Enemies

Sometimes, worship songs and approaches to things that happen around us feel jarring. “Our weapon is a melody,” we sang in one song in church recently. Decades earlier, I remember an old Petra song with the refrain, “Get on your knees and fight like a man.” The symbolism feels… alien. I have to forcibly remind myself of the reality of Ephesians: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

People should never really be considered our “enemies” – not in the context of the Kingdom. No ruler is beyond the saving reach of Christ. The real struggle, the real enemy are the powers we cannot see. I don’t know what all of that means, and I’m often uncomfortable with what people write about “spiritual warfare.” But at a bare minimum we need to remember it is spiritualwarfare, and always be praying for the redemption and reclamation of even those who we think least likely to be redeemed and reclaimed.