Tips for the Facing the Battle

Most times when I visit Dunwoody, I try to attend both worship services. It gives me a chance to visit with a wider cross section of the church body and I get to hear Allen preach twice. Today's sermon focusing on the last half of Ephesians 6 was particularly applicable. (If you want to hear it for yourself, check out http://dbc.org/watchonline; it'll be uploaded in the next day or two.)

The main focus of this scripture passage is putting on the armor of God, or so it seems. But Allen pointed out a couple of things that I've missed in past readings. For starters, while the individual pieces of the armor seem to be important and purposeful, if the heart of the warrior is not in the battle, then none of the armor matters. Thus, to engage the heart of the warrior, Paul exhorted us, "Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power."

Allen also stressed the pressing need to acknowledge that we are indeed in a battle. In Ephesians 6:12, Paul pulls no punches in this laundry list of what our "struggle" is against. But don't forget what he said back in chapter 1:19-21, particularly as it relates to the power of Christ:

"That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come."

In Robert J. Morgan's The Red Sea Rules, we are told to "acknowledge the enemy but keep our eyes on the Lord." This came to mind this morning when two of the songs we sang in worship repeated similar words:

"We will keep our eyes on You so we can set our hearts on You." (A Mighty Fortress, Nockels)

"I lift my eyes up; my help comes from the Lord." (Always, Stanfill)

The significance of where we place our eyes (our attention, our focus, our trust) may be one of the most important keys to how prepared we are to fight our battles. If we allow ourselves to focus elsewhere and get distracted and/or discouraged, we've given the enemy a foothold. Robert Morgan says, “Satan pursues you with the intensity of Pharoah.  He may use your friends, discouraging responses from your family, curse you with envy, tempt you where you are weakest, etc.”

Last night we put a bid on a house. Both of us are excited about much that this house has to offer us as we move our lives to this new community. The offer is a bit low but we know the norm is for the sellers to counter and then for us to decide what to do next. However, when we got to church in the morning, we were each approached separately by someone who we allowed to speak doubt over our choice because she wanted us to consider a house in another location.

Needless to say, I spent too much time frustrated, second-guessing our decision to make an offer on the house, even though we had prayed for wisdom and direction. It's not that we don't want people to make suggestions, especially about houses not yet on the market. But I just wanted some affirmation that the decision we made was a good one.

As we sang the songs mentioned above, I realized I had taken my eyes off of the Lord and let them wander to people's opinions and advice at a time when I really needed to keep my eyes on the Lord. We still don't know about the house (the sellers have until tomorrow evening to counter our offer) but I do know that I better keep my battle armor ready ... I don't get to chose my battles in this war; they come after me at my weakest points.