August 26th 2018
Spiritual Warfare : fight of the thought
«For from the heart comes evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immorality, robberies, false witness, slander» (Matthew 15:19).
The heart that this biblical passage refers to is the soul of the man. The soul can be defined as the psychic part of our being, the seat of our feelings and emotions, which expresses our personality.
The soul is the most intuitive and subjective part of the human being. In it is manifested the consciousness of the «me», that is, the reflection of who we are.
It is in her that our feelings are manifested; love, affection, tenderness, but also hate, resentment, rejection, and anger. It is in her that our emotions are conceived; joy or pain, sorrow and suffering, peace or worry, serenity or torment. And finally, it is in the soul that manifests the desires of the being that is to say our desires, our expectations, and our hopes.
The soul is between the mind of the man and his body. She draws her inspirations from one or the other, depending on whether her desires are carnal or spiritual.
«In fact, human nature has desires contrary to those of the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires contrary to those of human nature. They are opposed to one another, so that you can not do what you want.» (Galatians 5:17)
The soul has the capacity to hold speeches in the sense of the Platonic dialogue which is not a conversation, an exchange of views. It represents the movement of a thought making its questions and answers to itself.
According to Plato, thought is «a discourse that the soul holds to itself over the objects it examines.»
«The woman saw that the fruit was good to eat and pleasant to see»(Genesis 3: 6)
The woman «lives»; this is the look she is looking at a fruit she already knew about. This time, her idea of the same object is different; he becomes «good to eat and pleasant to see».
This new perception of this same fruit is a function of an external influence. In fact, man sees things according to the influence under which he finds himself; Before, Eve looked at this same fruit under the influence of the Word she had received from her husband Adam, who himself had received it from God.
Under the influence of the Word of God, Eve looked at this fruit from a certain perspective; she saw things according to what the Word of God taught her. We can say that she had a divine perception of everything and even of that fruit. We will say that his gaze was in the image of God.
When put under the influence of the serpent's words, she began to think differently, and her thoughts led her to «see» the fruit from the angle that Satan had taught her.
We understand that the words we listen to have a significant influence on our thoughts. Through them we have a different perception of things. This influence leads us to conceive of things according to this perception. We materialize this conception by our actions and decisions.
What one hears determines what we believe in as it is written, «Faith comes from what we hear, and what we hear comes from the word of Christ.» (Romans 10: 17)
Depending on whether your desires are nourished by the word of God or Satan, the fruits you will bear will be of one or the other. As it is said, «Man is a slave to the person to whom he obeys, whether from sin that leads to death, or from righteousness that leads to life«(Romans 6:16)
We therefore have for master the one to whom we choose to obey. This is a daily struggle, every moment ... A permanent battle is going on at the level of thought.
We can thus define spiritual combat as the fight of faith. This fight is our ability to make appropriate decisions given the system in which we find ourselves.
It is the propensity of man to conform to the image of God, that is, his ability to identify with the thought (word) of God
«True faith is when there is a fit between the offer of God in Jesus Christ and the request of your heart» (Pastor Joseph Nzembele «The Law of Supply and Demand»).
The Bible tells us, «Submit yourselves to God, resist the evil one, he will flee from you» (James 4: 7)
Submission to God is a choice that man makes to align himself with the will of God. This choice reflects our love for God. «Indeed, love to God is to keep His commandments» (I John 5: 3).
Love towards God is the faith we have in His word. «But without faith it is impossible to be pleasing to him» (Hebrews 11: 6). Without faith it is impossible to please God. Now it is in the joy of the Lord that we find our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).
Our ability to resist the wicked is a function of the love we have for God. So it is not a question of a physical test of strength, but rather our ability to please God.
We can only exercise the authority of God over the evil one if we are ourselves under his authority. For it is in God that we draw our strength and the ability to resist the evil one.
«Take above all else the shield of faith, with which you may extinguish all the fiery darts of the evil one» (Ephesians 3:16)
Faith is the bedrock of spiritual warfare. Without it, it is impossible to resist the evil one.
Faith is believing in the availability and ability of God to meet our expectations. But the true faith is «when our expectations are on the same frequency in relation to the will of God. (Joseph Nzembele «The law of supply and demand»)
Yes, we affirm that spiritual warfare is not those incantations that are similar to the sounds of markets we hear in our Churches who «run, as if on an adventure, and strike, like flying the air. On the contrary, this is about treating our bodies hard and disciplining them, for fear of being disqualified ourselves».
Spiritual combat is therefore the «fight of faith», «the fight of conformity to the word of God».
May the Lord bless you.
Didier Mpeti