There are a few key principles to spiritual warfare.

The Kingdom of God is well-equipped to push back the darkness of the enemy. The work accomplished by Jesus Christ over two-thousand years ago finished the work. The war is over. Now, it is only our job to participate in proclaiming this victory to the specific areas of our own lives and then into the lives of others and over our communities and nations.

There are no great secrets. Just plain Biblical common sense. These principles each one of us can understand and live out. As we come into the understanding of these things our lives will be changed.

Let’s take a look:

  1. the timing of god

The timing of God is a powerful thing to understand. It is basically this, that the purpose of God are determined for a specific time (and people, place and specific work), and if we operate outside of the timing of the Lord we compromise the work.

There is a thing known as the fullness of time. It is not really something that we can fully understand for we are seeing only small pieces of what God sees. Yet, here in the timing of God we must learn to listen and to obey. The Lord is always telling us what He is up to through us. Often he gives us vision many years before the actual thing or work is to be. He is telling us what is to come but we must not then rush ahead to that thing before his timing.

To rush ahead of God is to remove ourself from the covering of Christ (in that we are no longer in sync). To rush ahead of God reveals that we are out of intimacy with the voice of the Spirit.

Conversely, for some people they lag behind. Refusing to move forth as the Spirit directs is just as damaging to the work of the Lord. There is a specific time to things and we are matured and made wise as we wait on God and then move when he says move.

Both the waiting and the moving are hard things to do. Some of us struggle with waiting more than moving and some of us struggle with going forward in the Lord when he finally says, “yes go now”.

Yet, our obedience and restraint and courage to both wait and then ‘go’ when God says go, grows us into trustworthy servants of our Lord. The more he can trust us the more he can use us. We want to be in sync, hand in hand, with the Spirit of our living God, moving according to his timing in our lives.

  1. powerful language

Language is a powerful thing. In language we have questions, we have suggestions, and we have directives.

In spiritual warfare we must become aware of the words that we speak. When it comes to prayer we have wishful prayers and we have directive prayers. Wishful prayers are a combination of a question and a suggestion.

  1. Wishful prayers sound like this, “God we pray that this boy may be healed in Jesus name.”
  2. Directive prayers sound like this, “God I lift this boy to you and I say to his leg ‘be healed’ in the name of Jesus.”

Let us consider the kind of language we use in prayer. It is a very small difference in the language but with a very different result. In the first example of prayer we are asking if there might be healing, but we are not counting on that healing. We are not taking authority over the sickness or the disease. We are ‘hoping’ that God will do something.

When we pray in this way we are revealing that we don’t really believe that God can heal, we are not sure that healing will happen for some reason and we do not understand that we are the ones to heal. So, we form our sentence into a weak effort to wish for healing. Wishful prayers do not yield much fruit.

Rather, when we pray with direction and with command we pray with a knowledge and understanding and deep trust that knows that God is going to heal. When we pray with direction and command we are standing in our authority in Christ and saying how things will be. In many ways we determine what will be or not be by the language that we use; the language we use reflects our beliefs.

In English this is as simple as the difference between these two prayers:

  1. “We want to come before you God bringing this boy for healing.”
  2. “We bring this boy before you God and we declare healing in the name of Jesus.”

Notice that the first prayer is tentative and not sure of itself while the second prayer is directive and declarative.

I don’t know how this works in your mother-tongue, but take a bit of time to think and listen well to the ways that people are praying. Are they using ‘wishing’ type prayers, or are they praying directive prayers.

Teach yourself and your people to pray declarative and directive prayers. It is a small difference with big results.

  1. hearing and obeying

As we mature and grow in the Lord there are many things that The Spirit begins to ask of us. God is a good Father and grows us up to hear and to obey his voice. Before we are given big tasks in the spirit realm we will be tested with little things.

Whether the Lord is speaking to us about big things or little things we must listen and obey the spirit of the Lord. Often, these things will be difficult. The Lord either takes us bigger than we are thinking or, if we are already big, the Lord then directs us in small acts of service to others. Either way, we want the flexibility in our heart and mind and life to do as God is directing and inviting.

There will be years of preparation and practice hearing and obeying. Yet, as we are faithful with small obediences you will be trusted with bigger obediences. As we are free to do as God is directing he can trust us with other directions and ultimately more responsibility in His Kingdom.

  1. light not darkness

In our ego and in our flesh we enjoy the drama that comes when we focus on the darkness. We get to yell all sorts of things, we get to be the boss, we can feel big in the Lord, and more. And yet, what we may not see is that our fascination and focus on the darkness is part of our flesh and our ego. It is part of our sin nature.

Before Christ we loved the darkness and we loved our sin. After Christ we know we are not to love the darkness but we still now love hating the darkness. It is the same thing.

NOTE: Loving the darkness or a focus on hating the darkness come from the same sin and ego place in our hearts.

