Waging the Lord's War

2 Corinthians 10:1-18

Key Verse 10:3

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

Skim through the passage. In verse 3 the Apostle Paul states that the way we wage war is different than the way the world does. What does the Bible passage, particularly, the following expressions, indicate about the differences? 

The meekness and gentleness of Christ

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world

We demolish arguments and every pretention that sets itself up against the knowledge of God

We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ

We belong to Christ

The authority the Lord gave us

The Lord commends

** It has been said that there is only one war, that is, the war between Satan’s kingdom and the kingdom of God. Jesus came to destroy the work of the evil one. So we wage war against that which Jesus sends us to fight. Naturally, we need to adopt Jesus’ way.

(1) Meekness has to do with humility. Jesus recognized his position as an unworthy servant. He served with a humble attitude, serving many, even to the point of dying on a tree. 

(2) The people of this world fight their wars with missiles, guns, and knives. But Jesus’ people fight the Lord’s war with the word of God and prayer. So each time we meet people like our Bible students or work with fellow workers, we need to pray [before we talk, go out for fishing, or send an email or do anything else]. We also need to carry the word of God in our heart. For this, we need to weekly, if not daily, prepare a deep Bible testimony on Sunday messages, for example. It is also a must to do the daily bread. One way to deeply digest the daily bread passage is to write a daily bread testimony. 

(3) The enemies we deal with are in the form of ‘knowledge’ (or information) that is against the knowledge of God. God revealed himself in the history of the Israelites. At the right time God revealed himself fully through the person and work of our Lord Jesus. So we need to fight for the knowledge of our Lord Jesus so that people would come to know the Lord in person [through our daily life examples, through our obedience, the way of love, and of course teaching the Bible as the Lord commanded us].

(4) The ultimate purpose of our war [in praying for us and for others such as our sheep] is to secure obedience to Christ, as Matthew 28:18-21 say. Adam and Eve started disobeying the Lord’s command in regard to the forbidden fruit. So the remedy ought to be to overcome the life of disobedience and secure the life of obedience to the Lord [and His word]. 

(5) Naturally, the soldiers who wage the Lord’s war must belong to Christ first, for when one does not belong to Christ he is already a loser. Are you Christ’s soldier? In other words, do you truly belong to Christ? 

(6) We fight the Lord’s battle with the authority given by our Lord Jesus. Jesus is the source of all authorities, both in heaven and on earth. This is what we are confident of. Because Jesus gave us the authority to wage the Lord’s war we can participate in the war with confidence for it is impossible for the Lord to lose. 

(7) In waging war we naturally look to someone to give us an approval of what we do. In our case, we look to our Lord Jesus for his approval, for we fight to please our Lord Jesus because it is our Lord Jesus who alone was appointed to sit as the judge (2 Corinthians 5:10).

Write a brief Bible testimony and share with your fellow soldiers on the way to serve the Lord during the summer of 2011 and beyond.

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