by Joyce Meyer
Waging spiritual warfare successfully requires thoughtful planning and strategies. In this chapter and the next one, I will explain those strategies and offer you a plan that will help you every time you are in a battle with the enemy.
Strategy #1: Worship
First, let me say that the strategies we use to fight the spiritual war are not the ways the world fights. Actually, they are the opposite of anything we would think fighting might be. If you remember the strategy God gave Jehoshaphat to fight his battle, you will recall that nothing he did should have defeated the enemy. But since he acted in obedience to God and did what would seem foolish to the world, God fought for him and defeated his enemy. Through his obedience he let God fight his battle.
Jehoshaphat worshipped God and sent singers to sing, and God defeated his enemy. So we see that worship wins the war, and worship is defined as “reverence and adoration of a deity.” According to biblical examples, worship may also involve physically bowing on our knees and even bowing low and placing our faces on the ground. Jehoshaphat bowed with his face to the ground and worshipped (see 2 Chron. 20:18). Today we think we are worshipping if we sing a song in church, but the true meaning of the word worship certainly involves more than that.
How could a person fight a war while bowing on his knees? That would seem to give the enemy an advantage and the freedom to attack. But when we bow in reverence and true worship, we put ourselves in a position in which we are very vulnerable unless God comes through and fights for us. This was a position of total trust on Jehoshaphat’s part. He must have realized a powerful enemy was close to attacking and possibly annihilating him and his people—and his only defense was to bow in worship and send singers to sing. I am not indicating that we must bow on our knees in order to worship God, but it is an example of worship in Scripture.
God has given the church many songs that move us in spirit, and just as singers were part of God’s battle plan for Jehoshaphat and his people, when we sing to and about the Lord, we wage a specific kind of warfare that is understood only in the spiritual realm. Many of us can testify that God has used a specific song to strengthen and minister to us in difficult times.
Another example of the power of worship in warfare is when Paul and Silas sang and prayed at midnight while they were in prison, and suddenly the prison doors opened supernaturally (see Acts 16:25–26).
Satan hates Spirit-filled music. Some Bible translators believe Satan was once a worship leader in heaven, based on the King James Version of Ezekiel 28:13. Whether he was or not, it is evident that he hates godly music and that music can be very effective in spiritual warfare. The ability to sing is a gift from God, and even if all we can do is make a joyful noise, it is enough to help us in our battles.
Strategy #2: Rest
When I began to learn who my true enemy was, understanding that I had authority and power over him and knowing I could and should do warfare against him, I found it exhausting. I seemed to be fighting against or resisting something almost all the time. But the really frustrating part of it was that no matter what I did, it didn’t help.
One of my problems was that I was trying to get my difficulties to disappear, but God’s goal was to make me strong enough that those problems didn’t bother me. One day I sensed the Lord speaking this question in my heart: “Joyce, how did Jesus wage spiritual warfare?” As I thought about it and compared what I was doing to the way Jesus dealt with the devil, I quickly recognized that what He did was very different from what I was doing.
The devil has probably never attacked anyone as often and as intently as he did Jesus, yet we never see Jesus lose control or even seem worried, afraid, or upset by anything the enemy did. Why? Part of the answer is that He knew Who He was and where He came from. He also knew what He was sent to do and where He was going after His job was complete. We can and should know these same things. You and I are children of God; we came from Him and are created in His image; He has a plan for our lives, and when our time here on Earth is over, we will go to Heaven and dwell in His presence forever (see Rom. 8:16, 29; Acts 2:28). This knowledge should give us a fresh perspective on fighting the devil simply because no matter what he does, we have already won the battle. Our destiny is settled. Our home is waiting for us in Heaven, where we will live with God for eternity.
When Jesus was raised from the dead, Satan’s fate was settled, and we are merely walking out our part of God’s overall plan until the final enemy—death—is defeated.
As I began seriously looking at Jesus’ response to Satan’s attacks, I realized that one thing He did was to enter God’s rest. The rest God offers is referred to as a “Sabbath rest” (see Heb. 4:9–10), and it involves much more than setting aside one day of the week not to work. The Sabbath the Old Testament Jews observed was a type and shadow of the true Sabbath rest God offers us now.
Vine’s Greek New Testament Dictionary says the kind of rest God offers “is not a ‘rest’ from work but in work” (italics mine) (gospelhall.org/bible). It is not inactivity, but resting while being active. It is the harmonious working together of all your faculties because each has found its sphere of satisfaction in Christ. When we are enjoying the rest of God, we are not worried, emotionally upset, or willfully trying to take care of problems ourselves without leaning on God. We are not relentlessly trying to figure out what we should do; we are telling God that we don’t know what to do, but our trust is in Him.
