Spiritual Battle…And The Cost Of Not Engaging In It
What is a spiritual battle? Spiritual battle is real. Battles behind the scenes of everyday life are connected to the outcomes in our physical world. Many times I had forgotten the reality of spiritual battles, and wondered why things happened the way they did.
There were times when I was confused, perplexed, agitated, and stuck. I had prayed very hard at those times, but the answers were always postponed, blurred, or blocked. Sometimes even the usual channels which I had used to reach God or other Christians were jammed.
This happened before in the Old Testament time, when a servant of God, Daniel, prayed to God about something important, but the response from God was delayed for 21 days. The messenger of the Lord explained to Daniel what had happened to him during the 21 days:
Daniel 10: 12-13
12 Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. 13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.
God allowed His angel to be delayed by some major demons (Prince/kings of Persia) while being sent to carry an important message to His servant.
Today, Satan and His forces still operate fiercely to try to make you think that God doesn’t care about or listen to your prayers. Often times, if you don’t write down your prayers and questions for God on a journal, you will forget. Satan wants you to simply forget these crucial information and win the cases by your absence.
To use an analogy, it’s like when you try to surf the Web for information, or answers to some questions, but the Internet is cut, or a website you find helpful suddenly goes down and you don’t know what happened to it! How would you feel if your Internet get cut off suddenly? If it was me, I would be worried and wondered if the service provider is fixing it!
In fact, a website I recently recommended in my article, Spiritual Cleansing, suddenly went down after I posted the article. The author of the site later informed me that his site was targeted by IRC bots, and his router and modem got fired by a lighting! All happened in about the same time. Speaking of enemy’s attack!
Spiritual Battle Make Things Unusually and Unreasonably Hard
Are you familiar with the story of Job?
8 Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil?”
9 So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But now, stretch out Your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
12 And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person.”
So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD. Job 1: 8-9
Like Job, we can encounter similar attacks from Satan. We too won’t know what is going on behind the scene.
After, Satan got permission from the Lord, he went out and wreck havoc on Job’s procession and family. Sometime Satan and his force will target us and ask permission from the Lord to do some damages to us. If we are unaware of the spiritual weapons we have, and that spiritual force is working invisibly against us, the attacks can go on and on.
Does any of the following seems familiar to you?
- There might be days when you get targeted by bullies at work or school. And the bullying occurs very frequently and seems to have no end to it. You keep asking yourself and God but couldn’t find out why you have been targeted.
- Schoolwork, landing or keeping a job, or other important tasks in life become unnaturally difficult and depressive. You encounter heavy distractions that make you doubt if you’re just lazy or dumb. You have been on your wit’s end. You ask and pray, but the situations get worst or stuck for no apparent reasons (or reasons just keep coming).
- Relationships become very tough to maintain. Casual conversation or networking is frequently destroyed by misunderstanding, or unfounded prejudice.
- Verbal abuses, physical abuses, and rebelling attitudes of family member(s) make your life a hell.
- A simple addiction such as playing the World Of Warcraft, watching Youtube, or more sinister ones such as viewing pornography, holds you in bondage for years even you sincerely prayed for deliverance and repented every time you committed it.
- One person after another comes to inform you of bad news or bad reports about one thing or another, which causes you to feel worry, upset, and even depressed. These random people just keep coming and dimming your outlook on life.
- Coincidences overlap each other to bring you to a tempting situation.
If any of the above seems familiar to you, it’s very likely that this is not natural, but is engineered by our spiritual enemies.
Demonic Attack Doesn’t Have To Be Dramatic
There are cases of heavy demonic attacks such as hearing voices, demon procession, limbs or neck twisting at impossible angles, but for us average Christians, we most likely encounter attacks that are disguised and invisible. The enemies would prefer to have us think that the evil thoughts in our minds are our own ideas, that distraction is our own lack of discipline, that the bully who is picking on us is because we lacked social grace, and etc.
The enemies like to hide and pretend they are not there, because once we realize and identify the enemies and their work, it only takes a very short time and a few steps to totally bind and defeat them and their schemes.
On the other hand, if we fail to realize what’s going on, the battles will not simply go away just because we go to church every week, and have a quiet time with God every day to read the Bible and pray.
