Doing Battle with the Spirit of Religion Part 3

WARFARE!

That's what the Apostle Paul says we are engaged in here while we wait upon the return of the Lord. Listen to what he says about this in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." NIV

The Church needs to desperately come to the realization that we are truly in a spiritual war! The individual battles are for the souls of people, the hearts of our cities, and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the enemy is taking this war much more serious then we are! Many of us become so content to think of our participation in the Kingdom of God from a "bless me-bless me not" mentality. However, we must ask ourselves the question, from a military standpoint, what is the purpose(s) behind the attack of the spirit of religion upon this area of the United States and the Body of Christ?

First, is the obvious answer. To saturate the church with religion is to provide a type of "fake spiritual stimulus." We "FEEL" very spiritual when we go to church, so, church is doing a good thing in our life, and God must be pleased with our ability to stay "connected" to Him, in the midst of such sinful lifestyles of people all around us! We go to church, we sing familiar songs (and even throw in some new ones, so we are viewed as contemporary), we pray, the preacher preaches, we hug, pat each other on the backs, and go eat dinner. We ARE the Church..... TRIUMPHANT!...... Right?...........WRONG! We are actually pathetically impotent in our spiritual discernment and advancement of the Kingdom of God! We gather together and "YELL" at the devil and are smugly satisfied with our spiritual strength and victory! And the devil.......... LAUGHS!

The second, purpose of this attack of the spirit of religion is that it weakens the churches that ARE truly repentant and seeking to serve their Lord. Churches launch into ministry because of a sincere devotion to their Lord based upon the gifts and finances of those in their church at the time of their ministerial undertakings. The spirit of religion attacks, and soon those good Christian brothers and sisters are headed down the street to their "NEW" church where something "GRAND" and "EXCITING" appears to be happening! The church that is truly trying to do something to carry on the ministry of Jesus, is suddenly thrown into a situation that may be "over their heads" because of a limitation of people and resources.

The third purpose of the spirit of religion's attack is to keep the Body weakened. What I mean is, God "gifts" each member of the Body with Spiritual Gifts (charis) intended to be used WITHIN the local Body to strengthen and mature that local Body. More than any other thing, the devil fears a spirit-filled Church! And, if he can keep people moving around from church to church, they never fully develop or use those gifts, and the intended purpose of strengthening the Body is never realized, hence Spirit-inspired, well thought out ministry plans suffer a type of "spiritual abortion."

The fourth reason for this attack of the spirit of religion is quite simply to bring division. To "divide and conquer" is one of the most basic strategies of ANY military campaign! And let me remind you ONCE again, ..........we are at WAR! People moving from church to church to church, leave in their wake hurt feelings, broken commitments, and help facilitate a weakened divided Body! ONLY when their is unity in the Body of Christ do we see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (See Acts 2). The outpouring of the power of the Holy Ghost is EXACTLY what we so desperately need ........ RIGHT NOW! This will NEVER happen, as long as the spirit of religion goes unrecognized and undefeated! However, REMEMBER.............


"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

Knowledge of our enemies strategies and attack points, are the beginning of defeating the spirit of religion! FIGHT ON!!!!