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Hi everyone: I hope you are enjoying these last days of August. I am back after some time off. Thank you for praying for my refreshment and renewal. I experience going back to work as a pastor like a soldier coming off leave and going back to the front lines. I’ve often wanted to interview real soldiers who have done that to understand what it’s like for them.

Yet it’s not only soldiers who experience battles. Life contains a full share of them. If you’re a Christian, you will certainly experience spiritual battle in your life. Last Sunday I spoke on this theme – “Since Christians are in a constant spiritual battle, we must wage war using God’s weapons with God’s power.” But such language might surprise us.

Who said anything about a battle? In coming to Christ, we may tend to think that there is no war or that coming to Christ will bring us peace. There is a lot of peace that we receive when we come to God. We become at peace with God. We experience the peace of forgiveness and no longer living under condemnation. We begin to see peace or reconciliation in our relationships.

Yet we will still experience war and conflict. This is the nature of the world. We face an ongoing spiritual battle. Our enemy the devil, his forces and schemes relentlessly assault us in their attempt to draw us away from God and passionate faith in Christ. These enemies do not take the summer off. They don’t take a day off. They don’t take an hour off. They always look for ways to lessen our spiritual passion.

Consider - Ephesians 6:12-13 – “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all, to stand firm.” Or - 1 Peter 5:8 – Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour."

Commentator George Guthrie writes “The church in the west stands under the most grave attacks in terms of spiritual warfare, an attack in some ways worse than the physical and social persecution faced by our brothers and sisters around the world. False gospels offered by false teachers thrive in the context of biblical and theological illiteracy. Do we understand what is at stake in the church?” The recently deceased theologian JI Packer wrote in Knowing God – “The Christian who is not conscious of being opposed had better watch himself, for he is in danger.”

Yet thankfully, we are not alone in this fight. God provides His weapons, power, presence and other believers to stand with us in this fight. More on that in days to come.

“Lord God, we admit that we like vacation sometimes a lot more than ordinary life. Yet even on vacation we face spiritual battles. Help us see that you provide everything we need to thrive in this reality. Thank you for your warnings that awaken us to the danger. Yet we also thank you for the countless ways you fight for us and protect us. Help us, by your Spirit to take up the fight today.”