Spiritual Warfare

I grew up thinking nothing about spiritual warfare, because no one in my church ever talked about it. I thought it was all baloney-the same as ESP, telepathy, ghosts. One thing my relationship with Christ has taught me is that as real as He is, Satan and his angels are just as real. It's a thing that I've really done a lot of thinking about lately. My own personal experience has been mostly with unexplainable depression--a sadness that feels like a physical weight, one that stops up the ability to feel anything for anyone. I dealt with that most recently last semester, and it came up suddenly. It was set apart from everything in my life--everything was going fine. My classes, my friendships, there were no crushes on guys to make me feel depressed. It culminated one night when I was alone in my house and I just started eating and crying and then I couldn't stop crying and I didn't know why. And I went up into the bathroom and collapsed at the bathtub, and all of a sudden thoughts of suicide just popped into my head. For no reason. When that happened, I literally ran from the sin of my despair, almost shouting , "No" outloud and I ran from the room. It's frightening, the influence and thoughts that Satan can put in your head. But it's awesome how God fights for you every step of the way. I struggled to know He was there in that time, to feel His presence, and He was faithful, He brought me through.

I guess I'm just bringing this up now because I feel very sensitive to the reality of the war between God and Satan, salvation and sin. And I am so thankful that the One in me is more powerful than the ruler of the air, that He has already won. It's already accomplished. Death has no power, Satan no lasting victory in me because of Christ.

The link I put in my title (just click on it) is an interesting sermon my pastor preached awhile back, in which he describes an experience he had with spiritual warfare. Satan is real. God is real. And God is so good, Christ is so merciful. I pray that I would have a growing capacity for understanding of this truth, and that that understanding would lead to submission and humility.