Marvel – The Arrow Preacher

Facing Down the Cosmic Bully

Life, is full of its ups and downs. Scripture is clear about where our blessings come from. James 1:1717 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” If our gifts come from the Lord, then what about our misery? Misery is a strange thing because it can come from more then one place. We are often our own source of misery but aside from ourselves making poor life choices, the Devil is truly the biggest cosmic bully around. How do we stand up to a bully that big? What chance do we have when we are facing down a bully of that size? If we are to believe in the fundamental fact that Jesus Christ overcame death, and He saved our souls from eternal damnation, we must also believe that there are forces of both light and dark all around us. The spiritual realm although we cannot see it, is very real. Angels the forces for God, and demons, the forces for the Devil are constantly at war all around us. For those who are more in tune with their relationship with God they can sense when the forces of the Devil are around. It’s a lot like the Matrix, you can’t see it, but you know it’s everywhere within the world around you. You can see it when you take out the landlord’s garbage, or even when you pay your taxes.

We are in this world, but we are commanded, for those who follow Christ are not to conform to the world. The world is sin, and we must resist the temptations that come to us. Being in this world as a Christian invites troubles into your life. The Devil will use anything and everyone to dissuade you from giving your heart to Jesus, or if you have given your heart to Jesus, to make you doubt that relationship. The Devil is the ultimate bully, and he is jealous of our relationship with the Father. He might be a child throwing a tantrum, but even a child can cause a lot of damage when they have angelic powers. Don’t forget that just because the Devil was cast out from Heaven, doesn’t mean he was stripped of his powers. Angels and Demons are very much real, and just because we can’t see them, doesn’t mean the war isn’t waging all around us. The war is not for land, or resources, the war is for our very souls.

We know that the battle wages every day, and as each of us is filled with both the spirit and the sins of the flesh, it stands to reason that sometimes the pull of the flesh will win. This doesn’t mean the draws to a person; it means the part that is alienated by God. The flesh is the rebellious, stubborn, and often disrespectful side of us that refuses correction, and to acknowledge ones own faults. We are governed by sin at times, and we can fight it, but it’s inevitable that we will fail, and fail often. It’s that reason that Christ died on the cross, His blood shed for us, because there was no scenario where we could enter into heaven on our own merits or works.

What do we do when we find ourselves in the midst of a spiritual battle, and how do we know what it is? First you must ask yourself if you’ve ever been tempted to do something you know is wrong? Tempted to smoke cigarettes, tempted to steal something, tempted to lie, tempted by sexual desire, all these things are signs of spiritual warfare. The Devil uses our desires of the flesh, uses others, uses sickness and diseases, anything and everything to try and wedge a gap between you and the Father. The Devil and his legion of demons are always pulling people, pushing people, and causing mischief all around the world. He tries anything he can to raise doubts, to cast blame, even to the point of lying to us making us feel like we are worthless.

A movie I’ve been watching lately that I can’t seem to get enough of is Avengers: Infinity War. I was thinking about Thanos and his motives for doing what he does. While Thanos may actually be right around the fate of the universe he’s missing one important aspect, faith. There’s one scene where Thanos is talking to Gamora about needing to be the one to fix things, and she tells him “You don’t know that.” Thanos is misguided in his methods and no matter if you agree or disagree with him, he is a cosmic bully playing god and he has no business doing so.

(Spoilers Ahead)

Even though Thanos seems to be unstoppable there’s a point where Thor’s new Ax, Stormbreaker cuts through Thano’s power and actually stabs him in the chest. Recently as I’ve been watching that, I have been thinking about our own fight against our biggest cosmic bully, the Devil. If the Devil attacks us, do we have our own Stormbreaker to cut through his attack and stab him in the chest? The answer is yes, absolutely! Stormbreaker is essentially the power of the Holy Spirit. We know that we have the Armor of God, Ephesians 6:10-18. “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;” This verse ends with prayer, telling us that in all things we must be willing to pray. Stormbreaker at the heart the word of God that cuts through Sin, desire, and any attack the Devil may throw at us. No matter the direction the attack comes from, whether it be through people, or sickness, or even our own sinful failings, the Word of God has all the answers. It in itself is the ultimate weapon against the biggest bully around. While we don’t have the power to be rid of Satan, we do have the power to fight him off, to force him back, and for a time have him removed from our presence.

