Spiritual Warfare

Edward Welch shares the following devotional in the book, Heart of the Matter. He addresses spiritual warfare. This is an important lessen as we often forget that Satan is always ready to attack. Satan, along with the flesh and the world, is a source of temptation who we should never take lightly.

The details of how faith works in spiritual warfare are well known but easily forgotten. First, remember that you have an enemy. Follow the lead of wise people who begin each day by actually saying, "Today, I must be alert that I have an enemy." Ask others to remind you, and be quick to remind others. Realize that you are walking where rebels are known to be in the area. Their lives are devoted to your destruction.

Second, assume that warfare rages. Don't even bother looking for sigs of warfare. Just assume that you are in the thick of it. If you want evidence, don't look for it in the intensity of your depression. Satan will use your pain as a venue to employ well-worn strategies like these: Are you hopeless? Do you believe God is aloof and distant? Do you question God's love? Do you question God's forgiveness? Remember that Satan will always attack the character of God.

Are you listening to wise counsel and Scripture? If not, it is a sure sign that you are losing some spiritual skirmishes. Listening is a mark of humility, and Satan can't successfully fight against it.

A One Time Sacrifice

Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Christ Wants All of Us

The following is a devotional based on Luke 14:25-35 written by Paul David Tripp. The devotional appears in the book, Heart of the Matter.

Christ doesn't just ask for some of our things. He doesn't ask for the majority of our things. He doesn't say, "I want the best of your things." He doesn't warn us that there are going to be times when he will take precious things from us. No, his call from the outset is this: "Any of you who does not give up everything the he has cannot be my disciple." Why is his call so all-inclusive?

Jesus looks at the large crowd and sees people in the midst of a raging personal war. He understands that each one is a worshipper - each of their lives is always shaped by the pursuit of the treasure that has come to rule their hearts. He knows that what they treasure will shape their decisions, actions, and words. And he knows that they will make incredible personal sacrifices to get, keep, and enjoy whatever it is that they treasure. So, in asking his followers to sacrifice everything, he is not calling them to live without anything. No, he is calling them to empty themselves of every other treasure but him. He is saying, "If you are going to be my disciple, I must be the treasure that gives shape and directions to everything you decide, say, and do."

To end this series on Augustine, the authors wrote a prayer for students. I hope you enjoyed this series.

An Augustinian Prayer for a Student

God of Truth and Beauty,
You give each one of us the desire to seek the Truth.
Fire me with a thirst for knowledge and Truth.
Let me use that knowledge to build a community of justice and love.

God of Splendour and Glory,
You show us your splendour in the heavens, the earth and the mystery of each person.
May I see your presence and warming love in the gifts of this earth.
May I reverence this presence.

God, companion on the journey,
You touched the restless heart of Augustine as he searched for you.
Help me to support my friends and students in their quests
and seek their help in mine.
Remind me that you are within me and them as teacher and friend.
Be present to us in the struggles of life as we journey together.

God of Unity, God of Peace,
You inspired Augustine to gather friends around him in community.
May we always live together in harmony and be of one mind and one heart.

Amen.

Part XII - Being a Student: Open to the Transcendent

Lord, that I may know myself as you know me. (Confessions, 10, 1, 1).

The search for God is the search for happiness. The encounter with God is happiness itself. (The Customs of the Catholic Church, 11, 18).

We search God out by loving Him; we reach Him, not by becoming entirely what He is, but in nearness to Him, and in wonderful and immaterial contact with Him, and in being inwardly illuminated and occupied by His truth and holiness. He is light itself; we get enlightenment from Him. The greatest commandment, therefore, which leads to happy life, and the first, is this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind.” For to those who love the Lord all things work unto good. Hence Paul adds shortly after, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor virtue, nor things present, nor things future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (The Customs of the Catholic Church, 11, 18).

God who made you, doesn’t want anything of you but yourself. (Sermon 34, 7).

Part XI - Being a Student: Friendly and Community Oriented

We need the gifts of others to make up for what is lacking in ourselves. (Commentary on the Psalms, 125, 13).

There were other joys to be found in my friends’ company which still more powerfully captivated my mind - the charms of talking and laughing together and kindly giving way to each other’s wishes, reading well written books together, sharing jokes and delighting to honour one another, disagreeing occasionally but without rancour, as a person might disagree with himself, and lending piquancy by that rare disagreement to our much more frequent accord. We would teach and learn from each other, sadly missing any who were absent and blithely welcoming them when they returned. Such signs of friendship sprang from the hearts of friends who loved and knew their love returned, signs to be read in smiles, words, glances and a thousand gracious gestures. So were sparks kindled and our minds were fused inseparably, out of many becoming one. (Confessions, 4, 8, 13).

You are all to live together, therefore, one in mind and one in heart and honour God in each other because each of you has become His temple. (Rule, 1, 8).

Where there is no envy or fear, differences, far from creating divisions, foster harmony. (Holy Virginity, 29).

A community is a group of individuals bound together by the harmony and communion as to the things they look for and they love. In order to discover the character of a community we have only to observe what they love. (The City of God, 19, 24).

In an orchestra there are many different instruments. But all are tuned so carefully and played in harmony that the audience only hears one melody. This must be our ideal: to be an orchestra for the Lord (Commentary on the Psalms, 150, 8).

Being a Student - Part X: Committed and Studious

Our life is a pilgrimage and as such, it is full of difficulties. But our maturity is forged by these difficulties. We are not known to ourselves, unless we are tested; neither can we be crowned, if we don’t conquer; nor conquer, if we don’t fight; nor fight, if we lack enemies. (Commentary on the Psalms, 61, 2).

Don’t be sleepy when listening to the truth so as not to be woken up with a start when it comes to settling the bill. (Commentary on the Psalms, 32, 2, 2).

It is of no use “to know” the truth, if, at the same time, you do not embrace it with your life. It is necessary to build on a sure foundation, that is “to hear” and “to do”. The one that hears, and does not do it, builds on sand. The one that neither hears nor does it, builds nothing. The one that hears and does, builds on stone. (Commentary on the Psalms, 58, 17).