It’s so easy in our current world environment to assume our observation and analysis of current events are solid when, in fact, they often are not. We start taking sides about who is right and who is wrong about the same facts that we end up hating people who we once embraced.

We have been exploring the significance of Elijah the prophet of Israel in 1 Kings 17. We are dealing with the events and repercussions of Elijah’s prophecy that there would be no rain in Israel until he prayed again. The drought went on for three and a half years, which enraged king Ahab who was a most wicked man. Our title focuses on “When The Brook Dries Up,” so I want to ask the question, “How Do We Handle” when God’s provision is taken away? How we answer this question will, in a large part, determine whether we move forward in our relationship with God or as some have coined the phrase, “Backslide” in that relationship. Please read the first two articles before proceeding.

We are looking into the life of Elijah to learn principles of how to walk strongly with God in a broken and twisted world. We always need to remember that the brokenness of the world shaped much of what we expect from a good life and often those beliefs are misleading and also very harmful in walking with God. If you haven’t read the first article on this subject please do so before reading this one.

I am always amazed when I learn that todays Christians hardly ever read from the Old Testament, other than the books of Psalms or Proverbs. There is such a wealth of information about how and why God moved in individuals and groups of people, not to mention the nation of Israel. There is a reason why the Old Testament is so much larger than the New Testament. One reason is that it can guide us in our own personal walk because it gives us a detailed history of people’s lives.

This subject matter of “Thinking & Doing” with regards to evil is incredibly important. So much of modern Christianity and teaching revolves around our feelings and well being rather than biblical truth.  The subject of evil seems to only be addressed with regards to how it affects us personally and not how it affects God and others. My desire for this series of articles is to stir true believers to have a balanced life with regards to living in this broken world. If you have not read the first eight articles please do so before proceeding with this final one.

Spiritual warfare has been a subject that I have studied since I got converted back in the late 1960s. To me, it is so obvious that humanity is in a war with Satan since the beginning of creation and, if your eyes are open, it can seems that he is winning. In the book of Revelation, God will overcome Satan but not before there is great sorrow in the heart of God over so many being lost to Satan’s schemes. 

Today I will discuss a subject in which most believers fail to engage: “Spiritual Warfare.” When I say “Spiritual Warfare” I mean taking a consistent stand against evil. I’m not talking about acting like some demon hunter or lunatic that causes other Christians to cringe just being around them, but real Christians acting like real lovers of God. If you haven’t read the first six articles you need to do so before reading on as these articles are linked in a special way and sequence.

We have spent a considerable amount of time delving into our thinking process with regards to evil. In the last article we started to address the doing part. From my experience in Christianity over the last 68 years, professed believers in Christ do more talking than doing. Christianity was always about engagement more than about quoting bible verses or quoting Christian history. When the church was young, some two thousand years ago, people paid a heavy price to say they believed in Jesus.

This is the fifth article about understanding the process of our thinking and reason and now I would like to shift gears into the action we should be engaged in regarding dealing with evil. How and why we think makes all the difference in how and why we should act. From my experience, most Christians don’t have a good thinking and reasoning process engaged in their lives and thus bounce from one idea and sermon to another. Our soul was meant and designed by God to function on our acquired knowledge, experience and wisdom in order to have a successful life. But what happens when we fail to follow through with an actionable lifestyle based on these God-given principles? That is what we will be dealing with in the next few articles. 

In this series I have been dealing with how we think about truth and evil and why it matters so much. In part three on this subject we discussed the apostle Paul’s challenge in Romans 12 to not let the world conform our thinking but rather let God renew our minds with the truth of His Word. Granted, this is easier said than done, but the alternative is to become over run with destructive thoughts that ruin our lives.