This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels. Ephesians 6:12 (MSG)

God wants us strong, so he’s placed weapons of righteousness at our disposal. These weapons require us to work with him, relying upon him when we come up against the enemy.

God is our strength, and we are strong because he is with us and he is in these spiritual weapons. They only work when we’re in communion with him. Our strength is dependent upon him, a paradox of the faith, where we become strong in our weakness.

Our objective-in-Jesus is to use everything God gives us: we learn to utilize weapons of the Spirit; what they are, how to use them, when to use them. These weapons are one way God becomes our strength.

Weapons of the Spirit include such things as honesty, humility, authenticity, grace, love, prayer, obedience, community, healthy dependence, God’s Word, and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us.

In contrast, weapons of the flesh include such things as excessive anger, manipulation, blame, shame, hatred, pride, sneaky-hiding, self-centeredness, defensiveness, and an unhealthy I-don’t-need-you attitude.

The spiritual battle in which we’re engaged is “no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish . . .” (Ephesians 6:12 MSG).

It’s a cataclysmic, brutal, bloody war of eternal significance. Yet, in this war we have God with us, God in us, and God for us. He’s given us weapons of his own design to employ and deploy.

How long will we try to be pacifists—neutral Christians—in a universal war?

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