Fighting a spiritual battle these days feels like losing a war. The number of people flocking out of churches these days is baffling, and our politics reflect many values that are counter to those of Christian faith. Which has lead me to ponder this idea recently: What if we are fighting the battle wrong? We have a tendency to think that those who oppose us are our enemy, or even God's enemy. But maybe our real enemy has found the perfect strategy to use against us. Battles are won with strategy and deception. Maybe it's worth considering that our enemy has disguised our allies as the enemy in order to get us to battle with the ones that God intends bring into his army, or more so his family. Maybe, in our desperate attempts to do what we think is right and just, we are missing the voice of the commander who is telling us to let him be the one to call the shots. It's not a secret that we tend to let our shots fly, and they don't seem to do anything to hurt our enemy. Instead, Christians have the reputation of being unloving, controversial, closed minded and unjust.
This morning, my pastor said this statement that really struck me.
"We will not have an attitude of us against them. That's ridiculous. They are the kids of the Father, they just haven't met Him yet."
-Pastor Greg Sanders (Vintage City Church- Fort Collins, CO)
If God is pursuing every person and drawing them close to him, then why do we feel that spiritual battle means fighting the people that God loves like a child? Greg Sander's words today were a reminder to me that our enemy is not the people who are lost around us, but the one who fights to keep them lost.
So what would it look like for Christians to fight against the enemy instead of the people being used by the enemy? God has a reputation of doing things his way, and his way often sounds insane. Jesus told us that the most important thing that we must do is love God. And the second most important thing we must do is love each other. It is not a suggestion, it is a command. The greatest command. It is the most important command in spiritual battle. Which means that in order to fight this war, we must choose to love the ones around us in the way that God has called us to.
Do you remember the name of the tree with the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden? It is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Eve was not wrong to believe that there was something that she was missing. When she ate that fruit, her eyes were opened to understand good and evil, aka justice. That's not to say that justice is wrong, but our desire to be the one to enforce it is. God is a God of justice, and that war was already won on the cross. But we have a tendency to think that we have to be the ones to do something about what we see that is wrong. The truth is, we are not designed to do something about what we see as wrong. We do not see good and evil the way God does, and we often do not see how God is addressing it until it is dealt with. But somehow, we still seem to think that we are the ones who have to fix this world in the way that we see fit, and we even have the tenacity to think that our actions are endorsed by God, as if he's not able to enforce justice himself. We are not called to a war of justice, but a war of love. Because, although we do not always see how, justice has already been dealt with. Therefore, we do not need to fight our culture to bring God's justice into our country. We need to fight the enemy to bring God's love into our country.
Choosing love is not as easy as it sounds. Because loving people like God loves us means that we don't get to love them from our own selves. We don't get to choose to be unloving because of our sense of justice. It's not something that God has given us the capability or permission to do. That is why we have to love God first. Because it is only though that love that we are given the ability to love others. So what would our country look like if we fight for love instead of fighting for justice?
When we learn to leave our sense of justice at the door, it means that...
We do not get to judge or dictate someone's sexual identity or choices. We get to choose to love them for the child of that father that God says they are.
We do not get to condemn someone for terminating a pregnancy. We get to create a safe place for them to process the emotional roller coaster of dealing with the responsibility of another life.
We do not get to call politicians evil. We get to pray that the Lord will show them wisdom.
And much much more.
We do not get to tell people that they should be required by law to follow what God says is right. We get to love them despite our difference in belief. We get to invite them into our family. We get to be the ones who love them better than they have ever been loved, because through us, they are loved by God the Father. And that is how we fight in the warfare of the Spiritual. Our role as soldiers is to learn to love God's children the way he loves them, and let him deal with what is right and wrong in the world.
