church life and ministry on Spiritual Battles

A Story from the Philokalia A story is told in  The Philokalia  about a young monk who went to an older monk to confess a struggle. The older monk was appalled, telling the young monk that his strugg...

The truth is that there is an enemy and he's out to destroy us. And if he can't destroy us because we're eternally secure in the arms of God, then he will seek to debilitate us, rendering ...

Prayer is picking a fight with the Enemy. It's spiritual warfare. Intercession transports us from the sidelines to the front lines without going anywhere. And that is where the battle is won or lo...

Much of the war against the devil is about whether you’ll quit. Or whether you’ll get sloppy. Or whether you’ll hang on to what drove you in the beginning.

Paul tells the bride in Ephesians 6:10-12 that her enemies are 'not...flesh and blood,' but the unseen spiritual forces of evil and darkness. She is called to arm herself for battle, to 'b...

But since the adversary does not cease to resist many, and uses many and diverse arts to ensnare them, that he may seduce the faithful from their faith, and that he may prevent the faithless from beli...

Christ lay in death’s bonds given over for our sins, He has risen again and brought us life . . . It was a strange battle, that death and life waged, life claimed the victory, it devoured death. The s...

The battle is won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the external world… Nothing has power over the [person] who has fought out the battle before God and won there.

The combat between God and the Devil for all vocations and orders takes place within every single human being. If God is victor, then that part of external existence which lies within man’s reach is m...