Life is war

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.”

1 Peter 4:12-14 ESV

We were built for war. When God created us, he knew we would be born into a war zone. Even in the Garden, Adam and Eve was placed smack dab in the middle of Satan’s kingdom. God was calling us into 

When Satan was cast out of heaven, where did he go? He was cast down to earth. When God created his image-bearers on earth, Satan seethed with anger, because God created them to bring destruction to him, so he set out to destroy humanity. 

Whether we like it or not, we’ve been born into a war. If we do not have this understanding, we will live disillusioned deceived by Satan. When we understand that we’ve been born into a war and we’ve been built for war, we’ll pick up our weapons like Jesus and destroy the works of the devil. Therefore, prayer, the word, our spiritual disciplines are our weapons of warfare. The word of God wasn’t given to us just to have a nice quiet time but it was given to us to use as the sword of the spirit to cut down the lies of the enemy. Spiritual disciplines weren’t given to us only for the sake being encouraged and powered up, but to protect our fellowship with the Holy Spirit and pulverize then enemy. 

“Take..the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.” (Ephesians 6:17-18 ESV)

The majority of Christians today are living like civilians, because they’ve not been properly discipled on spiritual warfare, however it was one of the first things Jesus taught and modeled for His disciples. Upon being baptized in water and the Holy Spirit in the River Jordan, He was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for 40 days.

It’s significant that Jesus battled the devil upon His “new birth,” to reveal to us that there are at least two dimensions we will encounter upon our own rebirth. 

1. The Holy Spirit will not babysit us, but will bring us through trials.

2. The devil will try to break you down.

Jesus went into the Wilderness led by the Holy Spirit because He wanted us teach us how to war in Spirit. As war makes the soldier, spiritual war makes the Christian. 

There’s a saying among the Marines: “All marines are a rifleman.” Regardless of your MOS, all Marines are considered to be Riflemen first, and whatever MOS (job) they happen to hold, second. In fact, the Marine Corps has even been known to deploy Band members to combat zones and use them on combat patrols.

So in the Marines, one has to be prepared for the physical fitness standards before one attends boot camp. The recruiter will usually make sure you are prepared before you join the Marines. As a country, the United States has continuously increased in weight and body fat percentages over the years. The number one reason why young recruits cannot join the military is due to not reaching the height/weight standards of the military in general. Similarly, we must be careful that we don’t become spiritually obese. A remedy to spiritual obesity, where we live for ourselves and not fighting for each other, is to understand that when we were born, we were literally airdropped into a war zone. We might fool ourselves with the pursuit of a comfortable life, but one day, we might be rudely awakened by crossing the line of eternity, realizing that we were under heavy deception and we pursued in the things that didn’t matter, thus wasted our lives while on earth. 

This was the reason why back in the Garden of Eden, God set up the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In my opinion, God put that tree in the Garden, not to tempt us, but to train us. There was a real threat on earth and God wanted to train us so that we wouldn’t fall into the temptations of the devil. He knew our weakness, which is the eyes, flesh, and the desire for knowledge, so he put the tree in the Garden and train our sense of self control, so He filled them with His Spirit so that they would be led by the Spirit and not by the flesh. But when the serpent came in the Garden, they were already drifting away from God’s presence, because when they had fallen after being tempted, God asked, “where are you?” Why would God ask that if they were in intimate union with God? Through sin, they were separated from their source of love. The Holy Spirit vacated their inner sanctum and became separated from God. But God kills an animal in their place to forgive them and cover their shame until Gen 3:15 would be fulfilled through Jesus and He would come and crush the head of the serpent.

In the Wilderness, Jesus came to Satan and did what Adam and Eve failed to do. Instead of being given over to the flesh, the eyes and human pride, Jesus, fully of the Holy Spirit and faith in His identity as the Son of God, defeated Satan with His divine authority and power. After defeating Satan by the word of his mouth, he comes out of the wilderness in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the Wilderness account we can see that there are Four Areas that the devil wants to rob us:

1. Our Worth (“IF you are the Son of God.” — He questions our worth by questioning our identity)

2. Our Love for the Word (He tempts Jesus with bread, but Jesus is unconcerned about feeding His flesh. He is more concerned about feeding on God’s Word)

3. Our Worship (The Devil wants to be worshiped and has enticed many to fall for His schemes, however, Jesus never bows)

4. Our Wartime Mentality (The devil twists scripture to bend the Truth so that we will listen to him, but instead of accepting the twisted version, Jesus confronts the devil and commands him to leave and the devil obeys)

When our understanding of our worth is compromised, it will affect our approach to God’s Word, worship and our mentality against the devil. This is why it is extremely important to give new believers a proper start and get them BORN AGAIN. When one is born again and is completely submerged in the love of God and saturated in the Holy Spirit, no matter how hard the devil might attack the believer, they wills stand resolute in their new identity thats found in Christ. You will serve God to the degree of your belief in what God says about you.

