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For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds
I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!— 2 I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. (2 Corinthians 10:1-6)
O dear believers in Christ, please take heed as you walk for the Lord God. Remember that while you’re in the flesh, that our ways are not of the flesh but of the spirit. So do your warfare against the darkness and falsehood according to the Spirit of God rather than your fresh.
Make the Lord God your strength rather than depend on your flesh for victories. For the darkness of the world cannot prevail against the Lord Almighty. If you make God your strength you won’t fail in the fight against evil.
When fighting evil know this; the fight is about destroying strongholds and arguments and lofty opinions raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. For each disobedience will be punished in the afterlife and no one will escape Judgement Day except for those who repent and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You might be faced with hardships on account of your faith in Jesus, but do no despair. God will reward those who stand by his Word in time of hardships and temptation. Be willing to face the hardness of life with good preparation, because the Lord Jesus himself told us us to build on solid ground instead of of the sand in (Matthew 7:24-27)
Walk with Jesus Christ in your thoughts, words and deed as your meditate on the Word of God and keep winning your victories against the powers of darkness!
Verses for reflection:
- By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left (2 Corinthians 6:7)
- The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light (Romans 13:12)
- Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. (2 Timothy 2:3)
- Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; (2 Corinthians 3:5)
Being brave and smart to tackle danger (Part 2)
In my earlier post Being brave and smart to tackle danger (Part 1) we focused on knowing and asserting your rights. Today I want to show how to use the truth to your advantage, use your words wisely and keep your eyes open to tackle any attacks.
Let’s read Acts 23:1-11 which shows how the Apostle Paul at the Sanhedrin effectively used the above principles to keep himself out of danger:
1 And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.” 2 And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” 4 Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” 5 And Paul said, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”
6 Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” 7 And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8 For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. 9 Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?” 10 And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks.
11 The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.”
When in faced with danger, do not cower in fear. Be like Paul, who kept his eyes and mind open to use the situation to his advantage. He didn’t have to lie but took advantage of the truth. He tackled the high priest Ananias who illegally tried to get Paul slapped. Paul didn’t use foul words but used clear logic that the high priest was trying to judge as per the law and yet himself was going against the methods of the law. Only later when Paul was told that Ananias was the high priest that he didn’t go ahead with rebuking him any further.
But Ananias was not the only person to be stopped. There were more. Paul must have understood that if he didn’t act in time something really bad will happen to him. Again like I mentioned in my earlier post, Paul did suffer martyrdom but that day was not day to be martyred.
Since Paul himself was trained in the ways of the Pharisees he could easily distinguish between the Pharisees and their rivals the Sadducees. He sensed a great opportunity to set things right. So he said aloud, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.” Due to great divide between the Pharisees and the Sadducees on the reality of the resurrection with the result that some of Pharisees spoke in Paul’s favor. (This is one of the good things of the Pharisees unlike the Sadducees who deny angels, spirits and resurrection who are therefore vile little heretics)
As a matter of fact, Paul was in trial because he claimed Jesus as the Lord and also that Jesus rose from the dead (this is a teaching central to the Christian faith and any deviation from this is heresy). So Paul did NOT lie his way out of trouble. With some of the Pharisees now agree that there was no fault with Paul, it gradually resulted in a violent clash between the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Roman tribune then intervened by getting the soldiers to save Paul from this fighting. And of course, the Lord appreciated Paul and told him the he will get to testify in Rome for Christ as how he did in Jerusalem.
Now learning from Paul’s case you can apply this too in your life. Suppose, someone is trying to draw a gun on you and you don’t have a weapon. Then scream and say loudly ‘please don’t hurt me with your gun, I did no wrong’. This will either alert the people nearby to save you or dissuade the attacker or even give you a small time window to escape.
Suppose you are stuck in a very bad lawsuit in which you are wrongly targeted and suddenly you realize that there is an organization which helps out those in trouble like you, then reach out to them. Like in cases of international business disputes, you know very well that if the other countries court’s are biased against your nation then they won’t give you a fair hearing, then get in what are known as arbitrators to give you some justice. If you are under racial attacks, first get yourself out of danger and then reach to organizations that tackle racism (Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti Defamation League, Newham Monitoring Project, National Assembly Against Racism (NAAR) or whichever similar organization in your region). Just keep your eyes and mind open for any such individuals or groups which help out people in trouble.
Imagine you are an Aussie citizen roaming in South Africa and due to whatever reason, you are being chased by gun wielding thugs. And if you happen to see the Australian embassy near you, then don’t be a hero to stand cornered to fight the minions of debauchery, you simply get into the embassy and save your life. I’m sure the Aussie guards will be a great deterrent to your assailants. This tip should work for any citizen with his/her own country’s embassy normally.
