WAGING THE RIGHT WAR

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away! I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

2 Corinthians 10:1-6

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It seems like we can’t look anywhere today and not see strife or people warring one against the other. I know this has gone on through the ages but I can’t remember times quite like this in my lifetime that has spanned more than 60 years now.

In this world, we see wars happening physically and ideologically.

Russian invaded Ukraine at the beginning of this year and the conflict doesn’t look like it’s going to end anytime soon. Threats abound between other nations either over territory disputes or the aforementioned ideologies. Many countries are trying to acquire nuclear weapons so to move up in worldly prestige and power, behavior that only increases the amount of world anxiety especially when nations threaten to use their firepower in such a way that will harm others.

We just went through another major election day in America and the country was once again polarized politically. Let’s face it, there is no middle anymore. For now, moderates, those in the political middle, have gone the way of the dinosaur. You are either far left of center or far right, liberal or conservative. There is no room for consensus anymore. One side embraces their beliefs and demonizes the other, entrenched in firm disagreement. There’s no room for compromising dialogue.

And then there are the culture wars inside nations. We just went through a phase where people were actually “cancelled” if they held viewpoints that were counter to the mainstream. If you didn’t go along with the popular opinion, you were attacked and ostracized. Nothing was sacred or beyond cultural assault. Long standing names, especially in sports, were changed to satisfy the insatiable call of the cancel culture movement. Redskins became Commanders, Indians became Guardians, and Eskimos gave way to Elks.  

Did I mention there seems to be a lot of battling in our world today?

Well, thank goodness we have God’s word to help inject some sanity into life as we know it and in the opening verses of 2 Corinthians, chapter 10, our Lord has some great guidance for us in regard to how we should handle our current environment. Look again at these words here:

By the humility and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” toward you when away! I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. 2 Corinthians 10:1-6

Here we find Paul writing to the Christian believers in Corinth but he could have been writing to us today as well. Note how he makes it a point to remind his readers that Christians may be in the world but they aren’t of it. Believers can’t afford to allow themselves to be influenced adversely by the world they reside in. Christians are called to live by different standards, standards established by God’s word and Spirit, standards modeled perfectly through the life of His Son, our Savior Jesus.

We live in the world but we aren’t to wage war as the world does. The warring of the world tears down and destroys. Its weaponry kills and seeks to wipe out others.

Conversely, those who believe in the Lord God Almighty and His Son have the very power of the Lord within them, the same power that raised Jesus from the grave (Romans 8:11). Every Christian believer has the divine and holy power to demolish strongholds, to tear down human reasoning and demolish any argument or false pretense used to discredit the very Lord who calls us to steer the world to Him and His principles, to make the world and its thoughts obedient to Christ.

When we do this, when we war against the world with the Lord’s divine power, shifting minds toward Jesus, amazing transformative things happen.

Peace replaces discord.

Love replaces hate.

And Heaven and salvation replace Hell and eternal damnation and torment.

Friends, the scriptures today are challenging us to check whether we are waging war right.

If we’re waging war as the world does, we’re getting it all wrong and failing to glorify and honor our Lord through being assimilated with the world we live in.

But if we are waging war against the world and its standards, using the very divine power of the Lord within us, then we know we will always be doing as He desires and battling the right forces, the forces of our enemy Satan who wishes to seek and destroy, to cancel out God’s saving efforts through His Son Jesus.And while he will never have the ultimate victory, we must still battle so every wicked foothold or evil stronghold is demolished.

God expects us to do nothing less so it’s time to put on the full armor (Ephesians 6:10-17) and get out onto the battlefield, fighting spiritual battles in obedience to our Lord’s call.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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