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Welcome to the War! There are all kinds of wars going on in the world today. It seems so many nations are not at rest, and the war against terrorism has many people living in fear. However, the war I am referring to is not the war among the nations or the war that is happening in our streets but rather the internal war that every believer has to contend with every day - the forces of evil. As it says in 2 Corinthians 10: 3-5, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (NIV). I believe we are called to begin each day making a decision which side of the fence we are on. God is calling us to be either hot or cold in our devotion to Him and no longer lukewarm (Revelation 3:16). There is a growing need for us to wrestle with the concept of what it means to be truly holy in all we do. As it says in 1 Peter 1:13-16, “So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the special blessings that will come to you at the return of Jesus Christ. Obey God because you are his children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of doing evil; you didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God – who chose you to be his children – is holy. For he himself has said, ‘You must be holy because I am holy’” (New Living Translation). The reason I believe this is important is not so much that we look good on the outside, though the way our light shines is important, but rather so that we can be free to experience all that God has for us. The enemy’s (Satan) primary goal is deception, to take the truth and twist it so in the end we as believers live a frustrated existence where we are questioning God, our faith, and sometimes the reasons why we are even walking down this road. The topic of Spiritual Warfare is very difficult to address, and it is an area in my own life with which I struggle every day. I am learning, though, to be vigilant. The Scriptures warn us of the craftiness of the enemy in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Peter also warns us, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). I believe we have a choice to live either as victorious Christians, enjoying all that God has for us, or live as defeated, hopeless victims. “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not thing he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does” (James 1:5-8). I also believe it is a willingness of our heart to continually be in an attitude of prayer that says, “Father, reveal in me anything that stands in the way of your actively working in my life. Show me any open doors created by my sins either in the past or in the present and also the sins of others that have been done against me that have allowed the enemy to come in and build a stronghold in me.” If we are willing to begin saying this prayer, we then need to take action, either in actively confessing our sins with another believer or going to someone and receiving prayer. The importance of this step is that God is willing to reveal to us anything that is not of Him in our lives, but it is up to us to make the changes in our lives. In the book Alcoholic Anonymous, there is a section that is read at the beginning of many AA meetings, and I believe it is applicable to our situation. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves… There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest…If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it – then you are ready to take certain steps. At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tired to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol – cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power – that One is God. May you find Him now! Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon. Jesus refers to Satan as the “father of lies” (John 8:44). The best way that Satan can fulfill his role is by trying to sell Christians an empty bag of goods. There are so many Christians today, including myself, who struggle with seeing the glass as half empty instead of half full. As I have in the past struggled with this, I would so easily settle for half-measures. I would only invest in my recovery or my relationship with God as long as it was not too painful, too costly, or too uncomfortable. However, God has so much more for us if we would only be willing to go all the way with Him. One of my favorite quotes by C.S. Lewis is found in Mere Christianity, “Christ says ‘Give me ALL. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want YOU. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree torn down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think are wicked – the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’” The first question that needs to be addressed is “What is Spiritual Warfare?” The mention of demons or devils to many people brings up all different kinds of images, and it is important for us to be as Biblical as possible. According to Clinton Arnold in his book 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare, “We are in the midst of a struggle that is far greater than us, but it is not bigger than our God. It involves two warring kingdoms, but the sides are not at all evenly matched. There is no cosmic dualism here, with two opposing gods of near-equal power. The testimony of Scripture from beginning to end is that Yahweh is sovereign…. But there truly is a war. Satan and his forces fiercely pursue their objective of promulgating all forms of evil in the world. This includes, above all, deceiving people and hindering them from grasping the truth about God’s revelation of himself in the Lord Jesus Christ” (23). I will again say - Satan’s biggest tactic against believers is deception. The most that Satan can do is to entice and tempt us to sin. He knows that once we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, he can never own us again. But he will try to deceive us into yielding control of our lives to sin so he can neutralize our growth and impact on others. All believers have three evil influences waging war against us. The first is our flesh, which is the part of our creatureliness, tainted by the fall that remains with us until the day we die. The second is the world, which is simply the social environment in which we live and the constant social and peer pressures we all face each day. Finally, there is the devil, who is constantly at work in our lives, not only inciting sin, but also keeping us from responding to the message of mercy and grace in Christ. It is important to understand that it is very hard to distinguish which of these three influences is directing our behavior; instead, they usually work in concert with one another. It is only through the work and strength of Christ and experiencing His empowering presence that we have hope for escaping the compelling power of these influences. The one other important truth in our battle with these spiritual forces within is that the most important lesson we must learn from this is our absolute need to rely on God and other believers in Christ. In the age we live in, we have all been raised under the motto of “rugged individualism,” where we have been taught self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and personal responsibility. The idea of our depending on anyone is looked down upon. Throughout the New Testament, though we find a call to unity and to be one body as it says in Ephesians 4:15,16, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body,joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in live, as each part does its work.” So in closing, I would like to challenge each one of us including myself to begin to search our innermost beings in prayer, that we may ask God, our most gracious Father, to help us make sure we are living from our true selves, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24). Also we must begin to more fully understand the battle that we are in and embrace it. The importance in all of this is that we may begin to rely more fully on God and our brothers and sisters that He has so graciously bestowed around us.