Weapons and Warfare

"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have the divine power to destroy strongholds."

What's a stronghold?

It is those things that hold us back, that keep us from being who we were created to be. A stronghold is a lie that we believe - a lie with some supernatural support. Picture this...

A young girl from a broken family eagerly awaits her next birthday. It is one of the few times she sees her father, one of the only times she sees her parents in the same room anymore, one of the only moments she feels normal. Leading up to the big day she gets a call from her dad and he asks what she would like for her birthday. She tells him she would love a new pair of jeans. She tells him her size and says it doesn't matter what brand or shade, just that they were from him. She tells him how excited she is, how much she misses him and how she can't wait to be a year older.

Finally the day arrives, the party is a success, everyone is there. There is cake and ice cream and balloons and dresses and toys and laughter. There are no jeans. When the party is over and the crowd has passed, she looks back on the day. She smiles at the fun and friends, she remembers the balloons and the cake. She realizes there were no jeans.

Soon, the other memories fade and all she can think about are the missing jeans. Why? Why didn't he buy me the jeans? Doesn't he love me enough? The days go by and the questions persist. What did I do wrong? What is wrong with me? How can I be so worthless that my own father won't even get me a pair of jeans for my birthday? Over time, the questions grow and become stronger. If he can't love me, how could anyone love me? I must not deserve to be loved. How could anyone love me? I must not be lovable.

When Jesus was on the scene, demons were apparent. His very presence brought them to light and flushed them out. We don't see that today. In fact, we've got scientific explanations for some of those demons. Epilepsy. Disease. Schizophrenia. Even if we can't explain their expulsion, we can reason away the causes of the demons we see in the Bible. Can we do the same with how a small slight becomes a life-changing belief?

Satan is the father of lies, that is his native language. When he works in the world today, he works with these lies. He uses the fallen world we live in, the broken homes, the broken relationships, the diseases and disasters we face. He uses our flesh, the clothing we need, the stuff we desire and the people we admire. And he uses lies. He speaks into them and makes them grow. He puts them in front of us, knowing we'll fixate on them, knowing we'll feed into his plan by feeding the lie. He helps us jump to the next conclusion, the next assumption and he makes our landing there seem safe and secure.

If you want to see demons today, look at the lies you believe. That's where you'll find them.

"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ."

Pooped On

There's no easy way to say it. I got pooped on this morning.

We had yet another bird in our attic. (Guess what I'll be doing this weekend...) This one was a little different than some of the others. He was very persistent in trying to get out of the windows. Maybe this is because outside actually looks like outside through the new windows, but he wasn't giving up.

I entered the attic and opened the window closest to the door. My entrance spooked him away from that window and he fled to the another one. So, I went deeper into the attic, closer to the other window, in order to try to herd the bird to the open window. No dice. He just tried harder to get out the window I was headed towards. I saw this wasn't go to go smoothly, so I just went to open the window he was banging against.

As I reached for the window catches, he finally flew over my left shoulder and out the other window - leaving a present on my left arm as he went. Well, at least I had already taken a shower.

It's hard to blame the bird. He was trapped, he was scared, he was frustrated, he did mean to poop on me - right? Right?

What if we weren't talking about birds? What if we were talking about people? Because, plenty of people poop on us too. The driver who cuts you off, or doesn't hug the line when making a left turn so you can't get around or doesn't use their turn signal. The shopper who leaves their cart in the middle of the only open parking space. The weightlifter who leaves the weights on the bar and their sweat on the bench. If we think about it, we've all been pooped on in one way or another.

This morning I changed my shirt, washed off my arm and moved on. I hope it doesn't happen again, but in some form or another it probably will. That's life. That's the broken world we live in and the sinful flesh we're encased in. The problems really start when we let these little things build and get out of control. That's when our heads get filled with lies (or poop, if you will) and we start to be the ones who poop on others.

Luke 6 - Do good or you're doing evil

So, Jesus is about to heal on the Sabbath, he sees the Pharisees lying in wait and he realizes this is a teachable moment. He asks the rhetorical question, "which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or destroy it?" The obvious answer was that it was to save life, to do good.

Surely the Pharisees were looking for a third possible answer: do nothing. According to their practices, this was the right answer. Jesus doesn't present this possibility, because it is a false choice. When Jesus encountered the handicapped he was faced with a choice: do something or do nothing, do good or do evil, save life or destroy it.

Every day we are presented with these same choices. It is up to us to recognize them and act. Just this weekend Cassi and I were downtown at a marriage conference. We had been instructed to plan a date night and Cassi and I were headed to a fancy restaurant to celebrate our graduations, new jobs, engagement (we had been saving up). After walking around downtown, we had about 10 minutes until our reservation, so we headed toward the restaurant. Half a block from our destination we were approached by a homeless man asking for some food. I said, "Sorry" and walked by. Then I even made a joke to Cassi about changing our reservation to three. Granted, I was thinking about Cassi and our special evening together. But by being so focused on my idea of what our evening had to be like, I missed an opportunity to make a much more meaningful evening.

Would spending 15 minutes to take the guy to Arby's have ruined our evening? Nope. Would showing up 10 minutes late for our reservation have caused a problem? Maybe (this was a fancy restaurant). Would it have been the good thing to do instead of the evil thing? Absolutely.