This helps us understand Paul’s statement in Ephesians 6:13 regarding spiritual warfare, to do all the crisis demands and to stand firmly in our place. We can do what God asks us to do, but do it from a position of rest rather than one of worry, reasoning, fear, frustration, and struggle.
Hebrews 4:10 teaches us to cease “from [the weariness and pain of]… [human] labors” and enter into the rest of God. When Jesus ascended to Heaven after His resurrection, He was told to come and sit at God’s right hand (signifying rest) until His enemies were made a stool for His feet (see Acts 2:32–35). This statement makes it clear that God the Father has further plans for Satan’s total defeat. Jesus had done His part; now He was to simply enter God’s supernatural rest and wait until God finished what only He could do.
This is a perfect picture of what we are also supposed to do, which is to do what God tells us to do, or whatever we can do in the crisis at hand, and then enter God’s rest and wait for Him to do what only He can do.
Jesus is always depicted as seated in heavenly places, not standing but seated (see Eph. 1:20; Heb. 8:1). This implies rest, and it was not available until Jesus died for our sins, descended into Hell, took the keys of Hell and death away from Satan, and rose victoriously. Satan is already defeated, and by entering God’s rest when we face crises in our lives, we show that we trust and believe that God will take care of us. The enemy can come against us, but he cannot defeat us if we walk in the truth that our battles belong to the Lord and we learn to let Him fight them for us.
Strategy #3: Remain Calm in Adversity
God wants us to stay calm in adversity, and according to Psalm 94:12–13, He disciplines us by trial until we learn to do so. In other words, we go through difficulties until we learn not to let them frighten or disturb us. Our difficulties do not come from God, but He does use them to help us grow spiritually.
Let’s look at Paul’s attitude during times of great trial:
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
2 Corinthians 4:8–10 ESV
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things th
at are unseen are eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16–18 ESV
Paul did not state that his trials were easy, but he did say that they did not make him worry, fear, become anxious, or despair. He endured difficulties, but he remained in God’s rest. Going through a trial is enough to deal with on its own without having to worry and be anxious about it. Thank God for His gracious invitation to enter His rest!
Rest is warfare in the spiritual realm simply because Satan cannot understand how we can have such intense problems and rest in the midst of them. Jehoshaphat was delivered while worshipping and singing, and entering the rest of God does the same for us. We rest, God works, and we enjoy the benefit.
Strategy #4: Stay Protected by God’s Presence
Understanding the importance of dwelling in God’s presence is the next important subject I want to talk about in this chapter. I spent too many years seeking His presents (what He could do for me) when I should have been seeking His presence (Who He is). Recognizing the value and power of God’s presence whether He is doing anything for us or not at that moment is very important. It is Him we need, not what He can do for us. We need to learn to seek God’s face, not just His hand.
Anything besides God that we feel we have to have to be satisfied is something the devil can use against us. We all want many things, but only one thing is needful, and that is God Himself.
When God sent Moses to take the people into the Promised Land, Moses said to Him, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people” (Exod. 33:12–13 ESV).
Notice that Moses requested God do something to prove His favor toward him. But God said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Exod. 33:14 ESV). Moses quickly responded, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Exod. 33:15 ESV).
Moses was wise enough to know that if God’s presence was not with him, there was no purpose in going because he would surely be defeated. God’s presence is always with us because He promised to never leave or forsake us (see Deut. 31:6).
Brother Lawrence, a monk who lived during the 1600s, decided to dedicate his life to practicing the presence of God and to never go very long without being consciously aware that God was with him. It took many years to fully form the habit of doing so, but at least he realized the importance of seeking God more than anything else. You and I need to recognize the importance of seeking His presence, just as Brother Lawrence did.
How long do you go without even thinking about God? Jeremiah said that God’s people went days without number and never even thought about Him (see Jer. 2:32). We should not think of God only on Sunday mornings when we go to church or merely when we have a problem with which we need His help. He wants and deserves to be involved in all we do. We need His presence all the time, and He is never more than one thought away.
In Joshua 6:8–9, when the Israelites marched into battle, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets and the ark of the covenant, which carried the presence of God, led the way. They knew God had to go first or they would be slaughtered.
The psalmist David has a great deal to say about the importance of the presence of God:
• In Psalm 27:4–6 he writes that there is only one thing he desires: to behold God’s beauty and dwell in His presence all the days of his life.
• He says that God will hide him in His shelter in the day of trouble and that his head would be lifted above his enemies (see Ps. 27:5–6). We can see from this that dwelling in God’s presence is a form of spiritual warfare. When we seek God, He protects us from our enemies.
