We walk, each and every day, through a war zone, we are surrounded by war in the heavenly places, a war that is over our souls. We have an enemy, who lives to destroy us. And what do we do...?...
In what other war could people stroll around the battlefield, ignoring the clashes and skirmishes going on around them, lost in their own thoughts, not even aware of what is happening around them? In what other war would you find people like that, who would stand there, with no armour on, in the middle of a raging bloody battle to the death, and simply stand there until we get hacked four or five times by some large and menacing enemy with a broadsword in his hand, and then fall down and scream for help? The sword at our side is there, but rusty. But we have long since forgotten what that thing on our belt is, it becomes more of a keepsake or momento of something than the weapon that is really is. And as we lay wounded and defeated, with the enemy looming over us...
...the army rushes in around us at the general's command and saves our butts. Taken to the field hospital, our wounds are nursed. But long before we are healed, we grow bored, and off we go again, to wander around the battlefield looking for shiny stones and other things to distract ourselves with, until the enemy spies us and it all happens again.
Tell me, in what other war would this scene actually happen? Because you and i both know that this is the scene that greets most Christians, day after day. We start off our day defeated. We walk through it defeated. And time and time again, we carry with us the scars of battles lost, battles that we did not even deem to realise were taking place over us.
We live in a war zone. The battle is unseen, but deadly real. Much more real than the things around us that we can touch - more real than the money in our bank accounts, more real than our SUVs, more real than that tree over there.
We live in a physical world. But answer me this - what is around this physical world? What is outside of it, what surrounds it - what was here before it, exists still, and will still be here when it is no more? The answer is, the spiritual world. Our physical world was created by God, and it is where we currently reside. But we also live in the spiritual world.
That doesn't have to be all mystical and mumbo-jumboey. Think about it this way - we live in the world, on the earth, within it's atmosphere. But we also live in the universe. Without the universe, there is no earth. The universe surrounds the earth, and incorporates it. The earth is in the universe, and is part of the universe, and so we are in the universe. In the same way, we live in the physical world, but that is just a created place that exisits within, and wholly surrounded by, the spiritual world.
We need to start looking at things differently. Correctly. We have, for far too long, been told what to believe by the world around us, when that is supposed to be dictated to us by God through His Word.
Lord, we need a change, to wake up from our sleep. And Lord, it needs to start with me.
.bmp)
