Our Stake In The Battle

He who is not with Me is against Me.
–Luke 11:23

Paul said that the unseen spiritual struggle in the world is not some distant spat between cosmic forces. No, Ephesians 6:12 says it is “our struggle.” Why do we have a stake in this battle? One reason is we are constantly facing invasions from without. Whether or not you realize it, you are living in the crossfire of the battle between God and Satan, and not to be aware of it is to ensure your defeat. Pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “Not to realize that you are in a conflict means one thing only, and that is that you are so hopelessly defeated, and so ‘knocked out’ as it were, that you do not even know it–you are unconscious! It means that you are completely defeated by the devil.” Most Christians today are not aware that they are in the middle of a spiritual struggle, even though they see the fallout all around them: broken marriages, divided churches, wayward children. We see these symptoms of spiritual warfare, but we fail to connect the dots.

Not only is there a war being waged around us, but there is a war going on in our hearts as well. Every Christian is a walking battlefield. My friend Steve Lawson described it this way: “Deep within the hidden recesses of the human heart, a bloodless battle is being fought–a life-and-death struggle for the soul. This intense spiritual warfare is raging between God and Satan upon the invisible battlefields of our hearts.” As long as we are upon this earth, we are in the arena of war. In case this seems like spiritual paranoia to you, let me remind you of just some of the verses in Scripture that describe the war that you and I are engaged in:

• “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).
• “But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier” (Philippians 2:25).
• “Fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience” (1 Timothy 1:18-19).
• “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:3-4).

If we believe the Bible is God’s Word, then we have to believe what it says about the intense spiritual struggle we are in. And we cannot say, “I will just let them duke it out,” or, “I am a lover, not a fighter.” No. In Luke 11:23, Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is against Me.” We have to get right in the middle of this battle because we are already in the middle of this battle.

Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Winning Your Unseen Battles” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2010.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Christian Warfare” (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1976), 41-42; Steven J. Lawson, “Faith Under Fire” (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1995), xi.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.