We are in warfare!!!

WE ARE IN WARFARE! Allow me to share some thoughts from a message by Dr. John Piper, Senior Pastor of the large Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis, MN. While in Augusta, GA, some months ago, he spoke graphically about the fact we are in a “warfare” and that the Christian life is a warfare.

I don’t think we Christians in America are aware of the fact that God’s Word depicts the Christian life as a warfare for souls. Consider that people live differently when they are in the midst of war. “Not only are they on the alert, armed and vigilant, but they also spend their money and time differently because of the cause of the front line is everything. War brings such a massive change in the way you live your life,” stated Dr. John Piper.

If we believe the Word of God, then we have to say that we are in a warfare. (I Pet. 5:8-9; Eph. 6:10-18; II Cor. 4:3,4) “Christians in America easily display their lack of a wartime mentality. We think more about getting more comfortable and having more security, how to multiply our comforts and ease and we have justified it with many different kinds of sugarcoated ministries even in our local churches.”

This war we have neglected is raging worse than what occurred in World War II because “the conflict isn’t just restricted to any global theater but it is in every city, every home and family, every church. The casualties don’t just lose an arm, an eye, a leg, or their own live... they lose their souls. They enter not into some prison camp, but into Hell forever and ever.”

During this war, God’s mission for His people is for them to pray. Prayer is the powerful force along with the “Sword of the Spirit (The Word of God) which God uses against the power of darkness in this world.”

Dr. John Piper went on to say, “The bullets of spiritual warfare are flying over our heads, people are falling all around us, blood everywhere, Hell is filling up with lost people, and during it all we are busy getting our second houses, our second and third cars, our nice clothes and our fat retirements, and our comfortable, safe neighborhoods, while the world can perish, thank you.”

“Until we see the Christian life as war, we will not sustain a life of vigilance in prayer, perseverance in prayer, agonizing in prayer, nor will we build a church that prays anything other than some simple prayer-meeting type prayers,” Dr. Piper stated.

May God help us all become people of importunate prayer, fervent in prayer, knowing what it means to pray through... to agonize in prayer and continue to pray until we have received the answer that pleases God in His sovereign will and plan. Dr. Piper’s message spoke to my own heart. Indeed it is easy to see that far too often we who are God’s people are asleep. God calls us to awake out of our lethargy and to be busy about the Father’s business and that is the winning of souls, discipling them, seeing them become stalwart, godly saints doing His will.

 

http://www.desiringgod.org/searches/we%20are%20in%20warfare?utf8=%E2%9C%93

 

http://www.desiringgod.org/searches/we are in warfare.html?utf8=✓