Resist the Enemy – Part 3

07 Nov Resist the Enemy – Part 3

Moving from Checkers to Chess

Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective

We’re continuing our series: “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ Five Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective.”

Unless we have an eternal perspective, viewing life as God does, we are playing checkers in life while God is playing chess. And, if that’s the case, two things are certain: (1) we will consistently make the wrong moves, and (2) we lose in the end. I’d like to help avoid that.

(If you would like a concise outline to help you keep your mind around the big picture as we move through the details, click here and we’ll send you one. It’s available at the end of this post also.)

Currently in our series on five steps to unleashing the power of an eternal perspective, we’re looking at the final issue involved in Step 4: You Must Fight the Invisible.

So far we’ve seen that we must

• Be alert to spiritual warfare, accepting the reality of it and embracing that reality as the organizing perspective in life rather than the American Dream…
•  Put on the spiritual armor and are trusting in God’s power to protect us… and, we must
• Resist the enemy

Last week we looked at Part 2 of resisting the enemy: Don’t take the enemy’s bait.

Today we’ll look at Part 3 of resisting the enemy: Resistible and un-resistible warfare.

There are two kinds of spiritual warfare

One of the most important mental shifts a Christian must make is the shift from living for this world to fighting a spiritual battle.

Life is not a waltz; it’s a war. It is not a playground; it’s a battlefield!

In living for this world, we strive for financial comfort, physical well-being, good relationships and meaningful jobs. And there is not a thing wrong with any of those things, if the will of God gives them to us.

However, in the living of life, we are certain to experience spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

This spiritual warfare may well keep us from our hopes for this life. Therefore, if this world is the main focus of life, God may seem distant, unsympathetic, even uncaring about our lack of success. He may even seem to have joined the other side.

We may wonder, “Doesn’t he love me? Doesn’t he care that I’m suffering?”

However, God has higher purposes for us than this world can offer.

The payoff of life for a believer is not in this world, but in heaven.

So, to be able to meet the challenges of life, we must transition from living for this world to fighting the spiritual battle.

Gaining an eternal perspective in this area gives us spiritual and emotional stability.

When life feels like a battle, we are not surprised; we already know that it is!

Having made that case, there are two kinds of spiritual warfare we need to understand: resistible and un-resistible.

Resistible Warfare

Three different passages tell us that when faced with spiritual warfare, we are to resist:

• “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm” (Ephesians 6:13).
• “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).
• “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith…” (1 Peter 5:8-9).

So, in this type of spiritual warfare, there is something we can do: we can resist!

What are we to resist? Here are some obvious examples:

• Moral temptation and giving into pleasures that are morally wrong.
• Being spiritually lazy, not making the effort to grow spiritually.
• Being selfish, making life all about you.
• Compromising biblical values in favor of the American Dream.

Perhaps the most powerful example of responding to spiritual warfare by resisting was demonstrated to us by Jesus. When the devil tempted Him three times to accept the devil’s plan for His life rather than God’s, Jesus responded by quoting Scripture to him (Luke 4:1 – 13). If that response was effective for Jesus, how much more should we use it?

“Resistible Warfare” involves battles that can be won, as James 4:7 says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  And further, we see in Luke 4:1-13, after Jesus resists all three of the devil’s temptations, it says, the devil “left Him until an opportune time.”  So, faithful resistance can bring an end to a spiritual battle.

Un-resistible warfare

On the other hand, there is a kind of spiritual warfare that is un-resistible. That is, our resisting doesn’t bring the battle to an end, as James 4:7 says.

This kind of warfare is exemplified in the book of Job. There was nothing Job did that brought on the spiritual warfare battle that came upon him. In fact, his spiritual warfare was a consequence of his exemplary life.

Nor was there anything Job could do to bring this spiritual warfare to an end. The length of his spiritual battle was determined by the will and sovereignty of God.

The devil was challenging God by challenging Job, by bringing Job’s “American Dream” crashing down. On the surface, everything that happened to Job appeared to have a natural explanation: rustlers, weather-related disasters, terrorist attacks. But Scripture gives us a peek behind the veil of reality, and shows us that each of these things was a spiritual attack by Satan.

One of the marks of un-resistible warfare is that it can go on, and on, and on, longer than seems reasonable. It can go on so long and become so difficult that we may be tempted to question God’s love, or power, or plan for our life.

However, God allowed this ongoing spiritual assault against Job. In doing so, He ultimately verified His supremacy over Satan and the sufficiency of His grace in Job’s life. God wants to do the same with us —  hear me out:

The  un-resistable warfare experience made a different person out of Job. He was transformed from someone who was merely exemplary to someone who was profound. He learned more about the majesty of God, he gained greater trust in the sovereignty and goodness of God, and he exhibited more complete trust and obedience to God. God wants to do the same with us.

And in the end, Job was rewarded disproportionately for all he lost. God wants to do the same with us.

This doesn’t mean that God will bless us physically for our faithful suffering as he did Job. In the Old Testament, God’s blessing tended to be physical. In the New Testament, God’s blessing tends to be spiritual (James 1:2-4). There will also be blessing in heaven (Romans 8:18). But bless us, He will.

Conclusion

So, what kind of warfare are you in? Are you being tempted to compromise something in the spiritual battle? If so, resist, following the example of Jesus.

On the other hand, if you are resisting, if you are doing everything you know is right, and the warfare wages on, you may be in un-resistible warfare, in which case there may be nothing you can do to bring that season of warfare to an end. You must endure (James 1:2-4) until God determines that it is over.

In either kind of warfare, we trust in God, we let Him make a different person out of us in the process, and trust that in the end, God will demonstrate His grace to be sufficient in our life, and that in heaven, we will be rewarded many times over for our faithfulness.

Next week, we’ll begin wrapping up our series on 5 Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective with Step 5: Nurture the Transformational, beginning with Part 1: You must carefully manage what you believe. I look forward to seeing you then.

Get a Moving from Checkers to Chess At-a-Glance-Overview: Click Here

As we have been studying these concepts for quite some time (including in some prior blog series), I’m excited to now be connecting all the “moving parts” from those posts and combining them into a “spiritual game plan” in this “Moving from Checkers to Chess ~ 5 Steps to Unleashing the Power of an Eternal Perspective” series.

For an overview of the game plan, so you can see at a glance where we begin and where we’re headed, I’ve created an overview/outline you can download for free: Click Here

For the full discussion of each of the steps, begin with the first post in this series, Moving from Checkers to Chess, and then continue with the following posts thereafter.

In case you’re new here, below are two resources I’ve created for additional help in your Christian discipleship journey:

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