It’s been that we don’t KNOW we have it. That’s why I am moved by Paul’s words to the Ephesians. Paul’s knowledge of this power has transformed his life, but he recognizes that the Ephesian Christians may still be doubting it. Knowing this power isn’t about head knowledge or book knowledge. It’s about waking up each day and moving forward in confidence because of the power that goes before us to lead and also stands behind us to propel when needed. Like Paul, I long to KNOW this power and I long to see all believers KNOW it. The fact is, if you don’t believe and follow Jesus, you don’t have this power and you must soon realize you are fighting a losing battle. But if you do follow him, get ready to do absolutely anything that he asks of you this year. With his power, all obstacles will be overcome. Satan will try to convince you that the power simply isn’t there, but just remember it’s a lie from the losing side. I am pumped and ready to just get on with it! Are you?
by Bill Seng Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. ~Romans 1:1-4 Jesus Christ, the descendant of David. We sometimes neglect the incredible genealogy of Jesus Christ (and almost rightfully so, because his father Joseph was not really his Father) but it was one of the most significant indicators in pointing to the Messiah. The Messiah had to be descended from the Tribe of Judah and a descendant of King David. There are many genealogies throughout the Bible but there are only two, namely the last two, which include Jesus. These genealogies are found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Nonetheless, the good student will notice that the two genealogies are actually different from one another. There are a few common ancestors mentioned, but there are a different number of generations represented and some names are absent from one another. Richard Dawkins attacked this point in his book the God Delusion, using it as clear case of the Bible contradicting itself. Remember, though, that Dawkins is not a Bible scholar and also keep in mind that every person has two parents. Luke, for instance, mentions that “He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,” before entering into his detailed genealogy. So one genealogy probably represents Joseph’s lineage and the other one represents Mary’s. There are other credible explanations that I have come across in studying this topic, but let us allow this to suffice for now. What is more fascinating to me regarding the two New Testament genealogies is not the fact that they both show that Jesus was a descendant of David, or even Judah, but who each genealogy decides to ultimately trace Jesus’ descent from. Matthew’s gospel has a genealogy that traces back to Abraham, the grandfather of the patriarchs (the fathers of the tribes of Israel). It is believed that Matthew intended to reveal Jesus to the nation of Israel as their long awaited Messiah. His gospel is packed with citations of fulfilled prophecies, teachings, and traditions that would have been very familiar to the Israelites. Tracing Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Abraham showed the Israelites that Jesus’ claim that he was the Messiah was true and that its legitimacy could be traced all the way back to the father of their faith the came before the Law of Moses, Abraham. But Luke’s gospel paints a different picture than Matthew’s concerning Jesus’ genealogy. It is not contradictory, but complimentary. You see, Luke travelled a lot with the Apostle Paul. Most of the people they encountered and shared the Good News of Jesus Christ with were not Israelites. Sure, some were familiar with the Law of Moses, but to most of them hearing about the Messiah that was going to restore the nation of Israel back to its glory did not mean a whole lot. Their problem was that they were not royalty. Kings, queens, princes, and princesses were known to be descendants of the gods and it was well known that only the children of the gods could go to heaven. Everyone else was doomed to eternal misery. But Luke did not just go so far back to include the nation of Israel under the saving power of the Messiah’s ancestry; rather, he traced it all the way back to Adam, the first man to ever be created, and then refers to him as “the son of God,” for he had no earthly father. So Jesus was not just the Savior of the nation of Israel, but the Savior of the world. John expands on this hope for all people by clarifying, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Imagine being a Greek that has heard for the first time that your life has meaning. The gods, who were deviant, deceptive, and devilish, were wiped away by the compassion, provision, and grace of this foreign God who acknowledged that all people, by right, are his children, and that through the simple belief in his Son, you too could be adopted into God’s family. And yet, not only the nation of Israel, not only the Greeks, but the whole world has been extended the olive branch of peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do not late hatred and biases from loving your neighbor no matter what your ethnicity. Jesus Christ came to save all people and that includes you.
by Katie Erickson
As I wrote about last week, starting this week we’ll be spending all of 2015 writing through the book of Romans. To start off, this week we’re writing on Romans 1:1-6:
“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God — the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake. And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.”
