Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.--Ephesians 6:13 WEB
The Encourager
When I am really tired and feel defeated, I think of the military and my choice to never give up. I have always known that God goes before me and even in my hell, at the time a gas chamber, God was with me although I certainly didn’t realize it then or feel or see it.
Like the wind, sometimes God can best be seen by His effect rather than visually and over time. The famous medieval philosopher Maimonides talks about how God can be understood by us only as what He is not limited by, or by describing how He is different than us. We know God is not limited by time or place, He is without sin, and there are no limits to His power.
It is only in the life and words of Jesus Christ that we start to see God in a way we can start to describe Him in terms of qualities He has that we can relate to in some degree. Many see God in His majesty but fail to see Jesus in the boring and mundane repetition of everyday life and common experiences we all can relate with.
We are unlikely to see God visually and even the mystics preferred not to as they feared they would become proud if they received some special visions or insight into God and spiritual things. This does not mean He is not with us daily in every step we take and in every minor decision we make.
Christianity is a religion not a philosophy and relies on faith as our primary means of understanding God not reason.
The System
We think the devil lives in hell and God in His heaven and we are alone on earth to suffer from each other without restraint. This is not true at all. Both forces and individual spirits are at work in the world constantly. In fact the spiritual world is not really a different world but a bigger one which the physical one is a small part of.
The only thing that limits God is His nature and the limits He places on Himself with regard to human choice. The most effective way to subvert God's people is to be subtle and convince people there is no spiritual world. The devil cares more about the Church and the Christian's mind than unbelievers.
Typically the most supernaturally aware societies are the most receptive to the Gospel. There is a reason why the devil does not try to physically oppose or attack Christians very often. God also gives the spiritual world a shorter leash than the physical world.
Spiritual warfare is more like a cold war in our world and has some connections to the way intelligence agencies work. The main weapon is not force but deception. Changing the mind of the opponent and having perfect insight into what he knows and thinks is often more effective and less costly than trying to occupy a foreign nation.
The US world system is very much patterned after the British one including similar ideology, but the US has found it is more effective to control the hearts and minds than the territory of other countries. That is why computers were developed in the first place and why our media is so powerful and so resistant to reform.
And this is why people are watched more closely by governments or now businesses than every before. To truly control us they had to let us have a little bit of their power and get us to choose to play by their rules. They watch us like an intruder they know is there because any power can be reversed and used against the aggressor. Every system is penetrable and every attack has a counter.
The devil although many times more powerful than all of us people combined will never destroy God’s Church because it is based on God’s power not people’s. God works through people but the Church is directed by God. Just as an individual soldier realizes their frailty, they have access to greater power, in that case the power of an entire army.
Forward with God
Before we can truly embrace and work with God in an effective way we first must realize that we must never try to work alone. Life is too great for any of us to try to survive on our own, let alone temptations and the lies and deception we encounter in our daily routines that seek to undermine our connection to God. It is only when the soldiers are alone or in small groups and detached from the main army that they are weak and easily defeated.
For Jesus to be our Savior He must be our Lord as well. Furthermore, we cannot please God without faith. So we must submit ourselves to God’s will daily but also stand with Him when we need His help. God does not abandon us when we are defeated or we cannot hold onto our faith. The simple answer is for us to choose then to believe God despite our doubts and then to ask God to increase our faith.
Life is truly a battle and this is obviously not just spiritual. We fight against disease, aging, accidents, debt, personalities, politics, greed, divisions, and the like. Life is a fight for survival even amongst animals.
We do not need to be defeated and we will not as long as God is both leading us and we are working through His power and for His purposes. We will suffer no matter who we follow but we can actually win depending on what side we choose. The next step is to make this decision very clear and continue to make it clear daily.
As a reflection of the model of salvation, faith in and of itself it a gift of God as well. God provides most of the faith necessary. The key part we need to provide is the choice to believe repeated over time. The choice to follow God is not a one time choice, but one we continually make throughout our lives. You cannot remain neutral spiritually and eventually everyone will be forced to choose one side or the other.