We must be regenerated to keep our eyes on Christ and to bring the light into the darkness. Notice that to bring light into the darkness requires no special focus on the darkness. If you bring even a small candle into a dark room the room becomes light. You did not have to speak or yell at the darkness in order for the darkness to go. You only had to bring a little light in and the darkness fled.

This is the same in spiritual warfare, we bring in the light and the darkness goes.

Victor Choudhrie is a leader in the north Indian house-church movement that is seeing a million people baptized a year. He outlines the core teaching of Jesus Christ as follows:

THE EIGHT BASIC COMMANDS OF YESHUA 94

  1. Repent and Believe: Discuss what Yeshua commands in Mark 1:15, John 3: 16-18, 10:11; Romans 10:9-10
  2. Be baptized and confirm repentance and new life in Christ: Discuss what Yeshua commands in Matthew 3:13-17; 28:18-20; Acts 2:38
  3. Receive the Holy Spirit and be empowered in Him: Discuss John 20:22, Acts 1:8; 2:14;39
  4. Love God, fellow disciples, neighbors, the needy and your enemies: Discuss Luke 10: 25-37, John 13:34, Matthew 6:14-15, 5:44; John 8:3-11
  5. Break bread through Communion and worship the Lord: Discuss Luke 22:19-20; 4:8.
  6. Pray at all times (family, private and corporate devotions): Discuss Matthew 6:5-13.
  7. Give as a steward of your time, treasure, talents and be generous: Discuss Luke 6:38; Mark 12:41-44
  8. Go 2×2 and make disciples by being a witness, teaching God’s Word, shepherding new believers and training leaders: Discuss what Yeshua commands in Luke 10:1- 10; Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:18-20 and John 21:15-17.

If all we did was live what Christ taught us our world would be a different place. Our lives would be different lives.

Bringing the light of Christ into our days, every interaction with family and friends and community, to live the peace of the Lord out loud, to establish all things with integrity and honor and decency, to be self-aware and to act in the best interest of others — how might our lives be changed by this?

When we focus on the enemy we give the enemy glory, which is exactly what Satan wants. Glory was at the core of Satan’s rebellion against God. When we give attention to Satan we are supporting his rebellion. Don’t do this.

When we build a ministry or life (or nation) that continues to give attention (ie: glory) to Satan you will continue to experience the confounding, the attacks, and the condemning oversight that comes from Satan’s ways. If we build our identity based on our warfare against the enemy we remain in war, and war causes much destruction over our lives.

Rather, if we build our identity in the peace of our Lord Jesus (he has already won the war) and the glory of the one true God, then our lives will find the peace of God and the light of Christ in all our dealings.

  1. Pray the peace of God (be people of peace)
    “God I lift this people (house, church, community, etc) to you and I declare your peace upon it/us in the name and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
  2. Declare all the glory belongs to God (refuse to give the enemy the attention he wants)
    “I reserve this work and this day 100% for the glory of God and God alone.”
  3. Bring the light of Christ, BE the light of Christ (and the darkness will flee)
    “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you..” Ephesians 4:32

If your home is terrorized by demonic presence pray the peace of God over your home.

If a person is terrorized by demons bring the power of God into that person and the demons will go.

If your community is under a dark cloud of demonic oppression, live as people of peace, with holiness and with Christ as your righteousness, declare the presence of God, and the enemy will leave.

Bring in the light and the darkness goes.


5. covered in christ

The Spirit realm operates by jurisdiction. We have authority based on the work of Jesus Christ, and we have assignments based in the spirit realm according to what the Lord ordains for us. Each one of us carry different assignments and jurisdiction (responsibility to a specific people, place, time). Within this assignment and within the assigned jurisdiction we have the covering of Christ. 95 Everywhere that we would wield the authority of Christ is where Christ has already won us in the same way.

It is why we have spent a lot of time in this course bringing our whole hearts to God. If, in our zeal and knowledge we pray for religious strongholds, for instance, to be prayed off of your community, but you have not yet been set free from religious strongholds yourself, you will be taken out by the enemy. The demonic religious stronghold that is over the community will laugh at you and kick you in the butt because you are praying and declaring something that you yourself are not yet free from.

It is the image of this, for instance: where the blood of Christ has redeemed you specifically in ways such as lust, you can now declare the freedom of the Lord over others in terms of freedom of lust for them. If you have not yet been freed from lust you cannot pray freedom from lust for others. You do not have the authority to do so because the blood covering of Christ has not yet been applied to your lust. You are still bound to sin of lust and bound to sins of lust you do not have any authority to pray (or preach it or teach it with any effectiveness) healing from lust for others.

But, once you have been set free from lust for yourself, once you have repented and turned from the sin of lust for yourself you can pray this same thing for others. You must have personal repentance for the very things that you see in others. 96 Then, when given opportunity to pray for others in their areas of sin you do so as one covered by the work and blood and name of Jesus.

