Steadfast, Immovable and FAITHful (Discipline of a Disciple. Part 7)
Today we will cover a more militant aspect of the life of a disciple. The life of a warrior who represents the kingdom relentlessly. One who must be depended upon and faithful unto the end.
The life of a disciple is not always an easy life. It’s a life of battle, difficulties, and hardship. In a nutshell, we’re at war. Paul relates it to “wrestling” and “warring”, and reminds us to be steadfast in the FAITH.
Steadfast means: immovable, relentless, faithful unto the end, standing firm in faith and holding onto the truth, fixed, enduring, committed, devoted, dedicated, dependable, resolute, unwavering. These qualifications could all be attributed to an outstanding warrior, and yet the Bible uses all these attributes for a disciple of Jesus.
But what is the war actually about? If Jesus won the victory, if He’s the Name above all names to which every knee should bow, why is there still a war?
First we must understand that there are 2 kingdoms, ever since the garden of Eden. The kingdom of light controlled by God and the kingdom of darkness.
Christ disarmed Satan by paying the penalty through the cross for those who believe. Paul explains, “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom 10:4). It means Christ paid the price for your righteousness (Rom 10: 4).
However, it is not the end of the law in every sense. It says “for righteousness”. Grace has replaced the law as a means for us to obtain righteousness with God. But the law still exists. It still condemns those who aren’t born again.
Remember also that Jesus said that He came to fulfill the law. He even raised the bar of the law by showing the spirit of the law so that we no longer obey the law through legalism (hoping to have enough “points” to save us), but rather, from the heart.
Our spirit is redeemed. Satan can’t do anything about the fact that our spirit is born-again. However, Satan continues to attack man in so many ways, but for the most part in the MIND through fear, and guilt, etc. He’s the accuser of the saints, remember?
But Paul explains how our war is a spiritual war. He says, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds“ (2 Cor 10:4).
Those strongholds are in the mind. They’re prejudices and preconceived ideas in the minds of men. Paul says in 1Cor 1:26, “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.” Why? Because God doesn’t like these people? No. But because they trust in themselves.
Here are the main “distractions” that man goes after:
- wealth
- nobility or social position
- education (knowledge, science).
- power
- religion
In the garden, when the devil told Adam and Eve that if they should eat of the fruit of knowledge, he told them, “You shall be like God” (Gen 3:5). Now, there’s nothing really wrong with wanting to be like God. We all want to be like God.
But Satan’s insinuation was, “And you will not need God. You will be independent, better yet, you’ll be SELF-dependent. You won’t be a slave to God.” But we became slaves to our EGO, slaves to trying to be good enough, and lift ourselves up with our own bootstraps. This is really the root of sin: self-dependence.
And there lies the war between self-dependence (the devil’s plan) and God-dependence (grace). GRACE brings you in direct relationship with God through intimacy and dependence on God. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us* (Tit 3:5).
The key verse about Jesus’s ministry is, “I do nothing of My own, I only do what the Father tells Me” (Jn 5:30). Jesus was totally dependent on the Father. Total dependence on God leads to righteous living. We’re already made righteous in the Spirit, but living holy comes through obedience, full-on dependence, full-on intimacy (John 15).
So the key to winning the war in the Spirit, is we must hide ourselves in our new identity, belonging to Christ, because He has already won the war. The devil cannot touch you for as long as you fully put on the identity of Christ. You are hidden in Christ. Col 3:3 says, “You died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
There are more aspects of the “spiritual warfare” that we’ll cover in the next few days.