Goldeneye, Halo, and Body Armor

This is kind of a long post, but bear with me! Let me start off by telling you about how amazing God is! As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, 2 more guys accepted the Lord last night. That makes 6 guys on the baseball team who have accepted Jesus as their personal savior in the past month. Praise God!

I received a random phone call yesterday from Dustin. He asked me if I could come over and teach him a few things. I was a little confused so I asked him what he wanted me to teach him. His response was, “I just want to know more about the bible.” First of all, how awesome is God? We’ve been praying for these guys for the past year and even more fervently in the past 4 months. God has been working on these guys hearts and it isn’t even taking us initiating conversation. They just see that there is something that we have that they don’t and they want that something. What they don’t know is that something is the forgiveness of sins and the Grace offered only by Jesus Christ.

So Kenneth and I went over to Dustin’s apartment where we had an amazing conversation with him and his roommate Scotty. Both talked about how miserable and empty they felt living the life they were living (by the way I have been praying specifically for these guys to feel miserable until they recognize that they need a savior). Finally the conversation led us to our knees where Scotty accepted Jesus Christ as his savior for the first time and Dustin recommitted his life to Jesus. It is unbelievable how Jesus changes lives!

This all occurred last night. Today I got a chance to talk to Giles and Scotty about spiritual warfare. This discussion got my wheels turning.

I think we often neglect the fact that there is an invisible battle going on constantly around us. For nonbelievers, the battle is between God and Satan (angels and demons) over souls. For believers, the battle is over our Joy. The problem is that we don’t recognize this battle so we don’t know how to take up our sword and fight alongside Jesus.

Ephesians 6:12 points out that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” That’s some scary stuff if you really sit down and think about it! Especially if you’ve seen horror movies like The Exorcism of Emily Rose. But the cool thing is that we don’t have to fear this other realm! Because Jesus lives inside of us as Christians, Satan has no power over us if we don’t let him. Now he may try every ploy he can to rob our joy and get a foothold in sin areas of our lives.

Because Satan has no power over believers, we don’t have to be scared, fearful, or obsessed with Satan’s work on this earth. We need to know enough about the enemy to know how and where it is going to strike, but we can’t give Satan too much credit! That ‘s what he wants! If we give Satan more credit than he deserves, we essentially give him power over our lives

It’s kind of like in sports, having a scouting report, or watching films on the opposing team. You want to know about that team—its strengths and its weakness, and individuals in the lineup that can really hurt you if you let them—that way you will know how to defend against those teams, but you don’t want to get away from the fundamentals of YOUR game. If we concentrate too much on what the devil’s work is in this world, we lose sight of the ultimate joy—Jesus’ life changing work in and through our lives!

If we focus on the devil’s work here on earth, we are fighting an uphill battle, a battle where we are trapped in the corner trying desperately to “hold off” Satan’s attacks. Through Jesus Christ’s power we can be fighting on the front lines, leading the way to victory, and engaging the devil in hand-to-hand, OFFENSIVE combat. The worst phrase I have ever heard is “the best offense is a good defense.” Take, for example, The University of Alabama’s football team this past year. Once their key offensive player was out for the year, even the best defense in the country could only take the team so far. Eventually the defense wore down because there was not an explosive, offensive force to counter-attack other teams’ offenses.

EVERYONE here at school plays Halo, and I enjoy playing it once in a while, but my all-time favorite video game is Goldeneye. I love getting the body armor because it takes the other players forever to kill you once you have it. The Bible tells us to put on spiritual body armor—THE ARMOR OF GOD. That way we will be able to not only defend ourselves but we will be able to counter-attack and eventually see victory and freedom in our lives! Check it out for yourself: Ephesians 6:10-18.