In Harry Potter, there are magical people and creatures and there are non-magical people and creatures.
The non-magical people are called muggles. Inside this world, the muggles have no idea about the things that go on in the magical realm of the world. The muggles are completely blind and oblivious to magic. Magic folk are not allowed to show muggles any sort of magic so as to not freak them out and in so doing expose the magical world...this in the magic world is an offense worthy of punishment, so for the most part muggles are purposefully kept in the dark as to what goes on in the magic world. Most as you would find out through reading would also prefer it be that way.
This connects to a thought I've been thinking about as of late: many people, even Christians are oblivious (and live their lives thus) to the realm of the Spirit. I'm speaking of what Paul in the book of Ephesians talks of when he says: "Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:11-12 ESV)
Most of us live our lives as if this is not going on around us. Similar to the muggles in Harry Potter, we prefer to keep it that way too. We choose not to think about the "spiritual" forces because it freaks us out, or is "unnatural" to be thinking about such things. Also, similar to the magic folk in Harry Potter, those "spiritual forces" attempt to keep themselves hidden from us because if we knew about them, then we could learn to fight them off.
I am well aware that too many Christians also "spiritualize" everything and make everything the devils fault...I'm not advocating that. However, there are many times that the devil schemes and plots out certain outcomes and we continuously chock them up to "happenstance" or "fate", yet they were plays from Satan's playbook straight from the pit of hell to get us off track.
I'm not necessarily worried about non-believers being deaf and blind to the realities of the spiritual world, but I am scared for us Christians who fail to realize we are in a war against Satan and his minions! 1 Peter 5:8 reminds us to be alert, because satan is prowling around us like a lion, getting ready to strike. How many of us are being alert? How many of us are chilling, not thinking a lick about what's going on in the spirit realm?
I fear we have too many Muggle Christians, too many people who fail to realize that being for Christ means we now have a target on us.
Paul was worried about Muggle Christianity, that's why he wrote Ephesians 6...so we wouldn't become complacent, so we wouldn't forget that we are in a Spiritual battle! Why do we waste time doing nothing about it? Why do we try in our own physical efforts for things to happen?
If we desire to do battle for our city and make the name of the Lord great where we live, we must first go to prayer! We need to fight the battle with the Spirit of God within us, leading us...not behind us watching us. We also need to put on the Armor of God:
"Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak" (Ephesians 6: 13-20).
It seems crazy to me that we can miss this whole piece of our Christianity and attempt to live our lives from a purely physical realm mentality.
This whole idea hit me as I was sitting in a Gap Outlet store while I was on vacation. I was sitting there watching people shop about the store. I saw people looking at clothing and getting ready to whip their wallets out to make their outside so much more beautiful.
I asked myself: if they had the chance and knew the store to shop at, would they take the free opportunity to make their insides beautiful?
Then it struck me: they probably have no idea that right now their soul is being fought for.
The next thought was scary: most Christians have no idea their is a spiritual battle even happening...much less engaging in the fight!
My brain works in weird ways, I know but the more I mulled the last scary thought over in my head, the more I realized it was true. A lot of Christians, I have found think very little if at all about the Spiritual battle and if they do think about it, it seems inconsequential to them, or they shrug their shoulders and say: well, I trust God so I'm not worried about it. There is more to it, we can be Warriors in this battle! We don't just get on the right team and ride the bench folks, we must get in the game!
Muggle Christianity scares me because it's like a football team who doesn't realize the true dangers of the game they're playing. This team walks out onto the field with no pads or helmets and they go around playing touch football with linebackers as stacked as James Harrison! They run around and tap the quarterback and wonder why the play still happens. It's not fair they cry out! I tapped him, he has to stop the play! But the game isn't a nice backyard game of touch football, it's true gridiron, smash mouth football!
This is why Paul goes to great lengths to explain the gear we must wear when we enter the football field, we've got to be geared up, fired up and prayed up.
Let's stop being Muggle Christians in this world! Let's get our wits about us, let's go to the Lord in prayer, let's fight the fight on the grounds which it needs to be fought, with the right equipment! No more should we be content to forget about the spiritual realm! Let's fight on Mighty Warriors!
1 comments:
I like this article, makes us christian s think about getting outside of the "box" and being better prepared for what is out there in this world. Thanks for posting this!
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