The Battle

The Battle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4QOuGI3irI

There's a battle between good and evil
And it's raging inside of me
There's a struggle, it's God and the devil
It's love against the enemy
Whoa, no
I'm not giving up now
Whoa
Life's a fight of wrong and right, that's tearing me apart
Oh, but what the cross has done
Yeah the world will try to battle for my heart
But the war is already won
There's a snake that's hiding in the garden
There's a beautiful apple tree
There is trouble on the horizon
But I'm claiming victory
Whoa
I'm not giving in now
Whoa
Life's a fight of wrong and right that's tearing me apart
Oh, but what the cross has done
Yeah, the world will try to battle for my heart
But the war is already won
Whoa
I'm not giving up now
Whoa
I'm not giving in
Life's a fight of wrong and right that's tearing me apart
Oh, but what the cross has done
Yeah, the world will try to battle for my heart
But the war is already won. Battle by Chris August

Today’s lesson is that all of us, are fighting even if we don’t realize it... and the only way that you can be victorious in this war is to be on the right side and that right side is Jesus Christ...

We are talking about a war between “Good” and “Evil”, a war between the “Powers of Darkness” and the powers of Heaven......a battle between “Light” and “Darkness”. This war is about the eternal destiny of every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, from Adam to the last child that will be born before time ceases to exist as we know it.

Paul writes in Ephesians 6:12, “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places”.

Signs of this great battle for the souls of men are everywhere. All you have to do is look around and you can see many who have the scars of the battle. Many are wounded emotionally........... some are not able to cope with everyday life and its pressures. Some carry around scars of guilt and shame some carry a wounded spirit or a broken heart that sends them over the edge and makes them feel like life just ain’t worth living.

The weapons in this war ain’t bullets, knives, but words, prayer, sin and faith. Satan’s arsenal is filled with temptation, loaded fiery darts of passion and he lays traps, or minefields, where we walk every day. He’s an enemy that’s out to kill, steal and destroy everything that he can, including your very soul.

God’s weapons of this warfare are love, faith, Prayer, a sound mind and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Blood of the Lamb and the Cross of Christ. God’s weapons are more powerful than the devil’s, BUT none of them can be used without faith and trust in God to make them work.

The problem is that most people won’t use God’s weapons because they don’t want to surrender their will to God’s will.

When an addict is fighting for their life, doing everything in their power to overcome whatever has them “addicted”, it’s a fight with eternal consequences. Too many try to fight this battle alone, with “will power” and think it can be strong enough to break that bondage.

“Will power” just won’t work most of the time. If you don’t think that’s so, then how long an addict can go without a fix from the needle or the pill, just relying on will power? How long can the alcoholic stand the jitters of needing that next drink...there may be a few cases where people claim to overcome these addictions through will power, most fail, and then that adds to their hopelessness and frustration.

The reason that people can’t overcome these things on their own is that these are not just physical battles with a physical addition. They are spiritual battles that can only be fought, and won, in the realms of the supernatural.

Look at the Apostle Paul..... Paul was an addict before he was an apostle. He didn’t take drugs, he wasn’t hooked on tobacco and he wasn’t a man given to drink. Paul was a Pharisee, a man who dedicated his whole life to obeying the commandments of the Law. But he was an addict. He was addicted to ambition and to recognition.

Paul was first called Saul. As Saul, he was a defender of the faith of the Jews and he loved the idea of persecuting Christians He was constantly going before the High Priest to obtain letters of authority to kill, maim and imprison every Christian he could find. Saul was fighting the battle against God. He was trying to win a battle that he couldn’t win. He could do nothing to overcome his desire for recognition and power. In fact, he saw nothing wrong with the way he was living and the things he was doing.

It’s a sad thing to see most of the world living for the devil, and fighting in his army, and not even realizing what they are doing.... No one would admit that they are fighting against God. Every man is right in his own eyes because he is blinded to the truth. The truth is that unless you are living for God and serving Him, and working for Him, then you are fighting for the devil.

Saul was soon gonna’ come face to face with the war that was raging around him. He was fighting on the side of Satan, thinking he was doing God a favor, but he was gonna’ meet the Lord on the Road to Damascus. (Acts 9) It was there, in the middle of the day, that he was knocked off of his horse into the dust by the True Light from Heaven. Jesus knew that Saul was a sincere man, sincerely wrong even though he thought he was right; and Jesus also knew that Saul’s sincerity needed some direction.

Saul didn’t know who he was fighting for. He thought that he was doing the right thing the whole time. But he soon found out that he had been in the devil’s army, fighting against the very God that he thought he was serving. It took the power of God to break through his blindness and to shatter Saul’s addiction, and it still takes the power of God to truly break any addiction today. You can’t do it on your own, but with God’s help, according to Jesus you can. In Mark 9:23, He said "…. “Anything is possible if a person believes.”

When Saul gave his heart to Jesus on that road to Damascus, God changed him completely, making him a new creation in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17, "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!"

Saul’s addiction to power and ambition to the chief among the Pharisees came to an end, broke down forever by the power of God. From that day on, God gave him a brand new name, Paul...... and a new purpose, to preach the gospel; and a new life. All that he had been in the past was forgotten by God and forgiven. The blood of Jesus had washed away every sin and Paul was filled with the Holy Ghost and power.

He kept fighting the same war between the worlds of good and evil, but now he was on the right side for a change.

In Acts 16:16-31, Paul and Silas are battling the forces of darkness as they walked the streets of the city of Philippi,. They were going about doing good, praying and ministering, but Satan never stops trying to win the war, so even in the simple things of living for the Lord, they are still in midst of the war.

Let that be a lesson to us all. Don’t ever think that the war isn’t raging just because life seems to be good right now.

Your next battle with the devil is just ahead so be ready for it.

Sometimes we can become involved with people, on a job, or in a relationship that seems so right in the beginning. We can’t see anything wrong. But before long, something just doesn’t feel right anymore. That’s called the power of discernment, where the Holy Spirit living in you, begins to warn you that everything is not like it looks....

Satan plays for keeps. His methods are subtle most of the time, but he can be as confrontational as he wants to be when the battle gets harder. He is perfectly happy to allow anybody to do his dirty work for him.

Sometimes living for the Lord ain’t fun. Sometimes God allows things to happen to us that we just don’t understand. It’s okay to ask questions, but then we need to accept the answer and leave it in God’s hands. Nothing can happen to you that God don’t know about.

God will make a way for you to escape the traps that the devil will lay for us. We may face some strong temptations to fall into our old life but we don’t quit, we keep fighting. All of us face temptation, but that don’t mean that we’ve to give in to it. Paul writes´” …God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure”. (1 Corinthians 10: 12-14.)

And even if we fail, and all of us fail from time to time, God don’t give up on us. He says in Hebrews 4:16, "So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most."

1 John 2:1-2, "My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world."

We’re in a spiritual battle, A War of the Worlds of Good and Evil. Whose side are we on? If we aren’t on the Lord’s side, then there’s only one leader that we can be fighting for, the devil. There is no neutral ground. There is no fence. It’s either all for Jesus, or all for the devil.

The choice is ours. The victory has been won for us but we have to accept it. We can be part of the only army that is destined to win. But we need to surrender to Jesus everything.

For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6