Equip: Monday/Spiritual Warfare

The central theme of the Bible is relationships.  Jesus didn't do life alone and He doesn't want us to either. The best way for God to get His mission accomplished is through relationships.  If someone spends years and years working on translating the Bible for a people group, but he never meets the people so they don't read it, what was his purpose.  That is why Satan attacks relationships so much.  Satan knows that if he can destroy the relationships with gossip, busyness, disagreements, discouragement, and conflict, then he can distract them from their mission.

Satan's favorite relationship to break down is your relationship with God.  If he can make you angry and discouraged with God, then he can keep you from doing what God wants you to do and make your ministry ineffective.  All Satan has to do is make you busy, so you don't time to spend with God and then put you in crisis.  Then he can take control of your mind, heart, and strength.  He just needs one major crisis to prove to you God doesn't care or that He doesn't exist or that the work you doing doesn't matter, or whatever other lies he wants to fill your mind with.  I can tell you that's this is the truth.  For the last three months, I have been in a spiritual battle.  I think Satan knows that Steve and I about to step out in faith and join the mission field and he wants to stop us.  I know it's been a battle and it's one that I am determined to win.  Satan is trying to take me out. He wants to make me feel alone and unworthy of His love, so my ministry will be ineffective and, to be honest, if Steve wasn't my rock he might have succeeded in doing that.  I'm still in the battle. I don't believe that I at a place where I can say that I'm done with it.  I am learning some things about the character of God that I knew before, but didn't fully understand.  I need to keep my defenses up.  God's goal is to give us love, hope, and faith.  Satan's goal is destroy those.

If Satan can't destroy your relationship with God, he will go after your family or your friends.  He needs to break down the relationships around you, so you will less effective.  He will make you busy with work, even God's work, so you neglect your family.  The ideal order of priorities is God - Spouse - Family - Work - Friends.  Satan's goal is mix that priority list up.  If he destroys your family, he destroys your ministry potential.

We are in a spiritual battle.  It is not something that we can ignore.  Spiritual warfare is not just casting out demons.  Every thought, deed, and attitude occurs in a spiritual battle field. Even as we struggle with trials and temptations by the enemy, we must keep in mind that God is simultaneously working in these same struggles to transform us into a person more like Christ.

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Genesis 50:20

God doesn't cause bad things to happen.  But He will use them for His glory.