fervent_-a-womans-battle-plan-priscilla-shirer

The Ephesians of Paul’s day didn’t need much convincing
of the fact that their real problems weren’t on the physical side
of things. These first-century Greeks were mostly pagan, of
course, and the spirit world was very much alive in their
cognizant awareness. So as God drew men and women to
Himself from among this pantheistic culture, these early
believers in Christ were already well-schooled in the reality of
spiritual entities at play in the world. Today, however—in
Western culture, at least—our innate tendency is to
underestimate Satan’s power. Even his presence is sometimes
imagined as make-believe, no more than a phantom wearing a
red jumpsuit and a pitchfork, a monster hiding in the closet.
We’ve made him no more than a caricature instead of the
treacherous, conniving, hell-bent, personalized menace he truly
is. As a result, we sort of give him room to scheme and scare at
will, while we run around firing off at anyone and everyone
except him. But if all we’re doing is whacking at the nearest,
most visible symptoms every time they pop their head up,
we’re doing two things: (1) wasting precious time and energy
that ought to be reserved and refocused on the real enemy, and
(2) trying to fight ferocious spiritual forces by using weapons
that don’t faze them in the least—weapons that aren’t even
designed to hurt them. So the hits just keep on coming.