For though we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of the flesh. Instead, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. – 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 BSB

Warrior;

Life is called, and can be considered, many things like Good, bad, right or wrong.  However, the Word of God tells us that if you are a child of His, then this life will be a battle. We must remember, it’s all Spiritual; There are 2 Spiritual Kingdoms. Keep It Simple Soldier, there are only 2 Teams- no more. We have the Kingdom of Yahweh, the God of the Bible.  That would be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Adonai, the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  El Elyon, the God of Isaiah, Job, and Noah. Then there is the other kingdom. There are only 2 Kingdoms: God’s Kingdom and the Kingdom of ‘NOT GOD’! One is darkness, one is light.  One convicts, one embarrasses and shames. One forgives, but the other condemns. One forgets and one is always reminding.  One is long suffering, one stores a ‘Pound of Flesh’.  This fight started in Genesis 3, and it continues until Revelation 20. It is written; And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 20:10) Until then, there is a battle, and you are a soldier in the army of God! Our goal should be to understand our mission that we were created for and play our part in the great battle of good vs evil, dark vs light, the Eternal Maker of Heaven and Earth vs some created thing! This is why we are called to have discernment; sheep know the Shepherds voice.

Leader, the apostle Paul was a warrior. He is a great example for any committed follower of the Risen Jesus. To understand Paul, we must understand his Beliefs. The what he did was driven by the why he did it- those are called beliefs. Paul believed that He served the God of the universe, and he knew that because of that the world would not be his friend, and his helper.  Paul was driven by the awareness of the battle, so as with any human being, when we can understand Paul’s mindset, his Belief Systems, we can adopt the same foundation to sprout the same beliefs which are the foundation for everything we do, or do not do. Not only was Paul aware and active in the battle, but Paul was also an ‘offensive weapon’ in the hand of the living God! Paul was an arrow in the quiver of Yahweh! What was Paul’s outcome? Near the end of the great apostles’ earthly life, he penned these beliefs to his spiritual son, Timothy. In 2 Timothy 4:7, Paul says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith”. The Greek word agonizomai, translated “fought,” is where we get our word AGONIZE, it literally means “to engage in conflict”- mental conflict.  The word was used mostly in the context of competing in athletic games or engaging in military conflict.  This is important for believers today TO REMEMBER; Our Christian life is a struggle against evil—within ourselves and in the world (John 15:9; Romans 8:7; James 4:4). In the same epistle Paul reminded Timothy to “endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ”. (2 Timothy 2:3).  Our maker tells us that ‘THE’ Battle is in, ‘THE’ Mind. This is what today’s verse is about.  Dr. Viktor Frankl told us; Between the stimulus and the response there is a space and in that space is our power, and our freedom, our liberty.  There is great freedom in TRUTH THERAPY! The Helmet of Salvation, this Grace from God which brings the Peace of God, is the final piece we don before we ‘hit the road’, in our daily battles.  

Conduit, Ephesians 6, 10-18 identifies the Armor of God. In one of the final acts, like a Motorcycle cop grabbing his helmet- the final ‘act of readiness’- we put on the HELMET OF SALVATION; we have the assurance of forgiveness and hope of heaven, through our commitment to the author and the perfecter of our faith, Jesus.  Ask any NFL player and they will tell you the importance of a good helmet. As a helmet is vital for survival, so is taking control of our thinking vital to fight THE GOOD FIGHT.  We need to understand clarity of purpose, and familiarity with the battlefield.  The devil cannot take away our salvation, but he can remove our usefulness to God. The number 1 weapon formed against us is CONFUSION.  When people are confused they don’t speak up, step out, and act right.  We have tens of thousands of conversations each day, and most of them are with ourselves and below our conscious awareness at most given times.  It is time to get into the battle of the mind, to be more effective in your good fight! Romans 12:2 is the clearest instructions available; Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. We live in a culture of offense.  The Spirit of Offense is the ‘Bait of Satan’. Offense comes from the keeping of a record of wrong, storing up a ‘pound of flesh’. Reminding ourselves of all the wrongs that have been perpetrated upon us by an unfair, unjust; people, family, world, country, company…. TRANSFORM YOUR THINKING.  The most powerful effective way to do that is to go to the Operating System! An operating system (OS) is the program that runs, organizes, or manages all the other programs on a computer.  Just like there are Apples and Windows; we have GOS, and FOS.  God Operating System, or Flesh Operating System.  This is the starting point; is it plugged in…is the power on…?  It’s time to think bigger, to keep an eternal perspective so that we are more empowered, and encouraged to fight our good fight. When life crashes in around us, we must remember to look up.  Consider the question, “Was I made for all this that is happening around me, or was I made for what comes next? This is just our preparatory field, the ‘real stuff’ is on its way! When we can say, “If it doesn’t have eternal significance, it’s not that important”- then we are ready to be more effective in our good fight! (see Matthew 6:20; 1 Corinthians 3:10-15) Maranatha!