What have I been missing? (Part two)

Through this consistency, and during a time of intense personal struggle, in which I lost my business of 12 years (due to an economic downturn), and later separated from my wife and two daughters due to an unwanted divorce, the Holy Spirit began to open my eyes to a common struggle among all Christians – the struggle with spiritual warfare.

You see, claiming to be a self-made man, full of pride, and always able to handle any problem that was thrown at me, I was now broken and left without any answers as to why my life had fallen apart. I was desperately in need of transformation and hopeful that my new-found salvation would begin a rapid improvement of the mess I had created.

What I didn’t fully understand at the time was that my unseen adversary, Satan, was not about to let me forget all that I had lost, or how my new-found faith had seemingly let me down. It was as if I could hear him say; “God isn’t real. If He loved you, why is all this happening to you? You don’t need Him; you can fix this yourself.”

Option One or Option Two?

As much as God had revealed to me, I was still a baby Christian. I often tell people that at this point I had two options; I could dive into a bottle, or dive into the Bible. By the grace of God, I chose the latter. Not fully understanding that I was on the front line of a spiritual battle, I was still determined to let God win in my life. I had read enough to know that He was real, and that the truth would set me free.

With the best of intentions, the church was teaching me all about Jesus, the piece of the puzzle that had been missing in my life for 20 years. It all sounded wonderful but falling back on my previous self-made instincts, I was expecting rapid improvement in my life. After all, Jesus was now on my side. What no one told me, and what I did not realize until much later, is that for every step forward I took with Jesus, Satan was knocking me two steps backward. I was fighting against a constant but invisible headwind that kept me from realizing any significant change in my circumstances.

Somehow, I think God recognized my determination, and step by step, He began to broaden my understanding of Satan’s schemes, methods, and destructive goals. But more importantly, God, through his Holy Spirit, began to show me in His Word how to not only fight the battle, but ultimately win the war. With God’s help and a personal determination to press on, I survived long enough to discover what was happening to me.

An Unexpected Revelation!

What I discovered turned out to be a major turning point in my life and transformed what had previously been a pathway to frustration and eventual defeat into an unexpected revelation. I had only been focused on half the story! Oddly enough, it was not until I uncovered what the Bible taught about evil, (it’s source, it’s tactics, and it’s agenda), that I could genuinely begin to pursue a victorious Christian lifestyle. For me, unveiling the complete truth and application of scripture was made possible by probing and understanding the depths of spiritual warfare.

Unfortunately, many Christians are dissuaded when the enemy attacks, especially in the early stages of their transformation. They do not realize that they have stepped into a spiritual battle and that they are under attack. As a result, they lose out on the best God has in store for them, or worse, they walk away and never return, unaware that they are allowing Satan to win the war.

This resource is intended to clearly disseminate the truth about spiritual warfare and to provide Christians (at any level of maturity) the wisdom, discernment, and determination necessary to defeat the enemy and allow God’s plan to prevail in their lives. I do not claim to be an authority on the subject, but I do engage in the battle each day with a new perspective. In ‘Take Captive Every Thought’, I do my best to share with you what the Holy Spirit has revealed to me regarding how to live a victorious Christian lifestyle. I pray this book will be a blessing to you and your family.

Purchase the book here!