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What is spiritual warfare?
What is spiritual warfare? Is it fighting the devil or fighting our sinful nature. The devil is not omnipresent so why can we all fight him. People say 'Im under attack from the devil' a lot. Indeed, I have commanded him out of my home, with what seemed afterwards to have had a good effect. Do we call our sinful nature'the devil'. What are peoples thoughts on this?.
An article in Christianity Today suggests:
Satan comes and goes (Matthew 4:3, 11; Job 1:7–12). So how does he manage these multiple temptations? Scripture does not say, but two theories are common.Theory one, recognizing that all angels have powers beyond ours to move around and see into people, posits that Satan has the power of "multipresence"—not "omnipresence," but not as spacially limited as humans.
Theory two, surely the more natural, is that the New Testament writers do what we do when speaking of wars—that is, ascribe all the hostile action to the opposing leader. "Hitler (or Napoleon or Saddam) attacked," we say, when in fact subordinates acted at their leader's command. Most Christians, like C. S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters, hold some form of this view, and have always done so.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bible-Talk on
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Hi Lucy,
"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings." 1Peter 5:8-9
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Ephesians 6:12
Satan is roaming throughout the earth (Job 1:7) looking for an opportune time (Luke 4:13) to tempt, devour etc - sounds to me that spiritual warfare is about fighting OFF Satan and the rulers, authorities, powers etc ... continually!
PS: I am having difficulty in accepting that we are born with a sinful nature - I am now considering that we are born with a nature that is greatly inclined to want to sin rather than being geared to sin.
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Permalink Reply by Leonard T on
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Desmond,
Start with defining the core meaning of sin. When we do that we recognize that we are born with a sinful nature and are separated from God and in need of a Savior.
Lord Bless
LT
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Permalink Reply by dean burrows on
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I had the opportunity to see something I believe the Lord had for me to see. In what I saw I would say theory two is correct.
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Permalink Reply by JB on
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To me spiritual warfare is more from the defensive perspective than offensive,
We don’t chase the devil to try and destroy him, because he has already been defeated.
All we do now is defend ourselves from his deceptions and temptations.
And that is just a matter of submitting ourselves to God (the Word) and resist him and he will flee.Jas.4:7.
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Amen!!!
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The more small defensive battles we fight with Satan the better equipped we are for the larger defensive battles. Also, asking God to be one's General isn't a bad idea either. In fact, that is probably one's best tactic in all battles.
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Permalink Reply by LucyP on
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Amen, Rita. In my prayers today, disruptive thoughts came into my head, I asked Jesus to get the devil off my shoulder, I have read that cos we have Holy Spirit within us , the devil can still whisper in our ears grrrrrrrrrr, I had such peace afterwards and had a long, intimate time of prayer with our Lord.
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I'm wondering if we need to consider what thoughts are our thoughts and what thoughts come from demonic realms?
An example would be jealousy. That would be from not renewing our minds. How much is that demonic activity? I would think that any thought that can be controlled by us wouldn't be demonic activity but rather our own sin nature trying to rear its ugly head. What do you think?
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that is an interesting question. The one tricky part is sometimes we do not know until we see the results. I remember having to settle into my time with the Lord and having the thought I was to do something else. Of course all I learned up to that point and knowing who I was (am) That was the enemy trying to drw me from my time with the Lord. Next day I found out just how nasty the enemy could be and just how foolish my learning at that point was.
The one thing I have come to know is the enemy will use whatever he can and worse of all he will use the truth. Albeit he will twist it for his purpose.
Tough question to answer.
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There are three sources from where we receive thoughts, First, thoughts come from our five physical senses, everything we have learned, has come through our five senses.
The second source, would be through or from the devil. Jo.13:2, the devil put the thought of betrayal into Judus. The third, God puts thoughts into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, The main difference between thoughts that comes from God is this, God deals with our hearts, and the other deals with our minds. Ro.8:6-8, and 1Cor.2:14.
Every thought that comes into our minds can be controlled. The Word says in ,
“2 Corinthians 10:4-5 4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” Christ is that anointing, you are smeared with; the Holy Ghost, and that is what gives you the power and authority to cast down any thought or imagination.Thoughts meditated on becomes an imagination, imaginations become “if medicated on long enough,” will become strongholds. This is when it becomes a problem for a person that is not aware of the effects of meditations. Depending on what that person is meditating on. That’s why He says bringing every thought into captivity; so you can make a quality decision whether or not it is a godly thought.
If these thoughts are appealing to your “lusts” then in James it says “we are drawn away of our own lust and enticed, and when lust has conceived it brings forth sin and when sin is finished it brings forth death..”
And I don’t believe that it always means cessation of life, but to anything love, peace of mind, relationships etc.
A little thing I quote often to some, like temptations that comes through thoughts, that pulls our minds astray like on sex, or over indulging in anything etc.
“That temptations are an appeal to the emotions, to control the will in option to the truth.”
James 1, says that “God can not be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man,”
So we know that any thought that is appealing to the flesh, is not of God.
I’m getting carried away here, so I had better quit, LOL
Joe
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