Spiritual Warfare Week 2

The past two weeks, the North Coast Men's Bible Study has been doing a study on Spiritual Warfare. We are utilizing Chip Ingram's "The Invisible War" through booklet and DVD presentation.

I meant to post last week's first lesson, but life got in the way a little bit (luckily for me, Craig Thomson, co-author of this blog posted last week - thank you Craig). Is this evidence of spiritual warfare? Maybe. But after two lessons I really felt compelled to blog what 's being taught in our group. I'm hoping, by reflecting about our study, you might also be encouraged.

This week's lesson by Ingram is entitled "Who are we fighting?". According to Ingram, here are the 5 basic truths about spiritual warfare:

1. There is an invisible world that is just as real as the visible world.
2. We are involved in an invisible war, a cosmic conflict that has eternal implications.
3. Out foes is formidable and his goal is to destroy us and discredit the cause of Christ. - Ephesians 6:12
4. We must respect our foe, but not fear him-become acutely aware of his methods, but not pre-occupied by them. - Ephesians 6:11
5.  As believers in Christ, we do not fight for victory, we fight from victory. In Christ's power we are invisible.

I don't have time to hit every point that Chip made. It's powerful and intense. I will share with you this...
Chip says "Satan's names reveals his schemes".

Specifically:

• Satan as the Serpent- He deceives
• Satan as the Dragon - He draws fear
• Satan as the Angel of Light -He tempts
• Satan as the Father of Lies - At the center of all of it, is one big lie.

He makes the point that as powerful as Satan is, he is limited. for me this was a great realization. Satan can cause a great deal of confusion and fear. But he can never cause me to sin. my sin is my choice. It's sad to say that as I am writing this, at times I use Satan as an excuse to choose sin. But, again, Satan can never make us sin.

We choose that.

We must be ready. We have to be aware. We need to know that we don't have to sin, when Satan is tempting us. That realization, for me, was very encouraging. The 5th truth, that we do not fight for victory, but we fight from victory brings that point home. We are already victorious! We indeed, have that power from Christ.

I want to leave you with the four verses that Chip encouraged us to memorize:

• 1 John 4:4 "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."

Other verses:

• 1 John 5:4-5
• Revelation 12:11
• James 4:7

Know this, Satan is a defeated foe.