Day 2: The faith and the fight

So many social media stories around marital struggles are thought to be meant to be happening among the heathens, but when such begins to pervade the church, we know that Satan has been upping his end-time games. Each time I read or ponder on why Satan particularly targeted Peter, I am amazed at the audacity of the enemy. Anyways, he went for Christ Himself, tempting the Creator with His earthly material creations. In both audacious and subtle ways, Satan is throwing spanners in Christian homes and manifesting in different and dynamic ways. Perhaps Ephesians 6 vs 12 is relevant today than it was about 2, 000 years ago. 

Of all the issues in marriages, I am often shocked at how doctrinal backgrounds and different interpretations of Christian doctrines cause crises among us. Imagine teammates in a 2-people sports team playing against each other just because of their dissimilar understanding of their training manual. Strange. Two lovebirds from Catholic and Anglican or Winners and Life Oasis or Baptist and RCCG churches should be able to coexist in Christ’s love, employing the Bible as the guide, manual and compass. But we continue to see what I call Doctrinal Autoimmune Marital Problems (DAMP). The faith is fighting itself - quite damp.  

Spiritual warfare is real. There are ancestral curses and patterns in many homes. And even if you claim ignorance or don’t believe in that, remember that your allegiance to Christ already puts you in the ring, and you can’t decide not to fight. It’s too late. Why? You would wonder. Because the enemy wants your eternal soul and would not stop at anything, you must have heard about a particular Uncle Job in the Bible. And he knows what Christian homes represent - the light in this darkening world. He’s fighting to dampen your light, and once you give up fighting, you are out; he wins. 

Because of the arrangee marriages that are programmed to end up in divorce (a pattern which we condemn), accurate statistics about divorce rates are not really available. However, the official statistics are not the point of concern here. The point of concern is the homes where the people are long separated or divorced but still live together. Unresolved conflicts, ego, unforgiveness and bitterness wreck many homes. There are no official statistics on that, but from our privileged point of view, the prevalence of such homes is shocking. That is not the intention of the Creator of marriage. 

Parenting godly children has never been more challenging. The enemy continues to leverage the errors of abusive and violent parents (patterns that we condemn) to enact laws that leave children practically parenting themselves. The systems in the developed worlds are now programmed to raise boss babies. A seven-year-old once told his parents - “I know what’s good for me”. Children who still use car seats and overnight diapers are adjudged as having the capacity to determine if they want to change gender. The policies that allow teaching young children about gender switch, homosexuality and so on are certainly not intended to glorify God. You know who specialises in that ministry, the enemy. We are in a battle. 

Over the next few weeks, we will be treating the above variants of the fight. However, as we noted yesterday, there are marital challenges that are down to one or both people in the marriage rather than Satan. And spiritual warfare is not the best way to fix those man-made issues - be brave enough to address them and seek help if needed.

Picture: Culled from Google. 

© Selah Series 2024