A Christian fighter is called to fight a spiritual battle with spiritual weapons. As I described in the last devotional, we fight against demonic forces, and our own flesh. We are also called to fight against worldliness.
3. The world
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:15-17
Worldliness is a subtle way that a culture tells us how to live and what should be important to us. If we are not careful, we can easily get complacent with voice of the culture and take the comfortable route in our walk with God. We cannot be a complacent Christian for too long before we start compromising or backsliding.
When Jesus addressed the seven churches in Revelation, He spoke against some of the churches for being lukewarm and having lost their first love. This can affect any Christian or any church.
I have met quite a few people over the years who were regular church goers, and they thought as a Christian they were doing pretty well until God moved them out of their church/environment. Looking back, they saw themselves as a lukewarm or backslidden Christian. Too much worldliness had crept in their lives. Since some of the behavior was also acceptable in their church culture, they didn’t see anything wrong with it.
To fight the battle of worldliness, we have to continually examine our lives against the standard of the Bible. Jesus fought Satan’s temptations with the word of God. We need to do the same to fight the worldly temptations. The word of God is the sword of the spirit described in Ephesians 6.
There are no natural pieces to the spiritual armor. We are called the fight the spiritual battle with the helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, belt of truth, shield of faith, sword of the spirit, and our feet shod with the gospel of peace. Isn’t that amazing that when we speak truth & walk in peace we are actually fighting a spiritual battle!?
The giants and the enemies we fight against are not nations or people anymore but are powers, principalities, lusts, attitudes, strongholds, addictions, bondages, and temptations. If these enemies are annihilated or pushed back, there is nothing that can stop us from fulfilling God’s plan and destiny.
Lord, make us effective fighters in your kingdom. Teach us to fight your way using your powerful spiritual weapons. Amen!