Last night a bible study was held in my home, and as the evening was coming to a close and the prayers were wrapping up, I was overwhelmed with how beautiful it all was-how glorious the workings of the Lord were in that moment. Every woman in the room was engaging with another beside her, both of them truly wanting to know how the other was doing, asking about the deepest parts of their souls and listening with open hearts and kind spirits. Loving each other. Being real with one another.
Every day should be like this, I remember thinking.
Perhaps not every day should be heavy. Perhaps not every day should be about discussing theology in a classroom or bible study setting. Every waking moment need not be about confession or relating to one another in the deep ways.
Every day should, however, be real, and the only way to make this happen is to consistently dwell in the Lord's Presence-to live a life of prayer and walk moment by moment in faith.
Abilene Christian University is currently hosting a conference called Summit in which a multitude of speakers, authors, and professors hold sessions that cover various topics. A speaker yesterday shared a message for the Church, encouraging believers to embrace being 'lambs among packs of wolves', relating our calling as Christians living in the world today to being gentle-hearted, kind, and loving no matter what we may be facing. He promoted peace above all things. We need not wage war, he said, because it is in doing so that we create boundaries of love, limiting Jesus' redemption to only those we call worthy.
Though I agree with the speaker and with his overall message, I think he may have underemphasized one point: we are in a war. During his message he quoted C.S. Lewis:
While we are living in a dark and broken world, followers of Christ are called to shine light. We are indeed in enemy-occupied territory, and we are most certainly fighting for the other side while we are waiting for our King to return. What matters is how we fight. What makes the difference is how we go into battle and who and what we are waging the war against. What Christians must keep in mind is that our battle is not against flesh and blood. Our battle is not against people but against spirits and principalities.“Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”
The Church is not called to war in the form of being exclusive, showing angst, or being 'wolf-like'. The Church is called to war in the form of being inclusive, showing humility, and being 'lamb-like'. Believers need to stand strong in prayer. Our war is an ironic one, because the only way to win is by surrendering to God. Our victory is ironic, because it is not based in anything we do except put our hope in the One who has already won it all on the cross-in love, by love, and for love.
America's society (and perhaps many others as well) is attacked daily by demons of complacency and fear. We believe the lies that God does not exist, the Holy Spirit does not speak, and people are not made for love. We accept the falsity that we have no hope and are simply destined to die, when really believing such lies bring death upon us, both presently and eternally-spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Satan takes our blessings and tempts us until we hoard everything that we have, whispering to us that because we have everything we want, we don't need anyone but ourselves.
And oftentimes when we have all that we want we forget the Only One we need.
Our flesh is strong and self-focused in the wrong way, causing us to believe that the best way to live is by depending on ourselves and refusing to be vulnerable around anyone, let alone before the God who made us, so we end up as college students with exclusive attitudes or as churches with apathetic atmospheres that are hurting people more than they're helping.
We believe the lie that sin is a man-made concept and perfection is self-achievable, and so we stop reaching out for the broken and the lost. We start putting Jesus in a box saying, 'He's meant only for me', or we deny Him altogether so that there is fear in our families and awkwardness in our relationships.
Satan attacks us by telling us we are not made to love and be loved.
This is the battle of our time.
The only way to win is to declare truth about the One who has already won!
We need to gather together and commune in Jesus' name. We need to proclaim freedom over our sin that is so clearly evident. We need to be prayer warriors for each other. We need to boldly state that 'His perfect love drives out fear'. We need to tell each other that love has come for us and grace has died for us so that our souls can live. We need to hug each other more and encourage each other daily. We need to be real about our lives. We need to set our eyes on things above so that we don't even have to worry about the darkness, because when we turn our face toward the sunshine, the shadows automatically fall behind us. We need to send the demons fleeing by bringing to light the secrets and the shame of our souls, declaring truth for every man, woman, and child in Jesus' name.
There are lists of things we should stop doing, but that need not be our focus. If we set our hearts on what we should do, then what we should not do will by default take care of itself.
As a college kid and someone who has been involved in college ministry for two years, I've seen the passion that my generation has. A gift of the young is that we are passionate, and when Satan tries to thwart that passion into complacency, the worst thing we could do is to remain silent. When we stop sharing our lives with each other, Satan wins. When we cease to call upon the Lord, our flesh is winning.
We can't afford not to cry out.
When I was recently in Haiti, I learned a great lesson from the people I met: calling out to God is essential. The sweet Haitian friends I met there were some of the most honest, real, and vulnerable people I'd ever met in my life. They worshipped like you wouldn't believe-crying out loud to the One who loves them, declaring truth about the God who calls them children, and declaring victory over the ways in which their homes, families, and nation had been attacked. They knew that their environment was enemy-occupied territory, but rather than waging war on each other they drew close together as a collective people-as the kingdom of God-and loved on each other in bold and passionate ways so that the only way to lose the war would be to remain silent about their hearts and desires.
We need to humble down, walk by faith, and actively love.
We can't afford to do anything else.
