Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual Warfare
I am often encountered with people
who are not happy with their lives. Nothing seems to go right. I always fail. I
will never make it. Or I am weak and not good enough. Nobody loves or
appreciates me. My marriage is going wrong, and so on.
Problems after problems and no way
out to overcome, to defeat the situation. A war which doesn’t seem to be won.
During my Christian life, I am trying
to comfort and equip people to defend and defeat those spiritual attacks. I
came across a bible reading plan or study called “Warfare” which explains it
very well.
The essence of the war we’re talking
about is spiritual. Because this warfare is first and foremost spiritual and
not physical, the degree to which you and I will be successful is the degree to
which we are prepared to understand and fight this battle on a spiritual level.
While waged in the invisible, spiritual realm, spiritual warfare is manifested
in the visible, physical realm. In other words, spiritual warfare is a battle
between invisible, angelic forces that affect you and me. You and I can’t see
the cause of the war, but we see the effects—the kinds of problems I mentioned
above—all the time, day in and day out.
It’s hard enough to fight an enemy
you can see. It’s much harder to fight someone you can’t see. Everything you do
in the visible, physical realm is caused, provoked, or at least influenced by
something in the invisible, spiritual realm. Your five senses are not the limit
of reality, and until we address the spiritual root of a problem, we will never
fix the physical effects of that problem.
Not only are your physical senses
limited, but they often provide little help in spiritual warfare. This means
that if you are going to wage a successful spiritual battle, you need a “sixth
sense”—a keen awareness of the spiritual realm. In order to understand
spiritual warfare, we have to address it through the lens of the spirit, with
the help of the Holy Spirit.
The Location of the Battle
Where in the universe is this great
battle called spiritual warfare being fought? Paul tells us it is “in the
heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12), which means the spiritual realm. In the Bible,
the word heaven describes three levels of
existence (see 2 Cor. 12:2). The first heaven is the atmosphere that surrounds
the earth, the environment in which we live. The second heaven is what we
commonly refer to as outer space, the stellar heavens where the stars and
planets exist. This is also a realm in which angels operate, because in the
Bible angels are often called stars (Job 38:7). When you see the stars at
night, they should remind you of spiritual beings called angels and the reality
of the warfare we are engaged in. The third heaven is the throne room of God,
the place we normally think of when we hear the word heaven.
It is about this heaven that the Bible has the most to say. In fact, the third
heaven is an incredibly busy place because it is the control centre of the
universe.
In the book of Ephesians alone, we
find numerous references to heavenly places in addition to that in 6:12.
Understanding these passages helps us know how to tap into the heavenly places
and thus wage victorious spiritual warfare.
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” This verse tells us that God
resides in the heavenly places, and so do all of our spiritual blessings. This
is important because if you are engaged in a spiritual battle and need help to
win, the help you need is with God the Father, who is in the heavenly places.
But if you don’t know how to access heavenly places, you won’t know how to
access the heavenly help you need to win the battle in earthly places.
John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not
perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Romans 10:13
13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Mankind needs to repent of their sins and accept
the Lord Jesus Christ as their saviour, who died for their sins and has
forgiven the sins of everyone who is reaching out for Him.
May God bless you all.
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