Tag Archive - spiritual warfare

Be fiercely at peace

May 21, 2009 • 0 Comments

From BobHamp.com

Their rifles leaned agains the tables and chairs in the middle of the restaurant, the four young ladies seemed unaware of our fascination. The eight of us had never been to Israel before, and had not yet gotten used to the ongoing, open display of weaponry. We were beginning to aim our cameras when our tour guide stopped us. Were we being culturally inappropriate? Giving away wartime secrets? Exposing these soldiers to dangerous exposure? “No”, he said, “It’s just that they are not soldiers, they are secretaries.”

We discovered that regardless of their role, everyone in the army is required to carry their weapon at all times. A few visits later this rule came into focus when my friend picked me up from my hotel. It seems that on his route to the office a terrorist had jumped on a piece of construction machinery and driven it into traffic, trying to do as much damage as possible. A nearby off-duty officer leveled his weapon and saved an unknown number of lives because he was armed and prepared for an attack.

The citizens of Israel live in a constant state of readiness. The nation is surrounded by hostile enemies. These enemies often attack internally using stealth and surprise rather than frontal assaults. Notice I said, “readiness” and not “fear”. Readiness simply means alert, armed and prepared. It is amazing how being convinced that the enemy is real and among them keeps them prepared for engagement.

They do not dwell on the battle, nor does the battle define them. They live ready. In many ways, they are more fully alive because they are aware that an enemy lives among them . It is a fact of life, for which the entire nation and every individual has prepared. The enemy among them does not prevent them from living in freedom. They refuse to surrender the daily lives they live and the callings they fulfill.

For us to step fully into the life we live on earth, we must remain alert and ready. The battle is all around us. It should not define us, but we must remain alert.

You carry in you something that the enemy of your soul fears and hates. You carry the image of God Himself. In the deep places of your heart, a flame burns with love, and unshakeable joy. Unchanging peace, and unwavering compassion, these are all your birthright as a born-again child of God. Theses attributes in your heart burn to be expressed in your life. From the inside out, God intends for His nature to flow through you to the world around you. The world around you will try to push it back. Be prepared to defend it. Remain loving, be fiercely at peace. Love so much that the room you step into is changed by it. Engage the world with the kind of compassion that heals shrunken hearts. And be prepared to be attacked.

The devil wants to take the territory of your heart before it overflows into the geography you occupy. Keep your weapons nearby, be sure your training is current. Though the war does not define us, failure to engage could prevent us from living our defined purpose.

Remember we are at war and live in earth-shaking peace.

I know why you’re reading this

May 16, 2009 • 0 Comments

From bobhamp.com

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Paul the Apostle: The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

Morpheus: You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?

I know why you’re reading this. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something, on the tip of your mind, just out of reach. You know if you could reach it, remember it, see it, suddenly all the pieces would fall into place. Not only would life begin to make sense, but all the things that seem to be missing would arrive. You look aroundand long for something; you are not even sure what it is. If you turn off the electronic stimulus long enough your awareness grows. Something is just not as it should be. Why can’t we fix it? Worse, why can’t we see it?

Adam and Eve could see what we cannot. The natural world and the spiritual world together. We are flying blind. But not as blind as we fear. The world we cannot see, the world intertwined with our daily life is not entirely invisible. It is simply “visible” (perceivable) through a different channel of input. The visible world is full of distraction. Focus. Not your eyes, not even the ears you are thinking of. Use your eyes that see. Tune in your ears that hear. You sense it… stop, still your heart, focus, and tune in.

What if you could see the hearts of men? What if God were communicating about a set of events yet to transpire? What if the real meaning of the moment you’re in were being broadcast on AM and you had the FM tuned in? Slow down. Ask the question at the most unlikely times, “God where are you now, what are you saying now?” Don’t just ask during your quiet time, ask during the argument. Ask in the middle of the businees deal. Ask at the electronics store.

I know why you are reading this… a part of you longs for something more than you have. What if you have it, but you didn’t realize it. What if the thing you are most hungering for is in the room with you, but you are using the wrong senses to search.

Think differently.



Replacing lies with truth

May 12, 2009 • 0 Comments

From Alan Smith’s Blog

Luke 4:18-19

    The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me
    Because He has anointed Me
    To preach the gospel to the poor;
    He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
    To proclaim liberty to the captives
    And recovery of sight to the blind,
    To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
    To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.

Freedom is not defined by what is absent but by Who is present. But this in no way minimizes the reality that in many ways we might still be poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind, and oppressed. Jesus brings good news, healing, liberty, and sight. God is in the process of transforming us by revealing to us by the Spirit who he is and who we are in him. Often this process is hindered by things in our life which need to be removed and then replaced with his truth. These hindrances fall broadly into three categories: the flesh, the world, and the devil.

The world is the environment in which we’ve lived all our lives, including our culture, families, church experiences, media, and many other aspects related to living on planet earth. The devil, along with a host of demonic beings, is at war against God’s purposes within our world and our lives. My flesh is simply the physical body in which I live, including the amazingly complex computer known as my central nervous system. This computer has been largely programmed by my sin nature, previous life experiences, and the deception of the enemy regarding what those experiences mean about who God is and who I am.

Bondage in our lives does not result directly from what we have experienced. The computer of our flesh is deeply programmed, not by what we’ve experienced within the world, but by our agreement with what the devil has told us regarding what those experiences mean. What happened to us (the world) is not our problem What we believe (the flesh) about what happened to us is our problem. Our enemy (the devil) is the father of those lies.

