In his book, When Heaven Invades Earth, Bill Johnson has an interesting take on one element of spiritual warfare. He says, “First, God makes us strong and then he stirs up the devil’s hatred toward us. Why? It’s not because he wants to create problems for His Church. It’s because He likes to see the devil defeated by those who are made in His image, who have a relationship of love with Him by choice. We are His delegated authority. It is His delight to have us enforce the triumph of Jesus.”

I believe that statement is true but there is still a part of me that doesn’t warm up to that truth. I don’t like to be roused from my comfort zone to face an irritating enemy. I don’t like my world being rocked when I have just found the right balance and am peacefully coasting along. I find myself, like Rodney King, asking, “Can’t we all just get along?” Unfortunately, the answer is No. We live in a war zone and will until the King returns to cast the enemy and his angels into the lake of fire.

My problem is that while Jesus came to preach a selfless, other-centered gospel, I too often still make it a self-centered gospel. I too often seek the blessings for myself rather than relentlessly looking for others who need them more than I do. I too often worry about my comfort and security rather than the pain, poverty, and discomfort of those around me. As Americans, we tend to be self-centered consumers looking for a church that ministers to us and meets our needs rather than a church that is sacrificing and kicking down the doors of hell. That kind of self-centeredness robs the kingdom and us individually of both power and joy.

Regarding joy, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” Those who are poor in spirit don’t demand much for themselves and often don’t think of themselves at all. Modern psychologists would say that such a mindset is a sure sign of self-hatred and a sure formula for depression. But Jesus said that those whose focus is primarily on others and not their own glory, happiness, entitlements, etc. are the truly blessed people of the world.

Philip Yancey put it this way. “My career as a journalist has afforded me opportunities to interview ‘stars,’ including NFL football greats, movie actors, music performers, best-selling authors, politicians, and TV personalities. These are the people who dominate the media. We fawn over them, pouring over the minutiae of there lives: the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the aerobic routines they follow, the people they love, the toothpaste they use. Yet I must tell you that, in my limited experience…our idols are as miserable a group of people as I have ever met. Most have troubled or broken marriages. Nearly all are incurably dependent on psychotherapy. In a heavy irony, these larger-than-life heroes seem tormented by self-doubt.

I have also spent time with people I call ‘servants.’ Doctors and nurses who work among the ultimate outcasts, leprosy patients in rural India. A Princeton graduate who runs a hotel for the homeless in Chicago… Relief workers in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and other repositories of human suffering…I was prepared to honor and admire these servants, to hold them up as inspiring examples. I was not prepared to envy them. Yet as I now reflect on the two groups side by side, stars and servants, the servants clearly emerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. Without question, I would rather spend time among the servants than the stars: they possess qualities of depth and richness and even joy that I have not found elsewhere…Somehow, in the process of losing their lives they find them” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p.117-1180.

It seems that Jesus knew what he was talking about and I think, in reflection, that the less we obsess about ourselves, our needs, our wants, our security, the more room we make for God and the love of God that we crave. The more of God we have, the more joy, authority, and even power we have to fight the inevitable wars on this planet against the devil. God does many things to get us to focus on him. He is not an egotist. He simply wants the best for us. When we are full of ourselves or even full of concern for ourselves there is little room for Jesus.

If we truly want to excel in spiritual warfare, then we must fix our eyes on Jesus not on ourselves. Greatness and joy in the kingdom, come when we seek it for others more than ourselves. The cross is the ultimate example of that truth. In the days ahead, it would be a good practice to check my “self-ometer” from time to time to make sure that there is truly room for God. The more of me that is in the tank, the less room there is for the very things I say I want most that can come only from the Father. Sometimes my own self-focus and concern for self is a more formidable enemy than Satan.

Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk from your lips. Proverbs 4:23-24

The “heart” is the innermost part of our being. It is where our deepest beliefs and convictions reside. They color and flavor every experience we have and every thought produced by our intellect. Scripture often alludes to the heart and tells us to keep watch over it or to guard it.    In the proverb quoted above, Solomon called the heart the wellspring of life. The word in Hebrew means the beginning place or source like a spring from which a river flows. So for us, our heart is a source of life from which everything else flows.

