Understanding Spiritual Warfare

 The spiritual warfare movement developed rapidly and become one of the major focuses in twenty first century Christendom. The movement gets attention from different denomination by its tangible instant results. Spiritual warfare has become a prominent feature in some Pentecostal and charismatic churches. The movement is mainly focuses on instant result in ministry and Christian life.

                First, Spiritual warfare deal with spiritual oppression caused by a combination of personal sin and demonic influenced. The obstacles are then removed through prayer, delivering a parishioner from demonic possession, and breaking down demonic power so that the church and believers will grow. Therefore, in spiritual warfare perspective every Christian and even some pastors need deliverance from demons.

               Second characteristic of spiritual ware fare in ministry is discovering the demonic hierarchy. This belief assumed that different demons possess different power and they are functioning according to their power. Therefore, one must know well what sort of demon is at work in order to break their power more effectively. In recent years, C Peter Wagner and Charles kraft  has came up with a supernatualistic paradigm which is to understand Satan and his missions. Therefore, the concept of prayer is no more a way to building relationship with God rather it become a tool to fight against demons.

                The third characteristic of the movement is identifying demonic strongholds. The idea is that different people have various barriers to embrace the gospel. Because demons have their own territory and they hold sway over cites, regions and countries. On the other hand different spirit will cause diverse barriers and control people’s spiritual receptiveness. In responding to the idea of demonic strongholds, spiritual wayfarers need to do spiritual mapping which is to define the power and the kind of which spirit is dominating the certain city, region, and country.       

                 We need to aware that spiritual warfare is not a onetime battle but daily wrestling with our self desire and temptation from the evil one. However, even if we can overcome one inducement from the evil one, without doubt he will come up with a newer form of deception (e.g. temptation of Jesus Matthew 4:1-11). Therefore, we must focus upon God not on the evil one.

Christianity Vs Globalization+Modernism+Post-Modernism

Firstly, globalization is a process of narrowing down gaps culturally, politically, economically, geographically and all others aspect of differences.  Therefore, sharing information becomes the prime of Globalization. Thus, information technology is the key of Globalization. Globalization tends to seek for equality of humanity and it open many new doors for people to get connected. The goal of information technology is to help people to get connected with the information. The need for information and connectivity demand easy accessibility to internet. On the other hand, globalization does effect people’s belief and values. Electronic media, business opportunities, and popular culture especially science and humanism are driving force of globalization.  Globalization also negatively affected upon society and cultural especially on some good cultural and tradition in the East are endangered. For example, Asian youth become less respectful to their elders and also become skeptical about the truth as many of them are atheist. Personal face to face relationship is dying out because of many forms of gadgets and technology. 

                  Modernism can be seen as a way of ordering the social world and making decisions based on a rationale, calculability and an adherence to the rules of expert knowledge.[1] Modernism can be also seen as a cultural movement regarding fields of art and architecture, music and literature emerging in the decades before 1914, as artists rebelled against late 19th century traditions. The most obvious impact of Modernism in mission was the raise of Christian radio station in the past decade. Modern evangelists have a propensity to use modern tools to spread the gospel base on their rationale, calculability.

                      The main feature ascribed to Postmodernism is the permanent and irreducible pluralism of cultures, communal traditions, ideologies, or awareness and recognition of this pluralism. The destruction of humanity in terms of ethic and moral was one of side effect of Postmodernism. People easily snub the truth about God because they rejected absolutism and embrace relativism. On the other hand the word of God is absolute truth and never will change.

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               [1] Mourad R.P., “The Review of Higher Education,” Project MUSE, http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/review_of_higher_education/v020/20.2mourad.html (accessed Octobar 25, 2009).

SUFFERING

First, Suffering and persecution was a true mark of God’s people and His servants through out the history of the bible. The term suffering was born in the most beautiful and perfect garden of God, Eden. Suffering and hardship becomes a part of human life since God pronounced it and endorsed it in the garden (Gen.3:16-17). God designated hardship and suffering to turn man’s heart to Him. First, God punished them to work hard in order to survive. Secondly, God created thorns and thistles for mankind. This scenario is very much similar with the life of Job. The two characters obtain wonderful life before they suffer and go through unbearable hardships. Therefore, we can understand that God knows everything and He is the deliverer. It is better to know that God Almighty is with us even if the superpower country is not for us. Nothing can against us. Base on above lesson, we can understand that persecution strengthen our trust in God and it nurture our inner being to put all our hope. Thus, we can walk by faith not by sight.

                    Second, some one said ‘all sunshine and no rain make a desert.’ In many case Persecution is like the tool that God use to shaken out dust from the believers and from the church. Sometime while we are falling asleep we need to be shaken to be awake and to be alert. The history of the church and her revolution and awakening experiences in the past tell us about the value of persecution for the edification of the church. Today, most of Christian seem to be softy and very sensitive to hardship. On the other hand, it is because the state laws become stronger and it powerfully controls the society from inhuman activities. Nevertheless, the state law itself restricted evangelism and it created boundaries. Therefore, one will not encounter persecution if he or she does things within the boundary. The safe environment in the West causes a dramatic decline of the church members.

            Jesus went through unbelievable persecutions. Apostle Paul encountered numerous persecutions in different forms. Nevertheless, the early Churches is the most strongest and most spirit filled Churches ever existed.  Finally, persecution is not our choice but God allowed it to test our endurance of faith (James 1:2-4).