Who You Been Fightin?

Several years ago, in the middle of worship, the Lord showed me something that I have never forgot.

We had been in an extended time of prophetic worship and were just lingering in His presence. All of a sudden, by the Spirit, I began to see a sword in the distance, but it was moving toward me. I had the sense that this sword had been in battle, don’t know exactly how I knew that, but that was what I felt. The sword continued to get closer and closer. I began to see a shine on the sword. It shined and shined. It finally reached me.

Instantly, I felt the Lord speak to my heart. HE said, “Notice that there is no blood on this sword, even though it has been in battle.” No blood, no grime, no dirt, just a shine.

Then I felt the Holy Spirit bring back to my memory a scripture. Ephesians 6:12, in the Modern King James Version, says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world's rulers, of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places." The Good News Bible puts it this way, “For we are not fighting against human beings, but against the wicked spiritual forces in the heavenly world, the rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers of this dark age. “ I began to understand that the Lord was trying to speak to me about the real battle.

Many times the enemy of our life will try to get you and I engaged with someone else in anger, envy, lies, resentment, unforgiveness, jealousy, manipulation, intimidation, fear, you know, all these kind of things. But remember, we just read, we aren’t in a fight with human beings over our spiritual life. What the Scriptures do say is, that other people are not our enemy! The Bible is pretty clear who our enemy is, it is the principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual wickedness in high places. IT IS NOT EACH OTHER!!!

We, as the Body of Christ, have fought each other to such a degree that there are some who will not even fellowship or have anything to do with others who are not like them. And yet those others are blood-bought, with the very same blood of the Lamb that you and I have! They are just like you and I! Jesus died for all those who were lost in sin! That was every one of us! Those of us who have accepted Jesus into our hearts are members of the same body. We are brothers and sisters by the blood, not belief and doctrine!

I know people hurt us in many ways. Our self-defense mechanisms kick in to gear when we think we are being taken advantage of. We put up walls to keep others out because we are afraid that we are going to get hurt. The problem is, we put the walls up in the wrong place! We have just cut ourselves off from the rest of the Body of Christ. We have got to remember, that person who is being used to inflict the pain or anguish, is not our enemy. They might obviously be a tool the real enemy is using, but they are not my enemy.

We are all having to walk this walk by faith. As my friend Deb says, “it’s a faith thing.” The problem with thinking we are in a warfare against others is, that it is not a battle of faith. A battle of faith doesn’t work against other blood-bought believers. It most likely doesn't even work against people who are not born again. It probably only works against the real enemy of our soul.

So, who you been fightin ?