• In Psalm 31:20, David writes that we are hidden “from the strife of tongues” in the presence of God. As a public figure I am aware that some people may say unkind things about me, and this Scripture gives me comfort. It is great to know that in God’s presence, I am hidden from the strife-filled comments people may make about me.
• Psalm 91:1 declares that the one who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty, and the remainder of the Psalm is about how that person will be protected and delivered. Verses 9–10 say that if we make the Lord our dwelling place, no evil will be allowed to befall us.
I love all these marvelous promises of protection for those who seek God’s presence. If you make seeking God a priority, you will be doing spiritual warfare, perhaps without even realizing it.
Here are a few suggestions for how you can practice making God’s presence more of a priority in your life:
• Practice seeking God for Who He is, not just for what He can do for you. You might even take a few days to avoid asking God for anything other than Himself.
• Start each day spending time with God in His Word or simply talking with Him. Tell Him you have no desire to do anything without Him, and ask Him to make His presence real to you.
• Stop what you’re doing several times a day and remind yourself that God is with you right now! Tell God you need Him and appreciate His presence in your life.
• Thank God throughout the day. There are hundreds of things we can thank Him for daily if we make a habit of doing so.
Learning to practice God’s presence will require forming some habits that will help you do it, and that takes time. Don’t be impatient with yourself if you get busy and find you’ve gone through the day without thinking about Him. Just tell Him you are sorry and celebrate the times you do remember. God appreciates any effort we make to seek Him or to know Him better.
We are protected in and by God’s presence! Spending time with God, whether for a few hours or even a few minutes, is a type of spiritual warfare, and it is very enjoyable.
CHAPTER 16
Spiritual Warfare God’s Way, Part 2
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
James 4:7 ESV
The only way to gain victory over the enemy in a spiritual war is to follow God’s directions, not to do it in ways we might think would be effective. In this chapter, I want to share with you four more strategies for winning the spiritual war by fighting it God’s way.
Strategy #5: Obedience
We often hear people quote only the last half of James 4:7. They say, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (ESV), but that is not the entire verse. Focusing on only half of the verse is dangerous because there is no way to resist the devil unless we first submit to God and His will.
Actually, anytime we submit to God and do what He asks instead of doing what we may want to do, we engage in spiritual warfare. Satan hates it when we obey God, and our obedience is a powerful force against him.
One is to simply be obedient to God! All disobedience opens a door for the enemy and gives him access to our lives. This is especially the case if we are aware that what we are doing is against God’s will and do it anyway.
Let’s remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when He asked for His suffering to pass if possible. But He quickly added, “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42 ESV). We can ask for anything we want, but should always be clear that if what we want is not God’s will, we don’t want it. When I pray, I frequently say after making a request, “Lord, if what I am asking isn’t Your will, please don’t give it to me.”
A good place to begin walking in greater obedience in our lives is to take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ (see 2 Cor. 10:5). Our thoughts are private, and no one knows what they are except God and us, so we strike a blow to the enemy when we honor God by bringing our thoughts into obedience to Him and to His Word. More than anything else, the enemy wants to control the way we think because the way we think will become the way we behave.
Obedience to God
is how we show our love for Him. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15 ESV). I want to point out that He did not say, “If you obey Me, I will love you.” God already loves us unconditionally. His love for us is not based on our obedience, but obedience is the way we demonstrate our love for Him. The apostle John writes, “This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it” (2 John 1:6 NKJV). And Jesus says that we are blessed when we hear the word of God and obey it (see Luke 11:28).
Strategy #6: Use the Power of Words
Another way we can and should do spiritual warfare is through the words we speak. The Bible is filled with insight and wisdom about the importance of words. I never write a book without at least including some teaching on the power of words. We can wage warfare with our words.
One of the best examples of this is in Luke 4:1–12. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for forty days and the devil tempted Him there. When He was hungry Satan suggested that if He was the Son of God, He could use His power and turn the stones around Him into bread. Jesus said to the devil, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone’” (Luke 4:4 ESV). Satan did not give up; he showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve”’” (Luke 4:5-8 ESV).
Satan said the kingdoms of the world had been given to him, but God certainly wasn’t the one who gave them to him. So who did? Adam and Eve gave them to him. When they disobeyed God and listened to Satan’s lies, they allowed him to steal the authority God had given them. Jesus came and took that authority back from the devil and has now given it back to us, but we have to believe in it and walk in it, or it does us no good. Just as Adam and Eve gave up their authority through disobedience, we take back our authority and maintain it through being obedient to God.
