I believe in spiritual warfare. We are warned numerous times in the Bible by many different authors that as Christians, we should be poised for attack. In 1 Peter, Peter writes to remind Christians to:
“Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 NLT
Paul talks about the Armor God has supplied us with
11 “Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil. 12 For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.” Ephesians 6:11-12 AMP
Yes we should be aware of spiritual attacks, and yes, God provides “Armor” for our battles. In the battle we should know:
To speak truth against Satan’s lies
God claims us righteous,
We need to fight to not fail in our faith
Know we have salvation
And offensively we:
Use the word of God.
But the question I ask is - Is every problem, mental or physical, we have a demonic attack?
We can go from one extreme to the other on this subject. For me the words demonic attack conjure up images of the movie from my teen years- The Exorcist; scared the bee-gee-bees out of me. There are people that think every bad thing that happens, every sin you commit is from the devil or demons and that they need to be cast out.
The other side is to totally ignore that it even exists despite the bible clearly tells us that it is real. I fall in the middle trying to achieve a balance . Things I consider are- Jesus healed some, and cast demons out of some. That tells me that not every issues had a demon attached to it. So Paul’s writings in Ephesians is to help us not only with the spiritual world, but to help us fight in the flesh our desire to sin in freewill.
I believe to fight spiritual warfare :
We are to rely on God’s power not our own.
Protect ourselves with the armor God has provided.
Cast out what needs to be cast out and pray for strength to get through the things that don’t need rebuking.
Grow your relationship with God
Remain humble in your relationship with God so that if you do need to rebuke something, you can do so in Jesus’ name and not try to do it in your own.
To be continued....
Note:
Today I will be seeing a Doctor and will gladly pass on to you what I learn from him. Until then, our Pastor is preaching a series called “Overwhelmed”. He shared this link on Face Book last week from New Spring Church’s blog. Pastor Perry Noble is the author of the book Overwhelmed and lead Pastor of the church. This blog is written by Devin Stowers, and provides good information to keep in mind when dealing with someone you love that is depressed.
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