War, it has been said, is hell. It gets tiring.
I find myself looking forward to the end of each battle. I don’t plan to, but I find myself considering “life without a battle raging around me” as a sign of success. Whew! I made it!
I don’t think Father agrees.
I believe that sometimes God specifically and intentionally brings the battle to me. I get it that I don’t always embrace the “overwhelming conqueror” moniker, and so he needs to help me get there. And yeah, I understand that sometimes I open a door that the enemy would love to exploit.
But I’m coming to believe that he brings the battle to me for another reason. I suspect that he lures the enemy into battle – and it must be with his sons, the enemy wouldn’t survive battle with God for even a nanosecond – as part of His almighty plan to plunder the devil.
In fact, I’m going to go so far as to say that sometimes the battle that I’m in right now, especially the battle that I didn’t expect to be in right now, is really more of an announcement, like the “Coming Attractions” features at the movie house. This is what you’re going to get for plunder after you’ve beaten this puny little stronghold.
We’ve talked about God’s promised wealth transfer. Proverbs 13:22b talks about how “the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” I think we’ve misunderstood this.
I’ve heard this taught as a promise we just need to claim: “Receive it by faith,” they shouted (and it wasn’t always during the offering message!). I don’t think it’s as easy as that.
First, I’m not convinced that the “wealth” God is speaking of is merely financial, just as the inheritance we leave to our kids (13:32a) is merely financial (see also Hebrews 12:16).
I’m also aware that Father wants his kids to be overcomers (see Revelation 2 & 3). It’s tough to become a competent overcomer without practice overcoming stuff.
I’m beginning to suspect is combining these two values. He’s luring the devil into our gun-sights so that we can overcome him, and also so that we can take back what he’s taken from us. (Remember that the devil was broke when God threw him out of Heaven; anything he’s gained since then has been by deceit, trickery or outright theft.)
It’s pretty important, and in my own world, it’s increasingly difficult (probably some more of my training, as in Hebrews 12:7-11) to discern exactly what the battle is that we’re fighting. Yeah, stuff is going wrong. Yeah, my soul and my spirit are wrestling with an oppressing thing. Yeah, hope is difficult, or clear thought is a greater fight than usual. But WHAT IS THE REAL BATTLE ?
As we discern the nature of the enemy who has been lured against us, we’ll see more clearly how to kick his buttocks up between his ears, but more importantly, we’ll also get a glimpse of the plunder, the wealth, that Father has planned for our inheritance.
If seeing is believing, then what are you looking at?