For real case studies on spiritual attacks, click here. Like me, you may actually find some or part of the case studies that resonate with what you have personally experienced.
The Enemies Can Rob You Of Joy, Peace, Productivity, Rest, Time, Freedom, and Possibly More
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10
And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts. Malachi 3:11 (Interpretation: That means if the Lord doesn’t rebuke the devourer, it can destroy the fruits of your labors)
Blessings are abundant to Christians. They flow to us by default, but Satan can rob us of blessings if we are unaware and get manipulated by him. For example, during my years in University, I used to have depressive thoughts, and they kept increasing by the year. Many time I’d tried to study but was totally disabled by the depressive thoughts. I would look for things to regret and feel bad about, and that makes me feel guilty, worry, and hopeless. There was no use to debate with my thoughts because debates only add fuel to them.
One time, God did a spiritual surgery on me and I realized how I could stop being depressive – by hearing His voice, instead of the enemies’, or mine. Since I applied what I learned, I have become freed from depressive thinking. See:
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. James 4:7
In my depressive years, I had somehow sensed that those thoughts were originated from the enemies, but I found the thoughts so convincing that I allowed myself to analyze each word. It was how I got trapped.
I had lost some blessings that could have been mine due to depression (Does it sounds like the DEVOURER that the Bible talks about?): peace, joy, academic excellence, energies, health, and many opportunities that I’d failed to notice because of my grim outlook on life, and the lack of energy to pursue them due to depression.
In fact, sorrow, guilt, and worries are recipe for addictions, because they create a void that has to be filled by something, if not God. They also create so much pains that makes it tempting to use some addictions to medicate the pains.
Satan and His Force Love To Hide Behind The Stronghold Of Sins And Bad Habits
It makes recovery from bad habits or addictions so much harder. Behind every addiction is a lie(s), and Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44).
Satan works relentlessly to deceive us into sinning, and when we sin, we become it’s slave. (John 8:34) Once we are in the bondage of sin, Satan will tease us, accuse us, deceive us, and cast excessive sorrows and guilt on us to keep us from spiritual freedom.
One essential step you can’t miss if you want to be free is to receive heavy dose of truth daily.
32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. John 8:32
Addiction to sin is demon’s castle. If you allow the enemies to build a base within your soul, then there is little use to fight them back, because they will come back from the stronghold very soon next time! As long as we allow certain sins in our life, they will remain strongholds for demons.
To understand more about Satan and sin, go here.
Another article I found useful is this: Deal With Sin
On the other hand, if you bind the enemies before you seek to demolish a sinful habit, it will make the healing and recovering process so much faster. In fact, the battles with addictions can drag on for years if you fail to realize that the enemies were actively working behind scenes and bind them accordingly.
Evil spirits can sometime present and resist you for no apparent reasons. They will delay answers to your prayers, blur your mind when you try to read the Bible, cause heavy distraction to you when you need to focus, and make you uncomfortable with spiritual disciplines in general. You must never be weary of praying battle prayers and verses against the enemies, especially if you are a dedicated Christian. Satan loves to target Christian who is dedicated, for example, a Christian who is involved in a ministry or obey a clear calling from God.
Usual Causes Of Defeat: Forgetfulness and Boredom
Satan and his demonic force aren’t tough to deal with, if you know what they are doing to you and follow the biblical steps to battle them. But the problem is we forget them easily.
Binding Satan everyday can be boring. When things get normal, it’s very hard to stay alert. (Looking back, things had rarely been normal for me, the enemies came back every now and then, but often times I was ignorant of it)
It’s also pretty boring to speak the truth out loud often as instructed by many Christian leaders and teachers. But really, the power of words is indeed amazing! I wish there is CG effect every time we declare God’s words, and that it will shows demons withering, heaven and earth shaking, a beam of light shining from a crack in the sky, and the whole nine yards, but this isn’t how it works.
God’s word can indeed make a huge difference: from death to life, poverty to prosperity, illness to health, sorrow to joy, addiction to freedom, failure to triumph and etc. However, most of the time we don’t feel a thing when we speak God’s words. Many times, the reality can be quite the opposite of what God promised in the Bible.
Nevertheless, God’s words will deliver. It will change the reality in time. Maybe God is just testing your faith and see if you really believe in His word.
