This is something every believer needs to know.

The chipper, everybody’s happy, dry tooth Christianity milled by the industrial church does not prepare believers for the reality and horrors of war they WILL face everyday.

In the world we are always in enemy territory and we are always under attack.

“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”
—1 John 5:19

The lies of the world hurt.

And those lies come through real hurtful events and real hurtful statements at the hands of real people with an aim to establish real hurtful outcomes that contradict the truth of what God says, how His kingdom operates and His desire for our lives.

So, we fight.

In the world, Satan’s kingdom is the default, and we are in the world, so we fight to establish God’s kingdom -in our hearts, in our homes, in the church, in our spheres and in every interaction that we have with others.

Faith in Christ is an embassy in hostile enemy territory. We can run to it and find shelter in it, BUT IT DOES NOT STOP THE PAIN of the lies or the difficulty of warfare that we must face every day.

Without knowing this, a believer could be tricked into thinking that God is not with them, that He’s displeased with them, that they’ve not done something right or that faith in Christ is not real.

No, beloved.

We’re in enemy territory.

We must fight.

Fighting is hard.

It never stops being hard.

But, there is power available to us.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
—Philippians 4:13

But above all, we win.

We who are in Christ always win because He has won.

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”
—2 Corinthians 2:14

As we speak, the enemies of the kingdom of God are being subdued where there will be no kingdom besides His and where our King, Christ, is fully established as Lord of all.

“For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.

For ‘He has put all things under His feet.’

But when He says ‘all things are put under Him,’ it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.

Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.”
—1 Corinthians 15:25-28

Then, finally, we can rest and war no more.

Until then, we must fight.

Fighting never stops being hard.

Life can be hard and good.