Spiritual Warfare... Yeah It's Real!!!

Sunday evenings at CBC we are going through a video series on Spiritual Warfare by Chip Ingram a well-known speaker and pastor.  July 10, 2011 was a Sunday and the video discussed two tactics that Satan uses against believers: 1) Guilt and 2) Condemnation of the believer.  But what gave me the most thought was that "believers fight FROM victory NOT FOR victory."

Take a moment to think about that!

The Bible tells us that this is true. I Cor. 15:57.  Yet this is something that we fail to realize... at least I failed to realize it.  Maybe I read over the passage without evening thinking about it at all.  It's simply something that hasn't clicked inside my head!  My question is this: If the battle is already won, why do we fight like it isn't?  In fact I believe that we fight like the battle is lost sometimes.  We cower inside our comfort zones and watch as our enemy, the Devil, does whatever he wants.  We keep the Great News of Christ to ourselves so as to avoid "persecution".  But if the battle is already won, than why do we worry about that?  What is the worst people can do to us? Kill us?  Most certainly not because than we obtain our ultimate desire, to be in Heaven with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!!!

Okay so in my mind than the worst thing is pain...  I don't like it though I am told I can handle it rather well (ask my mom on this one)!  My mind moves immediately to pain and suffering as the worst that can happen to me personally.  So I think about Christ.  His pain, His suffering all for a single purpose!  The salvation of my soul.  Then I think of the early apostles... Most of them suffered painful deaths and most certainly believers around the world and even in the United States suffer persecution.

I write this with the knowledge that I am as guilty as you.  I get scared at the thought of death, pain and suffering.  I am a young man, nearly 20, with a life to live ahead of him, but whose life is it? Mine or the Lord's?  The world says it's mine, but the Lord says it's His!!!  I know it's the Lord's because He gave it to me and He can most certainly take it from me in an instant.  I'll close in the words of well-known Christian artist tobyMac, "I'm Yours, take me as I am!"