Biblically, it is hard to define the heart when it is used in this context. It is much more than love or emotions or feelings which we assign to “ the heart” in our culture. It is more than the brain or even the subconscious although the Bible tells us that we believe in our hearts. It simply seems to be the depository of all that we truly are. Some of what is there is beyond our perception so David prayed and asked God to search his heart and to show him if anything that offended God was operating in his heart. We are told that even Jesus resides in our heart. So there is a spiritual dimension to our hearts, a faith dimension, and a character dimension. Out of all that, our life flows strong and clear or trickles out like a polluted stream.

What we speak affects our hearts. According to Solomon, any choice to speak perverse or corrupt things affects our hearts. Paul tells us in Romans 10:9-10 that if we confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved. There seems to be a connection in that verse between our speaking and our believing. God has created us in such a way that the things we speak get written on our hearts. But there is a cyclical process that also occurs for Jesus tells us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Mt. 11:34). What we speak repeatedly becomes established in out hearts and then what is in our hearts comes forth in words – especially in unguarded moments. What we store there by the words we speak then reinforces the beliefs or attitudes or desires that are there so that the heart reproduces itself by prompting the words we speak.

Solomon tells us to guard our heart, which is the wellspring of life, by putting away perverse and corrupt talk. Perverse talk is twisted or distorted talk. It is talk with a spin. The devil is a master at spinning a lie so that is sounds like the truth or a plausible explanation. It is the kind of language that deflects blame to others and always justifies the one speaking. However, Jesus tells us to let our “Yes” be “Yes” and our “No” be “No.” He calls for strait talk because when we begin to speak half truths and put spin on our stories to justify ourselves or to hide our own failings in the matter, then it is only a matter of time until we begin to believe our own lies. It is only a matter of time until we begin to minimize or justify our sins rather than confessing them and repenting so that God’s grace and the blood of Christ can cover our sin. If we excuse our sins, then God cannot. If we blame others for our decisions, then he cannot forgive.

Corrupt speech again carries the idea of lies and deception. It is speech is that promotes death. Corruption is decay and decay is evidence of death. Satan is called Beelzebub – the lord of the flies. Flies are drawn to corruption. Ultimately, corrupt speech is speech that disagrees with or opposes God’s truth. Jesus said that his words are Spirit and they are life. The word of God produces life and health. A word that is in opposition to God’s truth produces death and decay.

Whatever we agree with we empower and speaking something brings us into agreement with whatever we spoke. If we speak as God would speak, then we come into agreement with him and empower his word in our lives as we deepen its presence in our heart. If our words do not align with God’s truth, then we are coming into agreement with lies and the father of lies, the devil. We then empower him to operate on our hearts. To guard our words is to guard our hearts and to guard our hearts is to guard our lives. Words matter.

Ask the Holy Spirit and those closest to you, to make you aware of any of your words that are not aligned with God’s truth. When you discover those words simply repent, align yourself with the Father, ask the Spirit to cleanse those lies from your heart, and then begin to speak God’s truth in the matter until that truth is your automatic response. Then you will know that your mind has been renewed in that area and God’s word then will be your words and will begin to produce the life the Solomon points us to.

Years are measured in seasons. In much the same way, life is also lived in seasons. Although there is some continuity as we move from season to season, there can also be great differences and those differences can demand different perspectives, attitudes, and strategies to navigate well. We must navigate three feet of snow and eight-degree temperatures in February in very different ways than we navigate 95 degree heat in August.   One extreme requires a roaring fire while the other begs for air conditioning. One requires heavy clothing and lots of layers while the other demands light, breathable cottons. One season is lived primarily indoors while the other calls us outdoors. Just about the time we get one season figured out another presents itself. That change can be frustrating, but on the other hand, most of us are also eagerly awaiting the variety that a new season brings.

