Secrets to Victory in Spiritual Warfare
By: Olugbenga Ojuroye
Tags: Christianity, Victory, Spirituality, Battle, Joy

Those who surround me proudly rear their heads;

may the mischief of their lips engulf them.

May burning coals fall on them;

may they be thrown into the fire,

into miry pits, never to rise.

May slanderers not be established in the land;

may disaster hunt down the violent. (Psalms 140:9–11, NIV)

Take off the kid gloves

When going through the book of Psalms, I often find myself pausing mid-sentence to think did I just read that?!

There’s no doubt David is honest. If you have feelings that bother you, read the Psalms. Through David, God shows you that He identifies with you. He knows what you’re feeling and He doesn’t want you to be ashamed to approach Him with your unholy thoughts and feelings. God is approachable, you don’t need to clean up your act before going to Him.

But how does one approach God with ill feelings towards his enemies? If you follow David’s life, you’ll notice that He was always clear about his intentions towards his enemies. Is that why he was one of the most victorious kings of Israel?

When I have to fight in prayer, I find that it’s more productive to bare my feelings. Don’t be religious about prayer. God is not looking for the prim and proper. He’s looking for people who come to Him ready to risk it all. To risk being wrong, to risk brokenness, and to risk correction.

I’ve gone past being uncomfortable with my thoughts about people who want to hurt me (enemies). If I wish for someone tormenting me to have a terrible experience of his, I ask God to put it in the works. That simple.

The enemy fights bare-knuckled

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. (Matthew 11:12, NIV)

Why John the Baptist? I always wondered. Hasn’t the kingdom of God been suffering violence since the beginning of time? Right from the garden, hasn’t the devil been attacking? Didn’t the children of God suffer violence all those years? So why now? Why John?

When John started performing his duties, everyone recognized the shift. No one had ever baptized anyone before then, so that garnered a lot of attention. Heaven, earth, and hell knew something was coming. So they marshaled every resource of hell against the coming kingdom. The only problem was that everything they did to destroy the kingdom only served to enhance it. Right up to the crucifixion of Jesus, and we all know how that turned out.

God has something He wants to establish in your life too. The kingdom of God is going to show in your life. The whole of creation has great expectations of you even if they do not know it yet. They may not know you, but there is a need in the world that only you can meet. The world is waiting for you.

Do you think that with an expectation so great, hell won’t throw everything it’s got against you? Do you think your purpose is so trivial? The drug addiction, the rape, the abandonment by your parents and all the other mishaps that have shaped your life up to this point? They all serve to destroy what God wants to produce through you.

Do you think the devil will be proper and not hit you below the belt? Do you think he won’t inject lead into his gloves? When it comes to the enemy attacking you, the end justifies his means. So, knowing the devil, do you think God would want you to fight with one hand tied behind your back?

Vengeance belongs to God, but be glad when it comes

The war against you is real. I recognize the overt contradictions between some of the Old Testament prayers of men like David and the New Testament teachings of Paul. But first, I acknowledge that God is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Second, there is a difference between principles and methods. Third, God’s priority is repentance and everything He does is to secure repentance.

God being the same through time means His principles never change. But His methods vary. Keeping the words of David in mind, let's have a look at the following passage from Romans:

Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:19–21, NIV)

The principle is that what a man sows, he would reap. The principle applies to everyone. Both the victim and the enemy doing the tormenting. In the times of David, when He had an enemy, he went to war and destroyed them. The enemy sowed evil and reaped evil directly from the source. But the method has changed.

If your enemy does evil, you can’t respond with evil. How you respond shows how clean your hands are and, also, good is the perfect weapon against evil. God states it clear as day that as you do good, you heap burning coals on his head. I’ll come clean though. The quote about heaping burning coals on his head did not originate from the New Testament. It was from Proverbs 25:21–22. The method had always been there, but the New Testament emphasizes it. See the end of the quote in Proverbs 25:22,

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the LORD will reward you. [emphasis mine]

Remember, as you go to God in prayer, you risk being wrong, broken, and corrected. So even if I go to God teary-eyed and with indignation in my heart, I know He would remind me of this instruction on love. Love, His most powerful weapon. And when I do what He wants, He would reward me because He recognizes the sacrifice involved in doing good things to people who do not deserve it.

We see His vengeance, but what’s important to me is what I get out of it. Is He going to reward me for doing good or for doing bad no matter how much they deserved it?

It’s okay to be happy when they reap their reward

Should I laugh and rejoice when bad things happen to people bent of doing evil? Or should I pretend to pity them and be loving when I know that’s not what’s in my heart?

The bible gives many examples of how the Israelites rejoiced when their enemies fell. God never once opposed their rejoicing. Isn’t that the goal of warfare? Aren’t you fighting to win? Aren’t you fighting to be victorious?

So why be shy in the face of your long-awaited victory? You have a boss that has been making your life miserable, you pray about it and he gets fired for something unrelated. Should you be happy?

My dear friend, this is how we fight, and this is how we win. If after your enemy’s loss, he chooses to repent (remember God’s priority?), there would be rejoicing in heaven and you can dance at the altar-call. But repentance is on him. As for you, rejoice and be grateful when God moves for you.

Only you knew the depth of your suffering, no one else can understand the weight of your glory. My friend…REJOICE!