Wimp or Warrior?

When I was in 5th grade, I was terrorized by a bully. Lunch at the time, was .35 cents a day and the bully would wait for me on the playground, every day. As I saw it I had 2 choices, get beaten up and he’d take my money, or just give him my money and hope he didn’t beat me up. I don’t have enough paper to explain the many ways I tried to get out of this. Let’s just say, they never worked.

Finally, I decided I would get even with him and start taking Karate. When I went down to the Dojo (GYM), I found out it would cost me $5.00 a week to learn Karate. It was cheaper to give the bully my lunch money than to take Karate lessons.

Aren’t we like that as Christians sometimes? We believe it’s cheaper to pay the bully than to learn how to defeat him? The problem is that many Christians do not understand the reality of the situation. We are involved in a battle in this inv isible world with an experienced and strong bully.

You want to be a “Spiritual Warrior?”

Following these 4 guidelines and you will become one.

1. A spiritual warrior knows his enemy.
It’s easy for believers to lose sight of the enemy. We are so easily side-tracked. We put ourselves whole-heartedly into a fight that has no eternal relevance. In fact, that fight can sometimes damage the cause of Christ. As spiritual warriors, we need to have a clear picture of the enemy.

Throughout history, wars have been fought. Some have been local conflicts. Some have been national conflicts and some have been international incidents. The common thread throughout these wars has been that there is a specific enemy.

There is a specific enemy. Above all, when in war, it is imperative to maintain focus on your enemy.

2. A Spiritual warrior knows how the enemy operates.
In Ephesians Paul states,
“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes”. I love the use of the word “scheme”. It gives a good picture of our enemy. He is scheming, manipulative, devious enemy.

He’s a bit like a guerilla warrior. Guerrilla warfare is characterized as unconventional. They don’t operate as a traditional army. Guerrilla warriors attack their enemy at different areas of weakness to inflict maximum damage. Each enemy is attacked in different ways to ensure premium loses. Sound familiar?

Our enemy operates the same. For many of us, Satan does not come to us and tempt us to murder or steal. These are some of our areas of strength. But our enemy studies us, looking for a weakness, and when he finds that weakness, he exploits it. That’s why we so often stumble over the little things. We lie. We gossip. We slander. We curse. Satan attacks our weaknesses.

When we know our enemy, when we understand the motivation and his strategies, we understand how we can combat him. We can launch countermeasures. We will be able to arm ourselves against our enemy.

3. A spiritual warrior trains for battle.
Remember the movie “Rocky”? What Rocky knew is that to defeat his formidable opponent, Clubber Lang, he had to train hard. He had to work hard to be able to overcome the odds and defeat his enemy. I’m sure Sylvester Stallone didn’t intend to have such strong spiritual parallels, but we can get so much out of that.

As spiritual warriors, we cannot simply go into battle against our opponent. What we need to realize is that our enemy is fierce and strong and on our own merits, we cannot beat him. Not without God!

4. A spiritual warrior has the right tools.
We have been given tools to help us in battle. A big part of training is properly utilizing the tools at your disposal. This is something that soldiers, fighters, and athletes alike understand. Hockey players don’t play without using all their equipment. To do otherwise would be foolish. A soldier doesn’t go into battle without his weapon. To do so would be foolish.

We have many tools, all important in their own way. In my opinion though, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and coupled with that is prayer as the most important.

You see, as spiritual warriors, we have an advantage that most armies don’t get. We know the outcome. While our enemy is strong, we serve a God that is stronger. In fact, we serve a God that has already defeated the enemy.