Our teacher was Lea, who also taught us a few weeks ago on Clean Conscience. This week was Spiritual Warfare, though. I was super excited to the teachings this week, because I don't know much about spiritual warfare (or should I say I didn't know much!)
I honestly don't really know where to begin. There are a few things I want to touch on.
During our classes on spiritual warfare –and all the time, really-, Lea really depends on God for what to say. She always had kind of a plan for where class would go, but she didn't do much preparing and even when she did have ideas, quite often that wouldn't happen because God would lead her in another direction. That seems to happen rather often with our DTS, actually… our teacher for this week was ahead after yesterday’s class, but today he went off on side trails that the Spirit lead him on, and now we’re behind! It’s great, though… I love it! I'm learning so much!
Anyway, so I learned a lot last week. The main thing was that I have so much power! As a daughter of God, I can command things in Jesus name and the enemy will listen. But I must follow God in what I say, of course, and not do this lightly. But I do have the power of God in me to stand against the enemy and win. At the end of class on Monday, Lea had us all read Romans 8 by ourselves and figure out what it was saying about us each individually. The next morning, we each stood in front of the class and declared what God had told us, speaking it out loud as to cement it and just declare to God –and the enemy- that we believe it and are taking it as truth.
One thing that Lea said that sticks out to me was that when we are talking about spiritual warfare –which is happening around all of us. Even though we don’t typically think about it here in North America, it is definitely happening!- was that we can’t just be all in. We must be always on. Every time we pause and just take a breather, the enemy gains ground. As believers in Christ, we have a red target on our backs: “The dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring- those who obey God’s commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” –Revelations 12:17. We already know that in the end, Jesus wins. But that doesn't mean that we can be complacent. We are in a war, and we need to be prepared for battle at all times. The devil doesn't take a vacation, and neither can we. To live in spiritual warfare is to live victoriously. We've already won the battle (see Revelations 12:10), so when we choose to walk in that victory, it will become our reality.
Lea talked about what weapons we have for our spiritual battle. First of all, no matter what, we must follow the lead of the Spirit. We must listen to what God says, because in the end, it is He who wins the battle. His name is the name that has the power. Our responsibility is to hear and obey God- the results are up to Him! We need to walk in that humility. We don’t need to be afraid, because we have the authority of Jesus. God takes us seriously, and so does the darkness. The enemy considers you a threat more than you realize. You have so much power in you because you have God, and the enemy fears that. He likes it when we don’t realize our power and authority.
There were several spiritual weapons that Lea talked about. I'm not going to go into detail about them (most are quite self-explanatory and don’t even seem like weapons!). The weapons included things like Scripture, living a life of integrity, walking in an opposite spirit (if someone is angry, respond with love and peace), resisting temptation, declaring who God is, resting in our relationship with God, preaching, praying on location, physically claiming territory for God, setting captives free, fasting, giving, signs and wonders, acts of service, acts of faith, and endurance.
It was a really intense week filled with learning by all of us. Lea also had quite a few really cool stories about her personal experiences with spiritual warfare. One that really stood out to me was when she was on her DTS outreach in Haiti. They were evangelizing in a gazebo, and there was the really, really loud music. Too loud to hear people speaking. Lea and another person felt like they needed to leave the place where they were doing their dramas and just walk around praying. As they passed the house where the loud music was coming from, they prayed over it. Lea saw the image of angels standing with their wings open, blocking the sound, and so she prayed that out. Finally, they felt like they were done praying and decided to head back to the gazebo. They took a couple steps forward and suddenly the music was muted- they could hardly hear it. They looked at each other, then stepped back a couple steps. The music was blaring loud again. They stepped forward a couple steps- muted. They were so amazed that they kept stepping forward then back. Loud, muted, loud, muted.
Lea had some other pretty amazing stories, but I think I’ll leave it at this for now. And I shall talk about Freak Fest another time. Maybe tomorrow, cause I don’t have to do a CR, since I made dinner for Christine on Friday, and she still has to clean for me. J But I also have a one-on-one with the speaker for this week tomorrow, sooooo…. We shall see.
Blessings,
Katie
No comments:
Post a Comment