Covered in Christ is the command to remain in his grace, John 15:4. As we remain turned to Jesus in all things, taking the courage to look at our own worst sins, we are covered in Christ. Try to fix yourself before coming to God and you are not covered in Christ.

Come to Christ with full broken-hearted understanding of your sin, not hiding anything, knowing that he can heal and restore you, and you are covered in Christ. NOTE: covering is not about salvation. It is about our abiding in the strength of Christ for us, or not.

  1. operating out of spirit and not soul

We want to be carrying the spiritual weight of intercession, burden bearing, spiritual warfare, in our spirits and not our souls. Our souls are the seat of our own personhood. It is from our souls that we live as the person God has made us to be. Our soul is our humanity.

In spirit realm work, in spiritual authority and the burdens we bear (to bring about the work of the Lord in this world), these things must be carried and accomplished through our spirit where really the spirit of the Lord is and works and has his being in us; the Spirit bears the weight of the work.
If we bear spirit realm work in our souls we will burn out and become destroyed by the work. Spirit realm work, spiritual warfare, is too much for our souls or our humanity to bear. Only by the power of The Spirit, in partnership with our spirit, can we participate and accomplish the work of the Lord given to us.

When we are young or immature in the Lord, we will often try to accomplish the work of the Lord via our souls, on our own strength, and in our own wisdoms. This is the surest way to fail. You and I are not strong enough in our persons to do the work of the Lord. It is only as we make ourselves available to The Spirit through us that the work of the Lord can be accomplished.

And so, even here in spirit realm work we must get it that it is not about us. The work, even the work through our lives, is the work of the Lord. It is not our work. We simply become willing vessels and we wait on the direction and guidance and commands of the Lord and then we obey. Simple as this.

One tell-tale sign that someone is operating out of their soul and not their spirit is when they are glorying in the work of the Lord. What I mean is this, when a person uses the work of God to gain their self-worth, their identity, and to give some excitement to life, we know that this person is operating out of their soul and not their spirit. And this is a dangerous place to operate from.

We must do the work of the Lord in the way of the Lord, by him and through him, with The Spirit in all things. A soul will enjoy the drama of spirit realm work, but in our spirits we are sober minded with wisdom and prudence.

  1. being in the flesh versus being in the spirit

The Lord gave me a vision some years ago. I was running along a path and on the path was a particularly scary part where I was afraid to pass. The Lord opened my eyes to see that at that part of the path there was a row of demons on either side of the path. And every demon was reaching out to grab at me as I was running by.

But, what the Lord showed me was that as I was in my flesh, or what we would call false motives for personal gain, the demons could grab this flesh, the ego parts of me. But, where I was in the spirit, the parts of me completely surrendered to Christ, the demons had nothing to catch hold off. As I was spirit (in Christ and surrendered to him) the demons claws only caught thin air.

Needless to say, we want to be in The Spirit and not in our flesh as we participate in the Kingdom work of our Lord.

  1. birthing

Birthing, as we have already seen, birthing is hard, hard work. When a woman gives birth to a baby every part of her energy and focus, her physical body in all ways, participates in and focuses for birth to happen. This is the same image of the work of the Lord given to each one of us. He is inviting us to give our lives to the work of the Lord and the particular impact and result that God wants to accomplish through our lives.

This will be hard. This will demand from you much more than you think you have to give. It will require courage beyond your greatest imaginings and a resolve that will bring you and keep you on your knees before the Lord. Birthing is very, very hard work. You need to be prepared for this.

  1. peace

The peace of God is powerful. Bring the peace of God and Satan cannot stick around. If there are demonic presence declare the peace of God and they are silenced. We may have believed that peace is passive and weak, but peace is in fact powerful and active. And so we want to grow in our understanding of peace as a powerful weapon of the Lord.

But of course, before we can wield the powerful sword of the Lord called peace, we must become people of peace. Within our own hearts and minds we must do the hard work of forgiveness, of sulha to all those around us, of leaving bitterness and envy and hatreds at the cross of Christ. Only as we allow the peace of God to cover all of who we are can we wield, declare and pronounce the peace of God over others, upon situations, and for our communities and nations.

If you do nothing else in this life, become a person of peace and declare in the mighty name of Jesus Christ that same peace for your family, your neighbours, and your community. This alone is a mighty, mighty work!

  1. justice

Justice is a topic very dear to God’s heart. If we do not do justice we do not have the love of God in us and we do not truly know the Father.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home. I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’ Matthew 25:34-40 NLT

  • To remove from girls, women and widows cause for fear
  • To lift children out of violence and attack
  • To grow each other in deep respect
  • To restore to those who have been robbed
  • To refuse to give or take a bribe. To refuse to use violence
  • To protect all girls and women from sexual assault
  • To refuse to demand money or sex from your wife (to TAKE from her does not honor God)
  • To refuse to beat your woman, to refuse to take a second wife
  • To refuse to manipulate money or payment from your congregations (giving must be done freely)
  • To deal justly


Refuse injustice, deal with each other well, and God will be honour you because you have honoured him. Repent of your involvement in injustice and turn to justice and God will restore you.

