Category Archives: spiritual warfare

The Mistake of NOT Believing in Human Depravity

David Brooks is one of my favorite commentators today. He is concise, insightful, and almost always right. His column for May 18 is once again on target. I found it interesting that as he was discussing governmental systems I was comparing that with church structures, especially denominational or other organizational structures.

But his main point on the American drift from how our Founders saw the world is a great observation. We keep wanting to do away with the thought that people have a possibility for evil. We just don’t want to admit it, and it is to our peril.

This is one of the reasons why Europe and the United States are facing debt crises and political dysfunction at the same time. People used to believe that human depravity was self-evident and democratic self-government was fragile. Now they think depravity is nonexistent and they take self-government for granted.

I remember being in seminary and the professor was about the begin his lectures on the devil. I thought of that as I think about Brooks’ quote. Before the lecture I was listening to a student behind me drone on about how there is no evil or devil in the world. Evil is just the absence of good. Blah, blah, blah.

The professor walks in and begins his lecture with this: “Some say there is a devil. Some say the devil doesn’t exist. Either way, he doesn’t care.”

Americans ignoring depravity is one thing. The CHURCH ignoring depravity is far more dangerous.

Isn’t It Time to Get in the Game?

17 No weapon fashioned against you will succeed,
and you may condemn every tongue that disputes with you.
This is the heritage of the Lord’s servants,
whose righteousness comes from me, says the Lord. (Isa. 54:17, CEB)

It’s time to “come home.” It’s time to put aside the shame. No more humiliation. Isn’t it time to let go of the past failures and realize the grace of God is calling you to something abundant and powerful?

It’s not our terms of abundance. Our terms are far too short-sighted. His terms of abundance are much richer.

We need to hear the words of our great Father calling us to get back in the game. You took a hard hit. It happens. Sure, the New Orleans Saints defense was gunning for you. It happens.

Healing has flowed. The “bounty” defense has been thrown out of the game. It’s time to get back in.

Just Keep Still

The hard stuff usually comes right after a nice victory. There will be some incredible moment of great news that touches our lives… and then we get blindsided by some bad news, or a tough battle.

Panic may even set in.

We were walking in victory one minute… then… WHAM!

We’re on the ground looking around… dazed. It’s in those moments we often find the space to ask God why in the world this is happening again. 

This is Israel’s constant place with Yahweh. From the moment they leave Egypt they find ways to complain to Yahweh. Life wasn’t all smooth sailing for them and they just had to let Yahweh know about it.

They watch deliverance happen with the Passover and they are on their way out. They’ve just walked out of Egypt without a battle. No lives were lost in a rebellion. Life is good! 

Then, Pharaoh decides to give chase.

Israel decides to complain. (Something they get really good at over time.)

Battles happen. Struggles happen. We just don’t like them. I don’t care for them at all. Yet, here they come.

And generally, I get the same advice from the Spirit that Moses gives to Israel that day at the Red Sea:

13 But Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. Stand your ground, and watch the LORD rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never ever see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you. You just keep still.” (Ex. 14:13-14, CEB)

Keep still? Are you nuts? 

But the battle is the Lord’s. He takes up the fight. It is his Kingdom. It is his provision. He knows the way to victory.

It’s that “keeping still” part I struggle with the most.

The Roundabout Way

17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God didn’t lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, even though that was the shorter route. God thought, If the people have to fight and face war, they will run back to Egypt. 18 So God led the people by the roundabout way of the Reed Sea desert. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt ready for battle. (Ex. 13:17-18, CEB)

God knew what Israel was capable of in that moment. What they couldn’t take at that moment was a battle. There would be times for battle. This was not that time.

There are times in our lives the Lord knows what is ahead. We may think we’re ready for the battle, but our Lord may just know something different. He make take us on a “roundabout” route for another purpose.

The battle is the Lord’s. It is not our battle. He knows the way. Sometimes we wonder why we’re wandering. Yet, he knows.

Our task is to keep our eyes on the One who leads. When the time has come to fight… fight we will.

When We’re Not Effective… We Argue

In Mark 9 Jesus comes down from the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James, and John. He finds the rest of his disciples in an argument with the legal experts.

14 When Jesus, Peter, James, and John approached the other disciples, they saw a large crowd surrounding them and legal experts arguing with them. 15 Suddenly the whole crowd caught sight of Jesus. They ran to greet him, overcome with excitement. 16 Jesus asked them, “What are you arguing about?” (Mark 9:14-15, CEB)

The issue was a demon-possessed boy. The father had brought him to the disciples and they couldn’t cast the demon out.

Somehow, what had resulted in that ineffectiveness was an argument with the legal experts.

When we get caught in a setback, it’s often our default position as well. I think of such an episode in today’s world. Maybe we had prayed for deliverance for someone and watched God deliver someone. Then, here comes another case and we take it on in the same way and… nothing.

In our day, the argument might look like this:

“How do you know it was demon possession? Maybe it was just an illness.”

“What is your problem? You did it before! We watched you!”

“How dare you cast out a demon when all he may need is a good therapist!”

And on and on.

When we hit bumps in our road, we try to figure out what went wrong. Often we end up in arguments. Sometimes those arguments may be with ourselves.

Jesus nails the disciples hard on this one. They are called “faithless” (along with others in that crowd), and then when they ask him why they couldn’t cast it out, he fires back, “This kind requires prayer.” (Newer manuscripts added “and fasting,” which helps make the point.)

What Jesus is saying is this: “No more formulas, fellas. You better learn to pray and hear from heaven consistently.”

The Kingdom isn’t for the faint of heart.

Two Possible Responses to Jesus

In Mark 6 there are a couple of responses to Jesus.

