The Battle

It has been a while since I have been on here. The last few months of my life have been quite busy, as the ministry has been growing. This past year, the Lord has really been teaching me a lot about myself and about some of the learned behaviors I have grown up with. But in the midst of realizing I need to unlearn some things in my life, there is a deeper issue in my life the Lord has been unlayering.


I have a tendency to view the Christian life as us humans trying to be better people, to be godlier in our actions and lives. While this is true, the Christian life does not stop there. Ephesians 6 tells us that there is a spiritual battle going on all around us. It tells us Satan is trying to deceive God's children into believing lies. There is a very real supernatural force of darkness that we are battling daily. And the battle is for our heart. If Satan can get believers to be unproductive and ineffective for the Kingdom of God, then he has succeeded.

I have a tendency to merely acknowledge the existence of Satan, but significantly play down his role in my life. Whether Satan or his demons, the truth is there is a spiritual battle going on. This cannot be ignored. And this battle is not only within me, it is outside of me. When the enemy gets my eyes off the eternal and focused on the temporal, then I tend to get discouraged, self focused, lazy, and just down. But if my eyes are fixed on Jesus and the eternal reality of the spiritual battle, I see things much differently. I see the Christian life as not just me wanting to become a more godly man. I see it for what it truly is, a battle that I must fight.

In my past, I have had a real fear that I am inadequate. Much of my life has been lived out of this fear. It was not until recently, that The Lord has shown me that this fear does not only come from within me. It is comes from without. This new truth has changed the way I look at that fear. I used to see my fear that I am inadequate as inadequacy itself. In other words, because I had that fear and I thought it came from me, I thought there was something wrong with me. Something that I had to try and change myself. Much of my Christian life has been me trying to overcome this fear. It never works. Now, I recognize that that fear is a lie that Satan wants me to believe. That battle is not a fight against myself. It is a fight against the demonic strongholds of the spiritual world.

In 1 Timothy 6:12, Paul exhorts us to "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses."

I love this verse because it demands action. We cannot expect God to do all the work, while we sit back and relax. God has empowered us to fight the good fight trough His Spirit, and by Him, we must take hold of the life to which we were called. This is a daily battle. This is our lives as followers of Christ.

The question is, are you fighting? And if you are, who?


JN