Christians are to build and to battle There are two basic facts of believing life:
(1) Building - Nothing is built unless someone is willing to count the cost for the
building. If we build wisely, like Jesus does, things last and are very fulfilling.
(2) Battling - No battles are won unless you organize your troops and make sure you’re ready for battle. There is no neutrality in spiritual warfare.
What is spiritual warfare?
There are three dimensions of spiritual warfare:
- Doing battle against the powers of darkness
- Expanding to receive the possibilities of your life
- Warring against the flesh
Authority over the powers of darkness
So many people think of spiritual battle as engaging Satan at a point of hellish confrontation. There are such times, but people who talk a great deal about demons tend to become preoccupied to the point of either confusion or elitism. They become wearying to be around and are generally not happy people. Jesus was a
happy person to be around, and yet no one had more authority over the demonic than Jesus.
As real as the demonic is, it does not represent the whole realm of spiritual warfare. There are at least two other broad arenas of spiritual warfare:
1) the realizing of advance and possession of God’s purpose for your life, and
2) resisting flesh.
Advance and possession of God’s purpose for your life
There were boundaries that were measured out in advance for Israel to receive when
the Lord told them, There’s a land I have for you; now go take possession of it.
Spiritual warfare is the contemporary experience in our own lives of the same thing Israel historically did. We are to recognize there is a promise for us, and to posture our souls to embrace and possess everything God has for us. What Israel faced in moving in to take the land that God had promised to them are the same things we face.
This movement forward in our lives does not "just happen." We must take a stance of the soul that says, I have to move in and take hold of it. Make a goal that says, I want to see a new development in my life in Christ. God has put promises in my heart.
Set your sights in the season ahead, in the coming DOWNPOUR season on possessing
something new of God’s purpose in your life. It will take a commitment to battle against passivity and neglect to possess the possibilities of your life. It will take a commitment to battle against barriers to see God’s new breakthroughs.
If you are facing some hindrance to going to the Downpour church camp, don’t be just resigned to it. Battle against the barriers so that you embrace what God has for you in the camp.
Resisting flesh
Spiritual warfare also has to do with resisting flesh. Resisting what my human flesh wants to accede to doesn’t have anything to do with the devil. Let the Lord bring you beyond the carnality, habits and temperament of your own way to a new point of maturity as a person named a son or a daughter of the living God.
Three basic principles of spiritual warfare
Spiritual warfare becomes either the discouraging efforts of the unschooled or the arrogant efforts of the presumptuous unless you understand its basic principles:
1. There is no mastery or dominion that can be gained apart from the Master’s disciplines of kingdom power
Spiritual authority doesn’t come because you learn a set of slogans or quote a few verses. Or because you get excited about an idea or two. It happens because something begins to take shape in your life as you accept the dominion that comes under the Master, Jesus. And that mastery comes through robust relationship with the Master.
2. The mightiness of release is not the result of human works, but the fruit of human souls in alignment with the Almighty
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that spiritual warfare is powerful because of the works of the warrior. What makes spiritual warfare work is that you come into alignment with God’s ways. Among the things that are most difficult in spiritual warfare is bringing ourselves into spiritual alignment.
Spiritual warfare isn’t taking place between God and the devil. God’s throne is not threatened. The battle is between us and the devil. What Jesus has done in His Cross has broken the forces of darkness, and He, having broken the power of darkness, has said, Now here’s the keys. You go and take the land.
The devil would like to deprive, rob or squash the fulfillment of God’s promise to each of us. Our flesh works against it. But the Lord calls us to spiritual warfare, to come into alignment with Him.
3. The privilege potential of partnership awaits the redeemed
Without Him we can do nothing, without us, He will do nothing.
Paul, understanding this, said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"
(Philippians 4:13).
At the end of the day, spiritual warfare has to do with following Jesus.