If you are troubled by demons, do not play coy with your preacher and behave as if you are in pristine condition. Open your mind and be humble enough to at least get help in private from your church elders and it’s people trained in deliverance ministry. All you need to do is speak and say that you need help.
Appeal unto Christ Jesus when in danger by evil spirits. Don’t be a victim. Christ has authority over all of the powers of the Evil One. Take advantage of this truth.
Christ be with you!
P.S : Part 3 of this will be out soon. Pray for me.
Related articles
Being brave and smart to tackle danger (Part 1)
One must know very well how to tackle danger to life and limb. It requires bravery and smartness to cope up with such situations. Most of all you need the grace of God to overcome them all.
Since this topic is quite vast I decided to break down in parts so that the critical points are not skimmed over and missed out. It won’t be a daily feature so that we don’t miss out on other things of the Bible. Now, to begin with lets focus today on knowing and asserting your rights. Now not just your earthly or civil rights, it also about exercising your rights as a believer in Christ. Let’s read Acts 22: 22-29 where the Apostle Paul took advantage of his rights to avoid getting flogged (whipped) by the Romans:
22 The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”
23 As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, 24 the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. 25 As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”
26 When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.”
27 The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”
“Yes, I am,” he answered.
28 Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.”
“But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.
29 Those who were about to interrogate him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.
If you notice in the above passage, Paul wouldn’t have escaped the flogging for preaching the Gospel unless he told the Roman centurion that he too was a Roman citizen. So without exercising his right to a fair trial he would have got harmed greatly by the Roman soldiers.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about avoiding martyrdom or acting like a coward in face of persecution and I know full well that Paul did suffer martyrdom later on in his life. He was brave in face of danger even then. However, he did what he did at the time of Acts 22 because his time to die had not yet come. Why must you die before the appointed time? Will getting harmed just for the sake of getting harmed truly give any glory to God?
Do you realize that you have a right to exist? Then a right to live in freedom and happiness? Some call these as human rights and this not wrong to say.
When faced with imminent danger you must exercise your rights. Don’t keep all quiet, get bruised up and then start pondering on your rights later. Sometimes there won’t be a later.
You have a right to protection by the police and also the military if needed. So if you are in danger of being harmed in any way by robbers, terrorists etc then please go ahead and invoke your right to be protected. Call them, text them or whatever other means you have them alerted so that they rush to your safety. Absolutely no hoaxes please!
Sometimes you need to invoke your right to self-defense. Depending on which country you live in there might be self defense laws like the Section 3(1) of Criminal Law Act 1967 or the Second Amendment. So do your homework to find what laws go out in your region and act accordingly. You might wonder what when do you need to actually act in self defense. Let me give you a situation. For instance there’s a madman on a shooting spree in your office and you know the police will be over there in 30 minutes but you are on 18th floor while the murderer is on the 4th floor of the building. Then for that half an hour, do whatever you can to be out of sight and out of range of the madman. If you can safely and effectively tackle him with some weapon or with your bare hands then do so without putting yourself or the innocent bystanders in danger. You will need to think on your feet in such situations. Don’t try to be a hero!
As a believer in Christ you too have rights. You are worth more than sparrows in the eyes of God. The Devil tries to steal your rights or sometimes keeps you ignorant of them. By doing this the Evil One tries to prevent you from living your life for God or if he can’t do that then just make you suffer a lot.
If shall cover a few of those rights. For instance, the Devil tries to keep away from you that you can cast out evil spirits in the name of Jesus. Remember that Jesus himself said this of those who believe; “And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues” (Mark 16:17). Jesus was not referring to only the Apostles or pastors or miracle, he was referring to every who has the faith. The Devil is vary of this so he tries to put exorcism or purging out of demons as a myth or old-fashioned thinking. Sometimes he will even beguile preachers to come up with stupendous doctrines that will try to brain wash their flock that casting out evils spirits is either irrelevant or not their portion. And lots of people fall prey to such deception.
You have a right to pray for your healing. You have a right to ask for protection in face of danger from evils spirits, murderers, thieves etc. So you can also ask for protection against diseases. Such things are not just for you, alright. You can pray such things for your family, your co-workers, your local church and also for Christians who are being persecuted and face death for their faith in Christ. You have a right to stand in the gap for others before Christ. Now, these rights are just a small glimpse of your rights in the spiritual with Christ Jesus. I encourage you to be aware of all your rights whether civil, legal or spiritual and use them to keep away from harm for the glory of God.
Disciples of hope 