October 5, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.“

(Ephesians 6.12)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD TO US:

I suppose it would be easier to fight this fight against evil if it were “against flesh and blood.” By that I mean the real enemies were corporeal beings. (But there is certainly family squabbles, too, were people fight against their own “flesh and blood.”) We do fight against people and sometimes even ourselves. We certainly can be our own worst enemies. Our media is filled with the tragedies and horrors of battling against flesh and blood people. Murders, armed attacks, mass killings, suicides and genocides and careless handling of motorized vehicles (yes, they should be designated as a weapon of mass destruction!) are examples of how some believe they can resolve the conflict against the “evil” in their world. In the hope to justify oneself, the blaming of others and the subsequent “execution of justice” (there is a double meaning there, too) shows the broken bias of misunderstanding of who the enemy truly is. How do we solve the problems of the flesh? We do not change the flesh (though plastic surgery and the fitness craze would lead many to believe that is the best option as changing the external could actually transform the internal.) We solve, or at least combat and hold at bay until the Heavenly Reinforcement comes, the externalization of the enemy by addressing the root of the problem. The true “ugliness” which attacks the people of the world, whether they are God’s people (everyone) or the people of God (those who have chosen to follow God as sovereign and align themselves with the Messiah as Lord and Savior) comes from within and thus beyond us in the spirit realm. This is the heart of what Paul was driving home to the People of God through Jesus Christ who were a community of faith in Ephesus. Before John had become the presbyter, chief elder, of the seven churches in Asia Minor where Ephesus was the lead congregation of the seven, Paul had helped to establish those churches into the collective of “the body of Christ.” They were not until themselves but a part of the greater number of Christ-following fellowship communities coming into existence because of those who were adhering to the “Great Commission” given by Jesus to His disciples before ascending into Heaven. We know the history of those disciples as they suffered much in expanding the call of the gospel into “all the world.” Their legacy of faith, hope and love (as Paul would so identify it for the Faith Community in Corinth) was powerful because of the Word and their willingness to lay down their lives for it and for others. That would be their true identity as “disciples of Christ” for Jesus had commanded them with a new command and the fulfilling definition. The new command was “Love one another; by this the world will know you are My disciples.” (John 13.34-35) The definition of that commandment was given as “No greater love is there than this: that one of you who believes in Me will sacrifice their life for the sake of another.” (John 15.13) If there is any question about how the “Christ-following” movement was so successful to take on the “foreign religious powers” (theological, cultural and political) and transform the world in such a compelling fashion, those two aforementioned truths are a sufficient defense. (Let’s ask Charlie Kirk’s successors if that is not the case. His life and death are the confirmations of those truths.)

While there are most certainly external transformations which occur because of the philanthropic nature of the gospel (to love the neighbor as you yourself desire to be loved by God), those transformations would be merely a facade if not for the belief in the inner change which faith empowers. If you are looking for a biblical example of that kind of thinking, you need go no further than to Jesus’ address of the Scribes and Pharisees “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matthew 23.27-28; read His full accusatory description of their identity problem in verses 13-39) How we, mighty men of God, must keep that template in our consciousness as a rubric of faithfulness to the command of love and the call to love one another! This is why Paul laid out the battle plan in Ephesians 6. We cannot be so blind as to limit our understanding of his images, so popularized in the most circles of biblical and theological interpretation, as mimicking a Roman soldier/centurion. I see it and I understand how they would interpret it as such given Paul’s Roman citizenship and the power of the Roman cultus, oh I am sorry- the Roman culture, so prevalent in his day. However, in doing so, we silence Paul’s true identity as a Pharisee who studies the Torah under a recognized theological powerhouse- Gamaliel. While Paul (born Saul of Tarsus) was Roman because his father was Roman, he was Jewish because his mother was a Jewess. The true identity of being a “faithful and God-fearing Jew” is said to come from one’s mother being Jewish. So, what of Paul’s exposition of “battle readiness” found in Ephesians 6? I have reflected on this many times before and connected it with Peter’s call of the believer’s true identity as being “one in the priesthood of all believers.” The real identity of a believer in the battle for truth against the actual enemy (not of flesh and blood) is a priest. The descriptors which Paul laid out are the elements of the priestly garb. It is a call to present oneself as the representative of God in spirit and in truth which is our authentic worship and service in the world while being not of the world. The modern Church’s compromise in service and worship with the world in hopes of winning some and pleasing others steals away the “command and call” of Christ to the Church in the heart, mind, soul and body of the believer. Even Satan is not the real enemy of God and humanity. Yes, I said it. The real enemy is the choice “to sin against God, self and one another.” We are called to “hate the sin and love the sinner.” This is the benchmark of God’s relationship with us. As Paul declared, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5.8) It is “mercy and grace.” We are called to see the sin in the sinner and bring it to light. We are to call it by name and not simply call names of those who are steeped in sin as if that combats and resolves the problem. Even the “scribes and Pharisees” were caught by that same faulty thinking: “kill the messenger and silence the message.” The execution of Charlie Kirk was fueled by that kind of thinking. If you stop, and you must stop, and think about it what happened there was the intention to silence the messenger in order to stop the echoing of the evil inside the executioner. Judas of Kerioth suffered from that as well though he did not crucify Jesus by his own hand. He did take his own life when the truth of what he had done was revealed as the means by which God’s will was done. He had lost himself in the message of a broken gospel and forgotten who he truly was and whose he truly was. When the will was done, then the truth was revealed and the facade of the lie fell apart and revealed the truth. Jesus said, “If you will continue in the truth and follow after it, then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8.32) Jesus is that truth we must continue in and follow after. We must know the truth and become the truth; not of the world as the world sees truth but as the Kingdom where the truth is all that exists. We are called, mighty ones of God, to be the kingdom of God in the world and of that kingdom there shall be no end. In this world, we are called to declare the end of the world and the lie which is professes to be the truth. That is our real battle command and identity. So shall it be! Shalom, y’all.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.