When reading any book, it’s helpful to know who the author is and what kind of perspective he or she is writing from. Many books have an “About the Author” section, where the reader is given at least a brief biography of the author. The book of Romans only gives a brief introduction of its, author however. From this we know that the apostle Paul wrote the book, and that he was “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” But who is this guy?
Much more of Paul’s story is recorded in the book of Acts. He used to be known as Saul rather than Paul, but he changed his name after his life-altering conversion to becoming a follower of Jesus Christ. Saul was a member of the Pharisees, the religious rulers of the Jewish people. The Pharisees didn’t like Jesus, because He showed them the errors of their ways and how they weren’t really following what God wanted but rather what they wanted. Saul’s mission at the time was to seek out and kill the first Christians, the ones who followed Jesus’ teachings, because the Pharisees believed they were a threat to the Jewish religion. We know from Acts 7 that Saul was even present at the stoning of Stephen, the first recorded person to die for the Christian faith.
So knowing that, why is this same guy writing a letter about the gospel of God to the Roman people? In Acts 9:1-22, he had a dramatic conversion experience that totally changed his life. I encourage you go to read about it. Now known as Paul, it became his sole mission in life to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and God’s Kingdom. Paul and Peter were the two main leaders of the early church; Peter’s primary mission was to share the gospel with the Jews, while Paul’s primary mission was to share the gospel with the Gentiles (everyone who isn’t a Jew).
This book of Romans is actually a letter, written by Paul to the church in Rome. Scholars are pretty certain that this letter was written in the year 57 A.D., while Paul was on his 3rd missionary journey. At this point, Paul has been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ for almost 25 years, so he has an opportunity to reflect on what he believes.
We don’t know much today about the church in Rome, which Paul was writing to. Paul didn’t specifically found it, but it can be presumed that it was founded by some who were in Jerusalem for Pentecost in Acts 2, where “visitors from Rome” are mentioned in 2:10. The church in Rome would have likely been made up of both Jews and Gentiles, so there was probably tension existing between the two groups, as evidenced from what Paul writes later in this letter.
Paul’s introduction to this letter to the Romans in 1:1-6 (above) focuses mainly on Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is Paul’s sole focus in life! We at Worldview Warriors have written previously on who Jesus is, why Jesus matters, and why He is the only way to heaven. Jesus is what it’s all about! As Paul says, it is through Jesus Christ that we received grace that we did not deserve. We are all called to be a part of this mission because we belong to Jesus Christ.
Paul’s letter to the church in Rome has many themes to it and covers much of the beliefs of the Christian faith, and I invite you to come along on this journey with us as we dig into the letter this year!
by Charlie Wolcott
God has opened up many doors for those involved with Worldview Warriors in ways many of us could not imagine. Our blog post readership is greater than it has ever been before. Our founder and leader, Jason DeZurik, has this amazing opportunity to host the morning show of a Christian radio station in his area which will greatly increase exposure to this ministry. Several of our other bloggers are finding themselves with open doors that were not in their vision when we started 2014. And God has been opening doors for me too.
I am still going through the Cadre, an intense Biblical Worldview Seminar through the Creation Truth Foundation. I have Part 3 coming up in February and Part 4 to wrap it up in November. I have also been invited to be a speaker at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference in May this year, where I will be speaking about Spiritual Warfare and “Writing From a Biblical Worldview”. And this does not include other local speaking opportunities or further progression with my spiritual warfare trilogy. What I love about all these opportunities is that none of them are meant for the mere purpose of building me up, but for the purpose of being used for expanding God’s Kingdom.
