1Ti 6:12 ESV -Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
If war is ever lawful, then peace is sometimes sinful.
C. S. Lewis
I'll never forget sitting in the principles office bloody, and swollen from the scrap I got in. No one should be able to impose evil on another, no one. I was in trouble, the school had a no fighting policy and I because I threw the first punch I was the agressor... suspension was my fate. My opponent, although chastised, didn't get the same setence, after all, he was just "defending himself." He was the type of kid that knew how to minuplate situations.
To some, freshman girls were fresh meat. To deceptive seniors they were a sure way to make it to second base, and likely a home run. There is nothing more flattering for a freshman girl than to be noticed by an upperclassman. If that upperclassman was well known, flattery becomes the tool of wolves. I saw it to many times, like a lamb led to a slaughter, freshman girls got lured into believing the wolves cared for them, when in reality, they were seeking to physically devour them, paying no attention to the innocence that would be lost in the action.
During my first two years in High-school I could do nothing, but watch this yearly ritual take place. I didn't weigh munch more than a hundred pounds, and lacked the skill to make that hundred pounds, make a difference, but this year was different. Testosterone, and time on the wrestling mat, not only inhanced my physical abilities, but gave me th confidence to stand up for the "fresh crop"of freshman.
It always starts the same. A lunch time cuddling, which after a week leads to wandering hands. Wolves are sneaky, they play on the innocence of lambs, but if you spent a couple of years around the pack, you intuitively learned that "accidental" brushes of the breast or rear were softening moves, not random misplacement of a hand.
It was the misplaced hand that led me to the principles office. I told the wolve to quit, and that he needed to keep his hands to himself, but as you can guess, wolves fight for their food. Human wolves even more fiercely. Blood, sweat, and swelling was a stiff price, but at least he was taught that were still some willing to eradicate the ways of sexual wolves.
I tried to explain my case to the principal. He was sympathic, but rules are rules. I told him it had to be stopped, that these girls don't even know how they are being minuplated.
His response was "its not your fight."
My response was, and still is "BULLSHIT, ITS EXACTLY MY FIGHT."
When did we become such punks, when did we let evil have its reign on earth? Left unchecked?... Well from the beginning.
God made man to represent His kingship to the creation Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." Giving the responsibility to model and advance His goodness. Notice the words Image and Dominion. We were supposed to be his perfect representation on earth (Matt 5:8,) but as you know in your own heart, you've failed, so have I. Our failures are inherented. We got them from our fathers, who got it from their fathers all the way back to Adam. A result of his apathy to evil. He didn't take a stand, he didn't protect his wife, and worse yet, he propagated the seed of all the wolves throughout eons of time, by trying to keep the peace. The very peace he though he was greeting in his apathy was a lie. His actions (and ours afterwards) removed us from what we were created to be, and setenced us to eternal death. If mankind were to survive it had to come back to its original intention, it had to be connected to God.
For those who understand their predicament It makes perfect sense. We all know we are supposed to be something better. We say things like "Nobody's Perfect," knowing bloody well that we should be. We scoff at those who seek it, and pretend that Jesus was just joking when he told us to be. The cold hard fact is that we were willed to be the reflection of perfection, yet we chose something less...way less...we chose evil. In a universe created by God, anything less than perfect is evil. So where does that leave us? DAMMED. and unable to change any of it. Like Paul said, Rom 7:18-19 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.
Where does that leave us? If Saint Paul can't be perfect who can? Well God Himself. That's why our severing the ties with God lead us to death. If there is any hope, we need a way back. A perfect human that would take our rebellion and give us His life. A human that was so connected to God that He is God. A human that fought evil at every level. A human that backed down from nothing, even the cross. A human that would die in our stead. A Human that death couldn't hold. That's exactly who Jesus is (John 1) and that's why need to be connected to Him.
Jesus isn't the free loving hippy that the devil tries to paint him out to be, nope actually he is the opposite. He never gave in to evil, actually He is the contrast to it, and just by his existence, the killer of it. His Goodness is so dangerous to this evil world that all who aren't connected to Him will perish with it. That leaves the question, how do we become connected? Well that's the Good News, or in older language the Gospel.
Jesus has brought all those who attach themselves to Him back to the communion with God that provides true life. John 7-23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
This is what salvation means! Connected to Jesus, the Perfect God Man. Salvation isn't a better form of ourselves. It isn't Heaven. Nope it's Jesus himself. It's "I in them" and this only comes about by giving up your own Evil Kingship, repenting (turning away from yourself) and allowing the One True King Guide your thoughts and actions. Changing your spiritual DNA to His. John 17: 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
This is the only answer to the hideous wolves that have taken residence in your soul. Once Jesus' Spirit, the Holy Spirit, takes up residence, He goes on the hunt. Stomping evil at all levels. First within, and then spilling over, using us to invade the sin matrix of this world. The world around us keeps trying to distract from our responsibility. Religious organizations hide behind the misuse of scripture, telling their congregations Matt 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God, to lull them into inaction or worse tolerate evil. There is only one way to peace and that is by bowing before the king, but realize in a world that has rebelled by doing so we have entered an all out war. Jesus tells us this in Matthew 10: 34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Don't let anyone tell you, "It's not your fight." What you see in this world is the product of that kind of thinking. As the old Nate I have no fight as I was
the enemy, but as JESUS'S Nate I have a mission to carry out in His war. Stances to take. Prayers to pray. And Wolves to punch, and so should you.
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