I don’t think I can put it better than Paul Cook, the author of porn-free.org, a website that I recommend to Christian who is under bondage of any sin and bad habit.
Believe that you CAN be completely free! Breaking addiction is a healing process and believing that you can be free is an important part. Jesus said, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes” ( Mark 9:23 NKJV). We exercise our faith when we believe in God’s word and confess it with our mouth (Romans 10:10). It could be as simple as saying to ourselves each day when we get out of bed, “I believe that in Christ I can be and will be free of my struggle.” Often our natural circumstances may not appear to be lining up with God’s word. The challenge is to not allow our circumstances (or past failures) to steal our hope. Faith believes in what is yet unseen (Hebrews 11:1-3). It releases God’s power in us to perform the impossible and bring the unseen into reality! Paul Cook
The above quote from Paul Cook doesn’t just apply to breaking addiction, but to everything that God has promised in the Bible.
The Rewards Of Making Spiritual Battle A Habit
11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms …18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:11,12,18
29“Or again, how can anyone (i.e. you) enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man (i.e. the enemy)? Then he can rob his house. Matthew 12:29
The rewards of constant spiritual victories are freedom, success, peace, more success, and joy. These blessings are ours by default, but for many reasons Satan can come to destroy them. We must stay alert and never get tired or bored with waging frequent spiritual battles on his theftdom.
I can’t emphasis enough how important is to capture every sinful thought at the first second it arises.( 2 Corinthians 10:5) If it takes more than 2-3 second for you to reject the thought before God – and then replace it with godly ones (Philippians 4:8) – you will be much more likely to fall flat into temptation and commit the act.
If it takes you 50 times a day to bind Satan and capture sinful thoughts, then do it 50 times a day! My experience is that the enemies and sinful thoughts can seem overwhelming when you engage in spiritual battles with them, but if you stay focus and do what must be done, the temptations will lose the grips on you, every time! The more you win, the stronger your spiritual muscle will become, and Satan will eventually flee.
i’m blessed with the video!
awsome!! what a blessing!!
So true, and very good insight, I find that procrastination is also one of the biggest weapons the enemy uses, put it off, do it tommorow etc etc,
in my experience the attacks are two folds, emotional a heaby attack of discouragement, bitterness to cause me to grumble, and depression always followed with these thoughts.
For example, a heavy feeling of dispair comes and lies hammered in your mind at the same time, “God won’t deliver you God’s a liar”, blah blah blah and than comes the doubt attacks–reminders of your past, circumstances where it appeared that God had dissappointed you, always trying to get you to focus on your circumstances not on his promises.
Clearly to sink you into dispair, now also interesting is while these are going on, the thoughts “it’s useless to pray comes”, and prideful thought of why should I have to keep quoting scriptures etc etc,
Clearly the purpose of the enemy is to drive you away from the only thing that can deliver you–God and his word. There’s only one truth and that is that it’s impossibe for God to lie, His word will come to pass.
I liked this article because it gave me some insight into my own battles and trials. Many times I’ve wondered why does God allow this to happen, and I believe its for several reasons
1. to teach you how to effectively resist the ememy
2. to grow faith in his word, by real experience
3. Allow us the opportunity to earn eternal rewards by our striving
4. so that he can bless us abundantly as our capacity to believe in his word grows with these encounters.
Spiritual atacks are hardly fun, but as king David cried in psalms it was good that you afflicted me as it taught me to obey, (not an exact quote)
Struggling against sin is very difficult, but regardless of our failures and how many times we do fall, the truth still remains we all have been redeemed by what Jesus has done for us, the battle is over, we don’t need to keep trying to win what’s already been won for us, We simply need to learn to accept it.
Thanks Dave, you have pretty much summed up my own spiritual battle experience on the mental and emotional level. The only things that can help us are indeed God and His words. Often time when we are in the heat of battles, the feelings are too heavy for us to open the Bible and remind ourselves of God’s words, which contradict our evil circumstances and negative thoughts.
Everytime I managed to open the Bible, or go online to browse for relevant Bible verses, and then pray over them, I would recover and see lights again. It works every single time.
