Tips, Hints, Advice and Wisdom

[Keith]

I thought it might be helpful to have a thread with suggestions from people on how they fight during spiritual warfare. What do you believe is key to any struggle or battle?

I'll start with asking you to read my signature below. Nothing beats the Word! Especially when the battle is in the mind. Jesus used the Word when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness. I think this is a great example. He certainly had on the whole armour of God and was prepared, not that it was easy for Him. Having scriptures for these battles ready in our memories, or even on slips of paper we carry in our wallets/purses for just such times is part of being prepared for the battle. My other tip is, of course, to stay close to the Lord and call out to Him immediately for strength, grace and courage.

[Leonard]

Try everything! Be intent on winning.

[Willow]

I thought it might be helpful to have a thread with suggestions from people on how they fight during spiritual warfare.  What do you believe is key to any struggle or battle?

I'll start with asking you to read my signature below.  Nothing beats the Word!  Especially when the battle is in the mind.  Jesus used the Word when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness.  I think this is a great example.  He certainly had on the whole armour of God and was prepared, not that it was easy for Him.    Having scriptures for these battles ready in our memories, or even on slips of paper we carry in our wallets/purses for just such times is part of being prepared for the battle.  My other tip is, of course, to stay close to the Lord and call out to Him immediately for strength, grace and courage.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well Keith you pretty much summed it up there!

I have spent much of my life in spiritual warfare. My spiritual heritage leaves something to be desired. Only my Grandmother (mom's mom) was a Christian. My other grandmother found Christ very very late in life (though Praise God for that!!) And none of my grandfathers are believers. In fact....they come from some very shady spiritual beliefs. My parents were both Christians when they got married, but dad was the baby Christian. And I believe now - a very wise well read man, he is just beginning what I would call the journey to a more fulfilled walk with the Lord.....29 years later.....

That being said - any spiritual ground we are trying to gain in our family we have had to fight for. Always. It is tough. I speak of warfare on the family front since I believe that is where we get our strength and outlook sometimes to help others. I am trying to establish a new spiritual heritage in my family....one that will continue to praise the name of Jesus long after I am gone. The devil can have no more of my family, nor will I let him gain anything else in my family. Not as long as I am breathing and praying.

The word is your weapon. But the other thing that is our weapon is knowing who we are in Christ. Understanding what it truly means to be a child of God. Understanding what immense power and authority comes with knowing and fighting in the name of Jesus.

Acts 19 (NIV)

13Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." 14Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. 15(One day) the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" 16Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

    17When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. 18Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. 19A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. 20In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

*highlighted parts are what I was people to notice.

I don't want to have a spirit say to me - who are you? I want to walk in this world and have evil spirits tremble that a warrior of God is walking nearby.Someone who knows she is a daughter of the Most High God, Prince of Peace, Almighty One, Alpha and Omega, and she will not take their schemes of evil anymore.

I don't want to be 'known' because I am power hungry. I can't do a thing myself. But I know that God has placed a call on my life, and that when I pray, part of why my prayer works is because I know who I am. I still struggle with it from time to time and need reminding. Actually I am reminding myself right now. It has been a long year of non-stop, in your face warfare at home.

I remember one night, sitting on my bed, having the devil whisper in my ear bad things.....hateful, condemning, disheartening lies that I felt like Jesus being tempted in the desert. i was quoting scripture as fast as I could remember it. I was reading as fast as I could get to those pages. Finally I put my bible down and I yelled "ENOUGH! I know who you are, and I know what you are trying to do. I WON"T take it anymore. I won't listen to you and I will fight you. Not because I am strong, but because Jesus lives in me and I am bought with HIS blood. I am His daughter. And as such I have authority given to me to tell you be GONE in Jesus name!".......oh I didn't stop there......."Be very careful....I can smell you.....I see when you are around....you think you are subtle....you think you are sneaky....but I see when you are around....and I won't stand for your antics anymore. IT-IS-WAR....."

Boy was there silence in my head, heart and bedroom after that. I felt a piece come over me. My body was exhausted - like I had just experienced a real physical fight.....but I felt strengthen inside. The oddest feeling. I have since stood in the face of terror....the face of terrible things....and God has come to my aid. And it hasn't always looked like I thought it would, but he was there none the less.

Spiritual warfare is so different from anything we really understand. You are fighting something unseen.....yet this unseen manages to manifest in different ways physically in our lives. We can't use tools of man to fight this. We must use tools of God.

I think I had more to add but my eyes are bugging out starring at this screen and it is time to feed the doggies I am looking after. More later if anything comes to me.

