by Brandon Cox: Jacob, son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, had twelve sons, including Joseph and the youngest, Benjamin. The ten older brothers had sold Joseph into slavery and allowed Jacob to believe his son had died. His heart was broken.

Later, when famine swept across the land, the ten older brothers traveled to Egypt to buy grain only to be received by Joseph, the second most powerful man in the empire under Pharaoh. They didn’t recognize him, so Joseph began to use the opportunity to see that his youngest brother hadn’t fallen prey to their jealousy. He kept one brother in prison and sent the other nine back to Jacob, demanding that they return with Benjamin to prove they weren’t spies.

In the middle of that story, Jacob utters one of the most defeated phrases someone can say out loud. When his sons explain all that is happening and what Joseph is requiring of them, he exclaims to them,

Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!”

~ Genesis 42:36 NIV

I’ve said it before. Have you? EVERYTHING is against me!

We lose a couple of battles and, even though we are guaranteed eternal victory we still proclaim, I just can’t win!

A relationship falls apart – maybe even more than one relationship – and we declare, Everyone has abandoned me!

The economy takes a turn downward and we run into financial trouble and we decide, I’ve lost everything!

When we speak in those absolute terms – everything is wrong… nothing is going right… my whole life is falling apart – what we’re really doing is agreeing with the Enemy, the Liar, Satan. We’re ignoring God’s richest and deepest blessings, forsaking our faith in his promises, and we’re agreeing with the one who whispers such lies into our ears.

The truth, for every Christ-follower who walks the earth, is that we are more than winners! We cannot be beaten! We cannot ultimately lose everything because so much of what God has promised to us is preserved in the heavenly realm in which nothing ever wastes away.

You haven’t lost it all. You can never lose it all. You’re just going through a very hard moment, and God is going to see you through it with the presence of his Holy Spirit in your life.

Chin up! We WILL get through this!

by Brandon Cox: As I’ve said in many other places, I’m a huge believer that Christians should approach the subject of depression and mental health holistically. That is, we must consider the medical, spiritual, physical, psychological, and emotional angles. We should see counselors, talk to our doctors, pray, stay in community, etc.

I’ve made the argument quite strongly that depression is not just a spiritual battle. It can stem from trauma, from chemical imbalances, from hereditary conditions, and it can be the result of our reaction to our circumstances.

And… it can also be demonic.

When it comes to spiritual warfare, in which I’m a devout believer, there are two extremes among believers.

Skeptics don’t see anything as spiritual and believe that everything must have a visible, physical, and logical explanation. But when we rule out the possibility of afflictions being spiritual in nature, we essentially become practical atheists.

Superstitious people, on the other hand, see a demon behind every single problem. This can be dangerous when we tell someone with a legitimate struggle with mental illness that their real problem isn’t medical or physical, but they simply need to have the demons exorcised.

As we treat depression holistically, we absolutely must consider the possibility of demonic influence. It’s biblical. Jesus and the early apostles encountered many people who were thought to be insane, but who were merely afflicted or possessed with a demon.

Thankfully, the Bible gives us a simple battle plan. James wrote it this way…

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

~ James 4:7-10 NIV

If you’re struggling with depression or mental health issues and suspect the problem may be demonic in nature, do this…

1. Surrender your life entirely to God’s authority. Hold nothing back.
2. Take a stand against the enemy, resisting temptation.
3. Stay close to God, pray, read your Bible.
4. Confess every sin and every potential source of demonic influence in your life.
5. Renounce any agreement you’ve ever made with any lie or demonic power.
6. Stay humble, acknowledging your total dependence on God.

If, after all of that, you still feel the same, it’s likely that the source of your depression is not demonic in nature. And now, having done those things, you’ll be far more spiritually mature and wiser as you continue seeking the source.

People are often afraid to consider demonic influence because we’ve seen crazy things on Youtube where a preacher screams and sweats and spits while people convulse on the ground and shriek and faint. Or we have a Hollywood image in our heads with jump scares and spinning heads.

Yes, it’s possible that the rebuking and removal of a demon from someone’s life may seem dramatic, but in nearly every case, it’s simply a matter of submissive prayer and confession, asking for deliverance, and trusting that God has worked powerfully.

And by the way, can a Christian be possessed with a demon? I don’t believe so, at least not in the sense that we often think of possession as some kind of mystical control. It’s more a matter of us leaving the door of our “home” (our soul, our mind) cracked open enough for Satan to influence us and invade our thinking.

You can never go wrong praying, staying close to Jesus, reading his word, and listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

God is powerful to deliver you, even from forces you may not understand. So trust him completely.

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By the way, I preached a message series on spiritual warfare called For the Win. If you’d like to study further, check it out!

by Brandon Cox: People are not the real enemies. Paul made that clear when he said,

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.

Ephesians 6:12 NIV

It may often seem as though people are the problem. We blame the left, or the right; the Democrats, the Republicans; the liberals, the conservatives, etc. But other people are actually the least of your worries.

The Bible describes three primary enemies in your life.

1. The world.

And by “the world,” I don’t mean people in the world. I’m referring to the cultural and philosophical systems of thinking that are devoid of the reality and authority of God. Materialism, humanism, atheism, narcissism, consumerism, and a dozen other “ism’s” are all a threat to walking by faith.

I grew up believing that worldliness was defined by certain behaviors. But worldliness, in the negative sense, is much more about how you think.