Sometimes, the God who created seasons for a planet spinning in space, may also call us to a new spiritual season as well. Sometimes the call comes at unexpected times for us while for God that time was appointed before the creation of the world. Moses is a prime example. The hand of God was clearly on Moses as a child who was marked for a great destiny. As you recall, to avoid extermination by Pharaoh, Moses had been placed in a waterproof basket and hidden in the bull rushes along the Nile by his Hebrew mother. The daughter of Pharaoh found him in the water and adopted his as her own. He was raised in the palace and given the training and advantages of Egyptian royalty. At some point he became aware of his Hebrew heritage and began to sense that somehow he was to be a major player in delivering his people from slavery. One day, he witnessed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and in a moment of anger killed the Egyptian and hid his body. Within hours, Moses had been discovered and fled from Egypt to the backwater country of Midian where he married, settled down, and became a shepherd. He fled Egypt at the age of 40 giving up every advantage he had as a son in the royal house. Then for 40 years he lived the quiet, unassuming life of a shepherd.
At the age of 80, however, Moses had an unexpected encounter with God in a burning bush and a new season was thrust upon him. Suddenly, out of nowhere, God picked up the thread of the destiny he had assigned to Moses and called him to return to Egypt and finish the job. Moses was not excited. He had left Egypt confused and afraid with a quick demotion from the palace to the pasture. All he had experienced related to the call that God was resurrecting was failure. He no longer saw himself as a leader or a hero. He simply saw himself as a hapless shepherd destined to live and die living in dusty tents in Midian.

With each excuse Moses offered, God responded that he would go with him. Moses continued to push back. “Who am I to do such a thing? Who will I tell them sent me? What if they won’t believe me. I’m no public speaker. Lord, send someone else.” The text tells us that the Lord began to get angry. He had given Moses every assurance and had even demonstrated a coupe of miracles. More than anything, God kept assuring Moses that he would be with him and enable him every step of the way. God never sets his people up for failure.

So what was Moses’ problem? There are probably several themes that created pushback in Moses about this new season to which he was being called. First of all, he no longer saw himself as a leader or anyone special. He had tasted failure and disappointment forty years earlier and he had no desire to taste that again. Secondly, life was comfortable and predictable. It wasn’t great, but he had adjusted to it and found a sense of security and contentment in what he was doing. Now God was wanting to launch him into the unknown. If he were younger that might appeal to him but he was two-thirds of the way through life. Moses died at 120. He was already 80. For us, if we think we might live to be 90, then two thirds of our life would be 60 years old. Most of us aren’t willing to step into a totally new season at that age. But that is exactly what God was calling him to do.

Even though the call to lead Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness might seem better suited for a younger man, God seems to be more concerned about character than age. He can impart strength but he waits on us to develop character. The Moses who saw himself as a great leader was arrogant and rash. A man who was humble and had shepherded sheep for 40 years could now shepherd people and would lean on God rather than his own abilities. For Moses, the fullness of time for this new season came after Moses himself had been seasoned.

So what if your season is about to change? What if God is not calling you to the next thing (a continuation of what you have already been doing) but a new thing that is totally different from what you have known before? What if he is wanting to pick up the thread of your destiny that you laid aside years ago. Would you be willing to step into that season that would be full of spiritual productivity and adventure? Or would you, like Moses, find every reason to stay where you are and die peacefully but without having experienced the fullness of God and his glory that Moses discovered after he finally said yes.

We are in a season of acceleration. Maybe it’s an “end-times” thing but global and social changes are happening at an incredible pace. I believe God will be asking many of his people to step into new seasons with him that may be an expansion of what they are already doing or something very different from what they have ever known before.

The world is shifting and God has a hand in it. Every shift will open up new opportunities for his kingdom to expand on earth and he will be looking for people to use in significant and, perhaps, unprecedented ways in those moments. If the call comes will you be available? I ask myself that question as well. Perhaps, if we actually anticipate the possibility we will be much more ready to say yes. Pray about it. Dream about it. Even ask for it…if you dare.

A declaration is the act of speaking or pronouncing God’s word and will over a situation. It is an essential weapon to be used in spiritual warfare.   Jesus modeled that strategy in his showdown with Satan in the wilderness after fasting and praying for forty days.

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.      “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Matthew 3:2-11

Satan tried to bait Jesus into engaging in a dialogue with him about his rights and privileges as the Son of God on earth. When Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be drawn into a conversation, they were out maneuvered and manipulated. Sin was the outcome. I don’t believe for a second that Satan could bested Jesus at anything but our Savior modeled a better strategy. He simply declared the word of God over each temptation.