But I need to make something clear. Whenever God is on the move, he puts us into position to advance his Kingdom. And when God’s Kingdom advances, Satan’s Kingdom shrinks, and while he is a defeated foe, he will not go down without a fight. To open up 2015 with my posts for Worldview Warriors, I am going to address the basics of Spiritual Warfare. I will write about what is going on, what our equipment is, and some of the tactics we may see being used against us. This post is just an introduction to what it is and what is going on.
The battles we fight as Christians are unlike any other battle that has been fought on this planet. We don’t fight with swords and arrows, or guns and bombs. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. Our weapons bear a different nature. But while we don’t fight with swords or guns, that does not mean we cannot use the concepts and tactics that involve such weapons to give us a picture of how the spiritual battle works. It is very difficult to imagine spiritual warfare, let alone how to practice and train for it. For how can you practice how to prepare to use spiritual tactics with spiritual weapons to fight against a spiritual foe? Many times we gloss over what spiritual warfare is. We love to read about the Armor of God (I’ll emphasize this later in the month) but we often don’t get the picture of what this means or why. If we, as Christians, are not called to fight, why were we issued armor and weapons?
The reality is this: we are in a spiritual battle whether we want to be in it or not. There are no sidelines to this battle. There is no “neutral” ground where we can retreat and just watch. You are either on God’s side of this war or you are against him. We all started out against him because of our sinful nature. Sin, in a nutshell, is rebellion against God. It is wanting to do things your own way and striving to be the ruler of your own life. This is one of three fronts we face as Christians. The other two fronts come from Satan and his legion of minions and from the worldly system. We must not take Satan lightly. Even though he is defeated, he is not destroyed yet and he is really good at getting us to fall in our own sin. Many times, Satan really does not have to do much to get us going. So we must be on our guard at all times. And the worldly system is something Jesus said he overcame. James also warns us that if we are going to be friends with the world (meaning the system) that will make us enemies of God.
So what is at stake here? Why is it important that we fight? It’s easy to talk about, but many of us don’t take this battle seriously. And little by little, because the Christian church as a whole is not fighting, at least here in America, we are losing ground and fast. The American Revolution in the 1770-80s was a worldwide affecting moment. But often forgotten in the historical context is what led up to the Revolution: The Great Awakening. Preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield fought for the spiritual standing of the American colonies and through their preaching, through their making a stand against the spiritual decay of their time, America woke up. In the Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers cited 27 BIBLICAL violations made by the British government. Taxation without representation was #11 of that list. It was not the only reason, nor primary reason. And they decided to not be Britain’s doormats any longer. They rose up and they fought. But it started with a spiritual battle 40 years earlier.
The Christian Church in America has effectively gone dormant, with a few here and there that are still fighting the good fight. We here at Worldview Warriors are striving to fight the good fight. It’s not about bettering ourselves, though day to day we still need God to continue working in us to make us more like Christ, but about doing the will of God. And one of the tenants of God’s will is to go out and make disciples of all nations. Many of us have confused that with “make converts of all nations”. What does it mean to make a disciple? One of our guest bloggers wrote about that earlier. And to do this, we have to be ready for battle. Because the spiritual forces of darkness do not want to see a single soul under their thumb lost. Satan wants to take as many people with him to hell as he can, and he is succeeding in getting us to take this battle he is waging against God lightly.
