When Jesus’ disciple Peter’s anger flared up at some soldiers who had come armed to the teeth to take the Lord away — the Lord Himself said: “put your sword back in its place … for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” Matthew 26:52. Hatred can so easily explode into actions, and then we hurt others, and ourselves, in the process. We hurt our own hearts when we hate. We can’t afford to live any other way except for living in love. In love with God, and the people who drive us crazy.
We are the people who fight on our knees! Unfortunately, many of us cannot be trusted with a gun, because most of the time, we don’t know what spirit we are in! Jesus had already fought and won the above battle, in the garden of Gethsemane, on His knees — while His disciples were sleeping. Peter’s sword was just going to hurt someone, and it did! Meanwhile, what is Peter – the fisherman – doing with a sword? … Moving on …
We are not fighting the same kind of war that many other people fight, although what we have to say, is equally as explosive. Our war is spiritual. Because “the weapons of our warfare are not CARNAL but they are mighty because they pull down strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:4. We can’t win if we continue to fight with the weapons from this world, because Jesus has already given us our appointed task. All we will do is kill off more people that our Lord loves. We are clearly told, by the Lord Jesus Himself, to “pray for our enemies” and “do good to those who despitefully use us.”
Open hands in prayer, are far more effective than the clenched fist of war. If we are tempted to hate, then we must choose to bow our knee. And then we start praying for the people who are hurting, persecuting and despitefully using us. Pray for them like they are your own family!! Sometimes those people hurting you ARE your own family!
Pray for their salvation. Pray for redemption from sin. PRAY and then pray some more. We are not fighting that person in front of us, we are fighting the devil on his back. Those people who hate us believe in what they are doing because they’ve carefully been taught to hate. They don’t know what real love is. When an honest man meets Jesus, his first response is to bend his knee and say: ‘I didn’t know love like this existed.’
You and I have been appointed by Him to bring His love with us wherever we go. That happens when we choose to put down this world’s plans and ideas, and pick up the life Jesus has chosen for us. LOVE is the only antidote for hate, and love is the way to win. Even if we die … WE still WIN! Paul said that in Philippians 1:21. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” That is our banner.
Oh, let’s be real here for a minute. How can we possibly say that being dead is better than living, when we have a mortgage, kids, extended family and obligations to others? Because we have been practising dying to self for years. That’s how. Now we live our lives making daily hard choices to die to our own desires – and then, at the moment of deep impact, we will have enough freedom to choose to follow the Holy Spirit, wherever He goes.
Let’s use the right weapons to fight. The bible says: Love conquers everything. Meanwhile, we can’t fight a spiritual war with tolerance … because tolerance wears thin – and eventually it wears off – we need God’s supernatural love. Press in, beloved of God, and don’t stop until you get it! The people we think are our problem, are the ones God calls us to.
When we put on the whole armour of God we are not doing it to go to WAR, we are doing it to protect the faith that is in us. These weapons , these protections – this armour – has been given to us to protect us. It will stop us from being taken out of the fight. Our Father needs every single one of His kids standing in their place doing what He put us here to do – loving Him first, then others. In His eyes ALL of mankind is irreplaceable.
We see a multitude of people – but Father God sees Amar, George, Hina, Amanda, Lev, Malosi, Mary, Rufus, Jai, Vasilisa, Jessica, Patrick, Joachim, Freya, Zyar, Ikem and Leah! Our Heavenly Father is such an incredibly good, good Father. He sees each one of us as if we were the only one. We’ve been told to “put on the whole armour of God.” It will protect us from the fiery darts of the enemy so we can stand in the middle of the war raging all around us. Just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, stood in a fiery furnace and Jesus joined them there. He’ll join us in prayer for our enemy’s souls too.
Jesus came here to show people just like you and I, that there is another way to live this life, one day at a time, one step at a time. He did not pick a fight with anyone. These battles need to be stopped in our prayer closets. Then we can see our TRUE purpose, because we’ve chosen to put aside this world’s ideas of what a perfect life should look like.
In the meantime, we can have utter confidence, because we know how this fight ends. We win! So we will continue to participate in unusual fighting with interesting weapons. Prayer, grace, kindness, forgiveness, love, joy, peace etc., these things are our weapons. We choose to turn the other cheek, and walk the extra mile, and we give some demanding guy our tunic when he asks for our coat! Bye, 👋.