The word of God has authority. When we declare God’s word over a situation, it first establishes His authority and, as his delegated representatives, our authority over the circumstance. If you watch any crime show on television, you know that when police show up at a house, they first have to identify themselves as officers of the law or authorized representatives of the law and then they will still need a warrant or probable cause to begin to exercise their authority. The Holy Spirit within us and the name of Jesus on our lips identify us as representatives of the Kingdom of Heaven. A declaration of God’s word demonstrates the extent of our authority over a situation and establishes that the enemy is in violation of God’s law. That violation gives us probable cause to exercise Christ’s authority and issue commands in his name. The enemy is not always a demon but may also be disease, poverty, conflict, etc.

Paul tells us that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Eph.6:17), which can function either as a defensive or offensive weapon. The word translated as sword in that passage is not a Roman sword or a broad sword but a dagger. Daggers are used when the fighting is close – hand to hand. So when the enemy closes in, it’s time to pull out the word of God and use it as a weapon. Solomon said, “Reckless words pierce like a sword (Prov.12:18). If the words of a man can pierce, how much more the Word of God which is sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb.4:12). These passages suggest that the word of God declared over the enemy not only establishes authority but may inflict pain as well. When I was being schooled in deliverance, I used to minister with a man who had done deliverance for decades. On occasion, when a spirit was stubbornly hanging on, James would lay his Bible on the back of the person and the spirit would leave as if the word had afflicted the spirit in some way. That didn’t work for me, but it did for James. He probably had more faith in the effect of the Word than I did.

Another important aspect of declaring God’s word over a situation is that it helps to keep us aligned with the word of God. The enemy is skilled at twisting the truth and introducing doubt just as he did with Adam and Eve in the Garden. The tempter himself came to Jesus and tried to lure him into sin. With each temptation, Jesus answered with scripture – “It is written…” Not only was Jesus wielding the sword of the Spirit but he was keeping himself anchored in the truth of his Father’s words. Those words were true and had authority. For Jesus, that settled the matter and it should for us as well. Any lack of confidence on our part regarding our authority or the Lord’s authority in a matter seems to give the enemy a right or at least the ability to continue his assignment.

When ministering deliverance, we always want to establish our position and authority first by declaring the Word of God. We typically begin with a declaration that we are servants and sons of the Most High God who come in the name of Jesus who has all authority in heaven and on earth (Mt.28:18) and a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Phil.2:9-11). We also declare that the prince of this world has been condemned by Jesus (Jn.16:11), that we have been given power to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy (Lk.10:19), and that no weapon formed against those who belong to the Lord will prosper (Isa.54:17).   We may declare similar things over sickness as well when we suspect a spirit is involved.

Our words establish both the Lord’s authority and our delegated authority over the enemy like an arrest warrant. They also remind us of who we are in Christ as we begin to deal with the enemy. In addition, these declarations establish the victory that is ours in Christ and remind the enemy that he too must bow the knee to Jesus. If Jesus used declarations of God’s word against the enemy then how much more should we? The word of God declared through our lips over people, nations, and circumstances is powerful and an indispensable part of spiritual warfare.

Paul instructed Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). This verse suggests that we are to know and wield the word of God as a craftsman or as one who expertly knows how to use the tools or weapons entrusted to us. Getting the word in us so that the Holy Spirit can pull up the word that we have stored in our hearts whenever the enemy shows up is critical. There is no substitute for time in the Word and the capacity to declare that word over temptation, weakness, or crisis. I’m concerned that too many believers today have substituted good books written by their favorite authors and YouTube sermons for Bible study. Books and sermons are great resources but the Word itself contains the power. Jesus said that his words are Spirit and life. We need all of both that we can get.

Easter is only days away. In a very real sense, Easter is the most significant day of all days for without the resurrection the entire life of Jesus would have been only a gesture of holy living and a presentation of philosophy of life. But, speaking of Jesus, Paul says, “who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: (Rom.1:4). In other words, it was the resurrection of Christ that established without doubt that he is the Son of God and that he will make good on every promise. Easter does not celebrate the cross but an empty tomb.