So, spiritual warfare is essentially a war between light and darkness, between truth and deception. I empower one or the other by my agreement. To the degree I agree with the enemy’s deception regarding the events of my life, I empower the enemy in my life. These false beliefs are the primary hindrance to God’s purpose and freedom. As I learn to hear God’s voice, and discover the truth about who God is and who I am, the core lies I have believed about God and myself are identified and replaced with truth.

I respond to the Holy Spirit first of all by confessing and renouncing the lies he is helping me identify and secondly, confessing and embracing the truth he reveals to me about who he is and who I am.

Mind war

October 26, 2008 • 0 Comments

When I take the time to dig deep into the areas of my life that are struggling, it always comes back to my thoughts, my mind. I am growing more convinced that our spiritual battle is waged in our minds.

If the enemy can convince you of something, and you believe it, then he’s got you. Belief is the tool God uses to release his power on the earth. And the devil knows that, so he also uses our belief in a counterfeit way to release his hellish power into our lives.

Jesus said, “Have faith in God. I assure you that you can say to this mountain, ‘May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,’ and your command will be obeyed. All that’s required is that you really believe and do not doubt in your heart. Listen to me! You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you will have it.” (Mark 11:22-24).

When Jesus said, “Have faith in God”, he was simply saying, “Believe.” He didn’t say go and do something. He said to believe. That starts in our mind.

The key to victory in any area of your life starts with your thoughts. What you think about leads to action. What you believe about yourself, about your situation, about others will come to pass. And, it’s not those one-time random thoughts that will come to pass—it’s those constant, pounding, never-ending thoughts that you focus on and believe that will come to pass.

  • I’ll never beat this depression.
  • I’ll always be a failure.
  • My marriage won’t last.
  • My grandpa died from cancer, so I’ll probably die from cancer.

“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).

We’ve got to stop accepting these thoughts like they are our own! We must “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). We must hunker down and wage this mental war as fiercely as it’s being waged against us by the devil.

To overcome any issue in your life, you must change the way you think and believe. This is what God commands us to do throughout scripture:

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is” (Romans 12:2).

We must let God change the way we think about things, then we’ll really know what his will is for our lives.

As I wrote and finished this post, I thought, It sure would be good to share a real-life, practical example of this in my own life.

So, here it goes. When I was a kid, I had these episodes of fear that were incredibly intense. Terrifying. They would often manifest themselves in panic attacks, agoraphobia and sheer terror. This went on for years. In college, I was officially diagnosed with “Chronic Anxiety and Panic Disorder”. At this time, I wasn’t really a Christian. I pretty much believed every thought that came into my mind.

In 1991, I became a Christian, but it wasn’t until years later that I learned this principal of faith and thoughts. I started a website ministry called Season of Peace for Christians battling anxiety and panic attacks.

Throughout this condition, I constantly battled negative thoughts. I will never get free from this. These kinds of things run in the family. There’s no hope for me. I guess I’ll just have to live with this. I’ll probably need medication the rest of my life.

Any of that sound familiar? But, in 2000, I experienced this mind change. God showed me that I can change things by changing the way I think about them. I don’t have to live like this. God whispered into my heart, “You can be free.” And, here’s the key: I believed him.

Shortly after that revelation, I started believing in freedom. I started to believe that I don’t have to live my life in fear, or fear of the fear. I don’t have to rely on medication the rest of my life, like my doctor said. I can believe God.

Today, it has been more than eight years since that revelation, and life is awesome! No more panic attacks. No more crippling anxiety. No more fear.

God spoke to my heart, and I believed him. The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Jesus came that we might have life and life more abundantly (John 10:10).

Thank you, Lord, for my freedom in Christ.

A Conceived Thought

October 18, 2008 • 0 Comments

The biggest battle we face as humans is this war of the mind. Thoughts lead to action. So if the enemy can direct our thoughts, then he’s won.

Think about it for a moment. Where does temptation start?

    Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death (James 1:14, 15).

It starts in our thoughts, our evil desires. And when “desire has conceived”, the result is sin. A conceived thought. Using pregnancy as the obvious analogy, our mind is like the egg, fertile and ready to receive the seed. But, what are these seeds?

Here’s what the Bible says in Luke 8:11, “The seed is the word of God.” We are to plant God’s word into our minds so that we are impregnated with seeds of life. If we let the enemy plant his seeds, then it will give birth to sin and sin brings for death.

(Remember the parable of the wheat and the tares? There were two seed sowers. “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.” Matthew 13:24, 25.)

I’ve really been thinking about this a lot lately. Are there any sins that are fully active in your life right now, habitual sins like lust, pride, lying, fornication, drinking, anger or something you know is not right?

I am becoming more and more convinced that even as a Christian, habitual sins will lead to death. Not a spiritual death, because your spirit is new in Christ. But, if you do not take steps to overcome your habitual sins, they will destroy your soul, which will in turn destroy your body. Sin has consequences.

When we start entertaining thoughts in our head, eventually the thought will take root in our mind. And, the conceived thought will continue to grow in our mind, maybe in a matter of minutes. Maybe years. But, once conceived, it’ll grow until it gives birth to action. Sin. Or, until you uproot that thought.

Is there hope? Can we overcome these “evil desires” and “conceived thoughts”? I think so. But, it takes discipline. Read this promise carefully. The key is here:

    For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for 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, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled (2 Corinthians 10:3-6).

We must train and discipline our mind to “bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”. We must learn to “cast down arguments” and everything that tries to position itself higher than Christ in our thoughts. If you don’t fight this, then “you are a slave to whatever we choose to obey” (Romans 6:16).