In the Battle

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“For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Ephesians 6:12-13

“(Jesus therefore came forth, bearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment.) And he saith to them: Behold the Man.” John 19:5 

Jesus says, “I was born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’ 38 ‘Truth?’ said Pilate. ‘What is that?’ And so saying he went out again to the Jews and said, ‘I find no case against him.” John 18:37-38 J

What is “The Battle”?

Let’s look at a few examples of active “Battle”, and not in any particular order:

  1. Hearing voices calling you bad things? Cursing you? Perhaps calling you to do bad things to others & even to yourself?
  2. Having your emotions run the gamut between fire and ice?
  3. Seemingly unable to control your thoughts?
  4. Feeling angry, anxious at the drop of a hat?
  5. Over and over again the same issues ripping your life apart?
  6. Relationship problems that never get resolved?
  7. Family upheavals at the drop of a hat?
  8. Financial difficulties when all things point towards good?
  9. Finding yourself using to drugs, alcohol, pornography to fill yourself?
  10. Not wanting to get out of bed because you don’t want to face the day?
  11. Often afraid & anxious of what might be coming next to knock you down?

Go ahead and add your own struggles to these I’ve listed, there’s no limit on the ways we’re attacked! We can even be attacked by the Demons going after those we love!

It’s before, during and after these attacks, these episodes, we may feel and think we’re abandoned, all alone, just pitiful, thoroughly hated by everyone, perhaps having thoughts of suicide, and maybe a desire to hurt others… to the point of being ready to run away; running directly into some sin that we think will make us feel better! But even if it seems to help, it’s only temporary and we soon find ourselves worse off than before. We must get past reacting to & with feelings and emotions to the point of responding to these attacks with our higher faculties, our intellect! This is where the Lord will direct you.

You see, the Demons will tempt you, perhaps into using those all too familiar temporal Demonic fixes, like New Age, Positive Thinking (manifestation), Witchcraft, potions, crystals, incantations, Reality Shifting, TM, Wicca, Torrid, Voodoo, Occult, Santeria, burning sage and all sorts of other stuff to help?

Doing that sort of stuff, is going in the opposite direction of God.

God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, going to them is the only correct direction! The only direction for real life…

Do you want Peace? Then ask for it! As Scripture says in James 4:2: “You do not have, because you do not ask.”

So let’s ask that together, “Father God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, give me the Gift of Salvation and the Grace of Peace!”

If you said that, you’ve begun the walk towards real Peace, towards salvation… if you didn’t, go back and say it. Say it throughout the day and night., calling upon the Trinity for help.

Simply ask!

What’s next?

Here at “In The Battle”, we shall endeavor to provide teachings, articles, prayers and so on that may assist you in coming into a deeper relationship with the Trinity. To help you know who you are, and most importantly your identity in Christ…

Jesus will help! Jesus is the Answer. Because when you are with the Lord Jesus Christ, it is possible to be at “Peace” even in the most terrible “Battle”, the worst storm, the heaviest threats… because Jesus will help you through it all and because you know that your eternity shall be with Him in heaven.

You are not alone!

Born in the Battle

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It is historical that the “Battle” began long ago… the Devil, the slanderer or accuser, known by many names such as Satan, Asmodeus, Azazel, Belial, Beelzebub, and so on, in its disobedience, pride and envy, seduced other Angels to rise up alongside it in an attempt to overthrow God. In response, the Creator allowed one of His Angels, the Archangel Michael, to lead the Angelic army of Heaven in Battle against the Devil and its followers. Victory was God’s. Once swatted and beaten by the Archangel Michael, Satan was cast down to the earth, along with its cohort of disobedient Angels. These creatures no longer held intentions of Good for anything, they have become Evil, and in as much, contrary to all they had been created for. They will forever be called Demons, filled with hatred for one another and for all humanity. And so, these anti-Christ Angels are now here among us, sometimes seen, sometimes felt, sometimes heard, sometimes smelled, always causing turmoil.

Once here, these demons, unable to beat God, turned their Evil attention to destroy the children of God just as Scripture tells us in the story of Adam and Eve. This was not so much the destruction of the physical part of Man, but specifically the eternal spiritual side that God designed to be with Him in Heaven. This destructive interaction and devastation has continued through every generation since, for the demons seek our eternal destruction. They do so without emotion as they are beings of pure intellect… they do not feel such things as happiness, sadness, and so on. They are much like the “Terminator” in the movie from the same name, they pursue their purpose without hesitation, without emotion, a machine-like design that fully follows a prescribed operation.

But how can they do such? Through cunning and sly manipulation, they often attempt to turn our attention to the moment we find ourselves in, perhaps we are suffering from something and in as much they offer false consolation through some manner of sin, thus taking our eyes off the Lord and the salvation He has offered us. We might take this seeming relief, only to find ourselves worse off than before following the evil voice.

This temporal attack, directed to destroy our destiny to live with God forever, disrupts our connection, our relationship with God, His plan for our eternal life with Him. The temporary physical journey we find ourselves traveling will end. But this is also the place where we have begun our eternal journey home toward the Lord, or in a direction away from Him. God made our purpose in life to return home to Him in Heaven, to receive our reward eternally in Heaven… and the Battle is on for our final destination. Through the Mercy of God, Jesus Christ offers us salvation / reconciliation through our repentance and conversion. In Luke 5:32, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Even after we fall, He is there to pick us up.

With all that said, many of us don’t realize that this “Battle” rages all around us… in the physical, mental, emotional and the spiritual. We see ‘normal’ in our daily struggles, and so we slug our way from “can to can’t”, morning to night, day in and day out.

After the Garden, as I mentioned before, we have become fodder for the Devil. That vile creature and its cohort hunts, tempts, taunts, and hates each of us. But we have victory in Christ Jesus!

Even though we have a tendency toward sin (concupiscence) with that Original Sin from the Garden upon us, we can still make the choice to say no to sin, go to Christ, enter into His victory over our eternal spiritual death. He waits for each of us to call out to Him, Jesus save me!

So daily, we must make the choice not to travel the serpent path, rather we must say yes to Christ and do as He directs. Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us the opportunity to come to Him, or walk away… yet, we can always get back up and return to Jesus… over and over again. Yes! We are offered time and again the chance to receive His Grace, to come to Faith, to say and to believe, “My Lord and my God.” Jn 20:28.

The Battle rages around us, yet many walk on, oblivious…

People, ignorance is not bliss!

But, with eyes open to the Truth, we can enter into the Battle, armored up, by and through the Lord, ready to respond to the temptations, the lies, the false voice in our mind. We cannot beat the Devil with physical weapons, only by Supernatural Spiritual weapons! By Faith and complete trust in God, the victory is at hand by doing as the Lord tells us.

In the following Scripture, Paul has woven it to display the physical weapons/tools of that present day soldier in a manner that is directly related to the Supernatural Spiritual weapons we must use… it’s a call to prepare for spiritual battle! And the preparation means we exercise with these spiritual weapons/tools each day, learn them, use them, have them become a daily habit of putting on Christ.

Ephesians 6:10-18 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil. 12 For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14  Stand therefore, having fastened the belt of truth around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15  and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; 16 besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the Evil One. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”.

Simply caught up in the daily moments of distraction, this is where the Demons want us to be. They are in the temporal and are not all-knowing, all-seeing nor omnipotent. We often give them too much credit as well as assigning them power they do not have! They’re just creatures, albeit extremely intelligent compared to humans, they are not God! Our destruction is their desire. If we travel their way, our eternal souls are at risk. We must learn and do Battle as the Lord has explained to us in Scripture.

Walking the path of Righteousness, faithfully believing the reality of God’s promise of Salvation, armoring up as He says to. A Battle plan of Salvation is right before us if we but follow such.

As I said before, ignorance is not bliss… God is bliss!

So what do we do?

  1. Give yourself completely to God.
    • A simple daily statement: “Father, I am Yours’.”
  2. Learn His ways through simple daily habits. As Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.”
    • Learn how to pray, through the Scriptures, the Saints and good books.
    • Read Holy Scripture, following an established good program.
    • Reflect upon a daily meditation from a good source.
  3. Go to Church and become an active part of the Christian Community.
  4. Lay out a battle plan and follow it.

So what do we NEVER do?

  1. Don’t go to the Occult or anything that has you focus on something other than God the Father, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit.
  2. Don’t go to the worldly things such as horoscopes / astrology, necromancy, witchcraft and so on.
  3. Don’t give up.

Here are some sources worth investigating:

Contact us for even more resources.

This is a Battle, and you are not alone!

Can There Be Peace?

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Have you ever asked yourself, “Why, why can’t I have any peace?”, and then turned right around answering, “I pray, I go to Church, I read the Bible, I lead a good life… So why am I suffering?”

Here is the place where we need a definition; Peace is the accord between God and Man that Jesus’ atonement delivered.

Ephesians 2:14-18 “For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.”

We can fill books with specific elements of Peace, but we will keep this reflection to just a few points.

With the Peace of the Lord, we have, or at least we strive for, the complete acceptance of all things, such as suffering & pain, physical, mental and spiritual loss, hurt, to the point that these things no longer occupy our every moment. Of course this does not mean if a snake is biting your arm, you don’t get that thing off of you and then go get medical treatment. This is about responding to that which is outside of the normal. Such as, the evil voices both inside our mind and outside from others telling us lies, desiring our destruction. We are a work in progress, a Holy Work in progress and so our perfection does not come while we are here, but in Heaven… while here though, we strive, we work, we pray, we refrain from beating ourselves up for perhaps not being ‘Holy’ enough! Hogwash! Be the “Holy Work in Motion” and don’t give up.

Peace is truly the absolute Faith in God and His promises. And that is, the belief that we are His children and destined to return home to Heaven one day.

Is Peace beyond reach? No it’s not!

Even the Apostles had to learn from Jesus, and so, we need to as well! One of their lessons is from Mark 4:35-41:

“Let us go across to the other side.” 36 And leaving the crowd, they took him with them, just as he was, in the boat. And other boats were with him. 37 And a great storm of wind arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” 41 And they were filled with awe, and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even wind and sea obey him?”.

From that Scripture we learn as Jesus simply lays it before us all, have Faith and we have no reason to Fear! Peace will be upon us! And we will be able to share that Faith and Peace with others.

And so, are you really using Faith to engage in the Battle, or just grabbing ahold of any oar within reach to physically paddle out of the storm? It’s this struggle between resisting physical calamities with a physical response, or rationally responding with Spiritual Faith. We must engage our intellect over our emotions when we respond to physical or spiritual upheavals.

The Peace we’re speaking of here is beyond understanding of course, but it’s not beyond receiving. Even folks who don’t know how oxygen is made can still breath it in! We certainly don’t need to be Theologians or have a Phd. to have Peace. God offers us the Grace of Peace if we only seek and ask…

If we limit ourselves to the temporal, the physical, touchable, seeable, hearable, even the smellable, then we will not be in Peace. The Trinity is where we must keep our spiritual eyes focused.

As Peter found out when he took his eyes off the Lord in Matthew 14:25-32:

“And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. 26 ¶ But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear. 27 But immediately he spoke to them, saying, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.”

28 And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.” 29  He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus; 30 but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” 31  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.”

Notice the words, “afraid”, “Little faith”, “doubt”? Peter was walking on water! WHAT?!!? This is a miracle! But as soon as the fear came upon him through doubt, he sank… it seemingly was his little faith that did him in. And it is with many of us that these same things play a pivotal role in our daily life, afraid, little faith, doubt. That’s what we need to work on before, during and after our daily battles. Read, Pray, Learn, Practice the Faith and subsequently, faith will grow…

God made a promise and has sent one to teach us, just as Jesus is quoted in John 14:26-27 stating:

“But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The Truth, the answer, is that many of us do not yet know the Peace of Christ; who is the Prince of Peace. But we can start now! It never too late… don’t believe any lie that it’s too late! Just start. We “let” our hearts be troubled and we “let” our hearts be aftraid!

Can our hearts not be troubled? Can there really be no anxiety and no fear… that is something we will experience fully and eternally only in Heaven. But for here, in this temporal place, we are called to seek such at all times; in good and bad. Learn how to do battle! Train in the Faith, practice the Faith, proclaim the Faith.

It must be through Him and with Him and in Him… not by our will alone, nor our actions. We must seek the Lord at all times and be obedient.

Without doubt, we will experience suffering, but we can endure, persevere and even be Joyful when we are in that Faith filled place of sure and certain Hope that our Salvation is True in Christ Jesus.

When we search our hearts, the answer is within… let’s spell it out as in the Scripture Jeremiah 31:33-34:

“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

The Scripture from John 14 also spoke of the “heart” like Jeremiah does… it’s in our heart already just what God is! If we only search our hearts, listen to our hearts, let God be our heart, follow God.

Repent and be saved, forgive where there needs to be forgiveness, including oneself, seek forgiveness from the Lord and leave sin behind… that is what destroys any possible peace.

This is Truth, in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

But, what does that mean? Simply that God the Father has sent Jesus, (Truth), who gave His life to open the Gates of heaven to all who come to Him (Truth)… salvation is not in this world, it’s not from this world, it’s from God and through the acceptance and recognition of such, we attain “Peace” that is beyond all understanding. We are able to walk through the unbearable torments & physical storms, we are able to withstand the mighty vile blows of demons, we are able to place our trust in the eternal salvation that is ours through Faith and Obedience to the Trinity.

I’m not going to mislead y’all, complete “Peace” will never happen here. We are in this transitional stage of temporal earthly body/spirit, to one day entering into our eternal body, to either be united to the Trinity or completely disconnected from God and be in Hell. This “Peace” is fully received / recognized once we arrive in Heaven and are fully united with the Trinity. But, we can begin to receive that Peace here on earth as we come closer to God! He is waiting for us to say “Yes” to Him. So go ahead and say it right now, “Yes God, I am Yours’!”.

When you are with the Lord Jesus Christ, it is possible to be at “Peace” even in the most terrible “Battle”, the worst storm, the heaviest threats… because Jesus will help you through it all and because you know that your eternity shall be with Him in heaven.

You are not alone!