“He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places. He teaches my hands to war.” Psalm 18:33
Dear Ones:
In passing the torch to Timothy, Paul’s spiritual son in the faith, he exhorted him: “Thou therefore, endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please Him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” (2 Timothy 2:3-4) Christ’s call to Paul, and now to Timothy, is that of being a soldier, Christ’s soldier. We find the preface to this calling dealing with stability and sufficiency. God Himself, by the Spirit, is that one who sets the feet upon the Rock, establishes the believer in Christ, strengthens and enables him to take his stand against the wiles of the devil. To the Ephesian believers, Paul would write of the strength, power, and might of Christ IN the believer. The command is: “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.” (6:10) Why does he command this? In the following verses, the apostle declares to us something of the struggle, the very real “pressure and push back” of the devil, to dislodge the Christian from any and every true and just position of faith, in Christ. For example, he writes that the believer is to “…stand against the wiles of the devil.” (v.11) Standing, and withstanding, requires not only the discernment by the Spirit, to make sure that one’s position is sound, but refusing to “quit the field,” and yield the position of faith. As Luther so well put it: “Here I Stand.” Paul goes on to speak of “wrestling” against “…principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” (v.12) The soldier’s calling is one that is specific to walking and standing by faith, overcoming the attacks of the enemy by overcoming him, in all of his hideous and fiendish designs and efforts. The Christian is Christ’s soldier, equipped with ALL the armor of God in Christ, that, by the Eternal Spirit, he may overcome the onslaught of the enemy designed to dislodge him from the position of faith which is well-pleasing in the sight of God.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthian believers, he again takes up the issue of the warfare that the follower of Christ finds himself in. He does this from a different angle by writing: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh.” (2 Cor. 10:3) As Paul made so very clear to the Ephesians, that the nature of this warfare is spiritual, against spiritual powers and forces, so here he reveals that this warfare cannot be conducted along the principles and possibilities of that which has its source and effect in the natural world, especially as it applies to man who walks “in the flesh.” Just as flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, our spiritual enemy is not afraid of that which is of flesh and blood. However, he is afraid and wary of Christ, who has conquered him totally, in every way . It is as the believer learns the ways of God, walking with God, in the light of His countenance and abiding in Christ, that the victorious life of Christ in the heart will manifest itself in the victory over the enemy, and the resistance that he creates. Paul goes on to write to the Corinthians, “…for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.” (v.4) These strong holds are “imaginations, and every high and lofty thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” The battle is in the mind, and it is a battle for truth, and standing for and by the truth. The center point of this conflict is found in one phrase: “…bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” (v.5) It is the will of God that on this earth, the kingdom of God should come, and His will done.
Dear Father, Give us grace to see this spiritual conflict, and to appropriate the Lord Jesus our victor. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad