Schemes
“Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand
against the devil’s schemes.”
“…in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not
unaware of his schemes.”
We’ve all been had. Isn’t it a
terrible experience? Worse yet is being duped and not knowing it. That is
deception. It is possible that we are being deceived right now. We exist to
lead all generations to love God, one another and the world in the Spirit of
Jesus. We are to love and lead, lead and love. I truly believe that is God’s
intention for the church. There are, however, real principalities and powers
organized to combat our loving and leading. How do we confront these powers?
We
confront dark power by loving. We love God through worship and obedience.
We love one another through fellowship and service. We love the world through
missions. We confront the powers by loving those difficult to love through the
Spirit of Christ. Greg Boyd wrote, “The way we fight principalities and powers
is by loving those who are unlovable, those who are against us, and putting on
display the character of our God and His Kingdom because His character is
revealed on Calvary.” We are called to love and lead in the power provided by
the Spirit. This is a call to spiritual struggle. Love is a battlefield.
We
confront dark power by leading wisely; by being aware of the schemes. We
can avoid being outwitted by living humbly and thoughtfully. From time to time
it makes good sense to explore some of the powers’ schemes. My next message
series begins October 27 and will be titled, Schemes. We will explore common hindrances to loving and leading in
the Spirit of Jesus. The arsenal is full so this series will not be
comprehensive. I have selected six schemes that are common to churches like
ours. We will explore the schemes: cynicism, nominalism, parochialism,
factionalism, materialism and fatalism/universalism.
I would love for you
to be an engaged part of this series. I’d love to hear your thoughts on
spiritual warfare. Twitter, Facebook and
Blogger work fine. Send a letter. Email me @ msnowden@fbcwaco.org. Carrier pigeons
and smoke signals are cool. Thanks!
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