I have been thinking about this subject for a few months now. When studying a lot about Revelations you cannot read it without seeing a cosmic battle occurring – and this is now simple dogfight. Let me start by drawing attention to a name we use a lot when talking about Christ – King.
In the times before Christ many civilizations were governmentally ran by a king. Kings had incredible expectations about them from being able to lead a nation economically and socially to being on the field during war. Kings of ancient days were not the kind to sit back and simply command people. They led by example. Kings were expected to be incredible warriors. Not only was it assumed of a king to have conquered but to be able to continue to conquer.
When early followers of The Way proclaimed the kingship of Christ they meant all of these things. Christ was calling His people. He had led them by example (we’ll take a look at that later). He was on the field readying the troops and was the first one to run onto the field to fight. He came to earth in order to lead His soldiers to war by hitting the enemy first and hardest. Jesus allowed Himself to be mocked by peasants, spat on by religious and political leaders and ridiculed by earthly kings. Yet He knew that He was not facing earthly powers but spiritual principalities. So He remained faithful to His duty to the point of death on a cross. (Here is where my heart begins to beat uncontrollably.) But this is why we call Him King! He is that incredible warrior! Jehovah Nissi has conquered and reigns victorious - even over sin and death! Satan has lost all of his power over Christians and can no longer be victorious unless we allow him to be. The same Spirit that lived in Christ, a Spirit of conquering and victory, now lives in us (Romans 8).
Kings were expected to be incredible warriors. Not only was it assumed of a king to have conquered but to be able to continue to conquer. Our King HAS conquered and continues to conquer. He is looking to conquer today, right now and tomorrow but is looking for soldiers who have eyes to see and ears to hear. The war is real and the spoils are souls that will ultimately go to Heaven or Hell.
I learned an interesting lesson the other day with some buddies as we watched 5 matches between 2 sets of men trying to make the other pass out through vicious blows to the head. I began to think about how I have spent many hours for many days training for many sports such as soccer and football. Immediately I Timothy 4:8 came to mind, “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” If we are willing to train for 2+ hours each day, change our eating habits and our daily activities in order to compete physically how much more should we be committed to training ourselves spiritually? If there really is a battle going on (Daniel 10:5-14; Ephesians 6:12) and the wages are souls (Romans 6:23) then we should be much more serious about training ourselves spiritually. We lift weights for hours but do put our spiritual gifts to work in order to prune our gifts? We deprive ourselves of unhealthy food but will we abstain from endless hours of television or videogames in order to cut the dead weight? We eat less to lose weight and eat more to gain but will we fast and pray to catch on fire for God and chew on the Word more often in order to nourish our inner man? We encourage our teammates but do we take time to encourage our brethren?
I am obviously not saying that we should not play or train for sports, for it “is of some value.” But I question our (a word which includes myself) commitment to God when we cannot make the sacrifice in order to reap the gain of spiritual training. Maybe hours of training everyday in the Word, prayer, fasting, service, etc. are what we need to grow to maturity, being the spiritual giants so many of us aspire to be. I do not doubt these were the practices of Elijah, Moses, Abraham, Daniel, Calvin, Luther, Graham, Theresa and even JESUS held to faithfully.
If we are committed to being soldiers in the Lord’s army, as many of us have sung since our childhood, our actions should follow this commitment. Think seriously for a second about spiritual warfare and the costs. How much are we really doing?
2 comments:
Spiritual warfare is more real than the world we live in. Luckily, the war is already won. Jesus started by winning the war for us with His death (funny that Him surrendering his life is what finished the war). However, despite the fact that the war for our hearts is over, there are countless battles for our hearts every single minute. We are under a constant wave of attack from the one who is jealous of our grace and right to choose. But we can sing praises because Jesus and the Holy Spirit has come to serve us and the church, as the church is here to serve us and others. But this service is not something we are use to, but it is training and preparation for the battles that take place in our lives and the lives around us.
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