Spiritual warfare 101
"Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
James 4:7
Notice it says submit to God first.
Then you resist the devil and he will flee.
Let's start with what spiritual warfare is not:
It is not praying against people or your perception of undesirable circumstances.
It is not yelling at Satan or his demons.
It is not protesting with signs, and it has nothing to do with the politics of men.
Despite what you have probably been told, prayer by itself is not spiritual warfare either.
I couldn't even list the number of times I've prayed from my flesh and not my spirit. How can someone pray the will of heaven when their heart and mind are set on loving this world?
The answer is simply, you cannot.
Do I dare believe I have the mind of Christ while living only for myself?
No, of course not, but yet that's typically the carnal and worldly thinking that has permeated so many I have met.
False teachers and false prophets everywhere, selling people the doctrines of demons that they can declare and decree their own will while never addressing the hidden pride and rebellion in their hearts.
Let that sink in,
does it apply to you?
Death to the flesh.
That doesn't sell books or tickets to a conference, and it definitely does not gain you a following.
Have we truly become so arrogant in the Western church that we now believe God will do whatever we want when we want?
How in the world have we gotten so far from the sermon on the mount, that the advice given in most Christian circles directly opposes the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself?
Whoever has ears, let them hear.
Spiritual warfare is what happens naturally when an individual lives in a state of submission to Jesus Christ as King.
This is how the Kingdom of Heaven advances.
What does that look like?
It looks like walking in obedience to Him, His commands, His voice, and His teachings from the four gospels.
It looks like living our entire life for Him and His pleasure alone.
Not from a guilty works based compulsion seeking to earn His love, but rather from a heart that simply adores Him and trusts Him.
We love Him because He first loved us; while we were His enemies He died for us.
Those that truly love Jesus have had a revelation of who He is and what He has done for us.
Obedience is His love language, at least that's what the new Testament teaches.
We are His friends if we practice what He taught. This is how we love God, and this is what sets us apart from the world.
This is also how the love of God is perfected in us, through submission to the authority of Jesus in our lives.
It's not about a perfect performance, It's about whose side you are on.
Whose side are you on?
Do you know that I meet people who have been professing Christians for 20 years who have never even attempted to practice the teachings of Jesus? They don't even know what He taught or commanded except "love your neighbor as yourself".
They don't even know what that means yet they quote it like it's a get out of jail card. Most with this kind of thinking about God and grace say they are led by the spirit, while they themselves walk in ways that are completely in contradiction to what Jesus taught.
Am I now a teacher of the law?
Maybe, but are we not all under the law of Christ?
It's not easy for someone who is not born again to walk in Christ's way; heck, it's not easy for someone that is born again unless they are engaging their will to simply submit themselves to Him.
The flesh is always opposed to the Spirit.
Jesus is always right.
His ways are always right, and we have no right to look for loop holes or ways out from under it. I must die. He must live; Jesus Christ is King.
When we actually live in submission to Him, something beautiful begins to happen. We start walking in the Spirit, we start bearing fruit, and the tares within our minds and our emotions begin to fall away. We are made alive as His life becomes ours.
It's only when we submit to Jesus that we gain unshakable peace, unlike those in the world shaking around us.
We carry a hope that no present circumstances can rob us of.
We are filled with a love that will sacrifice everything we have for the one in front of us that's in need.
We live to share the treasure we have found in Jesus because Jesus is actually the treasure we share!
We have given Jesus Christ our lives to do as He wills.
The Kingdom of Heaven dwells within us.
We are blood-bought citizens of His Kingdom, and we have gone to war on our old ways and patterns of thinking, about life and about Him.
This is spiritual warfare, and we enforce His will on earth by only one means, our own simple obedience to the King.
So again let whoever has ears hear;
Spiritual warfare is what happens naturally when an individual lives in a state of submission to Jesus Christ as King. This is how the Kingdom of Heaven advances.
Whose side are you really on?
🔥❤🔥
For those who need scriptures to back this up I present the following:
James wrote,
"Don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it."
James 1:22-25
Peter wrote,
"As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance."
1 Peter 1:14
"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep."
2 Peter 2:1-3
John wrote,
"By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome."
1 John 5:2-3
"And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son."
2 John 1:6-9
Paul wrote,
"For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselvesFor the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."
2 Timothy 4:3-4
"Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ"
Galatians 6:2
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death."
Romans 8:1-2
"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
Colossians 2:8
"If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain."
1 Timothy 6:3-5
Jesus Himself said,
"You are my friends if you do what I command you."
John 15:14
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments"
John 14:15
"Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?"
Luke 6:46
"If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."
John 14:23
"Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."
John 14:21
"If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love."
John 15:10
"As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience."
Luke 8:15
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Matthew 7:24-29
"False christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect."
Matthew 24:24
Can you still have any doubts?
It's time to pick a side,
because time is running out and satan, we'll he owns the fence.
🔥❤🔥
