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.

This is the third installment on the subject of what to do with the matter of evil. In the first minute we were born, life showed itself as struggle to survive, thrive and succeed. Thinking is hard work and accurate thinking is doubly hard. If you haven’t read the first two articles with the same name please do so as I will be building a line of thinking that will make more sense if you have all the pieces.

In my first article on this subject we were looking at how many have considered evil a battle we can’t win and often people resign themselves to just try to avoid it as best they can. This is the lie that comes from Satan to persuade us to give up before we try. I used as an illustration the Star Wars saga and the battle of what seems to be weak rebels and the mighty corrupt empire. In real life we are confronted by many forms of evil from telling simple lies to out-and-out brutality. Evil is a fact but doesn’t have to win the day. God made us with the ability to not only challenge evil but also to win over it. According to the apostle Paul that’s called a “Good Fight”. If you haven read that first article please do so before reading this second installment on this subject.

Sometimes in life it feels like it doesn’t matter what you do because evil is going to win. The problem with that thinking is that it’s a lie and Satan and his evil servants want you to believe it so that the lie becomes enlarged and the truth shrinks in your eyes. Satan wants you to believe that evil is stronger than you are so you will give in and surrender.