Battlefield

Every day we face a new battle, some it’s to get out of bed to go to work, others its to get out of bed to go to war, others just wish they could get out of bed and be a part of the battle that is life. Our lives are unique in the paths that we have chosen but there are some things we have in common and that is we all struggle and go up against enemies and foes in our lives—seen or unseen, named or unnamed, others or ourselves, there is a battle and it is raging hard whether you wear camo or a suit and tie your battle is seen and known and heard. Your battle may consist of gunshots, words, money, or emotions but don’t discount your battle. Your battle is unique and we’re going to talk about how to deal with the battles we face every day and how God fits in the battlefield. There are many battlefields but we’re going boil them down to the most basics of sorts because we all have a battlefield, where is yours?

    1) Battlefield of the mind. This happened at the garden of Eden. Eve was tempted by the serpent not by the fruit itself but the promise that he told her it had. He planted the seed of doubt in her mind when he said, “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. Genesis 3:1-6.” The serpent (the Devil) was trying to twist what God had said. Adam was in charge of giving her instruction but failed. She even repeated the directions wrong. Her mind was fraught with indecision. She saw the tree, it looked just as good as the rest even though she knew it was the tree God said “No” to, she took and ate anyways. That’s the way many battles start, in our mind. “Did they really say that?”, “What will people think about me?”, “What will people say?”, “What should I do?” It all starts in our mind and the devil knows how to assault it with distraction and questioning God’s word. It’s easy. Give them a distraction and make them believe that the Bible isn’t God’s real word and you’ve got a whole population at your disposal. You’ve got causalities with no shots fired. God wants us to have a clear mind and doesn’t want us confused about anything. He walked with Adam and Eve daily and was going down there that day when everything changed. In their shame (which was a new feeling) they ran and hid, scared of the very One who created them and loved them! God could come down because they were perfect and sinless! But not that day. God asked where they were not because they were lost but because He wanted them to know He knew. He knew the battle was lost for them. But God provided as He always does. Our minds are fragile no matter how strong we may think we are; something always tries to undo us. That is why God’s word says, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. 1 Corinthians 14:33.”  God doesn’t want us confused. He wants us to have a right frame of mind. We may make it to church every Sunday or sit at home and read our Bible during the week, regardless, the battle is there for each of us no matter how long we’ve been a Christian or our role in church, the battlefield of the mind is the hardest because it is so independent but we should be dependent on God! “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:13-16.” Our minds are constantly bombarded with messages and information that it’s hard to fit it all in and prioritizing begins. So where does God land in your mind of prioritizing? How is that battle going? Is your thought life reflecting the life you are projecting? “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Philippians 4:7-8.” What is keeping your interest? What is keeping your mind occupied? There’s one battle but we’re given some help in that department with the armor of God. “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Ephesians 6:17.” Do you know who you trust in daily? What thoughts do you have throughout the day and would God be pleased? What if your thoughts were all said aloud, would people be shocked? God hears our thoughts and loves us anyways! “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity. Psalms 94:11.” Vanity means selfish or worthless. Our thoughts, for the most part, are probably very useless to our daily existence. But that can be changed each day by getting our minds set on Christ and not on the world. If you find yourself in a negative thought pattern, break out of its spell and declare the name of Jesus on it, find yourself focusing on God’s plan and will. That battlefield will be there until we take our last breath, our mind will constantly battle against God because it is still flesh. “For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Romans 8:5-7.” Put on your helmet of salvation each day and tell your thoughts that God is stronger than your fears, worries and distractions!

