Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

Does every day feel like a battle? You're fighting a body that just doesn't work. You're struggling to make ends meet. You're attacking anxiety or dueling depression. You're grappling with decisions that will impact the rest of your life. You're at war with work and feuding with failure. You're contending with all of the temptations and influences your children are facing every time they walk out the door. It's a never-ending loop of conflict. But are those really the things we are called in the Word of God to fight against? Are these the reason for our holy armor? Is this the purpose for which we are saved (Westminster Confession of Faith, 3.5)? Maybe, but probably not.

People love to quote those "victory" Scriptures --you know the ones, the ones that tell us God plans to prosper us and heal us, among other things. Of course, they are wonderful promises, but beside being taken out of context in most cases, God's promises usually mean much more than we claim. An ailing friend quotes the last line of Isaiah 53:5, "by His stripes we are healed." (There's always danger in quoting one verse absent context; much more in quoting one line of one verse) Context shows this is not just physical healing --and yes, I do mean just. To say this guarantees physical healing is to place the work of the cross entirely in the physical realm, to limit what God can do in the same way the people looked for signs and wonders, and to be satisfied with something less than what God plans to give. On what we call Palm Sunday, the people celebrated a king --a king they thought would overthrow Rome and liberate them here on earth; but Jesus came as King of a supernatural Kingdom, coming to overthrow sin and death for everyone! SO MUCH MORE than healing or rescue in a temporal sense. But back to the battle. In Psalm 18:35, the psalmist rejoices because God has given "the shield of His salvation," His right hand has held him up, and His gentleness (or condescension) has made him great. Wow! God shields me in the battle, holds me up, and makes me great. WhooHoo! Well, as it turns out, in battle a shield was used to protect one from things flying toward them! Not only that, but typically, another would put his life at risk to hold over the archer a shield so that the archer could do his job. Notice what the psalmist says in Psalm 18:34:

He teaches my hands to make war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

The psalmist (and you and I by extension) are taught to make war; we are the archers! The imagery in the latter verses of Psalm 18, has the warrior chasing down enemies until they are completely annihilated. Chasing them down! This doesn't sound at all like we are hidden safely in a bomb shelter somewhere until the battle is over. It doesn't suggest we are sitting quietly at headquarters while conflict rages. We are running our enemies down!

So, who or what are our enemies? Clearly, Scripture tells us they are "principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." There are ideologies that go against everything we are taught at the feet of Jesus; they are anti-Christ. There is demonic activity at work in this world. There is the brokenness and sin that exists simply because Adam and Eve, and every man and woman thereafter opened the door to sin in this life. BUT there is us. When I was younger, my mother would tell me I was my own worst enemy. I had no clue what that meant at the time. I discovered, for me, it meant I was prideful, I judged everyone without looking critically at myself. My enemy was within me. Not until years later did I try to chase that enemy down. Not until years later did I commit to fighting my foe with everything I had, all the weaponry given to me in God's Word, and fighting daily. Not until years later did I stop whining, "Oh God, fix me," and commit to bending that bow myself. 1 Corinthians 11:31 advises, "...if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged." By the Word of God, in league with His Holy Spirit, against the life of Jesus Christ, we measure ourselves critically and often, and we ask other spiritually mature believers to measure us as well. This is how we war and, more often than not, this is who we war --our old nature, crucified with Christ on the cross --in an endeavor to depose it from the throne of our hearts and our minds. When we come to Christ, we are handed a new nature; daily is the battle to put on that nature and refrain from taking up the old nature once again.

Titus 2:11-12 promise, For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age. In the present age. As our bodies falter and ends don't meet and decisions are necessary and work is hard and failure is easy and our children are pummeled with anti-Christ ideologies, the application of God's teaching, holiness, sobriety, self-control are the captured ground that will keep us. Lest we become our own worst enemy.