Weapons of our Warfare
Don't forget—they're not the world's
I’m addressing this Missive largely to those of my audience who call themselves Christian, which is not my usual primary audience. But I’m also addressing it especially those readers who currently find themselves being inexplicably drawn to God. I know there are many of you.
It doesn’t take more than a few seconds online these past few days to understand that people are angry. As our society moves past the shock and grief of the last week’s slayings—especially that of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk—anger is setting in. This is normal and to be expected. It’s what we do with the anger that counts, however.
These last half-dozen years have been a great unveiling of what is really attempting to dominate our world. In the same way, the past week has demonstrated this unveiling yet again, as demonic voices vie for dominance of the airwaves. We’ve always known this hidden reality, but now we’re seeing it. At last, our true enemy is coming out into the open. Take heart. This means he’s desperate and afraid.
We must remember who are true enemy is—and it’s not people. People may be his mouthpiece, but our true enemy is the prince of the power of the air, a.k.a. the devil. The enemy’s great deception is to get us to believe we need to fight people rather than him—thus becoming ourselves his mouthpiece.
I’m encouraged to see so many people who did not believe in God prior to last week now publicly saying that they are coming to faith in God because they’ve seen the reality of evil.
This is the great judo move God uses when the enemy gets desperate and comes out into the open. Because of the depth of the evil people are seeing, they understand that God must in turn exist. So many are now going to church for the first time, buying Bibles, speaking up and turning their lives over to God.
We’re watching something amazing unfold.
This is why it is so important that we do not miss this moment.
The easiest way for us to miss the moment would be to think that we should fight back against our satanic enemy in the same way that he is inspiring others to fight against Christians: attacking others with violence, with hate, with more evil, and in our own strength.
This has never been the way of the follower of Christ. While there are times to stand up and physically defend others and truth—and that day may yet come—the time to pick up earthly weapons is not now.
Concerned that I’m not hearing many people talking about what our weapons of warfare actually are, I want to remind us of them.
In short, these weapons are:
Love
Goodness
Prayer
The blood of the Lamb (meaning Christ’s suffering and death on the Cross)
The word of our testimony (meaning retelling what God has done in our lives)
Our willingness to die for Christ
Being strong in the Lord (not in our own strength)
The Word of God
I’m not a theologian nor a pastor, so perhaps there is a weapon I’ve missed. But I want to unpack these particular weapons, because we need them now and I’m not hearing Christian leaders speak about them. We all need to hear them again. I need to hear them again.
The weapon of love
It’s easy to let go of love in our hearts in the midst of injustice, pain and anger. However, love is the most powerful weapon we have, since it is the very essence of God’s nature.1
This love is not amorphous, ineffectual, nor namby-pamby. Neither is it an enabling love that tolerates evil and embraces evil’s practitioners without also speaking the truth. Love must look like something, and most of all, it must look like Someone: the One who came and demonstrated love to the world.
The stance to love others as Jesus loved needs to be the attitude of our heart at all times—even more so under persecution. There is no other way to distinguish ourselves from the world.2
Love will suffer injustice for a long time. It is essentially kindness. Is it not boastful or rude—making it the opposite of nearly everything we see online. It does not demand its own way or seek its own good.
Those who are loving will not be easily angered and do not keep a ledger of wrongs done to them by the “other side.” Are you? Well, are you?
Those who are loving don’t celebrate any kind of evil. Rather, they seek to protect others and celebrate when good triumphs. They trust God, put their hope in God alone, and persevere through all kinds of hardship, persecution and injustice.3
The weapon of goodness
Want to know how to overcome evil? We overcome evil with what? Goodness.4 If love is the heart of our faith, goodness is the action of that love. It’s the “looks like something.”
In practical terms, this means blessing those who are persecuting you. This is both a literal prayer or word of blessing, given especially when evil is spoken against you, but it is also the action of blessing others. You can know you have forgiven those who don’t know any better (who don’t know what they’re really doing because they haven’t been taught the truth) when you can bless them by doing something good for them.5 Hint: all who wrong you don’t really, really know what they’re doing.6
Sometimes this can mean giving something good to them or sending an anonymous financial gift. Sometimes it can mean purposing in your heart to see the other person as God sees them, and sharing that with them in the face of their anger. Ask God to show you how they are known in heaven. This means Him showing you who He created them to be from the beginning of time—even if they’re nowhere near demonstrating that identity or character right now. Then speak that truth to them in love. Tell them who they really, really are: who they were born to be.
