The Greatest of These

There is an amazing temptation, when we are confronted by spiritual challenges, to "shoot" the messenger, so to speak. Although, demonic spirits can independently inflict all manner of havoc on human beings, from physical illness to mental and emotional distress, they usually work through other people.

When we are attacked by a person, we tend to think we are simply the victim of a mean-spirited attack by a someone who has something against us. Perhaps there are such attacks, but the very fact we are being attacked demonstrates there is something going on behind the scenes we do not understand. We are assuming here that we have done nothing deserving of being attacked. People just do not attack other people for no reason. That sounds like a ridiculous statement until we think about all the reasons one person might attack another. When we break the reasons down to their essence we find there are really only a couple reasons for the attack. Either the person being attacked has something the attacker wants, or the attacker feels threatened in some way. Sometimes the threat can be a perception of loss of status as when one is insulted in the presence of a friend and feels the need to save face.

The apostle Paul said he had a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him. (2 Corinthians 12:7) He correctly discerned where the attack originated. Satan sent a messenger to attack Paul. Satan is still in the business of sending messengers to attack people.

Pay close attention now. This is a critical point. Many of those messengers are demonically inspired people. Although we say they are demonically inspired, these people have no idea they are being manipulated into those attacks. In fact they are good, God fearing, church going, tithe giving Christians. They may even think they are doing God's work. If they, themselves realized what they were doing, they would not do it. Again, we are seeing the very definition of spiritual deception.

Long time readers of this blog will not be the least bit surprised to hear me say the problem is the people who attack others are operating from their soul rather than their spirit. The human soul is the playground of demonic spirits, messengers of Satan. Again, read carefully. We are not talking about demonic possession or even oppression (the scriptural term for either of those conditions is really demonization). What we are saying is that demonic spirits can impress upon our mind and emotions, ideas that we may act on contrary to what we might otherwise do. As a result, we become angry and give full vent to those impressions--then we wonder how we could have done that. It is interesting that we see other people do those things and think they are just hateful people. We wonder what is wrong with them. However, when we do those things, we allow for the fact that we are simply human beings who sometimes have those problems. A friend of mine, Pastor Dennis Easter, is quoted as saying, "Isn't it amazing that we fail to see the grace of God working in others the way we know it is working in us?" Is that the sound of our common conviction I hear? Maybe it was just me.

What then should our response be when we are attacked? There is only one possible response to that question for the Christian. We must absolutely, unequivocally, respond in love. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second, He said, is like the first. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. (Matthew 22:37-39) We used to receive a church newsletter from a church we had never attended. We had become aquainted with the interim pastor and he decided to send us the newsletter. He routinely included in the newsletter, what he called "Scripture without comment." Following his lead, no brilliant analysis of those verses. Read them and do them. If you do, you will have fulfilled all the law and the prophets. (verse 40) "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)

The Weapons of Our Warfare, Part 6

We are not entirely sure how blogger works, and it really does not matter all that much. The way we hope and pray this blog works is that we hear what the Holy Spirit is saying, write it down, and it becomes some kind of semi-permanent record on the internet. We mention that only to say, this post, we think, is going to show it was published on a Saturday. In reality it is barely Saturday by the clock. We are morning people, but this can hardly be considered morning at all.

Watchman Nee, who is one of our heroes in the faith, said every day was a spiritual battle while he was writing his classic The Spiritual Man. I was talking about that with my neighbor across the fence just yesterday. When we look back at the dates of these posts, we note we were publishing much more frequently when we started. Then something happened. The warfare became a little more intense. Trust me when I tell you this whole, past week was one distraction after another.

For most of the past twenty years, as we have alluded to previously, we have been unsure of what we were called to Santa Maria to do. We are embarassed to say most of that time we spent in ignorance can be directly related to spiritual deception. Not only were we unable to see what we were supposed to be doing, we thought we were doing what we should be. We know, that sounds sort of cryptic, but that is how spiritual deception works. One wrong turn, one false piece of information, one lie that we believe can send us down the path toward deception.

At this time, however, we can tell you, we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. In the past three months, more or less, we have moved out of that period of ignorance and deception, into a period of apathy, where we did not really care what happened, to peace. We now understand, with more than head knowledge, God is at work in us to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13) Looking back over our lives, we see sometimes very clearly, sometimes less how God was bringing us to this time and place.

In the beginning, this blog was as effortless as anything ever has been in my life. Of course, most of the early posts were simply personal history so the most difficult part of writing them was remembering that far back with a brain that may have passed it's prime. It has become more difficult recently. We are aware of Satan's schemes. We also understand a little something about how God works in our spirits.

This is a real time update. I just learned what I am about to share, and I do mean "just" as in moments ago. It is also one of those "duh" moments as in, how have I been missing that? Let me explain what "just" happened. The Holy Spirit dropped a word into my spirit. The word is "schemes". I knew it was in the Bible, but I get a little fuzzy on addresses sometimes. I almost always blog with another tab open to http://www.crosswalk.com/. What a blessing that site is to The Church. Anyway, as we said very early on, we always quote from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted. So we search in that translation. Nothing came up. Maybe it was in the Authorized Version, a.k.a The King James Version. Not there either. Sometimes we do use the New International Version. Might as well try that. There it is, two times. The word "schemes" appears in 2 Corinthians 2:11 and Ephesians 6:11. Both times the scheme of Satan being talked about is division amongst God's people. For your information, the other two versions mentioned use the word "devices" instead of schemes.

We neglected to mention earlier the Lord has been working overtime dealing with us about our love walk. In fact, our pastor sent an email just yesterday reminding us that loving one another is one of the life principles of our church. That also came up in the conversation with the neighbor yesterday. He is a Christian man. We briefly noted that some people are just easier to love than others.

There is no way to over-emphasize the importance of loving one another. The Bible is God's love story to mankind. From Genesis 1:1 where God began His work of creation to provide a perfect place for man to live to Revelation 22:20 where He wishes us the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bible is the expression of a Father's love for his children. Jesus prayed, "...that they may all be one...that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me." (John 17:22-23) We truly will show God to the world by loving one another as He has loved us.
I started writing this over an hour ago because I felt led to write. At that time I did not know what weapon I would be writing about. By now it should be obvious. The weapon is unity and it works by love. It seems I remember some historical figure saying, "United we stand, divided we fall." or was that just a song lyric performed by Sonny and Cher? (We do hope you recognize our sardonic comments that appear in this space from time to time.)

Now I had better get back to bed. Our grandson is here for the weekend and we would hate to miss any time with him. He is, after all, the cutest little boy in the world.

Work on your love walk and we will be "perfect in one".