I feel like I really need to share my story…
Since I was 4 years old I could “see” things… I would see apparitions (ghosts I thought) sometimes, but I usually felt it. I grew up in a very loving home and we were taught a lot about Jesus (in the traditional sense), but I would always be aware of things looking at me and coming into my space which left me incredibly fearful for many years.. I used to be too afraid to go to the bathroom and never slept alone in my bed- luckily I have a younger brother who always kept me company!
As I grew older, things started getting worse with each experience – it got so bad in our home that we had to get a priest to come cleanse our home. If I had to tell you all the details, I will be typing for hours – literally! To sum it up – I usually prayed to myself (in my mind) when things would torment me – only finding out later in life how powerful a prayer out loud is! Things started getting the upper hand when I was at University and at the age of 21 I seriously started getting depressed and thoughts of suicide crossed my mind very often – which is so out of character as I have always been a fighter and an incredibly optimistic person. I then went through the whole Deliverance thing at a church, which truly helped me so much – I was told that our maid had put a spell on me when I was young- which kind of made sense, because as a white South African, we are used to people using Black Magic or Sangomas to get their way – whether it be for good or bad reasons.
After the Deliverance, the spiritual battles started getting worse, but I was much better equipped and I felt like a warrior. I had a dream one night – which was from God I’m sure- and I have to share it: I dreamed that millions of people walked on a narrow path in a line (2 people next to eachother) leading into a dense forest with a huge mountain in front of it. You couldn’t stray from the path because there were thorns and bear traps and beasts in the shrubs. My friend and I walked behind these people – being the last 2 people in the line, I felt this urge to not be last in line. I left my friend and started running – aiming for the start of the line of people… As I passed the thorns and beasts I prayed out loud and the beasts would run away and the thorns made way for me as I was running. I ended up first in line just as the millions of people started climbing up this mountain. I woke up! I immediately knew that this was a huge message and to this day I am not entirely sure what the meaning is..
I made peace with the fact that these weird happenings are part of my life – all I needed to do was fight it.. This wasn’t ideal, but I had to accept it, or I would lose my mind!
My turning point came when I was 26 and my cousin came to visit. At that stage I was a bit far away from God – didn’t really pray everyday etc.. We chatted in my lounge and all of a sudden God showed me that there was something attached to her (a demon). I wasn’t sure if I imagined it, so I started speaking about God to test her (it). She started to become incredibly drowsy and even fell asleep while I was talking to her! I then knew it was real.. I had become accustomed to chasing spirits (demons) away from me and in my home, but I have had no experience in praying against a spirit attached to someone. An incredible fear crept up inside of me as I thought about praying for her ( I watch too many movies) and had horrible pictures in my head about what would happen as I pray for her!
God really urged me to do it, but I couldn’t as I was too scared!!! I left it and felt incredibly bad for doing so. The next morning we chatted again and I told her what I saw. She started crying and told me that she knew something was wrong and something had a hold on her life (as she is also a strong believer in God)
I asked Jesus to show me what to do and he didn’t straight away!! I just held her hand and kept on asking out loud – probably for an hour and a half.. All of a sudden I felt that it was her turn to pray (obviously from God) and she couldn’t speak!
I then rebuked the spirit in Jesus’ name and she started talking directly to it.. A lot of things happened (not half as bad as I had imagined, but it did choke her) and after 3 hours of intense praying she just said: “I feel it leaving me” and so she thanked Jesus intensely.
A strange thing then happened- I woke up that night with a strange spirit in my room – knowing it was the one we sent away earlier. Anyway, I chased it away in Jesus’ name and all was fine.
After all of this I moved into a new place (for work) and I never felt totally comfortable there. One night I went to bed at around 11pm and I couldn’t fall asleep. I then started to feel a warm, tingling sensation on my right thigh which made me feel incredibly funny. True to my nature and years of not seeing everything as spiritually strange, I thought it could be my arteries or blood circulation. All of a sudden it left my leg and I felt a strange sensation on my right cheek (after supressing the overwhelming feeling of something trying to touch me). I started praying and as I did this, my cheek started to burn. I didn’t know what to do as this was the first time something strange was so close to me and actually in my personal space. I then ran out of the room and shout at God (I couldn’t feel His presence as I was praying) to send protection as I felt utterly violated and invaded. I must sound like a total lunatic, but after even considering that, I know it was all very real.
