Spiritual Warfare

Spiritual Warfare

Taken from first edition of ‘Prayer’ (page 45)  by Zion H. Mukisa

 

Prayer enables us to solicit for GOD’s protection against the enemy. In times of danger when we are under attack by physical and spiritual beings, our inclination to pray comes from knowing that GOD is supreme and that He is our banner. When we are attacked, our first reaction is to fight back, therefore, spiritual warfare may be described as a spiritual fight against the enemy.

 

Here below is an insight into spiritual warfare.

 

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete” (2Corinthians 10:3-6).

 

Just as there are many definitions of spiritual warfare, so are there many physical and spiritual displays of attacks that come against us. However, even if we are of the flesh and are assailed by all types of spiritual and physical enemies we do not war in the flesh. In other words, we do not take up arms and go to war. Still in the same breath, we do not carry out warfare through physical displays of wrath and revenge but against imaginations.

 

An imagination can be defined as a thought that may not necessarily be the truth. It usually takes more than one individual to be at war and since the source of most problems lies in people’s imaginations so does the reaction to the problem. Most times the perceived problem is not as bad as we imagine. In short, our warfare shouldn’t be against the person or targeted at them but at their mindset or even against our own. Consequently, we should not fight physical battles with people by abusing them, or hitting them but against principalities and powers in high places.

 

Given that it is with the mind that we believe that Jesus is the Son of GOD and that He died and rose again it has to be obedient to GOD. Similarly, any attack that comes against us has been planted in our mind or the mind of our enemy by the devil. Consequently, as we war we do so against mindsets and thought processes. As Paul says, in Corinthians, we wrestle against imaginations and every pretension that sets itself against the knowledge of GOD.

 

Still, our biggest challenge is the way we perceive the attacks that come our way. We must always keep in mind that GOD is stronger than any demon that could ever attack us and that the battle has already been won.

 

When the word spiritual warfare is mentioned most people think of demonic attacks. Some Churches have taken it to another level as they perceive that every situation we face is a demonic attack and that all the prayers and teachings carried out there are an opportunity to cast out demons!

 

I do appreciate all the Churches I have visited in my spiritual walk and all the lessons I have learned. However, I strongly caution that even if demons do exist we should be very careful not to see a demon in everything that goes wrong. For instance, there was a time when I used to cast demons out of every situation until I realized that some situations happened because of negligence while GOD let others happen in order to teach me a lesson. Still others happened because I had acted out of folly not wisdom.

 

I also learned that I need to be discerning enough to realize when I am being attacked by demons or need to apply wisdom, repent of my folly, and learn a lesson.

 

In addition to this, during my quiet time with GOD it was revealed to me that the highest level of spiritual warfare is repentance and forgiveness of sin. When Jesus asked GOD to ‘forgive them for they did not know what they were doing’, on the cross, the defeat of the enemy was made manifest. This is the very root of Christ’s coming down to earth - salvation. Through the blood of the Lamb, our sins were forgiven and the enemy was defeated.