For new believers (and also believers who didn’t get a proper start in their walk with Jesus), we need to teach them about spiritual warfare and about the devil as soon after they are born again, because it gives them a fuller undressing of why they must engage in specific disciplines. Once they experience the presence and the power of God through the new birth and they must be taught how to put our guard up against the enemy, because God’s not going to babysit us, but He’s going to Baptize us with Himself to finish the mission.

By teaching believers about Spiritual war and how to defeat the devil by using our God given authority and power, we set new believers up for absolute success. By teaching about the invisible war and that it is imperative that we don’t fall for His lies, we can safeguard believers from falling into apathy and a religious spirit. Once they realize what is at stake, it will cause them not to simply obey Jesus out of duty, but as a delight and as a determination to destroy the devil. Just as war makes the soldier: spiritual war makes the Christians.

The absence of war will produce civilians. But the fact of the matter is, there’s a real threat in our homes and outside of our houses and if we don’t fight, we will live defeated for the rest of our lives.

Spiritual disciplines are not only for personal edification, but to pulverize the enemy. Spiritual disciplines is not only to power up the Christian life, but it’s also to protect the anointing and the presence of God because there are forces wanting to infiltrate our souls. If we have our guards down, we will be consumed. 

September 25, 2020, my friend Sean Kim committed suicide by drug overdose. Couple of friends and I went to his home to visit his father. He was asking if Sean had left anything for him. At first we didn’t find anything, but in-between two boxes, we found this letter to his friends and his dad.

“Note to all my friends, family (especially my beloved Father), and everyone else this might affect. I am truly sorry about what I did to end my life. Every since I was released from my dream job at riot games, I have been suffering from anxiety with a severe depression and it got worse as time went on. My next job at immortals didn’t help the cause because all I kept doing was comparing the two jobs, while I was working hard late nights alone most of the time. I tried to do some things to fill the void, but it didn’t really help, because I wasn’t able to change myself. 
This wasn’t the only reason for my suicide. The worst thing happened starting on December 17, 2018. That night I started having severe auditory, visual and sensory hallucinations that haven’t stopped since. I started seeing so-called “entities” talk to me and even feel grabbing, hitting, or scratching when I tried to sleep at night. The severity of the visual and sensory has slowed down a lot of hallucinations, but the auditory ones haven’t stopped since it started. I constantly hear various voices talking to me about anything and everything that has a relation to me. Whether it would be about friends, family, or work, it is both negative and positive but doesn’t ever stop. It has really hindered me from doing my job, and I now have a really hard time staying focused on anything for a length of time. The voices cause me to feel depressed, have panic attacks, and change my mood periodically. 

Till this day I can’t tell if this is supposed to be spiritual/religious thing, a haunting/curse, or just a really bad mental disorder. But I can’t live like this anymore cause I can’t even work in my industry or career because of this. Everyday and night the so called entities, spirits, ghosts, or whatever intervene on my thoughts and just talk about whatever to sway my mood and confuse my train of thought. I also now have severe anxiety and panic attacks, and feel severely depressed most of the day. I feel hopeless each and every day. 

So once again, to my friends, family and especially my dad — I am truly sorry….. I failed as a friend and son…”

Since 2008, Four friends of mine have committed suicide. One jumped off of a balcony. Another forced a cop to shoot him. Another died of drug overdose. And now Sean Kim by drug overdose. His letter to us is clear. He spoke of entities, ghosts, spirits. 

Paul said, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

Paul like the rest of the New Testament writers all affirmed the existence of Satan, also known as the devil, the accuser of the brethren, the serpent etc. They also affirmed that there is a hierarchy of these unseen demonic forces: Rulers, Authorities, Cosmic powers, Spiritual Forces of Evil.

Some might write off Sean’s case as schizophrenia. However, according to the Bible, things are lot more spiritual that we imagine. The Devil doesn’t show up in red tights with a pitchfork and horns on his head. He shows up in a way that is familiar to us, in order to bait us and reel us into His schemes. When the Devil showed up to Eve, he came as a creature she was already aware of. If the devil showed his true colors, he might have scared her off, but His intention is to arrest our mind, so that he can imprison us with His lies.

When I travel in different countries, I’ve seen demons coming out from people. Before these encounters, I had only heard stories and I relegated the Bible down to a fairy tale until I stepped out in faith and started to do what God commanded us to and signs and wonders soon began to follow.

2 Corinthians 4:4 reveals that Satan has actually blinded the eyes of unbelievers to see the Truth. “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 

While moral absolutes have been around since the beginning of time, our culture has perverted from Truth in order to great gods that suit their needs and do things that’s right in their own eyes. The enemy’s bag of tricks include deception, guilt, shame, condemnation, fear — in order to keep his victims bound and deceived.

