Setting Up a Defensible Perimeter for Spiritual Battle

In warfare, humans have always constructed their defenses at the outer limit of an enemy's range of effective fire. These defenses were set up in the mouth of caves, moats around castles, walls of a frontier fort and today, with firewalls around our technology. In the natural, this makes sense as an attempt to keep people alive during a conflict.

The weapons of spiritual warfare are different. Their effectiveness is not measured by natural distance or placed in this realm based on what can be seen.   Our spiritual weapons of defensive and offensive action must be positioned from an eternal perspective. Many succumb in a spiritual battle because they fight from within a natural mindset setting up defensive perimeters based only on human measurement. These conflicts create unnecessary casualties because they put us within range of hell's weaponry.

Ten years ago, I began to see images of thrones. After several months of continually seeing throne images, I began to inquire of the Lord what He was saying. He took me to Paul’s writing in Ephesians, where Paul detailed our position in Christ at the right hand of the Father. I came to realize our position in Christ is not some positional theory of placement we will occupy in the distant future. It is a "now" position because we were resurrected with Jesus. 

As a result of that season of seeing thrones and realizing the present-day significance of our position in Christ, my first book, Prayers from the Throne of God, was written.  That new perspective changed everything for me, especially how I pray and conduct spiritual warfare. 

When we fight a spiritual battle, we need to rise above the fight in two ways. First, we must rise above how we see the battlefield and the combatants. It is too tempting to only see people and cultural institutions that need changing and limit our engagement to that lower level. Yes, there are essential things we can do like becoming involved in our culture to bring about change or voting, but these battles are not won in that arena alone. These involvements are the by-products of having engaged a more significant conflict being waged in the spiritual realm.

Secondly, we need to understand the outcome of each earthy battle will be determined by the outcome of a heavenly conflict. This is why we do not set up our spiritual defensive lines or unleash an offensive campaign based solely on natural intelligence gathered through human intellect and thereby constructing our fortifications determined only by input from our emotions, our circumstance, or a religious spirit. We set up our defensive lines and determine their placement in the defined space between Heaven and Earth - the space Jesus ascended through during His resurrection. Some call this boundary line the separation between the first and second heavens and the actual Heaven, the third heaven, as described by Paul.

We sit at this very moment with Christ inside His defensible perimeter in Heaven, a perimeter that is based on His ultimate authority and sacrifice. Our spiritual battles are fought from behind the security of that perimeter. Within that perimeter, the weapons of hell cannot reach our encampment unless, by an act of fear and faithlessness, we step over the perimeter to engage the battle in our flesh. Only those who approach earthly conflict from a heavenly perspective will have the ability to remain safe and secure in the spiritual conflicts that play out on the personal and cultural battlefields of life.