Blessings,

Wills

[Christ's Free Servant]

Well, I have to go get ready for work now, but I am interested in this topic. I will try to respond later. I hope you get some really good responses, because I think this is one thing that is really needed today. I see so many people struggling with sin and who are regularly giving the enemy a foothold in their lives, but who either don't know how to fight the battle or else don't want to fight the battle, and it is so discouraging to see them so bound by sin and sin's effects on their lives. I would love to see everyone experience true freedom in Christ. It's like having the escape route out of a burning building and trying to tell people where it is and how to get there and they don't see it or they refuse to see it and so they end up burning in the building. No matter how much you want them to find the way out, they don't or won't and sometimes you wish you could shake some sense into them. I think sometimes people are more comfortable holding on to what they know than they are in reaching out beyond to the unknown, even if the unknown will bring them freedom. They are content in their misery, so to speak, often because they are too lazy to do what it takes to fight the fight, to run the race and to finish. So, they accept status quo. They accept less, because it's comfortable.

Well, time's up for now. I'll talk with ya'll later.

[-Nolongerinwaiting-]

I thought it might be helpful to have a thread with suggestions from people on how they fight during spiritual warfare.  What do you believe is key to any struggle or battle?

I'll start with asking you to read my signature below.  Nothing beats the Word!  Especially when the battle is in the mind.  Jesus used the Word when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness.  I think this is a great example.  He certainly had on the whole armour of God and was prepared, not that it was easy for Him.    Having scriptures for these battles ready in our memories, or even on slips of paper we carry in our wallets/purses for just such times is part of being prepared for the battle.  My other tip is, of course, to stay close to the Lord and call out to Him immediately for strength, grace and courage.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well i have to say that this is a good topic. I do also think we should put on the whole armour of God to stand against Satan with everything that he throws are why. We have to be on guard at all the times with the things we hear and to test the spirits to where they are coming from. It is good to know scriptures as well to quote it out loud. There are no greater things to do then quote scripture,pray, worship and lift up the name of Jesus with other believers.

well its time for me to go to work, later. God bless you all.

*Sandra*

[yomotalking]

I thought it might be helpful to have a thread with suggestions from people on how they fight during spiritual warfare.

[yomotalking]

But I'm not at ALL good at spiritualWarfare....

[Christ's Free Servant]

I thought it might be helpful to have a thread with suggestions from people on how they fight during spiritual warfare.  What do you believe is key to any struggle or battle?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I believe the key to conquering any struggle or battle is to know the truth and to know what are lies so that you can put off the lies of Satan and put on the truth of God's word. So many people struggle, I believe, because they are believing Satan's lies that they can't make it or something is too difficult, but Christ already won the battle for us, all we have to do is make claim to what he already did on the cross. Satan has convinced so many Christians that there is still a question of who is going to win, and so they think they must struggle, but if we all took the attitude of David when he went up against Goliath, we could win those battles. David went against Goliath with full confidence that the battle was already won. There was no question in his mind whatsoever as to the outcome of the battle. He knew God was going to take care of Goliath.

We need to approach spiritual warfare that way. We need to put on the armor of God each day, prepared for battle, proactive and with our offensive weapons in place, not just our defensive ones. The problem, I believe, with why so many Christians battle is that they see themselves as victims and helpless and they utilize only their defensive weapons and so they get beat down. They need to begin going after Satan with the truth of God's word instead of retreating in fear or putting up their arms to try to keep from getting hit, like a child would do if he thought someone was going to hit him. We need to know that Christ has won, there is no question as to who will win the fight, we need to be proactive and we need to put on our offensive weapons.

Our strongest weapon of all is the Word of God, and we have to quote it aloud to Satan every time he throws his lies at us. One final thing is that we need to understand the Sovereignty of God. It took me a long time to get this, but if we could all understand that nothing will come into our lives but what God will give us the grace to handle it, and not only that, but it is most likely there because he had it planned to be there to grow us and to teach us and to make us more like him, so we often resist God, instead of resisting Satan, and we buy into Satan's lies when we should be putting on Christ's truths. I am learning so much these days about the Sovereignty of God and how he can help me in any situation, because he has a plan for my life and what I am going through is part of his plan.

[other one]

From the experience that I have had, never confront a spirit or spiritual problem head on unless the Holy Spirit has instructed you to. When He does instruct you to the way and method is of little consequence for it will be He that actually does the work.

We can only invoke the power of the Lord for our spiritual fights and we should know before hand if He wants us to deal with it. Sometimes it simply isn't the right time time to deal with it

Also if you do evil spiritual removal from a person, make sure that person wants the spirit removed and is ready for Christ to send the Holy Spirit. Later the demons will return to that person and if they find that the Holy Spirit is not there they will re enter that person, and the person will be worse off than they were to start with.

Never approach an evil spirit with fear or hate in your heart or you will have lost the fight from the start.

[Catsmeow]

Nothing beats the Word! *( ) Especially when the battle is in the mind.  Jesus used the Word when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness.  I think this is a great example. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Keith, it is a great example. Jesus showed us exactly how to fight our battles.

He also gave us an example of prayer and intercession. Once I began fighting battles using scripture, the Lord began to show me I need to get busy and PRAY!

Now, it's harder to post as much because there's such a need for intercession and time required to study the Word and commit it to memory.

The biggest hindrance I see is time (or lack thereof.)