Elements
We have lived all over the country and each state brought different climates. Some hot and dry some cold and wet…cold was definitely not my favorite. Cold is evil. But no matter what the climate of the area, we had to be prepared for the elements.
Dry hot weather like Texas means I fight the heat with shorts, sunscreen and drinking more water. Northern Illinois winters were frigid. The first year there after relocating from Southern California…don’t even ask …we had 54’ of snow. We got snowed in for days once and our heat went out. Not my idea of a good time.
To fight the elements coming against us we had coats, gloves, shovels, a snow blower and a fireplace! My point…every weather element that we face no matter where we live we must fight their ill affects or suffer the consequences. If we were to wear our polar gear from Illinois to dress in Texas we would have had heat stroke! And if we wore shorts in Illinois we would have frozen. We had to apply the right form of resistance to the particular element.
Daily we dress and prepare for the weather around us. By doing so we fight the elements that would otherwise harm us. You may be wondering where I’m going with this. Well I started to think how this pertains to our spiritual lives. The word tells us to put on our spiritual armor to fight the schemes of the enemy; the elements he comes against us with.
He comes at us with bitterness, strife, unforgiveness, lying, greed and a host of other temptations…like chocolate…that struggle is for real! Letting any of these elements penetrate our defenses could mean disaster to us spiritually. Just like a tsunami, giving into Satan’s lies could shipwreck our lives in many ways. Not just spiritually but even physically. Sin can even affect our physical bodies.
The biggest lie of the enemy is that we can get away with doing what he is offering. He tells us it will make us feel better, make us rich, famous or better in some way. But being the father of lies he is incapable of telling the truth. Whatever he is offering will only kill, steal and destroy us John 10:10.
How do we fight an unseen spiritual being? With spiritual weapons; weapons that our Father has graciously given us in his word. I believe our spiritual armor is actually KNOWLEDGE, knowledge of his word. When you know the truth that truth sets you free right? When Satan says we will never succeed we quote scripture…Phillipians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” When he tells us we are going to die we quote Phillipians 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
God’s word contains all of the ammo we need to successfully fend off all of Satan’s elements of temptation. Just like no one would wear a bikini in Alaska for fear of frostbite, we must protect ourselves from the elements of deceit and temptation the enemy tries to expose us to.
To do this all-important tactic of spiritual warfare one thing is critical…to know the Word of God. We must not only read it but also study it until it becomes a part of our very DNA. That is exactly how Jesus resisted all of the enemy’s temptations in the wilderness. Every time Satan came at him he said…IT IS WRITTEN…he obliterated his enemy with the Word of God and that is exactly how we do it.
Commit today to the study of God’s word. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you. He longs to walk you though his word into victory. You can do it!