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Be of sober spirit, be on the
alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking
someone to devour. (Holy Bible: New American Standard Bible, 1 Peter
5:8)
Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge about him and
his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his
hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But
put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to
Your face.” (Ibid. Job 1:9-12)
I have not forgotten my promise to
consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme
pacifist. All extremes except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged (Lewis, Kindle 32)
Spiritual
warfare may be an overlooked topic in Spiritual Formation. The goal of Spiritual Formation is to submit
the self over to God, so that the character of Jesus may be formed within
us. If that is a person’s goal, do you
not think that Satan would work in every way to obstruct or stop this
purpose? Although many of C.S. Lewis’
other works are associated with Spiritual Formation, the Screwtape Letters are
not often cited. This may be a mistake,
since the Screwtape Letters are a fictional account of a demon giving
instructions to a lower raking demon to prevent a person from becoming a
committed follower of Jesus. It must be
understood, the work is fiction; however, Lewis brings out several real-world
examples of ways that Satan may distract us from full devotion to God.
In the
above quote from the Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape points out to the
lower demon, Wormwood, that there may be benefit to their cause regardless of
whether Wormwood works to turn the person, referred to as the patient, into an
extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist during World War II. Take a moment and consider, how could Satan
equally use a person from these seemingly opposite positions?
In another
letter, Screwtape explains that from the demon’s perspective, many positions
are neither good or bad, and their goals may be accomplished by letting the
humans argue over “… whether love, or patriotism, or celibacy, or candles on
alters, or teetotalism, or education are good or bad” (Lewis, 101) . Consider how Jesus said the greatest
commandment was to love the Lord with all you are, and the second commandment
was to love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 22:37-40). Has Satan be able to use the subjects that
Screwtape names in this quote to convince Christians that they don’t need to
love their neighbor who holds to a different position? If so, then he has prevented the Christian
from fulfilling what Jesus called the second commandment. Moreover, where John wrote that Christians
would be known for their love (1 John 2:5), if a Christian has been convinced
not to love, what kind of damage does that do to the message of the cross? This example illustrates why spiritual
warfare should be a concern of Spiritual Formation.
Written by Pastor Ozzy
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Works Cited
Works Cited
1995. Holy Bible: New American Standard Bible.
LaHabra: The Lockman Foundation.
Lewis, C. S. 2009. The Screwtape Letters. New
York: HarperCollins e-books.
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