War of the Worlds; Our Promised Hope
When we talk about the hope we have in Jesus Christ, one of the first things we turn to is getting to spend an eternity in heaven with our God. That is an amazing thing! But the good news of God has something to say about life in the here and the now. Making the decision to commit our lives to God is not just about going to heaven, but all of that and more. This week we’ll spend time talking specifically about who our chief adversary is. While it can be easy to look at the broader culture and pinpoint certain figures who seem to oppose the path of Christ, we know, as the apostle Paul tells us, that “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 heavenly spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). Since the garden, humanity has long been held captive by the adversary, by Satan. Yet, Jesus has come to set us free. He has come not just to set us free from our own bondage to sin but to also set us free from the misconception that our spiritual war is against our fellow human beings. My hope this week is that we will all walk away with a fuller understanding of the kingdom of God and our mission as the Church. That we will be able to go out into a world with a renewed conviction that our war is against Satan and that we can approach our neighbors and communities with grace and love and recognize them as captives of the evil one.
–Caleb McCaughan, Our Promised Hope: War of the Worlds
Discussion Questions:
Satan is a master manipulator. What makes it so challenging to remember that our chief adversary is “not against flesh and blood, but against… the spiritual forces of evil?”
As we go through our series learning about the kingdom of God, how has this impacted your spiritual walk? Have you been encouraged? Convicted?
To someone who has a sense of longing that there must be something more to this life, how would you describe the hope we have in Jesus Christ to them?
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