Dignity in Battle

“Far above all principality, and power…” – Eph 1:21

Forces of darkness are realities every Christian must come to grips with (Eph 6:12). Battling against Demons and witchcraft powers is not an exercise left for ignorant African Churches who are aren’t yet clean cut away from the primitive, pagan practices of their ancient cultures.

Demons are real. They attack, oppress and even possess people. Our Lord confronted them, the Apostles confronted them, and it’ll only be naïve of us to say we do not believe in demonic attacks.

Having said this however, a lot of what passes off as spiritual battle today leaves a lot to be desired. I find it unfortunate that many of our so-called “Deliverance ministries” deliberately downplay the implications of the Cross in the exercise of their ministry.

The Believer’s battle against the Devil is not a battle between equal or even near-equal adversaries. Satan has no power, authority or legitimacy to operate in your affairs. At the Cross of Calvary, our Lord stripped him and his degenerate hosts of all their powers (Col 2:15). Furthermore, not only were they rendered impotent, we were immeasurably empowered and elevated when we accepted Jesus into our lives (Eph 1:22,23; 2:6).

The Devil himself cannot stand where a day-old believer stands! Yet we see ministers making too much of a big deal that mere demons obey their commands. An army general would not seek for applause if a simple corporal obeys his command, now would he? Yet many Believers act like super Christians because they specialise in “deliverance”.

And to make the issues worse, we’re no longer content with demons obeying our commands; now we allow them to entertain us with ridiculous theatrical and exaggerated behaviour: foaming, braying and threatening NOT to go ostensibly because the host person is guilty of something.

Beloved, how many of the persons our Lord cast demons out of during His earthly ministry was Born Again first? How many of them were guiltless of the proverbial breaking of the hedge? did that stop the demons from obeying Jesus’ commands?

When we look at our Lord’s and the Apostles’ ministries, we’ll observe they had little regard or patience for demonic manifestations; indeed in several passages scriptures expressly states that our Lord “suffered not the devils to speak”! (Mk 1:25,34; 3:12; Lk 4:41; see also Act 16:16-18).

Why? Firstly because demons love ATTENTION and Jesus was not about to give them free airtime. Secondly, it would be the highest form of indignity for the commander of Heaven’s armies to be engaged in petty banters with an infinitely inferior Devil.

Spiritual battles are real; but let us show some self-respect and dignity in our fight. The Devil is not your mate, don’t make him feel he is.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN