Spiritual Warfare: Are You Wrestling or Resting?"make war" on the devil. We are to stand our ground of
victory in Christ enforcing the truth of God's Word,
because Satan was thoroughly whipped at the Cross of
Calvary.
Also, constantly doing battle and warring against
the devil couldn't be scriptural because it negates Jesus'
victory over Satan at Calvary. Because of Jesus' victory
over Satan, now believers only need to take their place
of authority in the finished work of the Cross and
appropriate by faith what Jesus did for them.
Wrestling in the Spiritual Realm
The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ just needs to
learn to stay balanced. Overemphasizing just one
scripture to the exclusion of others or exalting
something other than God's Word, including unbiblical
practices, can get believers off on doctrinal tangents. A
person can take any Bible subject and overemphasize it
and make the Bible say something it really doesn't say.
That's what some Christians have done with this
issue of "wrestling" the devil. They have resorted to
using fleshly tactics such as yelling and screaming at
the devil to try to "defeat" him. But the wrestling the
believer does against the forces of evil is not done in the
natural realm with fleshly tactics. It's done in the
spiritual realm by faith in the Word.
Some believers are even taking the scripture about
wicked spirits in heavenly places (Eph. 6:12) out of
context and advocating that we have to get up higher
physically in order to do battle with the wicked spirits
in the heavenlies in prayer! What they really need to do
is get down where the real battle is—in the mind and
flesh!