During the temptation of Christ, we don’t see Christ using force to remove Satan, we see Christ using the word of God. Christ could have used force to remove the Devil, but since we don’t have that power, it serves as a lesson to each of us, how to fight on the battlefield beyond what we can see. We must never underestimate our own abilities because scripture tells us, Romans 8:31 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”If God is with us we then have the power within us to withstand the attacks of Satan, and cast him away from us as Jesus once did. It may not be as flashy or glamorous as Thor flying above Wakanda throwing his beautiful new toy, cutting through Thanos’s blast and stabbing him in the chest, but never the less, we do have the power to stand up to our tormentor. Don’t underestimate yourself and never give up the fight. As long as we continue to believe in God and trust in Him, we will always have hope. One day our time to fight will be over and we will be called home. We will leave the fight for the next person after us, and all we can do is hope we have passed on our knowledge and love of Christ for the next generation to come. Have faith and in this spiritual battle that wages on, don’t forget to Love, Forgive, and live in Hope. In the battle here on earth, one thing we need to remember is there is no need to fear. There is nothing the Devil can do to remove the ransom paid for us. So long as we remain faithful to our Lord and Savior, we may suffer in this life, but this life is only temporary.

Show Some Respect

As a friend, how do you treat your friends? How respectful are you towards your friends? What kind of person are you? Are you a friend who drops everything when you’re needed? Are you a friend who goes to great lengths to check on your friends when you know they are in need? Are you a friend who helps others financially, spiritually, or emotionally? Are you the type of person that pays forward good deeds? Or, are you the kind of person that accepts those good deeds but never repays them? Are you selfish and you take for granted those people in your life that are always there for you? How do we as a people look to Jesus Christ? Are we appreciative of the sacrifice Christ made for us?

When you have much to offer, people will flock to you in droves. When Christ was healing everyone, handing out free food, lifting everyone up, the people loved him. When he started talking about everyone being sinners, and heaven wasn’t achievable for everyone because of our love of Sin, they turned on him. They threaten to stone him, and ran him out from one town after after. This is the savior and only when it suited us, did the people appreciate the truth, no, they preferred to live happy in a lie, instead of face the bitter truth.

( Spoilers Ahead for The Matrix)

I’m reminded of the first Matrix movie. The Matrix a prison meant to enslave the human race by keeping their minds trapped inside a digital construct, while harvesting a human being to essentially be living batteries. A soldier for the cause for the revolution against the machines Morphious In the first film one of the freed mines, a man named Cypher betrays the crew and causes a lot of problem. When the betrayal is discovered Cypher describes how he’d rather live in ignorance, and the joys of the Matrix, rather then suffer and live with the truth.

Proverbs 10:9 “He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.”

Luke 8:17 “For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.”

Aren’t we the same way? We look at Jesus as the answer to the problem. We sin, but it’s okay because we are forgiven, so it doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we say we’re sorry once in a while, and we keep living our lives. Yeah, see, that’s not how this works at all. Hebrews 10:26 “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,” It’s said that when we take the Holy Spirit into our hearts the idea of sin becomes so repulsive we don’t do it intentionally. While we will always have moments where the flesh takes over and we Sin, the guilt we should feel when we do is where the repentance comes into the picture.

We are responsible for our own sins. We are responsible for how we treat others around us. We are responsible for the kindness in our own hearts. We are responsible for the selfishness in our hearts. The taking of Bashiba by King David was a knowing sinner at the time he took her into his bed. He knowingly sinned as he plotted the death of her husband. He knowingly sinned as he attempted to plot and scheme to hide his own sin. How appreciative of someone who picks up our tab at dinner? Now think about it, how appreciative are we now when we think about our eternal salvation? Do we live like someone who has been freed from an eternal death sentence? There’s a price for our sin, there’s a price for our actions, how we treat someone, and “The bill comes due, always” (Dr. Strange)