A great tragedy in the church is that the people of God, with all the wisdom, understanding and insight of the Father available to us, more often than not, live our lives in the power of our own understanding, wisdom and insight. More often than not, we are ruled by what appears to be, by circumstances, by how we see things, in short, by our flesh. It's a problem on every level of the Body of Christ, and I do not count myself an exception. Too many times I've been fooled by what I thought I was "seeing," and though none of us is infallible, too many of us have this as the pattern in our lives, making decisions, choices, about lifestyle, professions, relationships, and ministry, based upon how we see things, and not by His perception and understanding of what is before us. We need to decide that, in the words of the the classic song by The Who, that "we won't get fooled again," and the Father gives us the means by which that can be our reality.
The start of this begins with our coming to grips with the knowledge that we are spiritual beings living in the spiritual realm, a realm composed of two kingdoms, the Kingdom of heaven and light, the Father's realm, and the kingdom of darkness and hell, the abode of the enemy, satan. The two realms are engaged at all times in a cosmic war that will continue until the return of Christ, and though it's true that too many have made an unhealthy obsession of the concept of spiritual warfare, we ignore it to our own great peril. We are not to walk around seeing demons on every corner, and rebuking the devil at every opportunity, but instead, we fight him simply by allowing the light of Christ to shine in and through us in ever greater ways in our day to day walk. As we do this, the prayer of Paul in Ephesians 1:18 becomes our reality as the "eyes of our hearts" are flooded with His light and understanding. We don't see and process things any longer according to our own understanding and sight, but His. The Bible calls this discernment, and I fear we in the church are anything but a discerning people in a day when discernment is desperately needed in the church.
The start of this begins with our coming to grips with the knowledge that we are spiritual beings living in the spiritual realm, a realm composed of two kingdoms, the Kingdom of heaven and light, the Father's realm, and the kingdom of darkness and hell, the abode of the enemy, satan. The two realms are engaged at all times in a cosmic war that will continue until the return of Christ, and though it's true that too many have made an unhealthy obsession of the concept of spiritual warfare, we ignore it to our own great peril. We are not to walk around seeing demons on every corner, and rebuking the devil at every opportunity, but instead, we fight him simply by allowing the light of Christ to shine in and through us in ever greater ways in our day to day walk. As we do this, the prayer of Paul in Ephesians 1:18 becomes our reality as the "eyes of our hearts" are flooded with His light and understanding. We don't see and process things any longer according to our own understanding and sight, but His. The Bible calls this discernment, and I fear we in the church are anything but a discerning people in a day when discernment is desperately needed in the church.
In I Corinthians 2, Paul wrote that the natural man did not receive the revelations of the Spirit, believing them to be nonsense. but that "the spiritual man examines, investigates, inquires into, questions and discerns all things." (Amplified Version) Not in our own understanding, but His. I recently saw a post that entered into debate over whether a believer should be involved in a controversial role playing board game, which some believe to contain at least some elements of the occult, while others see it as harmless. I put forth no opinion here, but what I saw in the writers post, which was very much in favor of the latter, was that all his arguments and those of others that he pointed to, were out of his own understanding. At no point did he say that he had brought it all before the Father to seek His view, His mind, His foresight on it all. This is our great danger. Ultimately, the question on such things need to be, "Just where does this lead to? Who, in the end, is glorified?" Solomon, in I Kings 3, asked the Father for the ability to discern between what is good and what is evil. In a day where we truly are seeing evil called good,and good evil, our lack of discernment threatens the core of our spiritual lives. In all things pertaining to our lives, through whose eyes are we seeing things, eyes of flesh, so easily deceived by the enemy, or the eyes of the Father, eyes that are wide open?
Again, we needn't go looking for a demon in everything, only that we see everything through His eyes and with His understanding. The prophet Amos said that his culture was "drunk on a spirit of deception," and I think it is even more true of our culture today. The enemy rarely comes at us with a full frontal assault. He prefers to infiltrate and secure territory, our minds and hearts, a bit at a time. He cannot do this when we, with the Father's eyes, see his approach from far off. He will approach us. He approaches us now. Do we see him coming?
Blessings,
Pastor O
Again, we needn't go looking for a demon in everything, only that we see everything through His eyes and with His understanding. The prophet Amos said that his culture was "drunk on a spirit of deception," and I think it is even more true of our culture today. The enemy rarely comes at us with a full frontal assault. He prefers to infiltrate and secure territory, our minds and hearts, a bit at a time. He cannot do this when we, with the Father's eyes, see his approach from far off. He will approach us. He approaches us now. Do we see him coming?
Blessings,
Pastor O
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