The priest in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables famously does this when the thief Jean Valjean is caught stealing from him, covering over his theft with an act of generosity. I encourage you to look the scene up in its full context.
“‘So here you are!’ [the priest] cried to Valjean. ‘I’m delighted to see you. Had you forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well? They’re silver like the rest, and worth a good two hundred francs. Did you forget to take them?’ Jean Valjean’s eyes had widened. He was now staring at the old man with an expression no words can convey.
Later the priest confronts him with these words: “‘Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to what is evil, but to what is good. I have bought your soul to save it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.’”
Remember, most people are hungry and thirsty for God, but they just don’t know it yet. Give them something that will quench their thirst and fill their hunger. It will make them hunger and thirst for God even more.
Goodness also means not avenging ourselves by returning evil for evil. The online practice of this should be super clear. Don’t respond in the same spirit of anger, hatred and contempt as you are seeing or receiving. In more embodied terms, this may mean smiling at someone who has demonstrated that they believe they are your enemy. It means stopping to listen or encourage and offering a kind word. It may mean defending others. There are so many ways to demonstrate goodness and be good to others. In the moment when you need it, ask God to show you what He would have you do. He will.
And remember: if you’re a follower of Christ, you don’t actually have any enemies. Oh, they may think they’re your enemy. But you know better. They are a broken and lost child of God who is unaware of their great need for love.
The weapon of prayer
The actual meaning of prayer gets watered down these days. It’s not just nice thoughts, hopes or wishes for someone or for some better circumstance.
Prayer is aligning yourself with God’s will, thoughts and character. From that place, you can address the spiritual realm in the authority you have in Christ.
In practice, this can look like praying into strongholds of the enemy that you see in your milieu and in society. It’s always based on God’s heart found by asking God to show you what to do or say.
It may involve taking on arguments in the public square with God-given insight. This is what Kirk was practicing that led to his martyrdom. Again, this needs to come from God’s wisdom, not your own.
Further, it may be praying for God to expose and remove the “high things” that elevate themselves against God. I take this to mean the principalities and powers. Remember, this is always done in the authority given to us through Christ’s death and resurrection, not our own authority.
In the last few months, I have felt permitted at times to pray that God would remove the wicked like chaff is blown away by the wind, and replace them with righteous leaders.7 But we always have to align with God’s heart. He wants us first to pray for the salvation of the unrighteous. Yes, even that person you really don’t like. Especially that person.
Finally, this means submitting your own thoughts to God’s truth, recognizing and identifying those that are not of God, and shutting them down by focusing your heart in gratitude on what is true, beautiful and good instead.8
What does God want to do in place of what the enemy is trying to do to the world? Focus there and join Him in doing that.
The weapon of the blood of the Lamb
One of the great comforts of my faith is that a slain Lamb sits on the throne of the universe. From all time, Jesus has been the slain Lamb. (Yes, this is a mystery that is hard to explain, but it has to do with God being outside of chronological time.)
This means that He shares in our suffering and we in His. We are not alone. God meets us and sits with us in the wordless depths of our pain. We are joined to Him and united with His passion there. There is almost no greater comfort than to know you are not alone because He is suffering with you, in the same way that you suffer, and even more deeply. You are therefore seen, known and understood in that place of pain.
The mystery in this is that we can apply Jesus’ shed blood to all of our circumstances and also to those of the world. His blood makes all things new and clean.9 I don’t pretend to understand this or be able to speak well on it. I just know that it works. If you’ve seen an image that you don’t want lodged in your memory, pray and ask God to paint over that image with the blood of the Lamb. It washes the image away.
This works for things we have experienced as well, though often those events need the help of a skilled mentor to help us discover where God was when hurtful things happened to us, what He was expressing and how He sees what happened. This is deep inner work that will set you free.
Partaking in the body and blood of Christ is part of this weapon as well. Our mystical union with God through the Eucharist achieves for us countless miracles that we may not immediately understand.
Furthermore, the blood of the Lamb is our daily reminder that we also are called to lay down our lives for the good news of Christ. When our moment comes, we can surrender our blood into that of the slain Lamb. More on this in a moment.
