Victory is Ours

When I see tragedy happen to those who are serving God, I don't see it as a sign that God somehow forgot to protect them. I don't see it as a sign that... well maybe that person had something they were hiding that was bad or maybe that person wasn't good enough to deserve protection. I don't see it as a sign that God must somehow be complacent about these events and can't be bothered with their petty outcomes. I don't see it as that person must have somehow deserved it, right? Or else why would God allow this to happen?

What I see is a child of God that is succeeding at winning souls for God, at changing the lives of others for good, at having a dramatic positive influence in the lives of those around them. A child, who is waging an effective war against the enemy.

What I see is war. Spiritual warfare is waging all around us, every moment of every day. And regardless of whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, or whether or not we choose to engage in it purposefully; we do not negate its presence by our ignorance. We are caught in the grips of a war with our souls and the souls of others left in the balance. And unless we acknowledge and understand our enemy and the weapons he uses, we are helpless to win (or rather to take hold of our victory).

The father of lies is skilled in the art of spiritual warfare; and his lies are the 50 cal machine gun of his arsenal. His sole purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. He is a master at his chosen occupation and knows his enemy and what it takes to bring them down to their knees. His attacks are waged in the recesses of our minds, clothed in enough half-truths to keep us confused, doubting, and vulnerable.

"If you'd have done this, this other thing wouldn't have happened. If you were really favored and protected by God, he wouldn't have allowed this to happen. You don't deserve God's favor and protection. You aren't a mighty warrior for God, you can't even protect your own family. You're not really loved and accepted by God unless you do this. You yelled at your kids (spouse) last night, God's not going to use you for this. If you really had the power of Christ at your disposal, this wouldn't have happened." ......and on and on and on.

This battle is fought and won within our minds, and its root is based in what we believe. What we believe to be true is what we speak over ourselves and is what comes to pass. And what we believe with our minds cannot alone protect us against this warfare unless our spirit man believes also. But the real truth that we must arm ourselves with, is that in our smallness, we aren't able (or supposed) to fully understand and make sense of the mind of God; therefore, we can't judge him based on our experience, we can't second guess him based on attacks from the enemy - we must simply have faith and believe that he doesn't make mistakes and nothing surprises him. We must arm our minds with his word and believe in its truth with our minds, our souls, our bodies and our spirits. And the most important truth in every situation is that Jesus has already defeated Satan, death, sickness and curses on the cross.

And the only lie that has power over us is the one we give life to through our belief.

Jesus has wiped out the room full of ninja assassins and left the front door open for you to escape. If you stay in the room, mesmerized at how many ninjas there were, and how much danger you were in, or what color the paint on the wall is, or distracted by your (kids, spouses, friends family) in the room screaming bloody murder that we're all going to die, or believe that the devil standing in our open doorway has the power to stop you from walking through - then you are stuck in that room. Let me put it another way.

Jesus has defeated our enemy in every way and left a clear way out for us. The room is our experience and everything we experience in it are the lies the enemy tries to use to keep us trapped within our room. We are too distracted by his lies to escape (which sounds daunting, except it's really just to walk out the front door); we are distracted by how many things and what types of things are attacking us; we are distracted by our pain in the moment to take hold of God's promises and Jesus' victory; we are distracted by the world around us (the paint on the wall), in all it's glitz and glamour, and we think that's our escape and our reward; we are distracted by everyone else's feelings, thoughts and opinions of us to take hold of the truth of who we are in Christ; and most of all, we believe that the prisons we are in are predetermined and inescapable, and we don't realize the devil that is standing in our way has already been defeated. And the reality of that lies in what we believe to be true.

For every lie we replace with truth, we win that battle. For every fiery dart of the enemy we extinguish with the truth, we exercise our spiritual muscle (faith) and are strengthened in the promises spoken for us. But if the word of God remains only intellectual theology and are just abstract thoughts, concepts, and principles that we can pat on the head and say "good boy" to, then that's the limit to the power it will have in our lives. If we believe the word of God is true, that we are wholly loved, beloved and accepted by God, that our prayers move the throne room of God, that we have inherited all that belongs to Christ, that we can never, ever earn his love but receive it as a free gift, and that we have the power to walk in the victories Christ has secured for us (freedom from sickness, death, despair and emotional imprisonment), then it will be so. And the key isn't whether or not God wants us to have that power, or whether or not he's willing to freely give it to us - it's already been done - we simply have to claim it, believe it, and speak it over our lives to walk in it.

So in this bloody, battlefield of spiritual warfare that is our lives, we must renew the spirit of our minds continually in our training. We must teach ourselves to call forth what is not as if it is; to not believe our emotions, our experience and our failures but to take hold of the promises of the word of God and insert them as reality into our lives through the act of speaking them; and to believe in those promises regardless of what we hear, see, feel, and experience. When we implement and practice this in every area of our lives, we will begin to see our lives transformed by the power of God; we will no longer be helpless victims of an enemy that has already been defeated, but we will walk in the reality of victory because we believe we live, breathe, love and serve from a place of victory, not to obtain victory. So I say to my loved ones, my friends, my brothers in Christ; upward and onward - let us take hold of victory in our own lives and come together in agreement for victory in each others lives.