January 21, 2016

Ephesians 6:12 NLT - "For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places."

Commentary:

"Unsaved people are not your enemy.  They are victims of the enemy."  That's a quote I heard years ago to help me focus on where I needed to concentrate my battle.  All too often we have been fighting people when it's the devil and his demons that are the real foe.  Our enemies are unseen, but very real and make themselves very apparent!!  Ever since we were born the enemy of our souls has sought to keep us in his kingdom.  He did all he could do to keep us from even hearing about Christ.  He wanted to ruin God's plan of salvation, first by trying to destroy God's plan down through the ages, and then by keeping His salvation from being preached so unsaved people could hear about it and be saved.

And what Christians need to realize is that the fight against their souls didn't end when they got saved!  Sure, the devil lost a great battle when we turned to Christ as God's Holy Spirit allowed us to see and understand God's Good News and then brought us to believe in Christ for our own salvation.  But he is still fighting us!  He wants to ruin God's new creation and make us ineffectual witnesses for the Lord.  He either tries to lead us into sin or he causes all kinds of persecution and trials to come our way to discourage us.  He knows that if he can get us to sin then we're loaded down with guilt and we think we're not worthy of being restored back to fellowship with Christ.  There's so much to say here, but the prime point I want to make is to keep our focus where the battle is and to prepare ourselves to fight.  That's where the armor of God comes in and we'll begin talking about that tomorrow.