Church Family:
We continue with our blog under the topic of “Growing the Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit.” God has certainly taken me on a spiritual journey as each week I prepare for sharing His Word for the following Sunday. I had anticipated the path of this subject would have kept me in the book of Acts and the many astonishing “happenings”, nothing short of miraculous, of the group of believers called the early church. Yet it has become more apparent to me that the origin and continued growth of the early church began, as it must, with those individual followers of Jesus. Yes there were 120 in the upper praying for 10 days but the reality was that it was what happen in each of their individual hearts that was the catalyst for the miracle working power of God that came on display on the Pentecostal day that birthed the early church.
And it has been true down through the centuries until and including today. It is what the Holy Spirit of God is doing in each individual life that causes the church to grow today. Yes, as He moves in each individual heart, together we become a body of believers that can by the power of the Holy Spirit move our world toward Jesus Christ. It is sorta like the book we were finishing as the pandemic began, “Draw a Circle”, it all begins within a circle we draw around ourselves personally.
And as we discover how to do that more and more effectively the enemy begins to focus His attention more and more on attempting to distract, divide, and destroy us by deceptions and lies. We need reminding of what 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 says: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. (4) The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” It is at the point of this war declared on us by the enemy that we must recognize the true enemy for who he really is, understand the spiritual battle that looms before each of us, and fight this battle as true followers of Jesus with the weaponry He provides for us. Unfortunately, many have been deceived into believing that the enemy must be of this world and is numbered among those that live among us. Because this is not true and what is true is the enemy is from the spiritual world and is none other than Satan himself, we must learn how to fight in the spiritual realm. As we begin to do exactly that, fight this enemy not with “earthly weapons” but with those that are spiritual in nature….we are given the assurance from God’s word these weapons can destroy the strongholds of the enemy. Now that is some kinda power that Paul is describing to us here in his second letter to the Corinthian church.
Sunday, we spoke of four ways that we must fight the war against the enemy that seeks to distract, divide, and destroy through lies and deception. We fight this war with spiritual weapons that include:
- Folded hands in prayer
- hearts that are humble and repentant
- the declaration of God’s Word
- following after the two great commands Jesus gave
- to love the Lord thy God
- love our neighbor as ourselves
If we attempt to fight this battle against this enemy with earthly weaponry against earthly foes we will continue to see what is evident now chaos, division, and anarchy. The enemy will continue to sit in the shadows and smile as the “world” does his bidding. But God has warned us about who the enemy truly is, how to fight this battle against him, and even given us the spiritual weaponry that can tear down the enemy’s strongholds and bring him to a resounding and final defeat.
Ponder with me as I close this blog, look at what is happening all around us as in the name of justice and unity as many are fighting with the weaponry of this world against one another. What was that old saying, “I have seen the enemy and it is US?” I believe there is more truth to that statement than most would admit that are busy “demanding rights” but “refusing to accept responsibility”. Our only hope is to hear what Paul was saying to the church at Corinth….(paraphrased) “We can’t fight this war with this enemy with the conventional weapons of this world….we must fight with spiritual weaponry that attacks not our fellow man but the true enemy of all of us.” This is the way, the only way we can bring down the strongholds that Satan has erected between us and God in this world. What if we were to truly use God’s weapons against the right enemy, what might we witness as God began to fight the battle for us? Keep thinking…spiritual weapons….tearing down strongholds….being on God’s side…….looking to Him for the answers to the plight of our world today…….
Pastor Barkley
Recent Comments