Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Sunday Wrap on Tuesday Morning... Warfare of the Saints

Sunday night,
Well Sunday night was pretty good, the pizza was good, the worship was good, and the talk... well I'll leave that for you guys to decide. But there was something that seemed off. A sort of a sense of fragmentation. I met a new guy, first time at the group and well, I was glad to talk him for a few minutes before, and had a great talk with him after, but no one else seemed to interested in him, nor the other new folks that were with us on Sunday... I am just putting this out there for you guys to consider, reach out... you wanted it when you showed up, and maybe you got it or didn't, but you wanted it none the less. So turn that around and reach out to those coming in for the first time, make that an act of worship each week and see how lives are changed.

On to the talk...
Spiritual Warfare.. or as I found when I was doing the research, Warfare of the Saints. I found that to be a pretty awesome title, much more definitive than just saying "spiritual warfare", it really communicates that it's just understood that it's part of being in relationship with Christ. It was my hope to do the subject matter some justice, and really bring it out from the shadows and into a more prevalent place in our conversations. The whole idea is to become aware of the reality of this particular warfare in our day to day lives. It doesn't mean, necessarily, that you are the person under direct attack, but perhaps it becomes you that is the person who knows when to pray specifically for someone else, or you are able to bring some insight to someone who's being beat down. The point, it's not just about us and us defending ourselves. In the picture we saw Paul painting, the Roman Centurion, we know from history that part of the strength of these soldiers was their numbers and their unity. They fought side by side and depended on the man next to them to fight just as hard as they were. So, since we ended and no one had any input then, how about now?
What are your thoughts on our knowledge vs. awareness of spiritual warfare?
I got some looks when I mentioned why I think we are not more aware (living rightly, hard hearts, lack of convictions) so what are some thoughts around that?

I'd love to hear.. let's talk.

His
j-

2 comments:

Niknak said...

I think a big problem with us today and why we don't like to acknowledge the spiritual warfare going on around us is because we've come to thrive on logic. In our society today we want everything to make sense to us. When we think about the aspects of spiritual warfare so much of it is unclear to us and becomes supernatural. In the same way that we get comfortable thinking God is up in the sky occupied with other things and not really watching, we don't want to think that there's a bunch of demons and angels fighting around us. I also agree with you J on the fact that we don't witness as much supernatural things partly because it's not needed to make us stray. Why should Satan put in all that work when he can make us falter in more subtle ways. I think there are more obvious occurances in some thrid world countries because they tend to have a much more on fire faith when they believe and their society is more used to seeing that kind of stuff. Here in our culture they brush it off as hauntings or throw the person in a mental institution. We have a drug to fix everything and thousands of mental "diseases". Personally I wonder just how many of those are really physical ailments.

mikeldelrosario said...

Our group discussed the importance of truth specifically to our faith. The Bible itself ties the validity Christianity to a historical event that must either be true of false: Jesus' resurrection. Truth is so important that Paul says we're to be pitied among all men if Jesus was not historically, literally, physically raised from the dead. In that case, our faith would be futile. So, yes. Truth is important. Unfortunately, some make distinctions between "spiritual" truth and "regular" truth. But truth is truth. If the fact that Jesus was raised is no less true than any other histrocial event, it HAS to affect your life...whether you know if or not. What even some Christians don't get it the spriritual battle raging behind many of Jesus' actions. That's one thing I liked about the Passion of the Christ---that Mel Gibson showed his interpretation of the spiritual side of the passion week.