Warfare Wednesday: Intentional Warfare, Coming Soon

Today’s post is the first in a four-week series about spiritual warfare, and about the release of my new book titled, “Intentional Warfare: Winning the Daily Spiritual Battle.”

Three years ago, my friend Jennifer and I co-taught a women’s physical/spiritual fitness class at our church. Here’s an excerpt about how God birthed the book out of that class and out of my passion for spiritual warfare, and about the content He provided, one chapter at a time.

When I first became a Christian, I viewed spiritual warfare as an offensive battle, much like what I saw in the movies. Thoughts of battle against our enemy, the devil, were energizing and exciting. I was in the “Army of God,” and the enemy was going down. I looked up and devoured any Bible verses that talked about demons fleeing, deliverance, and setting the captives free. I sought out people who could mentor me, godly warriors with testimonies about their experiences defeating demons. Yes, I was well on my way to becoming Super Mary, the Demon Slayer.

Years later, I agreed to co-teach a women’s physical/spiritual fitness class at our church. When the Lord impressed upon me to teach about spiritual warfare, I just knew it was because I had so much experience and so much to teach. I even had a title: “Prepare for Battle!” I had an outline of topics, including “What is Spiritual Warfare?” and “We are in a battle, we DO have an enemy!” I conducted a small survey at the beginning of the first class to help me determine the level of everyone’s understanding and find out what they wanted to know.  Then all I needed to do was fill in the details, and I was ready to impart from my vast store of knowledge.

After the introductory class, God chimed in with His thoughts. Much of what He showed me was the exact opposite of what I planned to share. In typical God fashion, He revealed His plan to me one week at a time. And, knowing I like acronyms, He arranged the topic titles to spell warfare.

· Wear Your Armor and Wield Your Weapons, He said. I had planned to talk about Weapons only.

· be Aware of the Real Enemy, He said. I had planned to make a call to Action.

· Rest in the Lord, He said. I was Running forward into battle.

Then finally we started to agree…somewhat.

· Fear Not, Face your Enemy (Okay, we’ve got a little action here!)

· Audible—the Power of the Spoken Word (yes, power, now you’re talkin’)

· Rejoice that we took down the enemy…what? Oh. Okay. Right. We’ll Rejoice in the Lord Always, thankful that our names are written in the Book of Life.

· Entertainment, or Exposure to Temptation—be aware of the impact of what you read, watch, and listen to—your spirit is being either fed or weakened/disturbed whether or not you acknowledge it.

God’s way of conducting spiritual warfare is not like ours. Unlike movie scenes where the good guys win through destroying the enemy forces, our Hero wins victory through His own death in the most epic battle scene in the history of the world: the Crucifixion.

Working on and off over the past three years I finally finished the book – it will be released on November 24^th, Thanksgiving week. I’ll be sharing more from the book on the next three Warfare Wednesday posts.

Stay tuned…