Do you know what battles to fight?

If we leave our spiritual lives up to human reasoning, we will attack the wrong enemy every time.

We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.  (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)  

I love science fiction. I know. I’m a nerd, but within science fiction stories is the capability to discuss Truth without immediate offense. Science fiction and other genres like it allow an author to present a moral or spiritual question without it feeling like a moral or spiritual question. That’s part of the reason why I love the genre as an evangelistic tool. 

I was watching a popular sci-fi show the other day (yes, it was CG-animated and may have included armored clones and general warfare), and the storyline caught me off guard. Because in the heat of conflict, and due to a nefarious misdirection by a rogue general, the good guys ended up on opposite sides of the battlefield.  

Basically, the good guys ended up fighting each other. 

And it just made think about how often we go after the wrong enemies in our lives. We talked about this a little yesterday, but in our Christian lives, the people who we can see aren’t our enemies. They’re soldiers who were misdirected by a wicked general. 

If we leave our spiritual lives up to human reasoning, we will attack the wrong enemy every time.  

If you know Jesus, you have access to the Holy Spirit and His reasoning and His wisdom. If you follow Jesus, that’s how you need to do battle. Not with your fists but with your faith.  

But if you look at this passage out of 2 Corinthians, we’re not even supposed to fight people at all. We fight their reasoning. We fight their arguments. We fight the obstacles that prevent them from coming to God. Not them. 

Christians are warriors. We are soldiers. The Bible identifies us that way in many instances, but we are not like the warriors or soldiers the world produces. We don’t fight battles the way human soldiers fight battles. If we fight, we fight on our knees. We take our troubles and our struggles and our conflicts to God, and we let Him fight for us.  

That’s what He does. He is El Shaddai, Almighty God. He is Yahweh-Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts—the captain of Heaven’s armies. Over and over again, Scripture calls God a Mighty Warrior. He is the one who will bring victory. He is the one who fights our battles.  

We don’t have to fight. We just have to be still. (Exodus 14:14) 

As Jesus-followers, we will face conflict and trial and struggle every day in the world, because the world system hates us. People will want to fight us because they have been led to hate us by our true enemy. But we aren’t called to do battle with people. We are called to do battle for people. 

Be humble. Show love. Do good. Pray. And let God do the fighting. He’s the only one who knows what battles are worth winning. 

Questions for Reflection 

Why do you think God calls Himself a warrior? 

How is it possible to “do battle” with human reasoning or arguments and not the person or people who believe it? 

How is one way you could respond to conflict or threats as a spiritual warrior? 

Weekly Memory Verse

---

Join my author community by signing up for my regular emails. I send out fun stories and updates about my books, along with the occasional freebie!