The weapon of our testimony
You may recognize that I am now going through verses from Revelation about how the righteous overcome the enemy.10
One of the most powerful of these is to tell the stories of what God has done in our lives.
Not only do our stories demonstrate the character and nature of God, they also carry an ability to release the same power that they demonstrate. If you’ve experienced physical or emotional healing, your story of that will release the possibility of freedom from sickness and mental anguish for others. If you had destructive habits that you have been freed from, your story will help set others free. If you were able to forgive cruel wrongs against you, your story will help others to begin to forgive.
Of course, our story of how we came to God and turned our lives over to Him will help set others free from the chaos, pain and bondage of their own lives. In short, anything that God has done in your life carries power over darkness and evil.
Many are currently feeling the need to start speaking out their stories in this time. That prompting is from God. Do it, and quickly, especially in personal conversations.
The weapon of dying for Christ
Followers of Christ in the West have known this moment was coming. In recent years, not many in North America have had to give their lives for Christ. It’s been a while since we’ve heard of a Jim Elliot or had a martyrdom on our soil. As has been noted many times in the last week, and as church father Tertullian famously wrote in his Apology in the second century AD, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
We’re currently seeing the power of this truth. At the end of the day, deep down everyone wants to live for something worth giving their life for. They want that kind of meaning and purpose—especially in the current crisis of meaning that is the fruit of this Machine era. That’s why so many are turning to Christ in the wake of Kirk’s death. They’ve seen a demonstration that the person of Jesus Christ and His work on the cross are the only meaning worth dying for.
No one can defeat someone who is willing to lay down their life. That’s why throughout the ages and even today, so many martyrs have run willingly to meet their death. In not being afraid to die, we become truly free to live.
The weapon of God’s strength
Did you know that as a follower of Christ you are already equipped to outlast anything that the enemy can throw at you? Your faith relies not on your own strength, but on God’s. You can persevere through any storm because He meets you in it. You have access to all of God’s characteristics and nature (here’s a list) and these are available to you from God. You don’t have to manufacture them or will them into existence on your own. He gives them to you from His own nature within you.
Have you ever thought about the fact that the enemy has no access to the character of God? That means he has no patience. You can literally outlast him by your perseverance.
The last six months of my life have been like this as I’ve gone through an extended trial due to a family member’s health emergency. The more we die to self and surrender to God, the more we tap into God’s character and nature. He gives us the ability to stand firm in the power of that comes from God in the most adverse of circumstances.11
The Weapon of the Word of God
I’ve chosen not to look at our defensive weapons here, though those are useful. In a moment when many are feeling called to stand up and act, I’m interested in reminding us of what our offensive weapons are.
Out of the defensive armor of God noted in Scripture, the one weapon to be used offensively is the Word of God. We can discern this because it is the one part of the armor characterized as a weapon: a sword.12
This entire post is my attempt to wield the weapon of the Word of God against schemes I see the enemy currently tempting Christians to give into. We can use both the written word of God (the Bible) and the presence of God—who is Himself the Word of God—against these schemes. You can speak scripture against lies and you can step into the presence of God in the midst enemy attacks. He Himself is a wall of fire around us, and brings His glory within us.13 In that place of intimacy with God, we are both protected and hidden. Furthermore, His presence shifts the atmosphere and displaces darkness.
There is much more that could be said on this topic, but I want this post to be simple, accessible and not exhaustive. The moment we are in calls for wisdom.
Pick up these weapons, become skilled in using them. Don’t give in to fighting the enemy on his terms. Above all, remember that people are not our real enemy.
If you’ve found this content helpful and timely, please share it with others.
Your voice is needed, and we’d love to hear it in the comments below. Remember, if you choose to abandon the voice of love in your comments, you are choosing to abandon all of your beneficial power.
Oh my goodness this is what I needed to hear today. The Lord sent this message for me. The other night I was attacked in my dreams. I said the Jesus prayer a lot. And was afraid to go to sleep last night. I said St Patrick’s Breastplate and my prayers. The cat sat at the food of the bed like a guardian. So thank you.
I have a story I’d love to share with you about getting attacked in dreams. Will send a DM. (I love the image of your cat on the end your bed keeping guard.)