This week we’ve considered spiritual warfare. We’ve determined that there are spirits, good and bad. Satan exists; but he’s not as powerful as God. In the end, we win. We know that there is a war going on. We try to understand that much of what we see on the natural level is the result of what is being played out in the spirit realm.” For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12.
We are called to participate in this war. We have a place. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
So where do we start? How do we enlist? How do we get into the game?
PRAY.
I know that we think of prayer as a sideline activity. We think that’s something the spectator does while sitting on the sideline. Maybe that’s because we don’t understand prayer. We still think of prayer as words we say or petitions we make. Sadly that’s often the extend of our prayer life: asking God for things, begging for rescue when we’ve mess things up beyond our ability to fix.
When Jesus said, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” He didn’t mean this kind comes out by asking God and by not eating. He meant only one who prays can successfully confront such an evil. You see when we consider that prayer is really time spent with God and that fasting isn’t not eating, it’s focusing less on the material and more on the spiritual, then things fall into place. The disciples couldn’t cast out that demon because they were still too carnal. They didn’t spend time with the Father like Jesus did. They didn’t concentrate on separating themselves from living in the natural, like Jesus did.
When we spend time with God, not talking but listening, we begin to acquire some of His characteristics. His holiness and His power begin to grow and manifest in us. When we fast, we are concerned less with our bodies and their physical needs and more with our real need, the need for Jesus. We start to become the kind of creature that makes demons tremble. They flee not from us, but the One living in us.
Get in the game, by spending less time in the games of life and more time with the Giver of life. It’s our spiritual boot camp. It’s the place where we learn to fight the only fight that matters.
Pray and be blessed.
NIck
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