The spirit world can be confusing for disciples of Christ because we cannot see it and totally experience it. Yet, it is an important aspect of our faith. This daily devotional looks at the world in which God and Satan exist and how it impacts our physical world.
Nuggets
- God and Satan exist in the spirit world.
- Jesus told us evil spirits interact with us without our knowledge, they sow havoc, and will be judged in the end.
- Satan’s whole purpose in interacting with us is to get us to sin against God.
- Satan is going to attack us where we are vulnerable.
Wow! We are on our last topic from Vincent’s The Lesson of Ripeness sermon. We’ve been looking at the need to grow in our relationship with God. We morphed learning enough to be a teacher into determining some areas we need to grow so we can be mature disciples.
Our last topic is on the spiritual world. Full transparency — I am not an expert on this. Let’s see what we can learn together.
Vincent took the spiritual world as an extension of spiritual discernment. He wrote, “Again, time ought to develop faith in the sense of spiritual discernment — clearer perception of the things [of] the unseen world. It is not strange if a young Christian simply believes in the things which are not seen. It is strange if the older Christian does not feel the power of the world to come. It is one thing to assent to the truth that ‘the things which are not seen are eternal’; it is another thing to apprehend that truth, and to take it into life as a working principle; to realise that the things on which heaven stamps a value — love and faith and purity and truth and good conscience — are the paramount things, and to make everything give way to these. That kind of spiritual seeing has a teaching power.”
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Devotions in the The Unseen Spirit World series
Let's Put It into Context
I knew this was going to be a hard topic — which is one of the reasons I saved it to last. If you have read my devotions before, you know I am big on definitions to give a solid, uniform foundation to us all.
The Holman Bible Dictionary didn’t have spiritual world and couldn’t give us a definition of spirit. The best they did was to say was “the kinship of spirit, breath, and wind is a helpful clue in beginning to understand spirit.”
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Hmmm. Three invisible things.
Nave’s Topical Bible didn’t help either. It didn’t have anything on the spiritual world.
So, let’s go at it from Paul’s verse about it.
We have looked at this verse before when we were looking at spiritual warfare. Spiritual warfare is the fight between the spiritual forces of good and evil.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
It was not an in-depth look at the verse and focused solely on the battle. Let’s attack it from the unseen spirits angle.
What Is the Spiritual World?
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood …” (Eph. 6: 12 CSB)
God and Satan exist in the spirit world. While the spiritual and physical worlds are two separate worlds, there are connections.
I don’t think they can be considered two parallel worlds — the spiritual world and the physical world, where never the twain shall meet. The spiritual world has a component in our physical world because both God and Satan interact with us.
We do have an idea of what the spiritual world is like. John told us in Revelation what he saw Heaven to be. We talked in the Hell Does Have Fury series what hell will be like.
To read a devotion in the Hell Does Have Fury series, click on the appropriate button below.
We access the God’s spiritual world through prayer and reading scriptures — the normal seeking God way. It must be an intentional connection.
God and Satan started out in Heaven together. Then Satan rebelled.
We’ve talked before about the war that happened in Heaven. “Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out — the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him” (Rev. 12: 7-9 CSB).
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
That allowed Satan to come at us.
Satan and His Demons
“… but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens” (Eph. 6: 12 CSB)
Jesus taught about the evil spirits.
- “The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts” (Mt. 13: 19 NLT).
- “The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels” (Mt. 13: 39 NLT).
- “He replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven’” (Lk. 10: 18 NIV).
- “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Lk. 22: 31 NLT).
- “The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out” (Jn. 12: 31 NLT).
- “Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, ‘Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons” (Mt. 25: 41 NLT).
Jesus told us evil spirits interact with us without our knowledge, they sow havoc, and will be judged in the end. If Satan demanded Peter be handed over, I would say he is a pushy brat.
At times, it seems like the spiritual enemies have run of our physical world. Jay noted they enter our world because of “the advantage they find in the world.”
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Part of the problem is that, as mankind, our physical bodies are sinful in nature. That makes us more inclined to except the lies the demons tell us.
Another part of the problem is there are so many demons. Luke 8: 30 says,“Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ ‘Legion,’ he replied, because many demons had gone into him” (NIV).
We shouldn’t think that, just because we can’t see them, Satan and his demons aren’t a threat. They are formidable. They foster these lies to deceive us into disobeying God.
How Do Satan and His Demons Interact with Us?
“For our struggle …” (Eph. 6: 12 CSB)
Satan’s whole purpose in interacting with us is to get us to sin against God. He can be very crafty at getting us to sin. It is a struggle.
Our thoughts are, I believe, one of his avenues of tripping us up. Dale wrote, “Evil thoughts come to us which are alien from all our convictions and from all our sympathies. There is nothing to account for them in our external circumstances or in the laws of our intellectual life. We abhor them and repel them, but they are pressed upon us with cruel persistency. They come to us at times when their presence is most hateful; they cross and trouble the current of devotion; they gather like thick clouds between our souls and God, and suddenly darken the glory of the Divine righteousness and love. We are sometimes pursued and harassed by doubts which we have deliberately confronted, examined, and concluded to be absolutely destitute of force, doubts about the very existence of God, or about the authority of Christ, or about the reality of our own redemption. Sometimes the assaults take another form. Evil fires which we thought we had quenched are suddenly rekindled by unseen hands; we have to renew the fight with forms of moral and spiritual evil which we thought we had completely destroyed.”
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Oh, yeah. Satan knows just where to aim at us to plant those thoughts. He isn’t going to give up the struggle any time soon.
The problem is, since we can’t see him, we don’t always acknowledge that it is Satan tempting us. But that is part of his cunning — he slides in, does his mind thing, and slides out.
I know. Wouldn’t it have been great if Satan had to have stayed as a snake in order to talk to us? We could see him, and we would definitely know it was him.
And, no. I would not stick around a snake, even if he could talk to me.
Making the Connections
“The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (I Jn. 3: 8 NIV)
Satan is going to attack us where we are vulnerable. The Biblical Illustrator cautioned us about this: “For the devil will be sure to hit the least part that he finds unarmed; if it be the eye, he will dart in at that casement by the presentation of one lewd object or other; if it be the ear, he will force that door open by bad counsel; if the tongue, that shall be made a world of mischief; if the feet, they shall be swift to shed blood, etc.”
That means we have to wear our armor.
To read devotions in the Armor of God series, click the appropriate button below.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
Oh, wow. How could we not see the need for self-discipline here? It is going to be a battle.
Yes, God is going to be the One fighting for us. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to prepare.
How Do We Apply This?
We prepare by ABCDing. We prepare by seeking God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
The more consistent we are in being in God’s Word and in communication with Him, the better we will be able to resist Satan. Ooo, baby. Do we need to strap on the armor of God! It is going to be a tough battle.
Father. You will win the battle against Satan in the end. But You have chosen that the end not be years ago — or any other time up to this moment. That means Satan shoots all of his fiery darts at us, trying to get us to deny You.new choose You, Lord. Help us to stand firm in Your righteousness when he comes calling. Help us to obey and follow You. Amen.
What do you think?
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