My heart is heavy. I was recently searching for blogs and sites that mentioned favorite Bible verses since I wrote about this in a recent post. While browsing through the search results I stumbled upon a site named Atheist Nexus where they were posting favorite Bible verses to use against Christians. I hesitated to include the name of the site since I do not want to encourage people to visit or support this but then it occurred to me this knowledge could be useful even though it hurts me to see people so blatantly rejecting Jesus and His great love. One important thing I always have to remember is they are not necessarily rejecting me, even though it may feel like it, they are rejecting Jesus.
As Christians we need to have a good knowledge of spiritual warfare because we are fighting battles everyday. I have come to love and appreciate Psalm 3—it speaks to my heart. But, several years ago I remember reading it and thinking that it didn't relate to me. It begins, "O Lord, many are my foes, many rise up against me." I remember thinking, I don't have any enemies. I'm a nice guy and even if people don't like me they don't hate me or don't want to hurt me. But, God revealed the truth to me—I do have enemies. Satan is the enemy of every Christian. Satan will do anything he can to harm me or kill me or get me to reject God. The more you follow what God wants you to do the more your enemies will show themselves. Let me say again that Satan is the true enemy but he has many on his side who will come against your efforts to do what God wants. Satan will influence people to come against you. This doesn't mean they are his followers or part of a cult. In fact, I have seen and heard church people say things and do things that were definitely more in line with Satan's will than with God's will. I am not saying they are not saved because I don't know what is in their heart. I do know they were not bearing the fruit of the Spirit at that moment.
I recently had a man tell me I offended him since I am a Christian. I asked him to explain what he meant and he told me that he was offended by the fact that I believe what the Bible says, that Jesus is the only way to salvation. He said by believing this I am saying his father and grandfather, who were atheists, were not going to heaven. When he was telling me this his face was red and his anger and rage were evident. I had to wonder if he was going to come across the table at me. He did not and we continued to talk. I had to remember this man was not angry or offended by me or anything I had done but what I represented.
One of the first principles we need to learn in spiritual warfare is the importance of knowing your enemy. As I was looking at the Atheist Nexus site it became very obvious to me the people posting these comments know what the Bible says. Some of them appeared to be very familiar with it but the truth is they are looking at it from a worldly point of view. They are not reading it with the Holy Spirit's inspiration. The truths found in the Word of God don't mean anything to the person who doesn't have the Spirit of God in them. They will only look at the Bible as literature, history, fictional stories, or myths. They will not be able to recognize the power of God in the words on the page. They will not believe it is the infallible Word of God, in fact, they will look for all the errors and mistakes they can find.
If you don't know your enemy—your enemy has the advantage. You can rest assured the enemy knows you, or at least knows about you.
Sometimes what people see in us does more harm than good. God calls us to represent His message of love and grace as faithful ambassadors. I have known some who are guided by their own agenda and desires than God's grace. One thing you can be sure, our enemy will be able to recognize our hypocrisy. When we claim to be Christians but live as the world lives we are not faithfully representing Jesus to the world. I am not saying we have to perfect since none of us can live up to that. I am saying we need to recognize our mistakes and be humble about our need for forgiveness for the many things we do wrong. We need to represent, with assurance, the faithful mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior. We can do this first in our receiving the mercy and forgiveness of God and then in being gracious, merciful, and forgiving in our relationships with others.
Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean that we neglect to share the truth of the judgment that will someday happen but we must present that knowledge along with the message of God's love and mercy. God's desire to save all of us from the judgment to come is the reason Jesus came, died, and rose again. Some present it as "do this or God will smite you" but I see it as "God loves you so much He provided a solution so you wouldn't suffer condemnation at the judgment." The main thing is the love that paid the price rather than the reason for the price.
So, not only do we need to know our enemy but we must also know our self. We must represent our self as a faithful ambassador of the love of Jesus Christ and this requires a humble attitude since the only thing that separates us from the person who rejects Jesus is we have received God's mercy and forgiveness and they have not. Our hope is they will receive it someday.
So, my heart is heavy as I think about the things I read on this web site—it hurts me to see people reject Jesus. Some of the comments on the site were painful to read. Some of it hurt my feelings and my pride. In the end, I believe it wasn't just me hurting because of the rejection I was feeling it was the Holy Spirit feeling the rejection in me.
Remember we are in a spiritual war and the power to stand and fight this spiritual war will come from the Holy Spirit. We must know who our enemy is to make our stand in this spiritual war.
In the next few weeks I am planning to write some posts that focus on Spiritual Warfare.
May our Lord, Jesus, bless you as you make your stand in this spiritual war.
Tim
