American Christian Confusion
Content Warning: not recognizing yourself in the mirror, Jesus, faith, Christians, Christianity, America, culture, bride, wedding, God’s Spirit
Here in America it seems we Christians have gotten a bit confused. Me included.
I am not here to fight against *people* for Christ. This is a reminder I need to give myself.
“For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12 NLT
“For our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:12 NLT
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are here to take care of people. To love our neighbors. To shine a light. To put down our sword. To turn the other cheek. To care for the sick and the elderly. To be kind, compassionate, and forgiving. To care for widows and orphans. To feed the hungry. To heal the sick. To welcome strangers.
“For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son,” Colossians 1:13 NLT
Why are we acting like we’re supposed to fight everyone around us, right now? Why is there an urgency we are all feeling? Our battles are internal. Our battles are in the mind. Our battles are against counterfeit words. Our battles are against the only weapon the enemy has: lies. Lies about who you are and lies about whose you are and lies about your purpose. (*More on this to come in a future post.)
- Jesus already defeated satan. That is why Jesus died.
- The prince of darkness has convinced us there is a battle we need to fight. And we are fighting the wrong enemies.
- Our faith will be tested. Because the devil is checking to see if we know who we are in Christ. We will ALWAYS have access to Jesus, who stands at the door and knocks.
- The King of Kings has already won.
Friends, I am here to remind you: There IS a battle. So some days will truly be more difficult than others. BUT the battle is already won. Jesus made a way for you to be victorious.
Don’t let satan thrash so much on his way down, that he takes you with him on the fall.
He is checking to see if you know WHO YOU ARE IN CHRIST JESUS. He is falling. He is on his way down. He is trying to scoop up as many of us on his way down as possible. But it’s our job to take a step back from screens, to breathe, and to notice: hey. why am I fighting a thing that has already been defeated? There is victory in Jesus. He has overcome the world. (John 16:33)
One of the reasons we are so confused about our true enemies and why we allow fear to dominate our minds is because we are lacking unity as the bride of Christ. Without a unifying culture, we have become stagnant and fearful.
We lack, within our one body, a purposeful unified culture that is rooted deep within Christ. Our united connected culture is what should set us apart. Not our LAWS and our regulations. (That was literally the entire point of Jesus not being an earthly ruler during His round one 33 year ministry. And we are instructed to walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:6.) We should bring the Spirit of the Lord with us. Not hatred and anger and spit. We have the armor of God. Laughter is a medicine. And a weapon. The only place our spit should go is in the dirt to make healing mud. Our culture in the Spirit should be what sets our “Christianity” apart. Our culture is a heavenly culture that we bring to earth. A unified culture that we build together. On purpose. As ONE BODY. The Bride of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the only single human being who gets our full devout allegiance. Your allegiance is not to any other human being person. Your allegiance is not to an association. Your allegiance is not to blue. Your allegiance is not to red. Your allegiance is to the Spirit of God, who because of Christ, lives in YOU.
We are acting like our citizenship is first and foremost to a country. That is a lie the devil is twisting into our hearts and minds every moment we allow our thoughts to be directed by any thing, person, or voice other than the Lord God Almighty, who—may I remind you—DWELLS IN us. (AND possibly in them—your adversaries—too, y’all!) Jesus came for the entire world. Acts 2:39. Not just for Americans.
Because God has chosen to have His Spirit dwell within His believers, that doesn’t mean my feelings are equivalent to God’s Spirit.
Once again: because God has chosen to have His Spirit dwell within His believers, His children, and I am one of His children, that doesn’t mean my feelings are equivalent to God’s Spirit.
Meaning: everytime satan turns toward me, he knows he’s been defeated. He knows his only chance to get me is to lie to me and hijack my feeling to convince me there is a battle I can lose. Feelings can be manipulated by even such a thing as a like or a heart on social media. Feelings aren’t inherently bad! But manipulation is bad, and manipulation is something the darkness knows well.
Because it needs to be said: that fleeting bop inside your chest in response to a like on social media is not the same as the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is an all-consuming knowledge of completeness that makes me understand a concept beyond feeling. The Spirit of God unveils to each of us that the blood flowing within our veins holds the answer to every possible problem. And the solution is always obviously LOVE. The Spirit of God is a sensory completeness, a deep knowing that your imperfect self without Jesus is incompatible with the eternal Spirit of God. This Truth reaches deeper into my being than even a gut feeling. We just don’t have anything else to compare it to.
