Spiritual Warfare-Part 2

Sometimes the concept of Spiritual Warfare is big, scary and weird – especially if you were immersed in Christian culture in the 80’s.

When I was a very young teenager I discovered Frank Peretti and his books This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness.

These creatively woven tales involved the battle that waged behind the veil. Angels and demons warred for the souls of the unseeing humans in the story.

And those angels and demons were totally gnarly. Yeah. I said "totally gnarly." Because they were. Totally. Gnarly.

If guardian angels existed, I wanted mine to be like Krioni. Or Scion. Or Signa. Or Triskal. Any one of those angels from the books would have been good as far as protecting me from unseen oncoming cars and unbearable temptation.

As Christians, we know that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,” (Ephesians 6:12 NIV). And that can sometimes feel weird and a little bit like a crazy Sci-Fi movie.

What I love about this sermon series is that it demystifies Spiritual Warfare and we walk away with very practical ways to engage in the battle.

This past Sunday, we talked about two more enemies: Our Flesh and The World. We talked about how we can overcome these things. If you were unable to be at church on Sunday, be sure to catch the podcast because I won’t be able to recap the entire message here.

My favorite point regarding dealing with Our Flesh was, “Refuse to Give In.” It was so simple yet so profound. Often we find ourselves at the point of temptation and the draw is so strong that we feel that we must give in.

The reason for this is that we haven’t predetermined how we will respond in those moments. We haven’t safeguarded our lives to know what our response is going to be before the temptation comes. For example, we may think to ourselves regarding the “big things”, “Well, of course I’ve predetermined that I won’t be unfaithful to my spouse.”

But we forget about the “little” temptations along the way that erode that path. Predetermine that you won’t watch or read things that allow your imagination to be stirred in unhealthy ways. Predetermine that you won’t be involved in conversations with the opposite sex that allow a level of intimacy that should only be shared with your spouse (i.e. don’t talk about your spouse negatively or share marriage struggles.) Even be careful about saying things like, “My husband thinks we should handle our kids in this particular way. I think he’s being too harsh. I just wanted to get a man’s outside perspective on this. What do you think?” As innocent as that may sound, that’s subtle erosion.

While I realize that adultery is a pretty “big” example, this common sense approach can be applied to all of the areas of Our Flesh that we battle against.

Lies. Gossip. Profane talk. Lashing out in anger.

Will this conversation or action that I’m participating in cause me to be tempted to lie about it later? (yikes!)

Is the story I’m about to tell one that I could comfortably tell in the presence of the person it’s about? (ouch!)

The list and examples could go on and on, but I think you see the point:

Refuse to give in by setting up safeguards against the “little” areas before the “big” temptations come. Because, make no mistake, they will. It’s our job to do everything we can to stand against temptation.

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Ephesians 6:13

Written by: Jaime Hlavin
Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant