The reality of the Christian warfare

Why the Christian walk is considered as Warfare:
As the apostle Paul starts to exhort the church in Ephesus, he made known to them
the reason for their alienation from the world by God; He says “According as he
hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy
and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). He also in the course of
the exhortation tell the intention of God for all growing Christians; that God wants
us to come to a unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, unto a
perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians
4:13).
The devil does not want us to grow to this fullness because he knows that if we do,
we will be totally out of his reach. It is good to belong to Christ and have the hope
of obtaining the beautiful promises of the word of God: but the devil knows that as
long as we are babes we will not be able to access the riches which are ours in
Christ. So then the devil wants us to remain children so that he can toss us here and
there (Eph. 4:14); making sure we never become much aware of our privileges and
promises in Christ. He, as much as God wants us to get to that stature of the
fullness of Christ, wants to restrict and keep us in bondage forever.
So that whether we like it or not, as Christians we must prepare to fight; to defend
our heritage because our enemy indeed is like a roaring lion, seeking that which he
may devour. We need to fight and defend our identity lest Satan denies us the very
privileges we are entitled to as Sons according to God’s promise.
Weapons involved in this warfare:
Now, warfare is characterized by weapons where both parties need to prepare their
arms strategically to be up to the task. Also, both parties need a good analysis of
the weapons of his opponent to help in counteracting those weapons. In our case,
what are the weapons involved?
Paul makes it clear that we are fighting not against flesh and blood but against
principalities, powers, rulers of the dark world and spiritual wickedness (Eph.
6:12). You could see clearly that none of these forces mentioned can be tangibly
realized; they are either schemes or something that we cannot behold or fight
physically. All this forces implement but a single weapon which according to the
Bible is masterminded by Satan, and that weapon is deception. You can see that for
your self throughout the whole New Testament but where Paul created the
awareness of war in the book of Ephesians he used fiery darts (KJV), flaming
arrows as used in NIV.
How Satan implements his weapons:
Let us see how the devil implements this weapon against Christians. The word of
God makes us understand that if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, old things
have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17): this
quotation supposes that if one was a sinner; be it a prostitute, a murderer, an
occultist, or even on the ‘least recognizable’ state of sinfulness, the moment he
comes to Christ all the terrible things he did before are no more remembered by
God. Yet there are instances that the devil present those pictures and tell us that we
cannot be righteous because of those deedshe
makes it appear that we will
never be forgiven our misdeeds. This is a typical deception which could lead one
to condemnation and self intimidation, even unto death!
Also, there are instances when Christians encounter serious calamities and the
devil makes them think they will never come out of such a situation and yet the
Bible says that the expectation of the righteous will never be cut short (Prov.
23:18) the
devil will want to tell you at that point that you are a failure and prove
to you that God’s word is not realistic.
More so, there are cases when the devil will challenge our ability to bear fruits.
There are many people in the church today who are very good but they have never
thought of preaching to other people about Christ although they know it is good to
be in Christ; you know why? They have been deceived by Satan to think they are
not capable or they are introverts; yet the word of God says that when the Holy
spirit come upon you, you shall have power and witness Christ everywhere (Acts
1:8). Beloved, these are few implementations of that same weapondeception!
There are various other ways he uses the same tool to blindfold Christians which
we must watch out and quench.
Our side of the warfare as Christians:
Because of how versatile this weapon has been to the devil, many people think the
devil is so powerful that he can not be stopped; even some Christians do believe
that Satan is powerful than they are. But beloved we want to tell you that we have
only talked about one side of the warfarethat
side of Satan. Now see our side of
the warfare!
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God in pulling down
strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against
the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ” ( 2Corinthians 10:45).
Beloved this is the summary of what our weapons
are capable of doing as Paul describes. In the book of Ephesians he clearly states
the weapons which are embodied in the whole armor of God.
If you read the account in Ephesians 6 from the verses 10 you realize that Paul first
tells us to put on the whole armor of God; he could have ended there after
mentioning the armor, but he took the pain to describe the whole armor. The
reason he did this was to make sure we know the various implementations of our
weapons. You know that if the devil tries one plan and loses he goes back and
plans again; but the armor of God is so perfect that if properly implemented, the
devil will always go back “wounded”. Paul therefore wanted us to know how to
utilize every component of the armor and so it is worth that description. Now let us
look at the benefits of each part of the whole armor of God:
The first part he mentions is the belt of truth. Beloved, deception always set in
where there is no truth and the outcome is disastrous; for instance if you were to be
told that the lions in the zoo do not eat human flesh no matter how long they have
been starving, it will have been a great deception because the moment you get
exposed to starving lions, you are doomed! There are things in the spiritual realms
which we must understand like this; so that we will not commit spiritual suicide
just as we will not enter the zoo of starved lions. Jesus knew that such disasters
could befall those of us who lack truth, which is why he sought that we be
sanctified by the word of God which is the truth (John 17:17). Look at what the
apostle Paul wrote “Who (God) will have all men to be saved, and to come unto
the knowledge of the truth” (1Timothy 2:4). It is prudent for us to know that God
does not only wants us to be saved but to know the truth; why? Because God
knows if we have no good basis of our salvation we are not established in Him yet,
the devil will toss us with little knowledge of the truth on our part. For example, if
you are a believer facing problems that though you are born again, your sins are
still remembered by God as I did describe above, let me show you the belt of truth
in this direction. Kindly, turn to Heb. 8: 12 “For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more”.
Hope you caught that. Let us therefore dig deep into God’s word, to understand
and possess the truth of every concept of our Christian lives by the grace given by
the Blessed Eternal Spirit.
Next let us deal with the breastplate of righteousness. Righteousness in God is not
about ones own right living; it transcends morality and what people will consider
right. I mean it is so huge a thing to possess; yet ‘it lies at the door step’ of
everyone who accepts Jesus as Lord and savior. All that we as Christians ought to
do is be conscious of this truth and apply it; please accept this truth and I tell you
that you are righteous; in other words this is the definition to righteousness“
For
he has made him (Jesus) to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made
the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Our sins have been
forgiven us through Jesus’ death on the cross and God had also made provision for
us that as long as we know, we cannot sin (2 Peter 1:3 &1John 3:9). If the devil
should come to accuse us of any past sin, all we need to do is to refer him to the
fact that we are righteous because of Jesus’ work on the crossthis
is one way we
can use the breastplate of righteousness in warfare. The more conscious we are
about this the more we can attach right living to this imputed righteousness and
gradually heading towards perfection. The problem in our age is that many have
set themselves up to be so sinconscious.
We need to remember that whatever you
set your gaze on is exactly what influences you. No wonder the scriptures exhort us
to set our gaze away from all things unto Jesus (Heb. 12:1). He is become our
righteousness, hallelujah.
Preparation of the gospel of peace; The Amplified translation of Ephesians 6:15 is
helpful:
"And having shod your feet in preparation [to face the enemy with the firmfooted
stability, the promptness, and the readiness produced by the good news] of the
Gospel of peace" Ephesians 6:15.
I believe that for you to fight and win a battle, stability is a very important factor.
One needs firmness in his grounds to project his weapons on the right target. There
comes the need for us to prepare ourselves on our grounds to face the devil.
Beloved what then is our ground as Christians if it is important for us here? It is the
stability the word of God provides; stability by the word of God has to do with
whether we are comforted by the word of God, whether the word of God provides
peace for us by default. See this "Therefore, since we have been justified through
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we
have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we
rejoice in the hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:12
NIV). So then before we
zoom into warfare we must have gotten hope in the word of God, to get us ready to
attack or defend with all confidence; shoes of readiness! It means that in our entire
walk we must endeavor to draw comfort and peace in the word and proclaim our
freedom often; in so doing we are always convinced that we are victorious and can
never be condemned by Satan.
Now let us look at the shield of faith; physically a shield is usually a metallic
surface which is held by the soldiers of the old Roman Empire with which they
intercept arrows thrown by their opponents. See how Paul put it in scripture:
“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the
fiery darts of the wicked” Ephesians 6 verse 16. Now we believe all this while that
Paul was inspired by God to describe the whole armor, part by part. Now why did
he use “above all” for one part; faith? It is important for us to note that although
none of these parts of the armor is inferior, faith stands out as prerequisite.
That is
why Jesus was always baffled about mankind; at one instant he said “Oh faithless
and perverse generation how long shall I be with you?” (Mathew 17:17). He meant
that before one could be successful, he needed faith. Paul in his desire for Israel to
be saved as he says in Romans 10, made mention of the fact that the people were
trying to establish a righteousness of their own; by then the righteousness which is
based on God is through faith without which no one will see the Lord. Again, the
Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). We
must believe first that God exist and accept without questions, everything He says
concerning Himself; whether it makes sense to us or not! All the other parts of
the armor are activated by means of faith because they are all spiritual
realities which are not physically tangible. But have faith that if you confess that
the peace of God is in your heart, it is there without doubt. In the same manner
although we were not there when Christ died on the cross, we must accept this
truth in faith. Again without faith prayer is useless; because we can not see God,
yet by faith we know he hears our prayer. So you see why without faith it is
impossible to please God? Beloved faith is indeed a shield!
Next we discuss the helmet of salvation: a helmet is also a pure protective device
with which the warrior will cover the head regions. The head is the controller of
the whole body; in scripture we find Jesus to be the head of the church unto whom
all of us cling (Ephesians 5:23) Jesus
is our controller! In like manner if you pick
the body of a person, in this case a Christian, although it is the Spirit which
controls our entirety it is good to know that it is the information analyzed by the
mind which makes up the spiritAs
a man thinks so he is (Prov. 23:7)! If God
wants us to change he transforms us from our mind; that is why we read in
Ephesians 4 from verses 23 that we should be renewed in the spirit of our minds. In
fact before one becomes born again, it is the mind which first processes the
salvation message. Because of this, if the devil wants to attack he deals with the
mind too. He throws something to you for you to battle with in the mind; he can
catch you if you are not protected. For us to be protected therefore we need the
helmet of salvation which grand us victory. The moment we consciously accept
Jesus Christ we have the ability to overcome wrong thoughts or sinful thoughts;
this is another advantage we have over those in the world. We can resist Satan
(James 4:7) but the world cannot resist him because he is the master of all people
in his jurisdictionthey
have been crippled in their minds to process every thought
the devil throws to them. In other words, show me a born again Christian and I
will show you he who can avoid, resist and overcome sin. And of course, no one
can access Jesus’ resources as well as the weapons he provides without accepting
him as savoir. Salvation is our guarantee to utilize the armor of God. No doubt the
Bible says that first submit to God, and now you can resist the devil (James 4:7);
you can not do the latter before the former! The long and short of it is that we
should first have the assurance of salvation before we embark on spiritual warfare.
The Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. To illustrate how the word of God
serves as a weapon, Jesus’ temptation is more appropriate. It is good to note that
the whole Bible is not a sword at every circumstance. Not every word is applicable
to silence Satan when he attacks. Let us note carefully that if Jesus did not answer
Satan rightly at the first temptation, Satan would have sailed through and overcome
Jesus right there! At all three cases, Jesus found the appropriate answer which cut
Satan down (Mathew 4). I perceive strongly that it will hence take proper
knowledge of the Bible concepts to answer and over power the devil’s schemes.
What if Jesus after having his way through in the first two temptations could not
answer the devil the third time? It would have been sad! Because the devil is
always planning to cause you and me to fall, we hence also need effective
fellowship with God through His word in other to face the upcoming challenges.
Inasmuch as we are studying the word, we must know how applicable it is in our
lives lest we fumble at the battle ground. A study of the word is really good and
always advisable. However, there is another level where the word (logos) comes
alive in your spirit and stirs spiritual revelation in your inner man. Here then, the
logos word becomes rhema. Rhema is when the written word of God (logos)
comes alive to your spirit and you begin to talk and walk the word out of faith. It is
at this level that the word becomes effectual against the enemy.
Last but not the least, Prayer: prayer is communicating with God which takes
various forms. It could be in the form of declaring what have been said in the Bible
concerning us, or interceding for others and various other ways of inviting God
which are biblical. One will even want to ask; “how do I put on the armor?” To
put on the armor is to be a doer (performer) of the word of God. The fact that you
have accepted Jesus Christ constrains you to warfare but that does not mean that
you have automatically put on the armor; if it were so, Paul wouldn’t instruct the
Ephesians to do that because they were already Christians. Your consciousness
about the things pertaining to the word of God therefore gets it on and that happens
through personal response to the word.
At the close of the description of the armor Paul adds special prayer request for all
saints. He thought it wise because he has been inspired to know that we are
members of the same body and that if something happens to the ear, it affects the
hand and the head. If we don’t intercede for others we will get ourselves with
Christians folks who will rise against us at critical periods. We all need to have the
same faith concerning the truth to make it in this perverse generation. It will be
disastrous if our own colleagues get astray from the faith and we are entangled
with them.
Having knowledge therefore of these things, let us wax strong with the strength
God supplies and defend our victory in Christ till we depart from the body. God
bless you!