Spiritual Warfare

I love that scripture is living and alive!  I love taking apart the old accounts of men and women just like you and me.  The boys and I recently spent about a week on Noah.  Some great powerful stuff!!  You can just read the story and think how amazing God is but you'll miss some powerful lessons if that's all you do.  For the last few months I've been camped out with Moses and Joshua as they travel to and conquer the Promised Land.  It's been exciting to read how the Lord brought them out of the wilderness.  However, I had missed in all the years of studying scripture that they didn't fully conquer all the lands around them.  The result?  They turned away from the Lord.

I just can't get this out of my head.  The Lord keeps bringing this story to mind even several days after reading it.  They stopped too soon.  Why was that?  Did they tire?  Did they get proud?  Were they fascinated with the culture around them?  Regardless, they turned away from the Lord to follow the pagan cultures around them.  This account makes me extremely sad.  But something in me says we do this all the time in our homes.....

What about us?  What sin do we still allow to linger?  Do we see our home as a battle ground?  Do we fight fully?  Do we need to "clean" up our home?  Do we give up too quickly?  Do we get proud and think all is well?

Recently my boys were having a rough day constantly fighting.  One child would use words to hurt and tear down while the other would lash out in physical hitting.  I asked the Lord to give me the name of the spirit that had gotten into my home to create this mess but I couldn't put a name to a word.  I had a word come to mind but wasn't sure what it meant so wasn't sure it was the correct name.  I texted a friend quickly to tell her what was up and asked her if the Lord would give her a word for what I was asking for.  She gave me the word contempt but she wasn't really sure what it meant or that it applied.  I looked it up and knew it was the right spirit to pray against.  Later the word...animosity came to me which is very similar to contempt.  I was thankful the Lord gave me the wisdom to know how to pray and what to pray against.  The result?  A much better day.

The point?  Our home is a battle ground.  Sometimes I'm not tuned into it and sometimes I am.  We can't ever get lazy because when we do, we can become like the Israelites and allow the culture to overtake our home turning us away from what the Lord desires from us.