I got some oil and started blessing my house. I then calmed down and went back to bed. I even googled prayers of protection and said them out loud. I almost fell asleep and suddenly a Bible verse popped into my head (I honestly don’t really know the Bible that well)-
Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:
2And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
This gave me such a sense of Peace and Love and I knew this was a clear message from God..
After that night, some time passed and my cousin (whom I prayed for) came to visit again. This time she helped me!! I was really really tired of fighting these battles and it also started tormenting my boyfriend at night so needless to say I was just sick and tired of everything.
We prayed and asked God to just take it all away from me for good. Something tried to make us aware of its presence while we were praying and my cousin simply told it to go away in such soft words (I’m used to really fighting it) and I realised that all these things will go away by simply telling it to and then truly having faith that Jesus’ name is all-powerful. There really is no need to be such a fighter all the time. With a single word you can conquer all things that are not from God.
Since that night I feel like God has given me a break from Spiritual Battle.. It has been 8 months now and I feel like a normal person- I can sleep alone in a place and not feel a thing!
The reason for my story is this:
I now feel free from fear, but also far away from God. I have a strange idea that as soon as I move closer to God now, these things will become part of my life again and this just kills me!
I am speaking to God lately and trying to find out what the purpose of all this is. Did He make me this way? Am I supposed to be a warrior of His Kingdom in this very active way? Is this how it should be? Or did he want to give me a break from all of this to show me how empty I would feel without my intense Spiritual Warrior self?
I am honestly very confused at this stage and I would appreciate it so much if anyone reading this would pray for me – asking God to bring me clarity and understanding.
Oh my goodness I have typed forever! It must be such a long mail to read.. But if you are reading this I am sure my story caught your attention!
Hope some of you can relate!
“I now feel free from fear, but also far away from God. I have a strange idea that as soon as I move closer to God now, these things will become part of my life again and this just kills me!”
I agree. This, I suspect, is how Satan train God’s people to be timid. I, too, feel that Satan reserve his best warriors for those who are about to experience breakthrough, or become a threat to his kingdom. He doesn’t seem to attack everyone equally. He would “punish” those who dare to reach their full spiritual potential. It’s stick and carrot strategy.
If he harrasses you all the time, you will become hardened. If he only gives you punishment when you “get out of line”, then eventually you will learn to behave.
It’s good to be a fighter, but also realize that you don’t have to be tightened up and yelling all the times, because a single command is enough when you have faith.
I say you need to be both at the same time. A weak fighter has to use all his strength on a weak target, but a strong fighter fights with ease unless he is facing an equal. Don’t let yourself get too comfortable, because an easy but mediocre life is not exciting.
You want your life to be meaningful right?
You might be gifted in spiritual discernment. You were able to see the spiritual realm, and I just read a book “Working with Angels” by Steven Brooks, which mentions this gift. God may want to use you to battle demons. There are a lot of wonderful ways to use this gift. For example, you may want to pray for the escort of angels. You can call for unlimited number of angels and see them working upon your request. You can also witness how the spiritual realm changes as you pray. This is a gift that I want to enjoy too, because it’s annoying to not be able to see your enemies when you have to fight them. I tend to forget their presence after a while since I don’t see them much.
I suggest you to go after the direction or joining or developing a deliverance ministry. It is highly needed, but under supplied in today’s churches. You need to work very hard to find the places and people who will allow you to do what you do best with the gifts you have.
When I started reading your blog – I just couldn’t stop and I knew I should tell my story – I have NEVER done this so openly and I am truly thankful that God brought me to this place..
Sai Kit, thank you so much for your words of Wisdom!! Sometimes the answers are right in front of us and I thank God that He used you to tell me.. You are truly an inspiration and God is using you in ways that you would never know!
Thank you for being Willing…
Thanks Michelle for the kind words. It’s encouraging for me.
If you have more spiritual encounters, I welcome you to write a guest post and share them with the readers. Or you may not feel ready now, but if you do have more experience in the future, write for us! thanks
Also, you may want to check out http://spiritlessons.com/ for more testimonies from other Christians who saw spiritual things.
One particular book series you maybe interested in is the “Baptize by Blazing Fire”. It is on the same site. Take a look at the books and let me know what you think.