Spiritual Gunfights

Recently, I read an obscure but interesting piece of data. A report in 2011 from the General Accounting Office (GAO) reveals that for every insurgent killed in the wars in Iraq and Afganistan 250,000 rounds are fired. This included both training and actual combat. That rate of fire resulted in 1.8 billion rounds of small arms ammunition being used every year. That is a lot of bullets flying through the air.

As I read those surprising statistics, I thought of spiritual warfare and the effectiveness of our prayers, blessings and prophetic declarations. Every time we utter a prayer, release a blessing or make a declaration a casualty takes place in the kingdom of darkness.  Over time this accumulated rate of spiritual fire weakens the enemy’s position to such a degree that a breakthrough takes place.

Each time you declare God’s heart over an impossible situation, bless an enemy or pray into the life of a person or place in the culture where people are held in bondage a hit takes place – a hit of love. Every spiritual round of love we fire in the name of Jesus has an intended target even though we may not fully have the situation lined up in our sights.Our prayers, blessings, and declarations are striking targets we only see in part as we exercise our faith. 

When you fire from an obscure and unnoticed position never forget that you are part of a much larger conflict. We don't fight these battles alone. We engage the enemy as a global army. We are deadly accurate and lethal to the works of darkness because God is directing our spiritual rounds toward specific targets in a battle much that is larger than we could ever imagine. Your shots are having a devastating impact on the works of darkness. Your rate of fire matters. Keep it up. 

When God Blinds Us

There are times when God will blind us to what is taking place around us in order to speak to us. He does this so we will rely on another reality – the unseen and unexplored world of faith.

We live in a time and place where many of our decisions are based on available physical and relational evidence. We study what we perceive to be our reality and respond accordingly. This creates a form of decision-making that does not require faith. In the end, we develop human-sourced strategies that produce outcomes that do not involve a miraculous intervention because human intellect and logic have taken a predominant position in our lives.

The Lord told Moses, “I will come to you in a thick cloud, Moses, so the people themselves can hear me when I speak with you. Then they will always trust you” (Exodus 19:9). The word, “thick”, caught my attention. This is a thickness as in “I can’t see my hand in front of my face” kind of thickness.  In the Hebrew language, the word is also translated as “dense”.  It is used to describe the thickness of a warrior’s shield. It is an impenetrable kind of thickness.

The thick cloud completely blinded Moses to his surroundings. He could not see through the cloud to determine his next step. God did this with a purpose in mind. God wanted Moses alone with Him so Moses would hear only his voice. The Lord did the same thing on the road to Damascus when He blinded Paul for three days. He does the same thing in our lives from time to time when we can’t seem to find our way forward.

You and I do not need physical evidence to find our way forward. We only need to hear the voice of God. If you can no longer clearly “see” the circumstances of your life with clarity or you cannot find any trustworthy data on which to base your decision, you still have the voice of God. His instruction to you will not be sourced from the limitations of the natural world. It will be instruction and direction birthed from the realm of eternity and imported to Earth to be received by faith.

When God spoke to Moses from within the cloud, He had a captive audience. From that place of vulnerability, Moses received instruction for a nation when a nation could not comprehend a solution. As Moses interacted with God in that thick cloud the people heard a man speaking to God who was solely dependent on God for his direction. As a result, the people were able to trust Moses. What you do in your personal cloud of revelation will not only provide you and those you love with a way forward, it will also create a level of trust not available in any other circumstance. The thick cloud in which you find yourself is a really good place. Trust the Voice.

Aware of the Presence

John Wimber once said, “If you’re not aware of the Presence you will never be aware of the Power.” The greatest thing a pastor can do when a congregation gathers is to help the people acknowledge the presence of God in the assembly. Without this acknowledgment and a subsequent invitation, the program and plans for the day will displace the manifestations of the Spirit that were assigned to the gathering to bring healing and freedom. In the end, no matter how many religious bells and whistles we have we will send the people away without an encounter with the Living God. That will produce a lifeless and powerless expression of God's Kingdom.

One of the greatest needs in the Church today is the acknowledgment of God’s presence. The defining line between churches that have a significant cultural impact or not, is the value they place on the presence of God. This is not the presence of God that all believers carry. It is the manifest presence of God that is released when engaged by our faith, whether individually or corporately. It is a tangible encounter with God that produces miraculous evidence of His presence. 

Today, above all else, cultivate an awareness of God's presence as you go about your day - in your car as you drive to your next appointment, when you shop at your favorite store or when you interact with people in casual conversation. Train yourself in this and the next time you gather with other believers you will be so aware of God’s presence that the lesser imitations of religious activity will not have the power to dominate and displace what God planned to accomplish. 

When Life Takes A Dangerous Turn

When life takes a dangerous turn people do not want a Barney Fife of Mayberry version of a police department, a spineless government or friends who turn their backs on them in a time of threat or impending conflict. The right for people to live a peaceful and productive life is the desire of God for all nations. This was not a government idea it was God’s idea. God put governments in place to ensure that our peace and safety is a protected human right. Until our peace and safety are interrupted we can create illusions about the reality in which we live and begin to actually believe our illusions about what constitutes real life. Each generation not affected by the horror of war or acts of terror must grapple with this issue.

Once, I was removed from my car and held at gunpoint by rogue police officers in a third world nation. Another time I had to run a roadblock late at night on a dark mountain road in the West Indies when thieves tried to rob me.  Years late in another ministry assignment, Jan and I along with other believers found ourselves surrounded by 30,000 violent demonstrators in a former Communist Bloc nation and had to be escorted to safety by the secret police. All of these and other fearful encounters I have not mentioned took place in situations when I was able to return to a nation where freedom and security are the norm. While these terrifying situations were unfolding the sweetness of liberty and safety back home became a distant and fading hope. My only real hope in those moments of terror was in God. I was out of reach of the protections granted to me in the United States but I was not out of reach of God’s protective hand.