The account of the last hours of the life of Jesus is so significant that John gives Chapters 13-20 to those hours. While the other gospels race past the Lord’s Supper and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus in two or three chapters, John slows the camera to a slow motion version of the story which essentially begins in an upper room where the twelve plus Jesus are gathered for Passover. Jesus expressed that he had longed to share that Passover meal with them. I find that hard to grasp because the conclusion of that meal would launch a brutal evening of betrayal, arrest, abandonment, abuse, perjury, beatings, and insults ending with being spiked to a rough hewn timber full of splinters and hoisted into the air to suffer for the next six hours and then to die.

Yet in the middle of the Passover seder, according to the other gospels, Jesus takes some of the unleavened bread that was commanded for the meal, breaks it, and hands it to the twelve saying that it represented his body which he was about to be given for them. He then took a cup of wine for them to sip and told them that the wine would represent the new covenant in his blood. He indicated that his followers were to take these elements on a regular basis until his return because by dong so they would remember him.

If I put myself in the shoes or rather sandals of the apostles, I think both of those statements would have been very confusing. I’m not sure that they yet grasped that this man who had walked on water and commanded storms would be killed in a few hours. Why eat broken bread to represent this physical body and what is this talk about a new covenant when so may of the prophets had already died defending the covenant God had given to Moses for Israel? After all, wasn’t that what Passover pointed to in the first place – the Exodus, the Red Sea, Sinai, and the Law?

I am convinced that most of us as followers of Jesus still do not fully understand the depths of communion which the Lord established at a simple Passover meal 2000 years ago. I’m certain I don’t and yet it was at the heart of the Christian church and their life together for centuries. The early church came together for fellowship and communion rather than preaching and elaborate praise services. They came together on the first day of the week to share a common meal (the agape meal) in which those who had plenty brought plenty to share with those who had little. That was a practical expression of “Love one another as I have loved you.” Then they would take bread and wine to remember the Lord’s sacrifice until his return.

For them, the cup of the New Covenant must have been a breath of fresh air – especially for the Jewish believers who were suddenly out from under the weight of the Law of Moses with its sacrifices and hundreds of laws defining every move of their lives. Covenants were often established by the shedding of innocent blood (animals) in those days and that was a familiar reference point for those believers. The bread that was broken to represent the body of Christ is more of a puzzle. Of course, it represents the physical suffering he went through for each of us but is there more?

Peter may give us some insight into the “more” of his broken body when he says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:24-25, emphasis added). The Greek word that is translated “wounds” in this text speaks of the welts, the swelling, and the injuries that would come from a slave being beaten or whipped. That certainly describes the scourging that Jesus endured at the hands of the Romans.

Peter’s words were surely lifted from Isaiah’s writings when the prophet spoke of Messiah saying, “Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray” (Isa.53:4).

Isaiah discussed two things that Messiah carried for us at his death – sin and sickness. Many modern translations make “diseases” into “sorrows” but the word consistently means disease or sickness or infirmity throughout the Bible. When one and a half million Israelites came out of Egypt the Bible tells us that no one of them was sick or lame because God’s grace had provided health and healing for the journey. One of the major marks of Christ’s ministry was healing. Through his Spirit he gives gifts of healing to the church and a special command to call for the elders of the church, if anyone is sick, for their prayer of faith and that prayer is promised to bring healing (James 5).

In modern times we have tended to confine the blessings of Christ’s death to the forgiveness of sin and spiritual healing. But God is interested not just in our spiritual life but also in our physical well-being. The wounds or the bruises of Jesus not only purchased our forgiveness but our healing. Because of contemporary theology, we tend to have faith for the forgiveness but not for the healing. David tied those two blessings together when he said, “Praise the Lord O my soul and forget not all my benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Psm. 103:2). In Matthew 9, we are told of a paralytic that Jesus healed. He began by telling him that his sins were forgiven. When the teachers of the law questioned his right to forgive sins, Jesus said, “Which is easier to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk.’ He then healed the man. The link between forgiveness and healing is seen all through scripture so it should not surprise is that they are linked in the New Covenant as well.

As we take communion, we should reflect not only on the love of Christ demonstrated by the cross and the covenantal forgiveness we have in Jesus, but also the healing that has been purchased for us by his suffering as well. Each time you take the bread, you may want to receive healing in the name of Jesus as part of your inheritance for his world as well as celebrating your forgiveness. Blessings in this life as well as the life to come.