Sun Tzu says in his book The Art of War, “To win 100 battles is not the height of skill. To subdue your enemy without fighting is.” He also says this: “Know your enemy and know yourself and in 100 battles you will never be in peril.” Friends, we need to understand that the principles Sun Tzu is talking about are being used against us and being used well. We will not be able to fight in this war if we don’t understand what is at stake, what our weapons are, what tactics our enemy is using, or even the very basics about spiritual warfare. Over the next 3-4 months, I’m going give you a basic run down of what we are dealing with and how to engage in this battle. But before we get into the tactics of spiritual warfare, we need to understand who are enemy is and who we are. Next week, I’ll talk about that in more detail and in two weeks, I’ll address the standard issued equipment we have for this battle. I’m going to keep it simple and not get into in-depth theological treatises but we need to be ready to fight and not just to stay on defense. Welcome to Spiritual Warfare Boot Camp.
by Steve Risner
Happy New Year! I pray God's blessings on you for 2015! 2014 was a fantastic year with many things—both good and bad—happening. My family was blessed with welcoming into our family a little girl who was born in September. Tragically and unexpectedly, we lost my grandmother just 60 hours later. I'm sure many of us can tell lots of stories of wonderful things that occurred in 2014 as well as many tragic things. The world is in upheaval and our nation seems to be struggling on several fronts.
All these things swirling around in my mind get me thinking about priorities. Have you ever considered your priorities? I mean really thought about them—listed them in order of importance. I suggest doing this every so often, and what better time than the start of 2015!
Take a few moments and consider what you truly value. What is really important? We say lots of things are important to us but our time spent really tells the story, doesn't it? If we say it's important to spend time with our aging family but we never do it, is it really important? If we say that reading the Bible daily is important to us be we read it every couple weeks, is it really something we hold in high regard?
So here's my challenge to you: list your priorities and number them from most to least important. Do this for your top 5 priorities. So if reading God’s Word and praying every day are very important and you truly want to spend time doing them, list them as two of your top 5. If playing video games or watching YouTube videos is a high priority, place them in the top 5. Spending time with a special someone or an aging or ailing family member could be on your list. Working a lot so you can save money for something could be there. Taking responsibility for your health—what you eat and how you exercise as well as your sleeping patterns may need to be dialed in a bit. Hanging out with friends that positively influence you could be on the list. Your priorities should be whatever you feel are the absolutely most important things in your life that you dedicate time and/or money to.
Please be as specific as possible. Indicate the time spent in prayer or reading. Name the person or people you want to hang out with or spend quality time with. Identify the thing you're saving your hard earned money for. Place all these things on your list and (here I may lose you but stick with me) rid yourself of the other things. Completely rid yourself of the meaningless things you waste time doing. If that seems like a bit of stretch, I understand completely so I've made a concession. Make another list —not the same list with additions but a second list—of things that are not as important but would make a top 10 if you made such a list. These are things you admit you enjoy and would like to dabble in. The top 5 are things you are dedicating time or money to without exception. This second list is things you can slip in when there may be down time, a couple extra bucks, or to take a break from something else in your top 5. Be disciplined with this for at least the month of January (or February depending on when you figure out your lists) and then reflect on how things may have changed in your life. Your lists may change over time and that's fine. They may change often and that's okay, too. But your top 5 will likely be fairly set with only small changes on occasion.
Why do I challenge you this way? We are a distracted people. We let life pass us by while we have our face in a computer screen or in a phone. We waste terrific amounts of time following rabbit trails from Facebook to YouTube to wherever else on the Internet. We waste one of the only things we cannot ever get back once it's spent—regardless of how you've spent it. That is time. Time passes whether we're doing something meaningful and important to us or if we're piddling it away while we vegetate on things we'll likely forget about in 15 minutes. Statistics show us that the average American youth spends 11 hrs a day with electronic media! What!! That includes everything from radio to phones to television and computers. How much of that is profitable? I bet not much at all.
Are you dedicated to cultivating a life with Christ and with those around your or are you squandering this precious commodity and robbing others of something they likely value highly—you? All the “stuff” we get wrapped up in is fruitless when we consider things that actually matter. Where you spend your time and/or money tell the tale, regardless of what we say. In light of eternity, our thoughts as to what is important may change drastically. Engage. See people face to face. Talk to them with your voice rather than your fingers. Be diligent and see where it leads you this new year! And God bless you!
Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Luke 12:34: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
