Thoughts On Spiritual Warfare--Part 2

After starting this series on spiritual warfare yesterday, I want to continue with some more thoughts about it.  I will do my best to stop writing before you get tired of reading.  I do know that I have a tendency to over-do it sometimes and you as the reader should not be penalized for that.  I trust that you will get something worth-while out of this post today also.    

To reiterate, we are in a spiritual battle and our attendance in it is not by choice.  It will continue as long as we remain faithful to our calling and active in our walk for the Lord.  While the series may seem a bit random as they are written, I would say that these are some of my own observations on the matter of spiritual warfare that has been years in the making.  The seeming arbitrary nature of this series is due to the fact that I am using my Moleskin notebook where over the last two months I have jotted down random things about spiritual warfare as they came to me.  The challenge now becomes how to take the scribblings and turn them into something profitable. 

Thoughts On Spiritual Warfare--Part 1

I can remember more than twenty-five years ago reading both of Frank Peretti’s gripping books about spiritual warfare.  The first one was This Present Darkness (1986) and was followed by Piercing the Darkness (1988).  Both of the books are fictional but there were elements of each book that had core elements of truth about them.  As with all fads that come and go in the church world, there were some who went way overboard with their actions and started stalking demons and getting involved in all sorts of weird practices that they believed would bring spiritual authority to their lives.  On the other end of the spectrum were those who vociferously opposed any thing that remotely looked like spiritual warfare and they cautioned the church about the danger of seeing a “devil behind every bush.” 

In my youthful exuberance and inexperience, I got caught up with believing that Peretti’s books were the way to go and begin to follow some of his concepts about “prayer cover” and “binding and loosing.”  If you will remember during the late ‘80’s a lot of people fell under that sway of looking for the “warrior angels” that Peretti wrote about.  I begin to look for ten-foot tall angels too.  Their advice seemed to be helpful and wise especially if you were looking for the real power of God.  It seemed as to me that if you were real “spiritual” then you could see angels.  I longed to be in that number of spiritual folk.  If you were goofy and lukewarm there was not a chance that you would even see angel dust much less an angel.  It is funny looking back at some of it now about how much prayer and fasting I gave myself to trying to see an angel.