Spiritual Warfare

Our topic this week was Spiritual Warfare and we had the privilege of having our leader Jeff Boardman speak on this topic.  Jeff has had a number of things happen throughout his life and was left to raise three kids on his own.  He is a man that has been through a lot and has a great testimony on what it is to engage in spiritual warfare.  He laid everything out on the table and gave us the fact that every day we are in war at all times and it is part of life not an event.  The only way that we can prepare ourselves for warfare is by knowing who we are in Christ and living responsibly before God.

Our verse for the week was Eph 6: 10-20, which talks about putting on the Armor of God.  By putting on this armor means that we know God and his character and through that we may cast out any dark forces that present themselves in our lives.  Some of the dark forces may be as simple as sin and the desires of it that the devil puts before us, however, they may also be manifesting in another person.  We need to understand that our battle isn’t against our flesh and blood it is against the supernatural dark powers.  The devil wants to lead us into deception, bondage, and destruction and that can manifest in a number of ways in each of our lives and we can all think of a few pretty easily.  So the foundation of staying away from dark forces and casting them out of your lives and others around you is to put on the armor of God, it helps you to recognize the strategies of the enemy, refuse to cooperate with those strategies, and then cut the strategies of the enemy off by the name of Jesus.

Every day we are in war yet we determine how much of the enemy we have to fight be wavering from the word of God.  The war we fight is based upon how tight we keep an eye on the gate, meaning what decisions we make in different circumstances.  We can make sure that we keep the gates closed by not believing inferior or condemning thoughts in our minds, giving our attitudes and emotions over to God and denying and fleshly nature, the words that we speak, and the relationships we live in.  To do this we have to see the cross from the top and the outpouring of God’s love for us as His children.

If we take up the Armor of God we have authority over the evil forces based upon what Jesus did to Satan.  Jesus disarmed Satan and destroyed his works.  We can our authority for what Jesus did for us, He delivered us and the authority to exercise His power.  When we deny our flesh we have God and realize He that is within us is greater, the devil stops when we use the name of Jesus.  So how do we exercise this authority that Jesus has bestowed upon us?  We us the name of Jesus, the word of God, the dynamic guiding of the Holy Spirit, the blood of the lamb (denying the flesh), and the word of our testimony all in congruence with one another.  When we do this we realize that God and his character are perfect and it stays consistent as the day is long.

So then why is there evil in our world if God is so powerful and loving and just?  See this is the argument that we hear a lot and we give into the strategies of the enemy and doubt the character of God.  We should never try to interpret the character of God by circumstances, we need to see the circumstance, bring light to it through scripture, and then compare that to what we know about the character of God.  God gives all humans free choice or free will and people tend to give into the flesh easily and are then in a battle because they took off the armor of God and gave in to sinful acts.  Know that the temptations that we have each and every day are not more than any of us can handle because there is always a way to escape, we can depend on the character of God because it is our only true hope.

The next time you are faced with circumstance I hope that you aren’t looking up and asking why God has put you in this place rather you are looking down seeing the love of God and blessings He has given you.  We are always looking for more from God and we forget to give him thanksgiving and praise for the wonderful thing He has already done.  This is something that I struggled with this week as we are getting ready to go on outreach and I am thinking about when I get back home in June.  This is tough for me as I am unsure of so many things and how they are going to work out.  This was a time where I gave into the enemy and let my mind think about the “what if’s” when I get back and doubted the character of God.  By doing this I open the gate to be attacked by the enemy and I was as I was almost in panic mode, but then I went back to the word and found the verse Luke 12:24 which says, “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn: yet God feeds them.  And how much more valuable you are than birds!”  This put things into perspective for me and helped me to realign with the character of God. 

I have two more weeks of lectures until I go on outreach to Coff Harbour, here in Australia for two weeks and then off to Borneo for the final eight weeks of outreach.