Forceful? You mean that the Kingdom of heaven isn’t a gentle lily that turns the other cheek during the heat of battle?
No.
I think that sometimes the world often forgets that we’re in a pretty deep spiritual battle; if only we could see it with our physical eyes, but it requires us to dig a little deeper than that and give a lot more than what we think it’s worth. This reality hit me a few weeks ago.
I was reminiscing on the days before the World Race, at how easy my life of ignorance and bliss was to these spiritual realities we face daily, whether we acknowledge them or not. I remembered those times that I knew there was something more to the life that I was living but my fear of the unknown held me back from pursuing it to any more depth. The couch in the coffee shop seemed to be a really solid reality for me to grasp. I was okay with it until God propelled me out of my life of self-induced frustration.
I ended up on this journey that I figured would be a really cool experience to write about, to tell stories of with friends and family. I had no idea that it was going to be something even more, that essentially I was going to be physically storming the gates of hell with my sword wielded firm in hand, bloodied from demons that I slay on a daily basis.
(This is usually the part where the guys shift in their cubicles and think to themselves, “bloody sword?”)
That’s right… everyday… a bloody sword.
The realities of the spiritual battle we’re in hit home when I started becoming aware of Satan’s attacks against me on the onset of the attempt. In other words, I now know when the devil’s trying to get the best of me… and he tries it every single day that I’m awake and even at night when I’m asleep (it’s usually within my mind, another blog to come). See, I joined this generation of warriors on the battlefield and, in turn, made myself a massive threat to hell. Spiritual battles are fierce, ridiculously intense, and it takes real men and women of God to fight them.
Because once you’re in this deep, you’re never getting out.
This is the reality that struck me so hard, that it rattled the very core of who I am. I’ve dedicated the last nine months of my life to storming the gates of hell, to kicking the devil off of Kingdom property, and to seeing this inheritance of mine advance forcefully. I’ve seen some really crazy things, supernatural things, that this world will probably never accept as the norm. And that’s okay, because I’m not of this world anymore.
But there’s truly no going back.
There’s no way that I can ever go back to the way that I was used to living, even if I did, the devil would still attack me and make me feel miserable about myself because of the threat I’ve become. I must keep pressing deeper and I figure that I should because, really, what the hell do I have to lose? My life? I already gave it up for the Kingdom. I’ve dedicated my life to following Jesus with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength; to loving the Lord with every ounce of my being. And I could try running away, but it wouldn’t work. From here on out, I cannot ignore the spiritual realities around me.
One of my favorite passages of Scripture this month has been from Revelation 19.11-16. Let me just spell it out for you. (You’re welcome to get behind him too).
That’s the God that I follow into battle. He’s a badass, I know.
And so I’m faced with a choice to try to ignore what my eyes have been opened to or to pursue it to the absolute depth that I know it should be lived, that is, to a Kingdom reality. I’m choosing to become something fierce for the Kingdom, to storm the gates of hell behind Faithful and True, to call God’s glory of out the dark places, to slay demons, to piss others off for the Kingdom, to be a dude this world just doesn’t understand.
Because I’m a freak, and I’m okay with that.