“To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” Proverbs 21:3 ESV

  1. Less Talk and More Action

As people we like to brag and declare what we are going to be doing before it’s even been done. The Kingdom of God is not about talk and so we must take care to speak little while we are acting out the Kingdom of God through our lives.

Silence is profoundly important in the Kingdom of God and in our lives. Ensure that you are taking time to be silent before God each and every day. Even simple moments at a time allows the Holy Spirit to speak to you and allows your heart to settle into the presence of God, welcoming insight and wisdom that would not normally be yours.

  1. anointing

There is no special anointing. There is the Holy Spirit that each one of us can have. There are the calls and equipping of the Spirit to enable us in those assignments. All are anointed in their own way

When we use this language and adopt this idea that there are those anointed and those not anointed, we create division within the body of Christ and exclude others from taking on their God-given roles and tasks within the body of Christ. We create a top-down hierarchy of those ‘very important people’ all the way down to those ‘not important at all’. This is wrong theology and based on lies from the pit of hell.

As Torben Sondergaard, author of the Last Reformation and teacher of practical faith says,

“We need to go back to the flat structure where Jesus is the head of the fellowship and the Holy Spirit is allowed to work in all of us.” Torben Sondergaard 97

This idea of special anointing does nothing more than create patriarchy and division within the church. So, let’s do away with it, shall we?

As we finish this chapter we make note that much practice and bits of success and then failure, and then practice, success and failure and so on, is how we learn. The principles we’ve looked at here all work in conjunction with one another.

These principles overlap each other in many different ways. We are not only ever thinking about the words we are speaking but we are thinking about the words we are speaking in context of the ways that God is directing us.

We are not only ever thinking about the ways God is directing us but also about the timing of God beneath the directions. We are not only ever thinking about the timing of God but we are aware of giving the glory of that timing, and the focus of our attentions on God and not the enemy in regards to that timing.
Spiritual warfare takes much careful movement and obedience coupled with much waiting and discernment and learning together. You won’t have it all today, but keep in mind these few principles and allow the Holy Spirit to continue your teaching. God will guide you well.

Prayer

“Dear God, we come before you in the name and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we realize that we have been going about your work in our own way. We have wanted some of the glory for ourselves. We have even been giving glory to Satan. We realize that we have been making decisions and going forward outside of your timing and expect directions and instruction. We often hear your idea and add all sorts of our own thoughts – we are not always doing your work but our own. God we are sorry. God we turn from running after the supernatural and we turn to run after you and your ways, your heart, your manner, your timing, your wisdom. Help us in this Lord, we depend on you. Amen and amen.”

Application

The application of all of this is nothing more than the need to practice and to listen to oneself. Take the time to determine the words you are using, the tone you are conveying, the motive of your heart, and the thought behind your actions; allow God to purify your motives and direct your days.

Summary – Spiritual Warfare Principles

We must walk in the timing of God Acts 1:7; Ephesians 1:10; Ecclesiastes 3:1

We must hear the voice of the Lord and respond in obedience John 14:15; John 10:14

We bring in the light of Christ and darkness flees 2 Corinthians 4:6; Matthew 5:14-16

We are covered in Christ Romans 15:9; 1 John 2:28

We live in the Spirit and not in our flesh Galatians 5:22-26; Romans 8:6

We participate in the birthing of God’s Kingdom on earth, this is hard work
1 Peter 4:8; Revelation 12:11

We become people of peace, living in peace, declaring the peace of God Romans 12:18;
Matthew 5:9

We do justice in the land Micah 6:8; Isaiah 1:17; Psalm 106:3

We speak less and we act and do more Proverbs 10:19; 1 Corinthians 4:20

We say no to special anointing and we say yes to the Holy Spirit for all people
Galatians 5:22-23; Acts 2:38

______________________________

94 Victor Choudhrie, Teach Them to Obey – For Church Planters, http://thechurchinyourhouse.blogspot.ug
95 If we operate outside of our assignment or jurisdiction (specific calling and anointing) we are not so covered by Christ, namely because we are either overstepping our bounds or not in obedience to the Lord.
96 Note: the things we most notice in others are in fact (almost all the time) the very things we have in our own lives but have not yet taken the courage to address. So, use your preoccupation on the sins of others to bring you to conviction and repentance of those very same things.
97 from the book The Last Reformation by Torben Sondergaard http://www.thelastreformation.com

=> There is one more lesson for Month Eight, As Sons and Daughters

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