Some of you may have served in the military. You may be a veteran of a foreign war. Thank you for your sacrifice. In the Lord’s army there are also sacrifices and hardships. We must remember that our warfare is spiritual and real! Our armor is spiritual and our weapons are spiritual. (Ephesians 6:10ff)
May I ask you, “What kind of soldier are you?” Are you strong? II Timothy 2:1 says, “You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Notice where our enablement is; it is in the grace of God! Now this doesn’t mean that we are to neglect basic training. The good soldier has to do his part if he is going to keep in shape. However, the point is that we don’t depend on our own strength alone, but on the Lord’s strength. (Ephesians 6:10) Without Christ we would be weak and helpless. Brethren, the first step toward spiritual victory is accepting the fact that we must depend on the grace of God through Jesus Christ!!
This doesn’t mean that God’s grace works instead of us. I Corinthians 15:10 says, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly that they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
Our enemy, the devil, wants us to depend on ourselves and to fight with the weapons of the world. But our strong weapons of prayer and the Word of God will defeat him every time!
Greely Kirkpatrick