Walking; Warring

Walking and Warring! 

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 2 Corinthians 10:3‭-‬5 KJV

Today's extract makes it clear that for all men who are alive on this side of eternity, there is a walking and a warring. Both flow from different foundations, both have different daily realities and different eternal consequences. All men alive must walk in the flesh as human beings, but then a decision has to be made about how to progress into the warring part, because all men must fight. Nowhere goes God promise us that heaven will be attained without struggle. 

Only those who have surrendered their Iives to Christ understand the warring part and how it is to be carried out. All men must walk and war, but how you walk and war flow from your relationship with the Man of War. If He is your commander, then the other part of the passage is true for you. If He is not, I am not sure why you should bother to war in the first place.

The war part isn't going to be fought by the principles, processes and procedures of the flesh. The war spoken about here isn't the type that man made weapons can understand or comprehend. It is a war that only God, with the weapons he has commissioned and made strong, can win, will win and has won. 

Whenever you find yourself trying to explain your faith with the force of grammar alone, be careful that you are not warring after the flesh. When you need to explain the foundations of your faith to people using PowerPoint presentation and not the Ever-Present Power of the Holy Spirit, then you just may be warring after the flesh.

And war requires pulling down existing structures and establishing new ones. Nobody goes to war to defeat an enemy and then leave the old structures that will encourage the old guard to return. You pull down evil strongholds and then establish the kingdom of God. 

Check out the words: pulling down; casting down. It means that these things were high up before, but when a person walks with God, s/he understands that whatever is anti-God has to come down. It doesn't matter how attractive it is or how long it had stood; as long as it negates all that God is, it has to be pulled and cast down. 

And how would I know what is anti-God if I do not know what God's will and purpose are? How do I advance a kingdom whose policies and guiding principles and procedures I do not know? It then means warring according to God's standard requires knowledge of the kingdom I am fighting for. When I know and recognise truth, all falsehood can be attacked. When I do not, warring by ignorance is dangerous. This knowledge of God is the minimum qualification for success in this war. It is the fulcrum on which success or failure in this warring hangs. It is this knowledge of God that tells you when you should press on and when you should re-strategise. 

And I sense that the battle is first in the realm of the unseen, before the realm of the seen can be impacted. Strongholds, imaginations, high things, thoughts are all mentioned as targets in this war. When the unseen is under the control of God, it doesn't matter what the seen threatens. 

We focus so much on optics and how it looks on the outside, forgetting that God wants to win the battle first in our hearts and lives, because He knows that once the heart is under his full control, it is a platform from which he can launch offensives against the enemy.

So, when all has been said and done, the only question then that remains to be answered is this: How's my obedience to God? How's my walk with God? All other things such as giftings, platform, speaking ability and ability to draw crowds will not matter if the foundation is not in place. If I will end right, I must war right. Not knowing how is eternally risky. His time of favour is here.