Christians Don’t Send Explosives Through the Mail

Words are powerful.

Not just the president’s words, the Pope’s, famous people’s, or writers. Your words make an impact on the world.

We shouldn’t pretend words don’t wield tremendous influence on the planet. Especially, Christians. We know better.

We follow the God who is the Word, the Word that became flesh, the Eternal Word, the First Word, the Last Word. The God who speaks, who hears, and who designed language.

We can become discouraged after saying things repeatedly only to be ignored, but we know the slightest whispered gossip or exaggerated story will go viral. This is the way of this fallen place in which we sojourn. The enemy multiplies the damage of our misspoken words and hides the true power of words that are light.

Still, we know the truth. We are stationed on this outpost of glory until He returns, and we believe Him who sent us. Words have power.

So, in these days when misguided individuals send explosives through the mail, when our faith becomes politicized, when darkness presses in like sarin gas – in these days we must communicate more and in clearer words than ever.

I use a lot of warfare words. Battle. Weapons. Defense. Stronghold. Armor. Warriors. Soldier. Training. Discipline. Power. Enemy.  Overcome.

These words reflect the biblical matrix from which I understand the world and my place in it. God created a beautiful world and created humans to be in relationship with Him. The enemy of God tempted us to disobey Him and we chose to allow sin into our world. Sin gives birth to death resulting in separation from God.

God sent His only Son to die in our place and to rise again, so that we might have eternal life and be reconciled to Him forever. One day, He will return. Sin, death, and God’s enemy will be destroyed forever then, but until then, though he knows his time is short, he seeks to destroy all that God loves – primarily, us.

The enemy primarily uses deception in all its forms and capitalizes on the sin nature of humanity to enslave many to the darkness. It is the work of the church to be light and speak truth into the world. These, and love, are our primary weapons.

The battle rages on a spiritual plane – though we see the effects in the physical realm. There is no such thing as a Christian jihad. We do not battle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. When I speak of warfare (and I do and will continue to do), it is never to endorse humans taking up physical weapons against others.

I’m not a pacifist. There are Christians I love who serve in the military and the police force, defending our citizens, country, and the defenseless in other nations. There is a place for such things in this world that won’t be necessary in the kingdom come.

However, individual Christians who hold biblical truth dear know that we are not to murder, or to seek our own vengeance, or to nurture hate of any kind. Anger has its place, but when we are angry, we’re not to sin.

The warfare of the church, then, doesn’t take the form of anonymous explosives, targeted assassinations, or the genocide of people of other faiths.

Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4: “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” ESV

We don’t allow the actions of the enemy to determine what type of people we are going to be.

We are people who love. We warfare through obedience to Christ, prayer, intercession, speaking biblical truth, acting in obedience to God’s Word, and becoming like Jesus.

We love our enemies. We pray for those who persecute us. We lay down our lives – we don’t take the lives of others because they oppose our faith.

There’s nothing passive about spiritual warfare. The weapons we utilize are under-estimated because they are, too often, left unused. I have employed them in my life and seen miraculous healing, conversions, reconciliation, and culture change as a result.

The Romans never imagined that dying on the cross would be the way to defeat an enemy. We don’t take our cues from other people or from our spiritual enemy, but from Christ alone.

Christians don’t operate in the dark. We don’t send anonymous, poisonous mail. We don’t blow up our enemies. We don’t lie, spread vicious rumors through social media, or speak with joy of the deaths of those who oppose God’s truth.

Above all, we keep our eyes on Jesus because He frames our reality and our reality encompasses eternity, not just the now.

Rise above the rhetoric, loved ones.

We are the light in a dark world and we must hold to our faith and never fall beneath that to which we are called.

Christians Don't Send Explosives through the Mail https://t.co/JdWlUlWsoy #spiritualwarfare #Jesus #MailBombsCampaign

— Lori Roeleveld (@lorisroeleveld) October 25, 2018