Even Paul, who was a persecutor of the church was blinded by who Jesus was that he killed Christians. He agreed to the murder of Stephen who was one of the first martyrs for the gospel. It wasn’t until he met the living Jesus on the road to Damascus, that scales fell off of his eyes and he had revelation that Jesus was the Messiah predicted by the Prophets all throughout the Old Testament Scriptures. As a result of his newfound revelation, he went to Arabia and became a student of Jesus. The came out of his time of training one of the greatest missionaries who have every stepped foot on the earth. In a span of 15 years, he was able to influence 30 million people. 

“At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me lin the Hebrew language,‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ (Acts 26:13-18)

When we recognize that life is war and used our God-given weapons against the devil, God will use us like Paul in our generation to deliver people out from darkness into the Kingdom of God. We were built for war and unless we have revelation of this, we will remain under Satanic deception right down to the grave. If there’s ever a time to wake up and rise up for our generation, it’s now.

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.””

Matthew 16:18-19 ESV

“Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.””

Matthew 18:18-20 ESV

The demise of the western church in my opinion is that we’ve turned soldiers into civilians, spiritual army outpost into conference venues, courageous lions into domesticated cats, communication to the headquarters (Heaven) into a comfortable prayer life praying for personal needs, not for the world at large to finish the war. 

John Piper: “Life is war. That’s not all it is. But it is always that. Our weakness in prayer is owing largely to our neglect of this truth. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den. God has given us prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie so that we can call headquarters for everything we need as the kingdom of Christ advances in the world. Prayer gives us the significance of frontline forces and gives God the glory of a limitless Provider. The one who gives the power gets the glory. Thus, prayer safeguards the supremacy of God in missions while linking us with endless grace for every need.”

When our prayer rooms turn into war rooms, a command center by which we begin to bind demonic forces and loose the bonds of prisons through our prayers, engaging in warfare against the enemy, confronting the evils in our day, we begin to enter into the labors of those who’ve gone before us. When we begin to war instead of simply asking God to bless us, it not only strengthens us, but also safeguards us and those we pray for from the enemy. 

How one prays is a revelation of spiritual condition of a person, a community, a nation. Prayer is important, but also the motivation that drives prayer is equally if not more important. 

How many times have we prayed the Lord’s Prayer in vain? When I was not saved, I couldn’t wait until I could finish the Lord’s Prayer. I would also be thinking about the Macdonalds I would be eating while I’m praying the Lord’s Prayer. Who can relate? 

But imagine how Jesus would pray the Lord’s Prayer. I believe He would pray with all sincerity and earnestness. Jesus always said what he meant and meant what he said. He was a man of integrity and meant every word.

I believe that God is bring about a biblical reformation on our understanding and practice of church. We can no longer be content with people coming to church leaving with a program, than the presence of the Holy Spirit. A holy discontented arose on the inside of me when I had the revelation that the majority of Christians practice dead and dry religion, rather than encountering God and following God out of joyful obedience that comes from a vibrant and burning heart.

Jesus wants to build his church. The church that Jesus described is one that confronts darkness. The church was more like a military base in the spirit realm. The trap is for the church to be relegated down to a gathering of civilians to be entertained, rather than an an army base, where we pick up our weapons of warfare, strengthened in the word and in Spirit to take down enemy forces once they step out of the church. But instead the majority of churches today pick up our weapons, but leave our praise in the church to live no different from the world. This is a great tragedy and this is why many churches aren’t seeing the fire of God fall on their churches, because people have adopted the gospel of comfort and convenience, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We have pumped out church members, but no soldiers.

Our prayer meetings and church services should be more like a war room than anything else. A war room is a place where we receive direct orders from our Commander-in-chief, strategize and then go out to war. If we do not engage with the lost outside of our times at church, then it’s like receiving the directives and anointing and then wasting our anointing on worldly things. Is that what we do?

We treat the church more as a recreational center than an army base. We get filled with the Holy Spirit and emotionalism and we live no different from the world. But when we look at the early church in the Book of Acts, they practiced holistic Christianity that encompassed three elements: Up (worshiping Jesus), In (Hosting the Holy Spirit), and Out (Finishing the Mission).

At Pentecost, when they were all worshipping Jesus and praying, the Holy Spirit was poured out and when they got filled with God’s fresh anointing and power, did they remain in the Upper Room? No! They streamed out of the Upper Room full of the Holy Ghost and fire and began to speak in other tongues and praising God in the public. When you get encountered by the Living God, a normal response is going public with our faith out of the overflow of His Spirit.

Full of the Holy Spirit, Peter rose up and went public with the gospel and three thousand men were added to the church that day. But it didn’t end there. Their first Holy Spirit filled prayer meeting continued as they preached the gospel every where. In Acts 4, even though they were persecuted, they regrouped, prayed, shook the room they were praying in and then went out preaching the word of God boldly. Shouldn’t our church meetings replicate this kind of response to Jesus? We need a reformation in the structure of the church, or else will will fossilize the the Book of Acts will be left as a great literary work to read about, not a Book to follow.