Using Godly Weapons

by Rick Blumenberg / @rickblumenberg

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strong­holds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:3-5

We are at war—not with guns or bombs, but a war be­tween good and evil. Sometimes it almost seems as if we Christians surrender by using Satan's weap­ons and ignoring the weapons of God.

In the past few years there has been a rash of shootings—mass killings totally beyond the comprehension of most people. Every time it happens, the battle over whether or not guns should be allowed, or if certain high-powered, automatic weapons should be allowed, rages. I won’t take sides on that issue, or even discuss it here.

In this article I am more concerned that God’s people use His divine weapons to win the spiritual battles we face. If we try to do God’s work with Satan’s weapons, we may become involved in satanic activity. But if we use the weapons of God, they destroy the enemies of God, not by killing, but by transforming them into friends and lovers of God. The apostle Paul was a good example. He hated Christians and tried to destroy them until he came to know Christ, who radically transformed his life so he became a godly man and perhaps the most influential man in the history of the world other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

So what are the weapons of God?

Prayer is one of God’s primary weapons when we learn to pray, discover the influence of prayer and then pray—so God’s power is released into our human situation. Prayer cannot be used to get God to do bad things—he just won’t cooperate. But anything good that needs to be done can bring God’s support with this powerful weapon of prayer. All that’s required is enough faith to pray to God and trust him to help. Understandable, we know God sometimes says no because in his wisdom he knows that what we ask for in prayer would not be good for us or for the persons we pray for. “No” from God is just as loving as “yes”.

Another of God’s weapons is Holy Scripture. The Bible has the power to transform our lives and change us from sinful to godly. The wisdom of the ages is found there and even more so, the wisdom of God, waiting for us to read, apply it to our lives, and teach it to our children and others, by word and deed.

The weapon of a godly life is one of the most powerful against evil because a godly life includes all other divine weapons. Friends of mine both grew up in non-religious homes. When they married, they had no knowledge of God and no desire to get to know him. But the husband worked for a godly man and he was so amazed at what he saw in this man’s life that he wanted to be like him. When he discovered the man was a Christian, the couple went to church and accepted Christ as Savior. The result was that their children grew up in a home full of love with lives full of the knowledge of God. A Christ-like life, lived consistently in the power of the Holy Spirit, is God’s most powerful weapon against evil.

God has a huge arsenal of weapons to use against evil. Such weapons as kindness, blessing, and encouragement, lived out in the lives of good people, can transform the lives of families, friends and co-workers to the glory of God and for the good of all mankind.

I'm Rick Blumenberg and that's My View from Tanner Creek.