Spirituality Column #800

March 15, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

This is War

By Bob Walters

“The Lord is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation; this is my God and I will praise Him; my father’s God, and I will extol Him.  The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is His name.” – Exodus 15:2-3

“I saw heaven standing open and before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True.  With justice he judges and wages war. … He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.” – Revelation 19:11,13

It is critical to remember that we do not serve a God who is soft on injustice or who shies away from a fight.  Righteousness is who He is and what He does.

His nature is love (1 John 4:8) and His mercies endure forever (Psalm 118), but He is not the God of “Can’t we all just get along?”  He knows better.  Sadly, so do we.

The church, in our compassion, wants to help fix the people who are broken wherever in the world a battle rages.  Our hearts cry out for the injured and oppressed; we rail against man’s cruelties and pray for deliverance of the innocents swallowed up in the fight.  The tragedy is real, our cry to God understandable, our rage justified.

But God’s church must be more than a fretful and compassionate aid station.  Are we rightly called to be a hospital for the world?  Sure.  We offer physical help and spiritual encouragement; we pray for people to know Jesus and be nice to one another.

Yet in this current season of phenomenal turmoil at home and abroad – in our neighborhoods, schools, towns, and nation, as well as global political disorder and the headlining firestorm in Ukraine – the church cannot forget that God calls us to be warriors who speak forcefully in His will against the evil of satan wherever we find it.

It is not just a battle for territory in Eastern Europe (where have we heard that before?), but it is a holy war for domestic cultural and social sanity here at home – an entirely differentiated front in the battle for the minds, lives, and souls of our children.

This is not the time to think Christians are called to be sheep or nursemaids.

Jesus encountered satan (Matthew 4:1-11) with the power of God’s words: “It is written!”  Jesus knew – and went silent – when God’s holy will called him to be a sacrifice as He was led to the violent Cross … and was then resurrected in glory.

But in Revelation 19, Christ fights: “With justice he judges and wages war.”

As God saved Israel out of Egypt near the beginning, and Christ defeats satan in the End, our Christian attitude of this moment must be that God is the Lord and that we are both the tools of His power in all the Earth and participants in His love and glory.

The works of our faith are stronger than we know; our praying in the authority of God as we acknowledge evil’s battle will pull down satan’s strong holds (2 Corinthians 10:4) and attack spiritual wickedness (Ephesians 6:12).  Jesus is Faithful and True.

God’s words are our sword; we must speak them boldly.  The fight is raging.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes that satan is one tough out, and that “please” isn’t going to dissuade satan or his operatives.  Walters also thanks Dutch Sheets for the timely scripture (some shared above) and thoughts of his March 10 “Give Him 15.”  May we all take to heart the power of God’s Word not only as a calming palliative in a crisis, but as a sword warriors must unsheathe confidently in the fight.

Spirituality Column #305
September 18, 2012
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers – Zionsville

By Bob Walters
Author of Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

When I was 5 or so, I wanted to be an ambulance driver.  It wasn’t a better or worse answer than fireman or soldier or brain surgeon or fry cook.  I just wanted to be an ambulance driver.

It’s always cute to ask little kids “what they want to be.”  And more than a few of us quinquagenarians have worked through a career or two and still joke about “what we want to be when we grow up.”  At that level, it’s sort of a personal commentary or maybe a reflection of life choices.  But whether it’s asked of a 5 year old or a 50 year old, “What do you want to be?” is a docile question driven more by cuteness or wryness than expectation of commitment to a vocation.

How much different it is to ask “What were you created to be?”  Answering that question requires some semblance of mature self-awareness.  Raised to the next level, let’s ask “What were you Created to be?” with a capital “C” on “Creator.”  Now it’s not just about us.  To answer that question one must stare straight back at God.

What did God Create us to be?

The only example in history of what God Himself Created any of us to truly be is the example of Jesus Christ.  God is perfect, created mankind perfectly, and wants us to be perfect.  But the one thing we all know is that we are not perfect.  And why is that?  Because God was wrong?  God is weak?  God lied?  God doesn’t care?

No. God’s perfect plan for mankind – which was to create us in His image, to have us freely worship Him, and to have us share in His eternal divine love – took a big-time Fall in the Garden of Eden when Satan used man’s free will to question and mock God’s authority.  Satan tricks us into thinking we were created for our own benefit.  It’s the world’s oldest trick and mankind, imperfectly, keeps falling for it.

What we have in Jesus is the ultimate human role model.  Jesus would not, could not, be suckered into Satan’s temptations (Matthew 4:1-11).  Yes, Jesus is fully and perfectly God, but He is also fully and perfectly human.  Jesus’ humanity could resist Satan because He had been baptized into the Spirit and answered Satan with scripture. That’s something we can emulate; that’s the humanity we should pursue.

Satan wants us to look at the world and worship what we want to be.  God wants us to look at Jesus Christ and see who we were created to be.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) never actually drove an ambulance.  Maybe someday…