Of Time and a Season Part 16

[HKHaugan]

Of Time and a Season Part 16

 “…a time for war and a time for peace.”

 This is the clincher in the series. Here is where we get into the ultimate understanding of what we are really involved in as believers in Jesus. We are at war. But not in the military sense. The war is in the spiritual dimension. It is the spiritual dimension where all physical wars start. Whether it is in the kitchen over some piddling family thing or the conflict between nations, it’s all rooted in the unseen atmosphere of spiritual reality. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph.6:12).”

 There is a basic human principle here that people, who don’t believe in God, can’t accept. The motivation for every choice and decision is an invisible spiritual process. 100% of everything we do is motivated by what we can’t see. It’s the ultimate battle taking place in every individual everywhere. The battle of the ultimate spiritual good against the spiritually flashy evil in the mind, heart and spirit of each person born into the world. There’s no neutrality in morality. No middle ground. No number of grey-shaded excuses. Perfection can never compromise with imperfection. No blends of good and evil. It’s a spiritual battlefield within each of us.

 After Paul met Jesus, something happened within Him changing the way he had seen the world. He had been viewing it from a religious, ethnic and self-centered context. He was religious about God but not personal with God. The Lord Jesus personally gave him an entirely new revelation that helped him identify a basic truth taking place in all people everywhere, “So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin (Rom.7:21-25).”

 There it is. Sin is exposed. Sin is the cause of every inner conflict. However we cut it, life in this world apart from a personal relationship with God will be an inner battlefield where guilt, remorse, and regret rule. The past is an anchor holding us hostage. Add to those the spirits that roam about us seeking a place to dwell. The chiefest of these are fear and pride that tempt and reinforce the attitudes we build with their inspiration. Hate, lust, greed, manipulation, deceit, are just some of the fruit of the kingdom of darkness run by an evil personal power Jesus has exposed, the devil, the author of sin. His minions wander about seeking the magnet of sin in the heart of someone he can “devour (1Pet.5:8).”

 This is the invisible war that starts all visible wars. For the war that starts in each individual and spills out into the relationships it has, rages and spreads to kill the minds and hearts like the unseen viruses that moves from one nation to another. You want a picture of the source of war? Read Genesis and tell me the core, the heart, mind and spirit of the individual isn’t the problem. Read any novel, watch TV news, read a newspaper, watch any movie, see a play. All of the exterior cultural institutions, even denominational and non-denominational churches; all have conflicts. No one gets it right (Rom.3:10-18). Even in our closest ones, marriage, family and friendships from time to time, there is separation and a moody wordless aloneness. Do we have to say more? Tell the world the answer and repeat and repeat it and repeat it again (Here is where peace begins);

 Jesus is our peace (Eph.2:14).

 But don’t just listen to Paul. Hear what Jesus says, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So, don’t be troubled or afraid (John 14:27).”

 The world only promises a pretense, that the absence of external conflict is peace. But that’s not inner peace where nothing dis-eases or upsets your spiritual confidence and spiritual assurance. It is the spirit within us that is either restless, suspicious or on guard and keeps us in inner turmoil. But it is the Holy Spirit coming through a relationship with Jesus that brings what every heart yearns for, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Mt.11:28).” What Solomon longed for but was wise enough to know rested in the wisdom of God was turning to God in faith would give inner peace (Eccl.12:13-14).

 So, we close Solomon’s unfilled quest that seemed to conclude that life is meaningless and to simply trust in God to put up with the times and seasons in which we find ourselves. But how all that changes when, like Paul, we see how Jesus fulfills our deepest longing, the inner peace giving us a confident child-of-God mind, heart and spirit. It’s by faith in Jesus that we look forward to every next event and person we meet as an exciting spiritual adventure.

 The time is now, and the season is eternity. Go for it.