Spiritual Warfare

Okay, so I have a Spiritual Warfare class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. It's an absolutely amazing class. One of the things we've been talking about this past few weeks is that the warfare that we have against Satan is God's idea, not the devil's. This sounds kinda obvious, but it's easy to forget. Here are a couple of examles:

Genesis 3 - The Fall
Yes, we know this story very well, but look closely. In verse 15 "And I will put enmity [conflict/strife/warfare] between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers." God put the strife between us and Satan.

Job 1-2
Satan doesn't come up to God and say, "Hey can I pick on Job?" Instead, the Scripture gives the impression that Satan is standing before God and God says, "Hey, have you thought about testing my main-man, Job?" It's important to note here that Satan can do NOTHING without God's permission. He constantly has a line that he is not allowed to cross.

One point that Dr. L made in this class is that one of Satan's major tactics is to get us to focus on ourselves and what we don't have . In the garden, the serpent never suggest to Eve that she should eat the fruit. He lied, deceived, and several other things, but he never told her, "Hey, you should take a big 'ol bite of that thing." He pointed out that this was the one thing that she couldn't have. Dr. L said something to the effect of us doing this with relationships a lot. We see that we don't have a relationship and Satan tries to tell us, "hey, look at what God told you that you can't have right now" until it's the only thing we want. Then, rather than waiting for the perfect person God has for us, we settle for 2nd, 3rd, 4th... best just so that we can have it all.

Another prof said something that made me laugh, but it supports this in amazing ways. He talked about how much we want to live for ourselves. It it totally unnatural for us to give up our lives for Christ (I don't mean die physically, but die to ourselves). He claims, rightly so I believe, that it is as natural for us to give up our lives to follow Christ as it is for us to take a running leap off a cliff. It's just not natural.

Amazing how much school can make you think....