Spiritual Battlefield

Told to be STRONG in the POWER of HIS might, we are told to put on HIS ARMOR!

Eph 6:10  Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.
Eph 6:11  Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.


The WHOLE ARMOR of GOD.

Whose armor?

GOD'S!

How much of the armor?

The WHOLE armor!

We are NOT told to put on our own armor. We are not told to put on some of the armor. We haven't been instructed to take just the boots and put them on, and we haven't been told to just pick up the shield, and maybe grab the helmet.  We are told quite plainly to put on the WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD.

This isn't just any ol' armor. This isn't armor we can manufacture all by ourselves and yet we really do believe that we can fight protected by ourselves. We do! Don't deny it! We believe we can fight the battle ourselves, off our own accord. We believe we have to fight all by ourselves and yet we are NEVER told to do that, not once!

When a person fights physically they have to use their own strength, their own cunning, their own smarts. A person who is jumped from behind is at a disadvantage and yet we have self-defense classes that can teach someone how to fight, even when they are jumped from behind. Some people train a lot to become great fighters. We can watch many television movies depicting great fighters, some unbelievably so. These fighters seem to be able to defeat enemy after enemy, taking a few licks here and there but overall they are victorious. Yet you have to ask yourself this one question- would they be any good at fighting had they not trained their bodies and minds to fight? How many people are just naturally amazing at fighting? Not too many. You might get the huge guy who knows how to swing his might into knocking out someone in one punch, but even he would fall victim to the trained fighter, right?

We can agree that a really good fighter is one who is trained, yes? There isn't a whole lot to debate there. To say the trained fighter wouldn't be very good compared to the untrained would be kind of crazy.  So if we can agree that someone who fights physical battles needs to be trained, why can't we agree that someone who fights spiritual battles needs to be trained?  Seriously. Spiritually trained for the spiritual battle.

The thing about physical fighting is that the majority of people I know do not have to EVER engage in that sort of fighting, not ever.

However, every single person I know HAS to engage in the Spiritual warfare taking place all around them.

The thing is- with spiritual warfare- often the ones who are losing this battle don't appear to even be the least bit injured and that's because it's a spiritual injury unseen, just as those we are battle with are unseen--

Eph 6:12  For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Not flesh and blood. We aren't out there with our fists facing a flesh and blood enemy. Some of the deepest spiritual cuts will leave a person spiritually dead but thriving physically.  We can't tell when someone has been killed spiritually, we often don't have a single clue when a person has been spiritually wounded and is near spiritual death.

While we fight in this battle of the Spiritual kind, we are not allowed to see the spiritual bruises upon each other. Those living in the spiritual realm- God, His Son, the Holy Spirit, and the angels- good and evil- they see, they know, they can spiritually discern our spiritual state of being.

We are unique beings truly unique- flesh/blood/spirit beings.  Not a single angel will ever have true flesh and blood, they may take on the appearance of such, but they will never be real flesh and blood. God the Father has never taken on flesh and blood, but through His Son He knows, truly knows all it means to be flesh and blood. God the Son took on human flesh and blood, becoming flesh, blood, and spirit like we are.

We have to truly realize the spiritual aspect to our lives. Satan would have us ignore it completely as if it doesn't exist at all, but God tells us differently.

We are even told we will fight against those in the spiritual realm, those who have gone bad and desire to destroy our spiritual life.

So while we cannot see these spiritual foes, we can know they exist.  Is it an unfair fight because we cannot see our enemy? No. It's not unfair because we equally cannot see our ADVOCATES, our champions, our helpers.

We are told we must align with the ADVOCATE, the ONE who secured our victory.

We will be beaten and bruised but we can never lose the spiritual war not if we are aligned with our CHAMPION.  Yes, we will be called to fight against the spiritual evil that would tear us away from our alignment with the Spiritual Champion. It is only by staying aligned that we have hope and the spiritual evil wants to sever that alignment.

You'd think it'd be a cinch, putting ourselves on the side of the winners, when the war has been won. But we are on the battleground and we are at risk of being taken away from the winning side.  Spiritually seduced away from that winning side and made to believe that the losing side is really the winning side. In fact many will tell you how it seems the evil cheaters, liars, corrupt people seem to have a lot more wealth and prosperity than those who are not corrupt, cheating liars.  Many will say that their lives seem to be much easier when they aren't fighting against evil, and it's true their lives may seem to be better, easier, less stressful, but that's an awful evil façade of the spiritual evil one.

We live upon a spiritual battlefield and we can't let the spiritual evil lull us into blinding ourselves to that TRUTH.

By the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR more on this tomorrow.

All in HIS AMAZING LOVE! By HIS GRACE and MERCY, HIS FORGIVENESS, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS!!!!!!!