    2) Battlefield of the heart. The heart is not just an organ that pumps blood through your body, it’s another type of life force that steers us. It is isn’t our mind either it’s hard to describe our heart. We always say, “What does your heart say?” We don’t ask about the thoughts; we ask about the heart. Now our physical heart does have electrical impulses which could do some amazing things but the heart that we speak of and the one the Bible speaks of us is our essence. I had to do some research to figure out the difference between the heart and the soul. But it’s there. Vine Expository Dictionary says, “The heart stands for man's entire mental and moral activity, both the rational and the emotional elements.... the hidden springs of the personal life. The Bible describes human depravity as in the heart, because sin is a principle which has its seat in the center of man's inward life, and then defiles the whole circuit of his action.” The heart is a part of us that includes our emotions and morality. We may say about an evil person that they have an evil heart. The Bible goes further and says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9.”  Uh-oh. Our heart is wicked? “Bless your heart!” Yes, it is. Thanks to sin, our heart is depraved and seeks its own desires which is our selfishness manifesting. Thousands of years ago, this happened, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Genesis 6:5-6.” This was about 2,000 years from Adam since Adam lived to be 900 years old and Methuselah lived to be 969 and died before the flood. So, there’s a lot of people living at this point whose hearts God saw and saw only wickedness. It doesn’t take long, look at how the world has changed from just 100 years from the 1900 to the 2000! Imagine 2000 years of seeing man’s depravity. It hurt God, it grieved Him in His OWN heart that people’s hearts were so withdrawn from Him and evil, He was so saddened he even felt bad He even created man! Then came the flood which wiped out all but 8 people. The battlefield was cleansed for some time, but it didn’t take long for evil to take root again. Righteousness of the heart is a scarce commodity, of course it cannot be bought or sold but must be lived. Remember Abraham running through Sodom and Gomorrah trying to find righteous people so that God could spare the city? Abraham ran back and forth to God, asking what if I find 50 to trying to find 10. He couldn’t find any. I don’t know how Abraham would judge these folks, what the questions were but apparently no one fit that criteria but Abraham, Lot, his wife and their two daughters but then Lot’s wife turned around after being told not to and turned into a pillar of salt and you can see what the daughters did. It’s sad to know that the heart of man is evil continually. Sure, you may not think about killing someone or whatever horribly wicked thought you think “wicked” people have but the thing is with God if it’s not pure, it’s wicked. There’s no gray area. It either is, or it isn’t. Jesus says, “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. Mark 7:20-23.”  All these things come from the heart which was cursed from sin at the beginning with Eve’s mind being warped and her heart being corrupted. After that, murder was the next one with Cain and Abel, then covetousness which brought idolatry which included fornications and adulteries, lying, judging people, being selfish, and being foolish. These things the heart creates! When we describe someone, we usually describe their traits, well those traits come from somewhere—their heart! There are many people who may sit in church or read their Bible, but their heart is far from God, hopefully that’s why they are looking in God’s word or sitting in the church pew! But the battle is there continually for all of us; without God we are miserable and left to our own devices we’ve brought many terrors and evils upon this world, They didn’t want to serve God,“And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart. Jeremiah 18:12.” Our own devices..hmm..this was written thousands of years ago. We DO walk after own devices that beep, chirp, tweet, flash, and record with our face glued to it watching others’ imaginations playing out before us on channels, shows, and movies. So, what are we to do since we are bombarded by all these distractions that not only affect our mind but our heart as well? Pray and focus your attention to God, “Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practise wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties. Psalms 141:4.”; Deceit is in the heart of them that imagine evil: but to the counsellors of peace is joy. Proverbs 12:20.”; Our heart will lie to us, ever loved someone who was wrong for you? But your heart led you astray. Your emotions got the best of you and you found yourself in a place you’d never thought you’d be. That’s the battlefield my friends. It’s not laid out in 10-yard lines, it’s laid out by minutes, hours, and days. It’s laid out by events, experience and effort. Our heart is something that can be deceived or devoted, it can imagine or be ill, it can be hurt or helped. Jesus says, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh. Luke 6:45.” Some of us have seen true evil perhaps looked into its eyes and had to deal with it some of us have had to deal with it in our hearts, and that’s where God’s light makes the evil run and hide. Evil is all around us in different forms and sometimes we may not recognize it until actions start proving it. Evil knows good and good knows evil. The Bible says,“Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. James 4:13-17.” Our life is short, and the battle may seem like it lasts forever but it stops when we take our last breath. We put God in our life but is He in the right place? He has the keys to Hell and Death and created the world, but you and I want to put Him in the passenger as a co-pilot? No. He should steer our life! If we know something is good and it is what God wants us to do it and we don’t do it? It’s a sin! Not just those lies and all the other stuff that’s “easy” to figure out and point fingers at others for on the nightly news but those things we were supposed to do but didn’t and those things God told us “no”, but we did anyways. When God sends people your way to warn you, don’t ignore, don’t go or do! You will live past the ridicule and the judgment if you are serving God. Serving God may break your heart. You may have to let go of someone or some things you’ve longed for but it’s not in God’s will at the time. That’s the battle dear friends, God’s got this big plan for you and I and it’s beautiful, but we cannot rush it, alter it or delete from it, we must let it happen as He wants for maximum blessings and benefits! Our hearts may face times of trouble and temptation, but Jesus tells us, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me…. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:1-6, 27.” The world will never give us the peace we seek after no matter how much you buy, how pretty you are, how many friends you have, how many letters behind your name you will still have a battlefield my friend. Nothing exempts us from it, but God can protect us and help us navigate it with His will because there is one thing, He has done for us. He has already given us the victory all we have to do is proclaim it. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) Hebrews 10:22-23.” The only thing that can cleanse us is that living water that Jesus talked about with the woman at the well. Who lived a life on her own terms and was publicly shunned for it. Her heart no doubt wasn’t focused on the right spot but when she talked with Jesus, she knew something was different, He wasn’t just a man. He was more, He was God. He was the Promised One. “Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. John 4:10-15.” This woman had a past but with God she had a future that was everlasting in Heaven with a mission field of her hometown. Our hearts can change drastically, radically, and need fully for the craving of Christ. When God approaches our hearts we can either shut our door or open it wide for Him, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20.” Somebody’s knocking at your heart’s door, will you let Jesus in or the world? It’s your choice!

3) Battlefield of the physical. As I said before there are plenty more battles out there, battles of the spirit, battles of the world, battles of the will, battles of all kinds but one more that we deal with on a daily basis is the physical battle. Our bodies are cursed because of sin and through that we get diseases and faulty parts (not necessarily because OF a sin but because our bodies are cursed by the sin nature that’s within every human being). Each day we wake up, we are fighting a physical battle to do the right thing with our bodies. Our body may react before even our mind has time to process, it does happen! Ever do something without thinking about it? Yep. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Now there are physical battles out there, relationships with others, relationships with food, addictions, and so much more. God cares about our body too! He fashioned our bodies uniquely and finely tuned. I was born 4 months early and weighed 1 pound 8 ounces. My body was tiny, my will to fight and my God was stronger. I am blessed beyond measure because I have what many consider a normal life despite my beginning. My body endured a lot and still I endure a lot, but I realize that this body is not my home. It is just a place my soul resides. I can do a lot of things to it, abuse it, misuse it, mistreat it, scar it, mar it, change it, but it’s still a body God gave me. Just like God gave the blind man, blindness and the deaf in the deafness. It wasn’t for punishment. But for a greater reason. “And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. John 9:2-3.” Maybe you’re physically unable to come to church, maybe you’re physically unable to do something or handicapped, that’s not punishment or it shouldn’t be seen as such. It should be seen as something in God’s plan that God’s work can be made shown through. We’ve seen the resilience of people with missing limbs and physical ailments go above and beyond “healthy” people. Sometimes our body is our prison, it’s our battlefield but it will one day be whole, and victory has been claimed for it too. Don’t let your body be your hinderance, let it be your housing until Jesus returns, with whatever God has given you, praise Him for it and for what He hasn’t, still praise Him.
“But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 15:38, 44-50;52-58.” Amen! One day this old flesh will no longer need glasses or feel pain. Your body will be whole and perfect because of Christ. But for now, we have what we are given and we can still glorify God if we let our body control us, it will, it will consume us, it will be all we think about, our pain, our lust, our desires, our wants, our cravings. It will destroy us, but God sent Jesus’ body to be destroyed so that we can live in freedom from sin and bondage. “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.” Run the race of life in your heart, your mind and your body with the Lord, you’ll never regret it and you won’t come in first place because Jesus has claimed the victory in the battlefield.  This is what the Lord can do for you; “ The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Psalms 23.” This is the battle the Lord has given you, whatever it is, face it in knowing Christ has the victory already. “For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God? It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places.He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy right hand hath holden me up, and thy gentleness hath made me great.Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Psalms 18:31-39.” Don’t forget the armor of God, put each piece on with prayer daily. (Eph. 6) and get ready for the battle is raging, are you ready?