‘You don’t see a connection?’
Thanks for your reply and reminder! Anyway, I sure do see a connection. Absolutely! Yet what I was trying to point out, and I suppose not very well, was not that Satan isn’t strong or isn’t wrecking havoc...he is! But even the passage you pointed out in Eph. 6, Paul went on to write that we’ve been given all we need to stand and take the battle to the enemy, but we’re not doing it! (Remember I’m in Belgium)
We can look at Satan and understand that he does what his nature does...he (in part) ‘steals, kills and destroys.’ But Jesus, who has all authority over all kingdoms and dominions, came to give life to the fullest! He called His people ‘salt’ and ‘light!’ Those are to purify, preserve and cleans every area they’re used. But if you’re not salty what good are you to defeat satan? If your light is under a bucket, what good is it?
Jesus said in Matt. 16 that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church. If I choose to look at this place through the lens of satan and his power, the gates of hell are defeating the church.
However, what I was trying to get at was, we have a nature too...a new nature where the living Christ dwells. We need to grow in that nature and, according to Jesus, that’s what all of us are supposed to be doing...making disciples of Jesus Christ.
If we’re not making mature disciples, we have people who are, ‘tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.’ (Eph. 4:14)
Therefore, I agree, Satan is wrecking havoc, but that’s who he is. To me the more important question is, ‘are we living out who we are supposed to be?’ Further, Satan does what he does, but are we taking responsibility for what we are supposed to be doing?
‘Greater is He who is in me than he that is in the world...’ (1 Jn. 4:4)
“Thanks for your reply and reminder! Anyway, I sure do see a connection. Absolutely! Yet what I was trying to point out, and I suppose not very well, was not that Satan isn’t strong or isn’t wrecking havoc...he is! But even the passage you pointed out in Eph. 6, Paul went on to write that we’ve been given all we need to stand and take the battle to the enemy, but we’re not doing it! (Remember I’m in Belgium)”
You are absolutely correct and I am sorry I misunderstood your initial point. We in the US and indeed, I think it is pretty much world wide now, have turned away from God. I can see we are entering a very dark period that will be the beginning of returning to God and His Will. I have never seen so many who have a “feeling of impending doom, or catastrophy” as now. I sometimes wonder if God has not instilled that in us as a final warning. I have changed a lot in the last couple years towards doing more for Christ and I feel led to continue even further...I have also never had so much contentment in my life! Neat how that works...