Spiritual Warfare

16 Aug Spiritual Warfare

By Phil Waldron, CEO

“The Devil wants nothing more than to crush you. He wants to steal from you everything you value. He wants to kill everything in your life that’s good. Ultimately, he wants to destroy you. If he can claim the victory over your mind, he can eventually claim the victory over your life. But the message of Psalm 23 is that the Good Shepherd prepares a table for you. It’s a table for two, and the Devil is not invited to sit.”― Louie Giglio, Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table: It’s Time to Win the Battle of Your Mind…

There are so many scriptures that urge us to see clearly that our daily lives are filled with spiritual warfare. Have you struggled over the course of your life to see the spiritual warfare that you are regularly engaged in? I know I have. I have spent, and still do at times, too much time dealing with difficulties as if they were not part of an overarching spiritual war. This is in spite of the fact that scripture is replete with exhortations for us to see clearly with a “spiritual mind and not our natural mind.” (I Cor. 2:14). Numbers of text urge us to not be deceived and to understand that ours is a spiritual struggle; for instance, II Cor. 10:3-6, “we are not waging war according to the flesh,” Eph. 6:11, “stand against the devil’s schemes,” I Peter 5:8-9, “your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion.” James 4:7, “resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

These are but a few of the scriptures that come to mind when talking about this point.

The last seventeen years here at Mission UpReach has confirmed for Donna and me that everything we are doing and experiencing is part of this spiritual warfare that the Bible talks about. The Apostle Paul begins his paragraph on spiritual warfare in Ephesians in verse 10 of chapter 6, talking about putting on the whole armor of God. Interestingly, toward the end of the paragraph in verse 18 he says, “¹⁸ praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,” Clearly, the Apostle Paul considered “laboring in prayer” as spiritual warfare.

This is where I would like to inject an invitation that Donna and I want to make to those who are interested in joining us. This offer comes from our recognition that we are clearly waging a spiritual warfare here in the name of Jesus. It also comes from our hearing, over and over again, from many people who say, “we pray for you every day.” Our thought is that those of you who are willing to join with us in daily prayer can be more effective in your supplications if you know more detail about the things that we are struggling with.

So, once a week, for those who desire to join with us in this prayer group, we will send out an email talking about the things that we are dealing with both as Mission UpReach and on a personal basis.

If you would like to be included in this small group of prayer warriors committed to waging spiritual warfare through diligent prayer for the work that we are doing here in Western Honduras, please send me an email at: [email protected] or you could also let Donna know at: [email protected]