In vv. 1-6 the people familiar with Jesus didn’t think much of who he had become. They launched into stories of “I remember little Jesus when he was following his daddy around with a hammer…”

In vv. 7-12 there is a different response.

7 He called for the Twelve and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority over unclean spirits. 8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a walking stick—no bread, no bags, and no money in their belts. 9 He told them to wear sandals but not to put on two shirts. 10 He said, “Whatever house you enter, remain there until you leave that place. 11 If a place doesn’t welcome you or listen to you, as you leave, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that people should change their hearts and lives. 13 They cast out many demons, and they anointed many sick people with olive oil and healed them. (Mark 6:7-13, CEB)

We could actually go out and do what Jesus did.

He is our Savior. How will we respond?

My Name is Legion

2 As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out of the tombs. 3 This man lived among the tombs, and no one was ever strong enough to restrain him, even with a chain. 4 He had been secured many times with leg irons and chains, but he broke the chains and smashed the leg irons. No one was tough enough to control him. 5 Night and day in the tombs and the hills, he would howl and cut himself with stones.(Mark 5:2-5, CEB)

There are several things in Mark 5:1-20 that challenge me.

In this passage it is the horrible torment that a man is going through. Society couldn’t handle him any more. There weren’t enough ways to deal with him in their own strength and knowledge. It had come to just dealing with a man like this.

The torment that was outward was also something that challenged me. As I was praying through this passage yesterday the thought was this: “It’s not just the torment that is outward. There are many who face that same intense torture inwardly. No one knows.”

Lent prepares us for the Resurrection. The resurrection is power. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead dwells in us. All around us we may encounter people facing intense battles. Some are outward. Some are inward. And the resurrected Christ has sent his Spirit to empower us to deal with people in bondage. People that no one else can see changed… this is where the Kingdom of God touches. No one is beyond Kingdom blessing. No one is beyond the powerful touch of the Kingdom of God.

Ash Wednesday

1 Listen to my prayer, LORD!
   Because of your faithfulness,
   hear my requests for mercy!
   Because of your righteousness,
   answer me!
2 Please don’t bring your servant
to judgment,
   because no living thing is righteous before you.

3 The enemy is chasing me,
   crushing my life in the dirt,
      forcing me to live in the dark
         like those who’ve been dead forever.
4 My spirit is weak inside me—
   inside, my mind is numb.

5 I remember the days long past;
   I meditate on all your deeds;
   I contemplate your handiwork.
6 I stretch out my hands to you;
   my whole being is like dry dirt, thirsting for you.
Selah (Psalm 143:1-6, CEB)

Lent is a time to reflect. My challenge this year is not just for a time of reflection and examination, but a time for action as well. There is a sense of “harassment” where we feel the enemy is chasing us. I hear from missionary friends who are facing fierce battles on the mission field. There are families in our church and our neighborhood battling tough times and crushing defeats.

I need my heart cleansed. I need my hands clean. Then… I need to get into the battlefield of prayer and lift these dear ones up before the Lord. Lent is not about me. It is about the Body of Christ as well. May we be humble before the Lord… and may we be humble warriors.

Hear our prayer, O Lord.

Fighting the Noon Day Demon

I have begun reading Thomas Merton’s The Waters of Siloe, which follows up his wonderful autobiography, Seven Storey Mountain. This book will give more detail to his life at the monastery in Kentucky.

Early in the book he gives a reminder to monastic orders, or spiritual orders of any kind, really, that is a great reminder for me in ministry.

…it is always a dangerous and insidious temptation for religions to abandon some important element of their Rule in favor of something else that seems, from a human point of view, to be much more useful and valuable at the time. The greatest enemy of religious Orders is not the persecutor who closes monasteries and dispels communities and imprisons monks and nuns: it is the noonday demon who persuades them to go in for enterprises that have nothing whatever to do with the ideals of their founders.

While Merton refers to the Orders, I find this an incredible word of encouragement and warning to the Church in general. I find it a shout from the Spirit to my own life. Maybe if I put it in some “country western” vernacular: “Dance with the one that brung ya!”

We keep searching for (as Donald Miller would put it) God knows what. We get dissatisfied with… with… something. And all it might be is the noonday demon trying to get us to look at the “greener” grass on the other side of the fence. Acedia (the noonday demon) is something like lethargy. We just get tired of whatever it is we’re doing and we think changing things up might help.

The spiritual fathers of the 4th century had a great spiritual weapon to battle this noonday demon: Stay at the task. If the temptation is to leave the noonday prayers (in a monastic order, for instance), stay at prayer. If the study of the Word isn’t “doing it” for you, stay in the Word.

The spiritual weapon for lethargy is persistence. It is to learn to battle through. It is to TRULY learn to hear the voice of God and understand that sometimes what may “bore” isn’t the thing itself. It may be the noonday demon trying to throw us off course. It is important to learn to HEAR the voice of God, then make our move.

Walking in Kingdom Power is About Using What You Have

I am walking my way through the Old Testament narrative right now and currently find myself in the story of David and Goliath. I love these stories!

When David volunteered to take on Goliath, Saul tried to lend David his armor. They were not fit for David. They had been fit for Saul. David simply said, “I cannot go in these.” He used what he had: his sling.

What do you have? Too often I obsess about what I don’t have. (“Well, if I had THIS our church would do that…”, or some other such dreaming.)

It’s not about what you don’t have. It’s about what you HAVE. What is in your hand? What have you been trained in to this point? Offer it up. It was absolutely absurd to think of going into battle with a sling. But it would have been insane for David to go into battle with untested equipment.

What you have in your life is from God. Use it. Become familiar with it. Then, watch what he can do with it when battles come. Being used in the Kingdom isn’t about what you don’t have. It’s about what you have in your hand, and you offer it up for use in the Kingdom.