THERE IS A WAR

Isaiah 54:17 “No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me," declares the Lord.”

It is important to hear this Word from the Lord God clearly. He is not saying that there will be no weapon forged against you, nor that its purpose is not that of trying to destroy you. Paul makes it perfectly clear in Ephesians 6:1-30 that we are involved in an ongoing spiritual war against principalities, powers, rulers of spiritual wickedness in the high places. Satan and his minions are the foe of everyone who belongs to Jesus Christ, those who are committed to following Him as Lord and Savior.

God has given us “armor” for this fight. That Armor is the Person and Presence of Jesus Christ living out His Life and Salvation in and through us in the Power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus is the truth, He is our righteousness, He is our salvation, He IS the Gospel giving us stability, He is the Living Word and it is His faith living in us that is our shield against the deception and fiery lies of our enemy.

The Lord God, speaking through Isaiah, states that weapons are forged against us specifically with our weakness, wounds and proclivities in mind. The Lord states that those weapons will not prevail, will not prosper in their intent, will not prove effective. Why? Because Jesus Christ is our strength, our shield, our fortress, our Deliverer, Eternal Life within us. The Holy Spirit is the Power of the Resurrection actively working in us to do more than we could ever ask or imagine. Greater is He Who is within us that he who is in the world.

The battle is a furious one, a deceptive one, and a strategic one. There will be times when feel the blow of a spiritual blade crashing against your shield. It may even knock you down, but it will not knock you out. Your spiritual arm may feel numb with the shock of the attack, but you are not dead. You are not defeated because He Who IS the Victory ever lives in you as your salvation and your strength. You can get up, exercise the authority Jesus Christ has given to His followers and, drawing near to God in prayer and faith, sent the devils fleeing in the Name of Jesus.

It has been said that discernment is telling the difference between right and almost right. The enemy’s lies are based in trying to get you to identify with how you once habitually lived, consumed by lust, greed, envy, arrogance, and anything but God. There are still active vestiges of that old way of living warring in you that Scripture calls “the flesh”. The flesh tries to collude with sin to keep it active in you. But, that is not what defines who you are now.

As a follower of Jesus Christ, you have been given a new heart and a new spirit. Otherwise the Holy Spirit would not dwell in you if your heart was still deceitfully wicked. You have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and by the Holy Spirit you have been brought into the Kingdom of Christ Jesus, in Who you HAVE redemption by His blood, the forgiveness of all your sin. You have “put off the old man and have put on Christ.” You have a new spiritual DNA; old things have passed away and behold all things are new and this is the work of God. That “newness” is what is being forged in you, worked out in you, lived out in you, transforming the way you actually think, choose, feel and live. That is the Holy Spirit’s job, His work of salvation in you. You are “becoming more and more” of who God has made you to be.

In Ephesians 1:4, Paul writes that before the world was created, God loved you and chose us, in Christ, that we would be holy and blameless in His sight. Paul always addresses the congregations he wrote to as “saints, God’s holy people.” That is who you are. And because of His life and Spirit working in you, that is what you are becoming more and more. Just as a newly conceived baby in the womb is full alive and has all it needs to become who it is; you have been born again by the power of God and are becoming who you are in Christ Jesus.

That is why weapons are forged against you. That is why lies and slander are hurled at you. It is because you belong to Jesus Christ. Do not be discouraged. The warfare is confirmation that Christ in you makes you a threat to the kingdom of darkness!