We interrupt this month’s devotional to congratulate the winner of The Caregiver’s Notebook give away, Pam Christensen. Here’s what she says about how she plans to use the book:
Both of our sons have different learning disorders and ADHD. It gets complicated keeping track of their various appts, meetings with teachers, therapists reports, medications, etc. I’m looking forward to using this resource to organize it all in one place. As a caregiver for not only our sons, but also for my mother, I’m also looking forward to using the prayer guide.
Thanks to all who entered the give away. In the next few months, several other bloggers will be hosting Caregiver’s Notebook give aways. The easiest way to enter them is to like my Facebook author page or follow me on Twitter (@jolenephilo) where they’ll be publicized. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
Put on the full armor of God,
so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:11–12
Do you remember the Frank Peretti spiritual warfare trilogy from the early 1990s? I read one book in the series, and it scared the pants off me. Not literally, but if you read them, you know what I mean. The books made the inhabitants of the dark side of the spiritual realm spookily terrifying. At least for wimps with active imaginations who read the stories and went on high alert. Wimps like me who wasted years scanning the horizon for spiritual warfare bad guys lurking in the shadowy corners of life.
Two decades later, God is shining a light on the errors inherent in my thinking. My bad guy alert has not located a single suspect. And yet, God’s word says that spiritual warfare is real. It exists and impacts the lives of believers, though perhaps not in the guise of little demons flapping their wings above our beds as we sleep.
No, our enemy is much more sophisticated than that. Sophisticated enough to design obstacles that divert us from doing good to repairing the damage of evil in our daily lives. Every day, ordinary obstacles that peel off our squeaky-clean Christian exteriors and expose the darkness within us. Lost luggage at the airport. Computer crashes. Misfiled emails. Illness. Flat tires. Silly spats with people we love and admire. Miscommunications. Broken friendships.
These occurrences intensify when believers prepare to invade enemy strongholds. When we step out of our safe, secure Christian enclaves of light to reach those in lost in the darkness. When we heed the call of Christ to bring goodness into dark places where his light has yet to shine.
When we step out in obedience, we can expect opposition. We can count on it. And we can rejoice in it. Because by whatever name we call it–enemy opposition or spiritual warfare or mind games or every day, ordinary obstacles–the push back means that we are where God wants us to be. We are in the forefront of the battle the enemy wants us to think he will win. But he can’t. Because the victory has already been won by Christ, and He has called us to carry that truth to all who’ve not yet heard the good news. So when you sense the enemy pushing back in the every day, ordinary happenings of life, don’t turn tail and run. Instead, press on and follow Paul’s advice in Ephesians 6:10–20:
Put on the full armor of God.
Stand firm.
Wear truth and righteousness and the gospel of peace.
Put on the helmet of salvation,
the shield of faith
and the sword of the Spirit–God’s word.
Press on by praying God’s promises from Romans 8:
If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not spare His own Son,
but delivered Him over for us all,
how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?…
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Press on!
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