2. The flesh.

And by “the flesh,” I don’t mean your skin and bones and physical body, though our flesh may often employ our physical body to fulfill its desires. I’m referring more to the “old you.”

When you decide to follow Jesus, the old you (the flesh) dies and a you are born again as a brand new creature in Christ. But the old you hangs around. Your cravings don’t all change overnight.

I know that I’m walking in the flesh when I’m centered on self, absorbed in protecting and defending my own turf and not thinking or acting like Jesus.

In other words, you’re often your own worst enemy.

3. The devil.

I believe Satan is a real, personal being who is bent on the destruction of anything God creates or loves. And I believe Satan loves two kinds of people…

• Skeptics, who doubt his existence and believe that there is nothing beyond the visible, natural world.
• Superstitious people, who see a demon behind every bush and believe everything bad that happens is satanic.

He either wants to blend in and be invisible to you, or he wants to have all of your attention and focus. Either way, he wins.

Satan (and by extension, all of those fallen angels we call demons who work for him) suggests negative, ungodly thoughts, plagues your mind, entices you to sin and stay trapped, and works to establish godless ideologies in the world around us.

Here’s the good news about all three of your biggest enemies.

They’re already defeated.

When you enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, you’ll still live in the world, you’ll still walk around in your own flesh, and you’ll still be tempted by demonic forces at play, but all three of those enemies are as good as dead.

The world will pass away and a new world is coming when Jesus returns. Furthermore, “greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.” (see 1 John 4:4)

And Satan has already been defeated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. His time is now limited. When God is ready to complete our redemption, he’ll be thrown into a pit for all of eternity.

Your enemies are real, but so is your victory. All that threatens you has already been overcome by King Jesus. You simply need to lean into and live out his victory every day. (Click to tweet this!)

You are more than a conqueror when you follow Jesus Christ. Believe it!

When you drop the phrase spiritual warfare into a casual conversations, you often get mixed reactions.

On the one hand, a lot of people are skeptics when it comes to anything invisible or supernatural. In fact, many people will believe in heaven and angels but choose not to believe in hell or demons.

On the other hand, a lot of people can get downright superstitious about the subject. Everything bad that happens is perceived as a demonic attack.

In the middle are most of the pastors I know, who believe rather strongly in the existence and power of heavenly beings – both angels and demons – that exist all around us in a heavenly, spiritual realm hidden to our eyes and human senses.

And this spiritual realm is not, right now, at peace. It’s a war zone.

Don’t misunderstand. It isn’t a battle of God versus Satan or good versus evil. All power and authority, in heaven and in earth, belongs to God alone and has been granted to his kingly Son who rose victoriously from the dead, defeating once and for all the power of sin and death.

But for a season, allowed by the permissive will of God for his own purposes, “The devil… prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8 NLT)

So the war rages on, for now, until the appointed day when King Jesus will speak a decisive and final end to the conflict.

Pastors and church leaders are on the front lines of the battle, where the smell of smoke, sweat, and blood always hangs in the air.

In the week leading up to Easter, my friend and fellow pastor, Cary Schmidt, wrote this post on his Facebook timeline and it struck home…

I happen to believe that Satan’s servants are keen observers of our patterns, behaviors, and weaknesses. The book of Acts contains a seemingly bizarre story of some men who attempted to use God’s power without God’s blessing…

God gave Paul the power to perform unusual miracles. When handkerchiefs or aprons that had merely touched his skin were placed on sick people, they were healed of their diseases, and evil spirits were expelled. A group of Jews was traveling from town to town casting out evil spirits. They tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus in their incantation, saying, “I command you in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” Seven sons of Sceva, a leading priest, were doing this. But one time when they tried it, the evil spirit replied, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, overpowered them, and attacked them with such violence that they fled from the house, naked and battered.

Rough day for these false priests! But what catches my attention is what the Bible says about how these demons related to Paul and to Jesus.

Jesus I know… and Paul I know… but who are you?

This little verse tells me two things about the forces of darkness.

First, they don’t know everything. Satan isn’t God. He isn’t a god or a demi-god of some kind. He’s a created being with finite intelligence. He doesn’t know everything about every person, but I think he enjoys it when we superstitiously assume he’s in God’s class in this area.

Second, they do study people. To translate it literally, the demon speaking said, “Jesus, I know by personal experience… Paul, I know by studying and observing… ”

Here’s the somewhat creepy truth we need to realize… When you pursue God’s purposes and determine to influence the world for the gospel’s sake, you become a subject of study among the demons.

You’re a threat when you’re praying, walking in the Spirit, and sharing your faith. You’re worth observing when you are making a real difference.

When you lead and influence people within the kingdom, the struggle becomes especially real. It isn’t that you’re special or more important. We’re all on equal footing and there is no value differential in the kingdom between what we’ve come to think of as “clergy” and “laity.” All of the members of the body of Christ are equal in value and worth.

But when you lead, teach, and influence, you’re threatening the boundaries of hell’s territory. And there, the spiritual warfare will be fierce!

So what do you do?

You do exactly what you would advise every other believer to do with answers informed by God’s Word.

You suit up in the armor of God every day.

You stay in a state of repentance and humble dependance upon God.

You pray continually.

You sharpen your sword by studying the Word.

And you claim the victory that is yours in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Don’t be skeptical. Don’t be superstitious. Just be ready.

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Suggested Resource:

View the notes, videos, and graphics from my current sermon series on spiritual warfare, called For the Win.

Books to Use in Studying the Topic