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Spiritual Warfare

 I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  (I Corinthians 10:2-6)

There are two big issues in my mind, each standing on its own side and bellowing at the other. One side is insisting that I am self-centered and guilty because I spend so much time thinking about myself, especially with how self-centered, arrogant, stubborn, and guilty I am.

(“Oh, you shouldn’t think that way!”

“Yes, I know – I’m terrible for doing so. Guilty as charged.”)

The other side is sounding battle stations over definitions. I’m still angry about people trying to twist reality just as George Orwell predicted, calling love “hate,” and hate, “love;” declaring that a protest is peaceful even if it destroys a town, as long as no one gets shot.

What both of those issues have in common is “definition.” On the one hand, I twist definitions in order to bludgeon myself for my many failings, and compounding that bludgeoning a flail because I am bludgeoning myself. I am not seeking the truth, because the truth would require that I stop thinking about how much I think about myself and how much a loser I am. It would be stopped by “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in my life as it is in heaven…forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those who trespass against me…”

On the other hand, other people twist definitions, as described in yesterday’s blog post.

According to today’s passage, in our spiritual battle, we are to demolish strongholds, arguments, and pretensions. It’s all about ideas. It all starts with definitions. This is one of the reasons we need to look to Scripture for our definitions. We need to replace our own strongholds with God’s strongholds: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We need to demolish our own arguments and those of other people who put themselves above God. We need to examine every pretense and kick out those that fail to line up with Scripture because those aren’t going to change in the next week.

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