We're at War!

 What else have I learned from the Christians in India?  Why is the Indian church growing so fast?  They know they are in a battle!  They are taught they are born into a world at war.  They know who they are fighting and they are skilled in the use of spiritual weapons. They firmly believe that they can win.  Through prayer they see idols demolished, temples destroyed, and thousands upon thousands of people rescued from the power of the enemy and released into the Kingdom of light. 

In India, the warfare is far more obvious than here in the West.  There are hideous idols everywhere.  Most homes have shrines and demons are invited to inhabit these idols when they are set in place.  Demon possession is a well-recognized phenomenon.  But as they bind the power of the strongman, they see his goods plundered and people set free (Luke 11:21-22).

Here in the West, outwardly things are very different.  The enemy is far more subtle.  We are like the soldier sitting relaxed at a cafe who became a target for a sniper because he didn't realize he was in a war zone.  Our warfare is mostly against things like drugs and immorality, or invisible things such as materialism.  Second Corinthians 10 is perhaps more applicable here: We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God (verses 3-5).

I remember when we had problems in our business a few years ago.  Our major client decided to take his  work in house.  We had a building and employees.  We eventually realized (sometimes we are really slow!) that this happened the month we started House2House, and so we decided to fight the battle spiritually.  We started praying and fighting the enemy.  We employed every spiritual weapon we could think of.  We praised and prayed;  we used the Word; we marched up and down our office shouting and quoting Scripture at the enemy.  Anyone looking at us would have thought we were crazy. Slowly our business turned around.  From being within a month of bankruptcy, it has now become a business that provides for us in such a way that Tony can take plenty of time away from it so we are able to do anything the Lord asks of us.

What will cause us to take spiritual warfare more seriously?  What results would we see if we did?

Comments

[Scott]

What will cause us to take spiritual warfare more seriously?

You post answers that question, pressure. And your post gives me the answer of making disciples. Spiritual war. I have been sluggish in obeying God's command to make disciples. Now I have a game plan to move off dead center.

Thanks for this post.

Scott