Wage The Good Warfare (Daily Devotional)

Hello and welcome to Living Supernaturally, we're so glad that you could be part of today's daily devotion. Today, we're going to meditate on some of the truths that Paul writes to Timothy in his epistles to Timothy. We see that there are instructions, there are commands, there's revelation and we get to benefit from what he has written to Timothy and to the church over there. So, let's look at 1 Timothy chapter 1, verses 18 and 19 says, ‘this charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck.’ So, he's saying this command or this charge I commit to you. So, it's a command that he's giving Timothy and he's saying son Timothy, this command, this charge I commit to you. Commit is to submit, he's saying, I present to you, I place it alongside you so that you can take a note of it and do something about it. So, he's talking about prophecy here and we know that prophecy is God speaking to man through man. In 1 Corinthians chapter 14, it says, that prophecy brings edification, exhortation and comfort. Edification meaning it builds up a person, exhortation, it encourages a person and brings comfort from the heart of God to the heart of man, so that's prophecy. So, here Paul is saying, take every prophecy that was made concerning you and by them, you do something. What is that something that he asks him to do? He says, by these prophecies, you wage the good warfare. In other words, Paul is saying this prophecy is actually a weapon. You are in warfare, you need to use spiritual weapons and each prophecy that was made concerning you whether it came from other people or whether it was something that God quickened to your spirit, now this is a weapon. We know that we are in a spiritual battle, we are in a spiritual battle not against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities and against rulers of darkness of this age, as we see in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 12. So, we are in a spiritual battle and this spiritual battle requires spiritual resources and prophecy is one such spiritual resource that we need to use against powers of darkness in this spiritual battle. The second one we see is that the battle that we are in, is also a battle of the mind. In 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 4 and 5, it says, ‘the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.’ He goes on to say what this stronghold is made of, he talks about arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity, to the obedience of Christ. So, we see that this is a warfare and it's a battle in the mind and to pull down the strongholds in the mind, we need spiritual weapons or spiritual armament and prophecy is one such thing. So, Paul is saying, it's good that you received these prophecies, it's good that you have enjoyed these prophecies but we need to use those prophecies. So, what prophecies have you received in your life? Have people declared God's word over you? Has God promised certain things? Now, these are things to be noted down because these are precious and these come from the heart of God. So, these need to be noted down and not just noted down but these need to be used in battle. Now the battle against us, it could be a battle bringing in discouragement, it could be a battle that is causing a lot of fear and intimidation, it could be a battle that is causing us to stray away from the faith and even give up on our call, on our plans and on the purposes that God has for us. Now, the battle could rage in a powerful way and try to actually make us fall down. So, in such moments, if you are facing such a moment right now, it's time to take up those prophecies, it's time to lift those prophecies and use it in spiritual battle. How do we use it? Well, how do we apply the quickened word of God? How do we apply the prophetic word? This is how we do it, we meditate on it, we renew our mind with it and we declare and confess God's word over our lives, against these weapons that are coming against us in the form of discouragement, maybe it's temptation we use it. Shall we pray, Father, we thank you that for this instruction, for this exhortation that we need to take these prophetic words and use it as a weapon against any attack of the enemy, whether it's a spiritual attack or whether it's a battle in the mind. Enable us to use it and find victory, we thank you, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week’s theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week’s devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.