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Let’s review the ten practical steps to successful spiritual warfare: 1. See the spiritual behind the natural, 2. Fight from a position of victory, 3. Saturate yourself with truth, 4. Live right, 5. Walk in the Spirit, 6. Actively choose to believe God, 7. Surrender daily, 8. Wield the Word of God, 9. Pray continually, 10. Fight together.

All of these steps are important, and many of them overlap with each other, stacking on top of each other to form an impenetrable force of armor around you. If you saturate yourself with the truth (step 3) by spending time in the Word of God (step 8), you’re going to be much more likely to actively believe God (step 6) because you know His promises. When you live right (step 4) and intentionally lean into biblical community (step 10), you’re going to discover the power of together and it will be natural to fight from a position of victory (step 2). As you develop a continual prayer conversation with God (step 9), that will lead you to begin to not only see the supernatural behind the natural (step 1) but to walk in the Spirit (step 5) throughout the day.

With so many steps, a follow-up question might be: are all ten steps necessary for successful spiritual warfare? If I just focused on six or seven of the steps, is that enough? Here’s how I would answer that: when an enemy is coming after you to destroy you, how many chinks in your armor does he need to exploit? Just one. He just needs one opening, one point of weakness, one chink in the armor through which to push his attack. And our enemy is relentless, so we must match his relentlessness with our own dedication to the armor of God. Learn these ten steps. Memorize them. Make sure you know practical ways to live each of these steps out in your daily life.


QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. Of the ten practical steps for spiritual warfare, which one would you say is the easiest and most natural to you? In which area would you say you’re the strongest?

2. Conversely, which of the ten steps would you say you’re the weakest in? Where is your greatest area of improvement and what can you do today to begin to shore up that chink in your armor?

NEXT STEP

The next step for today is to follow through with an action plan for question two. If you can identify your greatest weakness then you can begin to strengthen it. It may take a change in habit, carving time out of your calendar or possibly making a phone call and opening up to someone. Whatever it is, do it today!


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