The Enemy


As a follow up to my last post about how we are to love each other as Christians, I would like to take the next step and point out that we are not supposed to stop there.  While loving each other is a great testimony to the world without which we will not see souls saved, we are also to love the unsaved.  And I think that the reason we sometimes (often?) do not, is because we view our battle in this world as us against them.
 
But we need to remember that our battle in this world is not with those in this world. 

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.  (Ephesians 6:12)

Satan is shrewd.  And his greatest strategy is to convince people that their war is against someone other than him.  He is currently in control of both sides of countless wars.  He is currently controlling warring nations.  He is currently controlling warring religions.  He is currently controlling warring worldviews.  What a stroke of genius it is to take two opposing sides of a war and get them both to fight against the spread of God's kingdom; be it two vastly opposed political parties, two opposed false religions, or two opposed world powers.  And, for example, when Muslim attacks against a secular nation result in increased opposition to Christianity, you have to admit that his strategy is working.
 
And I think that he gets us to buy in, too.  I think he gets us to buy into the "us against them" lie and he very effectively obscures the light of the Gospel by darkening it with very unChristian-like words and behavior from the very people tasked to shine that light.  And when he can get us to believe that our war is against the unsaved, he has made us enemies of the Gospel, too.
 
The fact of the matter is that the unsaved of this world do not even know the war they are really part of.  And that should break our hearts for them all the more, regardless of their attacks on us.  And every time we return fire with harsh words, they unwittingly win a battle for Satan.  Every time we do not respond to hate with love, we surrender the battle to him. 
 
He has us fighting the wrong enemy...
 
It is time to fight the right enemy.  And we have only two weapons: prayer and love.  Much of this war needs to be fought from our knees.  We need to rely on God to soften our hearts and stiffen our resolve to not fight on Satan's terms knowing that he will have no choice but to flee if we resist him.  And we need to love those who hate us, knowing that the gates of hell will not prevail against us if we do.  We need to do exactly what our Lord did for us, and love those want to be our enemies.
 
And each time we resist the temptation to fight fire with fire and we instead fight darkness with light, we will see the Kingdom of God advanced, and the truth of the glorious Gospel will shine on the hearts of those who, despite what they may believe, are not the enemy.
 

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