A Playground or Battlefield?

    Lots of disturbing things on the news this week. It’s hard to read the paper, follow online headlines, or watch the evening news. At least this week it was.
    There is the whole middle east thing going on, now in several countries. More and more, groups that hate Christianity and want to exterminate Jews are gaining power in their respective countries. There was the suicide bomber in Bulgaria who blew up a bus full of Jewish teenagers. Many of us have been praying for the two little girls who have been apparently abducted in Iowa...no news so far is bad news, and our hearts are aching. In raids across the country over the weekend, seventy-nine children, mostly abducted and/or runaway American kids from troubled homes, were set free from their sex-slave captors (an international network not unlike what was portrayed in the movie, “Taken”). Then, of course, the shooting spree in the Denver area theatre by a med school student (recent drop-out), has kept many glued to cable news programming. And this is only the beginning. There is a litany of really bad news items around the world and in the states this week that remind us of the fallen nature of the human race.
    But that’s not all that is happening.
    No doubt, the depraved nature of sinful people is creating havoc. Remember the words of Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” But there is more going on in this world than just the sinful actions of fallen people. There is a more sinister activity working in the unseen world that is the root cause of all evil. Ephesians 6:12 says, “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.” Anyone who denies the reality of evil is oblivious to the real world. Evil forces exist and are actively engaging with unwary, though willing, sinful people to do Satan’s work. This evil spiritual presence is real. It’s malevolent. It’s insidious. We need to be on guard.
    The Christian life is not a playground, it’s a battlefield.
    That’s why Paul continued his treatise in Ephesians 6 with instructions for followers of Jesus to be armed and protected to defeat this evil spiritual activity. Because this is war and Satan must be defeated. And he will be. Jesus promised us that very thing. But we need to be on guard, protected, armed and poised for spiritual battle as soldiers in God’s army.
    This fall, I will be launching an eight week study on Spiritual Warfare from Ephesians 6:10-18. I’d appreciate your prayers for my preparation and for God to do a mighty work in us to advance His Kingdom and overwhelm the gates of hell.
    That’s what I’m doing these four weeks while not speaking at The Bridge. I’m preparing and praying. And I really need your prayers for this one.