The devil knows we need to retrain our brains into better habit pathways, especially when it comes to those subconscious pathways we let influence us and our actions and our feelings. So he lies about a false mindset of Us vs. Them by telling me my warning signs are going off in response to THEM. Whoever my THEM is at the moment. When in reality the devil himself has triggered my warning systems. My alarms are trying to alert me to the danger of potential devil manipulation. But he plays a bait and switch game. And too many times I entertain his lies.
Once we buy into the false mindset of Us versus Them—the mindset that our war is between each other and we are to fight, fight, fight against people who are out to get us—satan is granted a foothold in our mind and life. It is from this foothold that he sits and continues to lie. Why? Because that’s all he can do. Remember? He is literally FALLING LIKE LIGHTNING because he has already been defeated. What do villains do on their way down? They grab at anything, and try to take everyone down with them. And if they cannot grab me, because I am out of reach, then a true villain will lie with their dying voice, and hope I listen and believe them, because that is their only avenue left to influence me and therefore the world. Because maybe I’ll entertain the lies for long enough that satan himself gets a final bit of enjoyment or maybe even worse—he convinces me I should stay silent or waste my time and energy on fighting the wrong battles.
Because satan is already falling to his end, he is desperately lying to me that I have a battle to fight against other humans. Satan delights in human beings fighting other human beings. Especially those of us within a group that should be united. We should easily be able to call ourselves AND others followers of Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is Lord ABOVE the devil. And Jesus Christ died for us. That’s the whole battle for me. Always a struggle getting caught up in the lies of the devil, when I know satan has already been defeated by Jesus.
Jesus literally watched the devil “fall like lightning.” (Luke 10:18.)
18 Jesus replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you.20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:18-20
My citizenship is in Heaven. This is a belief we share, fellow Christians. If we claim to believe Jesus then we claim to know and believe this fact about our Heavenly citizenship. Many of us are acting like we’ve either forgotten, or we have never known, where our citizenship rests.
It is our duty to establish a culture that sets us apart, and signifies this Heavenly citizenship. It is not our duty to establish laws that force our beliefs upon others.
Jesus didn’t force anyone to choose Him. Literally everything about Jesus rests upon choice. Jesus invites you. Salvation is an invitation. We CHOOSE to be a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit of God.
God has already defeated the devil. Why am I entertaining the devil’s lies as if I still have a battle to fight? Because personally, my battle has been fought and won. The only battle left may be considered a battle for souls, for others to know Jesus. And if that’s the true battle we’re fighting, may I say yikes? Because we aren’t doing too great of a job letting everyone know Jesus died for us all. He loves us all. All. Even the human beings that you dislike, Jesus died for those people too.
“It is finished.” Jesus said. (John 19:30)
Why don’t we start acting like we believe Jesus’s words? Why have we let the devil steal our Heavenly peace and Heavenly perspective?
Why don’t we establish a culture of unity within our one body, first and foremost? Our one body should work together so that when Christ Jesus returns, we are many parts working together as a whole—His bride. Maybe working together as ONE BODY could be… exciting? I’ve found when all the parts of my body work together as a whole unit, the synergy is infinite and exciting. I want that for us too! The body of the Bride of Christ! We will always have disagreements because the foot will value certain things MORE than the hands will value those same things. That doesn’t make the foot wrong. That doesn’t make the hand wrong. It just means they have a different perspective because they have a different purpose. But the hand and the foot are both still members of the same body—Christ’s bride.
Sometimes I think— what if we actually get to function well enough to plan for the marriage? Embrace the peace that surpasses understanding? And actively care for those who are hurting? This possibility EXCITES me. Strong Jesus vibes with the whole embracing one body plan. (See how I’m learning to embrace my body here.)
Jesus was a culture architect. His blueprints gave us the keys, but we’re too busy acting like toddlers with legos. We are distracted by hitting each other instead of building the masterpiece we’ve just been handed.
As the bride of Christ, we keep forgetting about the whole planks in our eyes and specks in others’ eyes lesson. Forgetting that we’re supposed to work together. That we’re to make sure we recognize ourselves in the mirror. We are forgetting to not let anger be our guide, and to never let hateful words come from our mouth, among many other lessons. If we want to truly function together as one bride preparing for the wedding, we are in desperate need of pre-marital counseling.
How can we change culture when we don’t even know how to build our own?
References
- 100 Bible verse about caring for others.
- www.BibleGateway.com
- www.YouVersion.com
- Christine Caine has many good messages on Heavenly Citizenship.
(If anyone needs a visual of what satan falling from Heaven may have looked like: click here and be prepared for the loud boom.⚡️)
- Learning to live inside my body — from national TV at age 19 to nursing home at age 31
- My Breathe Note