The Invisible War That Becomes Visible

I am reading and preaching through the book Daniel and in Chapter ten is this amazing vision and Angelic interpretation of the vision given to Daniel concerning prayer and spiritual warfare.  The three weeks Daniel is praying and fasting is a three week time interval between an invisible heavenly battle.  Several major issues springs out from all this.

1.  The invisible spiritual battles are just as real as those that happen visibly.  We are all involved in a spiritual and cosmic battle that is happening around us whether we are conscious of it or not.  These battles can become very intense in the fall out of them in the natural realm.  I deal with people off and on that are going through major spiritual warfare and what they call "crazy stuff" happening in their lives that makes no rational sense.

2.  When it comes to spiritual warfare, we fight from victory, we do not fight for victory.  Jesus has already won the decisive war even though their are smaller battles yet to be fought.  We have already overcome the enemy in Christ (1 Jn.4:4).  We overcome the enemy through the blood of Christ, the word of our testimony, and even through martyrdom (Rev.12:11).  A surrendered life to God leads to the enemy taking flight (James 4:7).

3.  Jesus has given you authority over the enemy (Luke 10:19) so pray boldly before the enemy and walk humbly before Jesus.  Are we fighting in the power of Christ or are we choosing our own battles on our own limited power?  When it comes to peace, peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence and power of Jesus in our lives.  Often a spiritual battle is a test to get us to the next place of what God is doing if we persevere and do not give up.  The greatest blessing is often just around the corner just outside of our vision.

Fallen

"I have met the enemy and it is me" - G. K. Chesterton

There have been several movies about fallen angels who are on earth trying to redeem themselves. Even though the biblical story suggests its these principalities and powers that are reaping destruction and havoc on our planet, Christians for the most part have ignored the possibility of redemption for fallen angels.

This reminds me of yesterdays musings. Why are some people so intent on all humans being saved in the end but not Satan and his angels? Doesn't all the justice and God needs to play fair cards thrown down apply to them as well? It seems like a certain selectivity and anthropocentric gospels have a lot more to unpack when it comes to justice, holiness, and the goodness or fairness of God.

My problem and everyone else for that matter is when we read the Bible, we read it with a fallen nature. Because of sin, it's like we have all been effected by "Satan's insidious nature." We shake our fists at God or demand that God or God's Word conform to our way of thinking and doing things. And followers of Jesus are just as guilty of doing this as those who are not following Jesus.


This has been "the year of tornadoes." What do we make of these natural forces that maim, kill, and destroy lives? Some Christians simply retreat to all suffering and bad things come from the Devil and his fallen angles and all good comes from God. But is that what we see in the Bible? Does God ever make use of these forces as agents of judgment?

And then there are so many Jesus followers who think their sole task is to point out the errors of everyone else. Is that really the gift of discernment that the Bible talks about? Everything from all revivals are not really moves of God but forms of deception to Christian mysticism is evil and really from the Devil. Really? And then there is all that Catholic bashing to even the new monasticism is bad. Probably sounds too Catholic? Do we not find ourselves calling bad what God calls good? Maybe we should try to follow G. K. Chesterton's example and look for fallenness not somewhere else, but take a really hard look in the mirror. For if we don't look for it there first, we have no right to be looking for it some place else.