I remember back when I first got serious in my relationship with God, I was a Spiritual Warfare Freak! I had enough spiritual warfare books that if you stacked them on top of each other it probably would have come out to about 6 feet tall! Well, to make a long story short, I was very unbalanced in my walk. I was extremely “demon conscience” and not very Jesus minded. That alone can lead down a very dangerous road and unfortunately many are going down a road of darkness thinking they are doing warfare.
Who knows where I would be if I continued down a road of doing “spiritual warfare” that man made up instead of the warfare the Bible talks about. I must thank my friend Sandi Querin for the for sitting me down years ago and explaining how I should look to the Word of God to learn Spiritual Warfare and not books man has come up with. That advice saved me from a lot of crap! So thank you Sandi! 
Some may say that the Bible does not give enough info on Spiritual Warefare and that we need books on the topic. But I would have to disagree, if you dig into the Word of God you will find everything you need. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and lead you into all Truth… He is good at that!
I would like to share something that I believe is very relevant to the topic. I can’t say I read a lot of books, I truly don’t have time. So When I am reading, it’s the Bible. There is however a book that I try to go through a couple times a year, that book is “The Conquest Of Canaan” by Jessie Penn-Lewis. I want to share just a little chunk of something that is talked about in this book…
“It is the only safe in this spiritual warfare to have a present tense faith in a present tense application of the Cross.
You may have yielded to the Cross up to the point of all that you knew last week, but there may be a hidden point in your character which the devil knows about and which you do not; and he is quietly fanning it up while you are off guard, thinking you are so “crucified” that he will never be able again to trap you. This is why souls are sometimes deceived and overthrown in the very spot in which they thing they are the strongest. They are off guard, thinking themselves so safe.
The wily foe can wait twenty years, until he senses that you have forgotten all about something in your character – something which God dealt with so deeply that you thought you would never have to face the matter again. But now, twenty years afterwords, it is attached by the enemy without your suspecting, and the occasion comes which causes you to discover that the devil is quietly aiming at the old place of weakness, and you have to vigorously say, “NO! The matter has been settled and must never be debated again!” Therefore you see it is one thing to say by faith that you have died to sin, and it is another thing to let God make it fact. When there comes the actual severance, then you know the knife. Keep this before you as you go forward into this battlefield. Pray the Lord to keep the knife of the Cross applied to every part of your being, your cleverness of intellect, your self-confidence, your sympathies, your affections. Let the knife be used by God all the time, not yesterday, but today. This means keeping the material which the enemy can fasten upon out of his way. The place of victory can only be know as the knife of the Cross is kept continually applied to the old creation day by day.”
This is so very true and rings loud in my heart. So many have gotten off course in their life because they don’t have a present tense faith in a present tense knowing and application of the Cross. So they end up chasing battles that they were never meant to fight, they get blinded by pride and self-centeredness and make their faith about them being a “prayer warrior” instead of Jesus.
I remember back when I had a conversation with a guy I know who used to be awesome. He used to only be concerned with what the Lord wanted Him to do and then he would do it. Now he is a pot smoking drunk. I remember sitting there while he was telling me all the things he liked doing now, but how he still liked giving the devil a black eye. I remember sitting there and getting an image in my mind of him looking like a puppet while the devil was above him looking down being the puppet master. This guy really did think he would live in sin and be perfectly fine fighting against the devil. The enemy had this guy in such a delusion, it was very sad to see.
So as you are going out contending for the faith and giving the devil a black eye while you do it, make sure you have a present tense application of the Cross in your life.
Keep moving forward!
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