The world has always been a perilous place for most of its inhabitants. Bad things happen to good people – all the time. The quality of our lives is always better when people and institutions are in place to protect us from evil and at times, from our naive version of reality.

When it is all said and done, every follower of Christ must ultimately trust God for their deliverance. When terror, war, and violence visit our lives the adrenal-like dose of reality that surges through our being in those dark encounters will wake us from our slumbering version of reality. In those troubling moments the peace and security that comes from knowing God will become our greater reality and our only hope. You can trust God in all things and at all times. He will never leave you or forsake you even when life takes a dangerous turn.

The Frog in the Garden

The Word of God was not given to us to become an overly-dissected book cut up in such a way that it proves our pet theology or gives us the winning point in a forensic debate setting. The Word of God is a living love letter. It was written to humanity to reveal the love of God. Human foolishness and sin do fill some of the pages along with the consequences of those choices but they are temporary interruptions to the narrative of God’s love.

In high school, I took a biology class in my junior year. One afternoon as we entered class it was the day of the dreaded frog dissection. In front of each student was a dead frog splayed out on a cutting board. Scalpels lay beside each dead frog. For the next hour, we were directed by our teacher how to cut open the frog to discover from his interior region the position and function of his organs. You could hear nervous laughter and an occasional gagging sound throughout the exercise. Some students stood in a weird silence as they did the cutting wondering if this was the first step in becoming a mass murderer. It was a brutal event.

As I cut into my frog, I remembered back in my yard at home there lived a real frog in his natural element. He (I am assuming it was a he) was fully intact, his guts securely in place as he hopped and croaked with freedom through my mother’s pansy patch. I liked that frog much more than this poor little guy who was enduring the cold and impersonal incisions of my scalpel.

If we are not careful we can end up dissecting Scripture like a dead frog. Scripture was never given to us to be dissected to prove our denominational statement of faith or our pet theology. The truth contained in its pages was not given to become a gotcha moment at Starbucks when we “win” a theological argument. It was given to us to reveal the heart of God and in the process, the condition of ours.

Don’t get me wrong. Study Scripture. Be a diligent student but study to discover the heart of God. Use that focus as the primary motivator for your study. I is a form of discovery that will leave no one gagging in the process. 

If we could spend more time in the garden of life instead of the impersonal laboratory of religion we will be able to show the world the power of the Living Word instead of a dead and dissected substitute of the real thing.

Later in the day, after biology class, I went home to my mom’s pansy patch looking for Mr. Frog to apologize to him for what I just did to one of his relatives. I didn't find him. I think he was hiding.

The Sad World of Anonymous Critics

Each of us will encounter an occasional anonymous critic. If you open your mouth and express your opinion you will have someone who has no relationship with you pull out their fillet knife of correction and attempt to cut you down to their size. These are people whose only platform for criticism is behind the walls of cowardice trapped in an enclosure created by fear. The Internet has produced an army of these critics whose anonymity is actually a stimulant for a sad and isolated life. 

When these critics send me their words of disdain and disgust (I had one this morning), I do three things.

1. I read their comments. I read them because I could have missed something and even though the form of communication was flawed, I still need to be large enough emotionally to put on my big boy pants and take an honest look.

2. As I read what many times are harsh and dismissive words, I realize on the other end of the comment is a real person, broken just like me. When I hit the delete button on my blog or block someone on social media, the person on the other end is a person loved by God.  If I forget that point, I will lose a bit of my humanity.

3. Finally, I actually say out loud a blessing over the person. I bless them because I have not been empowered to carry the fruit of their judgment in my own heart as an unresolved offense. The blessing removes the weight of their words and sets me free.

After you have done these three things move on. Never park at any criticism especially the criticism of a fear-bound anonymous critic. Each of us carries a slice of a much greater revelation than our limited view contains. This applies to all of us - the critics and the criticized alike. If we can learn to live together in open and honest conversations maybe we would show the world a brighter hope than the tarnished one we sometimes present.

Your Hidden Strength

You are stronger than your circumstances reveal. You are better than the opinion other people have about you. There is more going on under the surface of your life than a casual observation can reveal.

In 1996, an athletic clothing line was developed by a frustrated college football player. His product idea was conceived when he became tired of having to regularly change his sweat-soaked cotton t-shirt during multiple football practices. The new product was able to keep athletes cool, dry and comfortable in the most brutally hot conditions. Starting in his grandmother’s basement he created his first synthetic undergarment and traveled up and down the East Coast selling his wares from the trunk of his car. Today, Under Armor is a multi-million dollar business listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Opposing teams withered under the hot conditions of summer football practice. The wearers of Under Armor were able to press through the heat of practice to outperform their opponents.

You wear spiritual Under Armor. Under the outwardly visible circumstance of your life rests the armor of God’s Spirit. It has been placed out of natural sight requiring you to draw on its protection in the heat of spiritual conflict. God gave this armor to you to stand as a protective layer around the most vulnerable part of your life – your heart. The writer of Proverbs correctly noted, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23).

Today, walk forward into whatever comes your way knowing the armor of God is ready to guard your heart if you are willing to engage its protection. No assault, no shallow flattery nor any personal lapse in understanding your true identity can penetrate this protective layer if you choose to believe what God has declared about your life. His opinion is your greatest armor.