well good day. school is done. i'm mentally exhausted and physically dead - not due to any activity, more or less the lack of that is now leading to my demise. i've sat in a chair for 13 hours every day for the past 6 days: i walk up stairs and my heart is telling me that all about the lack of care i've given him. it's a love hate relationship we have; somehow i still get the love that i don't deserve - after all, i don't treat my heart too well. maybe i should? we'll see.
so a weird subject. spiritual warfare. one of the most intriguing topics of my mind. we had a speaker, greg nettle this past week come in and discuss such topics. it's weird. it's scary. it's amazing. it's saddening. the amount of people who pay no attention to it worries me. and i'm one of the people that i'm worried about. it's so real. it's this strange dimension that we can't necessarily explain or define but we know it's there. we can sense it; we feel it; but somehow we still come to ignore it. it's a worrisome item that christians don't give a look into this world. greg nettle talked about the christmas story. not your typical luke 1 and 2 story - but one a bit more intense from revelation 12. it's pretty amazing. here it is:
a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with the child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.
- of course, we see this to be mary.
then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. and his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give brith, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.
and she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there should be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. [about 3.5 years]
and there was a war in heaven, michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. the dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. and the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
-skipping down a bit
and when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. [skipping a bit more - God saved the woman, etc.] so the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. and the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.
well this sounds awfully nice and all but man - does anyone else get taken back by this? this isn't the cute, naive nativity set as we often depicted it as. this is war. the part that gets me the most is this here:
12.17 so the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
do we get what this means? this means that the dragon - aka. satan - has waged war against us. trying to devour us, kill us, lead us away from the testimony of Jesus. and if you don't buy into this warfare than get real. open your eyes - allow Jesus to open your eyes. goodness, your life is being fought for.
so those of us that don't necessarily feel valued. or loved. or cherished. or worth it. know that the God of heaven is battling for your life. and in that truth is the only definition of any of these words.
i've been done with school for 2.5 hours or so. i've learned a handful of things that will help advance the Kingdom of Jesus - and i've felt the attacks and unfortunately i have fallen in the battle. us children of God who are changing lives for the sake of the Gospel have an enormous targets on our backs. a target for the enemy to strike. so go out and make your targets bigger by advancing Jesus' name here on earth. read in ephesians 6 about how to protect yourself against such forces. read in 2 kings 6 to see how God sends His army to fight for you.
we aren't fighting men here. we're fighting things much bigger and stronger than anything we can imagine. cling to Jesus' love. the love that surpasses all knowledge.
let all you do be done in love - 1 corinthians 16.14
Christ has won. so go to Him and let Him fight for you. He is willing. He is good.
bradley.
so a weird subject. spiritual warfare. one of the most intriguing topics of my mind. we had a speaker, greg nettle this past week come in and discuss such topics. it's weird. it's scary. it's amazing. it's saddening. the amount of people who pay no attention to it worries me. and i'm one of the people that i'm worried about. it's so real. it's this strange dimension that we can't necessarily explain or define but we know it's there. we can sense it; we feel it; but somehow we still come to ignore it. it's a worrisome item that christians don't give a look into this world. greg nettle talked about the christmas story. not your typical luke 1 and 2 story - but one a bit more intense from revelation 12. it's pretty amazing. here it is:
a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; and she was with the child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth.
- of course, we see this to be mary.
then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. and his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. and the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give brith, so that when she gave birth he might devour her child.
and she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne. then the woman fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God, so that there should be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days. [about 3.5 years]
and there was a war in heaven, michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. the dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. and the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
-skipping down a bit
and when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. [skipping a bit more - God saved the woman, etc.] so the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. and the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.
well this sounds awfully nice and all but man - does anyone else get taken back by this? this isn't the cute, naive nativity set as we often depicted it as. this is war. the part that gets me the most is this here:
12.17 so the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her children, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.
do we get what this means? this means that the dragon - aka. satan - has waged war against us. trying to devour us, kill us, lead us away from the testimony of Jesus. and if you don't buy into this warfare than get real. open your eyes - allow Jesus to open your eyes. goodness, your life is being fought for.
so those of us that don't necessarily feel valued. or loved. or cherished. or worth it. know that the God of heaven is battling for your life. and in that truth is the only definition of any of these words.
i've been done with school for 2.5 hours or so. i've learned a handful of things that will help advance the Kingdom of Jesus - and i've felt the attacks and unfortunately i have fallen in the battle. us children of God who are changing lives for the sake of the Gospel have an enormous targets on our backs. a target for the enemy to strike. so go out and make your targets bigger by advancing Jesus' name here on earth. read in ephesians 6 about how to protect yourself against such forces. read in 2 kings 6 to see how God sends His army to fight for you.
we aren't fighting men here. we're fighting things much bigger and stronger than anything we can imagine. cling to Jesus' love. the love that surpasses all knowledge.
let all you do be done in love - 1 corinthians 16.14
Christ has won. so go to Him and let Him fight for you. He is willing. He is good.
bradley.
2 comments:
Spiritual Warfare is a scary subject that most Christian's do not dare address or address adequately. What I find disturbing even more than our inability to address such things is our ability to focus on battling symptoms instead of problems. Christians (not all) are unfortunately the first to point out what everyone is doing wrong and begin doing battle with people. It unfortunately is us defining people by their sin instead of the God who created them and who can redeem them. It really is a case of doing battle against symptoms instead of the problem. The problem is the spiritual warfare that we are engaged in day in and day out. It is what we must battle against if we want to see people who love God. I commend you and your professor for seeing what is at hand.
I was talking with a guy the other day about this. He's not sure he even really wants to know how deep this rabbit hole really goes. Is the enemy simply hiding in our culture, maintaining the scientific, knowledgably arrogant attitude of the Western hemisphere? Then there's the flip side - how much of it is me just loving myself to the death? How much is the enemy at work? We should talk about all this sometime.
Post a Comment