Friday, October 20, 2006

Life is war

Read this at Matt Tullos' site. Loved it. Copied it. (Matt is another Company person, he graduated from Southwestern & now works for Lifeway. He is one of my writing role models- I got to take one writing seminar from him at a Lifeway creative conference. ) Matt's site: http://worship.squarespace.com/

"Life is war. That's not all it is. But it is always that...But most people do not believe this in their hearts. Most people show by their priorities and their casual approach to spiritual things that they believe we are in peacetime, not wartime...Very few people think that we are in a war that is greater than World War II, or than any imaginable nuclear war. Few reckon that Satan is a much worse enemy than any earthly foe, or realize that the conflict is not restricted to any one global theater, but is in every town and city in the world. Who considers that the casualties of this war do not merely lose an arm or an eye or an earthly life, but lose everything, even their own souls, and enter a hell of everlasting torment? Until we feel the force of this, we will not pray as we ought. We will not even know what prayer is...Prayer is the communication with headquarters by which the weapons of warfare are deployed according to the will of God...Prayer is the walkie-talkie of the church on the battlefield of the world in the service of the word. It is not a domestic intercom to increase the temporal comforts of the saints. It malfunctions in the hands of soldiers who have gone AWOL. It is for those on active duty. And in their hands it proves the supremacy of God in the pursuit of the nations. When missions move forward by prayer it magnifies the power of God. When it moves by human management it magnifies man.
John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad

No comments: