thought exercise on Spiritual Attacks

Now I have to ask you: If Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did not presume to face the forces of evil in the world without a profound knowledge of the Bible in mind and heart, how could we try to face li...

Identifying the idols of the city takes place in the untamed context of spiritual warfare. Those who are engaged in mapping the idolatry of the city know that this process is not simply a rational, co...

Whenever you’re running your life on those fuels, Satan’s got you where he wants you. The one thing he does not want is that God’s words “You are my beloved child” become the fuel of your life and hea...

The Western world has largely rejected this dimension of evil that the Bible gives us, and as a result, we, like Job’s friends, are always underestimating—and sometimes misdiagnosing—the power of evil...

While I am not one to see a demon behind every bush or spiritual warfare in every difficulty, the fact is that we are regularly engaged in the struggle against good and evil—whether we know it or not....

My friend Carter Conlon has ministered in New York City for more than two decades. Yet he spent many of his early years on a farm. He recalls a barnyard scene that illustrates the status of Satan. A f...

There is a story of a medieval monk who was being unjustly accused of certain offenses. One day he looked out his window and saw a dog biting and tearing on a rug that had been hung out to dry. As he ...

In Bob Benson’s book “See You at the House” he recounts the story of a friend who had a heart attack. At first it didn’t seem like the man would live, but eventually he would recover, Months later, Bo...

We Christians must be armed and expect every day to be under continuous attack. . . . At such times our only help and comfort is to run here and seize hold of the Lord’s Prayer and speak to God from o...

In the Old Testament, the book of Psalms is called, in Hebrew, “The Praises.” And yet the single largest category of “praises” within it consists of laments! That is, people were bringing before God t...

One year, in the small cul-de-sac where my family lived in Illinois, three husbands in the four houses around us had heart attacks while still in their forties. This was Illinois, where the state bird...

You can only build an effective Christian life when you have a “settled core”: an inner self “hidden with Christ” (Colossians 3:3). When you go to the gym or a Pilates class, your instructor might enc...

Internal conflict is not only dangerous—it can threaten the long-term flourishing of any organization, including the church. According to tradition, during the Battle of Trafalgar, Lord Horatio Nelson...

In their excellent book, Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “form...

Spiritual formation has become one of the major movements of the late twentieth century. Spiritualities of all varieties have emerged on the landscape of our culture—Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Zen, vari...

Many Christians . . . find themselves defeated by the most powerful psychological weapon that Satan uses against Christians. This weapon has the effectiveness of a deadly missile. Its name? Low self-e...

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton discuss the poignant insight that it is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the Wildnerness. What does this...

Too often people think about their “spiritual lives” as just one more aspect of their existence, alongside and largely separate from their “financial lives” or their “vocational lives.” Periodically t...

Our eyes are remarkable and accurate signs of our inner spiritual health. They narrow into slits when we hate, envy, and scheme. They open wide in wonder when we live in adoration and generosity. W...

Scripture also speaks of “discernment of spirits” and encourages us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” This aspect of discernment helps us to distinguish the real from the phony, ...

What is spiritual formation? There is an outer you—your body—that is being shaped all the time by the way you eat, drink, sleep, exercise, and live. You may do this well or poorly, intentionally or no...

John Ortberg likens the transformative path of Christ to sailing. Sailors can't make the wind show up; the wind has a mind of its own. But that doesn't mean there is nothing for them to do. Sa...

“God is against you,” Satan says. “He is not really for you. How can you believe He is for you when you see the things that are happening in your life?” “I have accusations I will bring against you b...

God’s primary assessment of our lives is not going to be measured by the number of journal entries…The real issue is what kind of people we are becoming. Practices such as reading Scripture and prayin...

I grew up in church. However, this church was part of a denomination that avoided mentioning the Holy Spirit whenever possible. Our denominational leaders treated Him a bit like the crazy uncle who sh...

A young lady named Sally took a seminary class taught by Professor Smith, who was known for his elaborate object lessons. One day Sally walked into class to find a large target placed on the wall, wit...

The soul can also manifest physical symptoms of need. I like to think of it this way: Just like my stomach growls when I’m hungry for physical food, my spirit tends to growl when I’m in need of spirit...

Spiritual growth is, in large measure, patterned on the nature of physical growth. We do not expect to put an infant into its crib at night and in the morning find a child, an adolescent or yet an adu...

It is a spiritual disaster for a man to rest content with his exterior identity, with his passport picture of himself. Is his life merely in his fingerprints?

In her book Invitation to Retreat , Ruth Haley Barton shares some of the many insights she has had since she began intentionally taking inattentional retreats to re-connect with God and her own d...