WARFARE

Quoting from 2 Cor 10:4 and paraphrasing to give you a better understanding….

The offensive weapons for war and of our military career of hardship and danger are not pertaining to the flesh, but mighty powerful and capable through God, to the demolition and extinction of fortified castles.

In this war what are we supposed to do?

We demolish arguments
Every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God
Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ
Punish every act of disobedience

It seems to me we are talking about the battle for the mind here. Sad to say, too many Christians shut down their mind when it comes to their Christian activity. Most of it seems to dwell in the area of feelings but there is no mention of such in this list.

In other words it is necessary to put your brain into gear if you are going to demolish every argument etc.

One important thing which we don’t want to acknowledge and that is we can do these things once our submission is complete. If it is not the logical conclusion is that we can’t do these things. A simile is that a soldier can go out to war and “stick it up them” once he has learned to obey his superior officers. Until that happens he is pretty useless because every soldier that goes to war usually has another 10 who depend on him doing what he is told.

If he doesn’t, he not only a danger to himself but the others that are fighting alongside him, and when the commander says to advance, that means everyone, not just those that feel like it.

Going back to the original verse it says that our weapons are mighty powerful and capable THROUGH God. In other words, it only happens when God is running things, not us. Our weapons are powerful when they are used through God. In other words, the weapon is effective when we use them when God gives us the instructions. If he doesn’t, it is like trying to down a fighter plane with a pea shooter.

So what is the moral here? It is simply this, that there is no point in doing anything until you have God’s battle plan. How do we get God’s battle plan? Prayer, prayer and more prayer. Praying for God to reveal his plan to us. Prayer that God will give us boldness. Prayer that he will direct us as we move into battle. Prayer that God will give us power over the enemy. Prayer that we will not do anything unless it comes from God.

A sample of how it works. In a prayer meeting the other week I didn’t know what to pray so I asked the Lord what he wanted me to pray for. He said to pray for hurting families. I did and began crying for them as the spirit anointed me to pray. I don’t know what the end result was but I do know that a battle was won the heavenlies.

Oh, in case you didn’t know, an unregenerate mind is a fortified castle against God.