Crossing KCU

The inherent difficulty of being in an invisible war is simply the fact that many people are unaware that it is happening. But it is happening. For those who have taken on the name of Christ, who have proclaimed him the King and made the confession and the commitment… for those who have been washed clean by the blood he shed, for those who have risen from the water, there is no turning back. There is no comfort, there is no shelter, and there is no protection in the idols we once made for ourselves.

The war is real. We live in the reality of it every day. War brings many things. War brings pain, war brings heart break, and war brings death. Medication will not alleviate these things. Distraction will not make it go away. It will still be there when you get done, or when you wake up. Intellectualism will not save you from the cold sting of a demon sinking its teeth into your skin and making you feel like you are alone and you are worthless. Demons do not care about voting. They do not care about how many degrees you have hanging on your wall, or how many books you have read about God. Demons take pleasure in watching us make fools of ourselves by marching, protesting, and boycotting. They laugh at us when we try to fight a spiritual war with guns and bombs, and they are right to do so. There is but one thing they fear from us, and that is nothing less than our total reliance upon our God and Savior.

For sure, there are times when we feel like giving up. There are times when the weight of failure is too much for us to stomach. In these moments, when we are at our weakest, when the disease that was cured rises from the ashes to bite us anew, the dark creatures attack us with the most ferocious of their numbers, hammering into us like giant boulders. Their intention is clear. If they cannot destroy us, they seek to keep us from reaching those whom they still hold in bondage. They have many weapons by which they attempt to achieve this goal. The most formidable of these are their efforts at turning our own brethren against us. It is with great sadness that we lament those who have been subverted, who have relinquished their will to the demons. We watch, sometimes from a distance, and sometimes from close by, as the creatures take those of our own number, fill them and inflate them with illusions of power, wealth, prosperity, and comfort, and then parade them in front of the masses like puppeteers putting on a show.

All the while the world remains in darkness. In the endless quest to transcend the boundaries of time and space, men have delved into nearly every mystery of heaven and earth. They have broken through every boundary of the environment, pushed as far out into the black void as possible, and even torn apart the very molecules that encase our physical reality. They have climbed the highest mountains, probed the vast depths of the oceans, and captured the greatest energies of this planet in their fingertips. At every advance, every victory, and in every age of this world, the powers and principalities have raised their fists at the creator, pointed their fingers, mocked him to his very face, and plowed on with no intentions of stopping.

In this endeavor, we have made every effort to forget our creator. We have torn up his great works, spit on his most beautiful expressions, and attempted to destroy every gift he has provided. In his place we have raised up ourselves. We have endlessly pursued the desire to conquer and to overcome the harshest aspects of our existence, and to destroy the things that cause us pain. At the same time, there is no avenue of pain, suffering, and sorrow that we have not pursued just as fervently. In this way we have given birth to unimaginable horrors, conceived with the noblest of intentions. In this way we have killed the noblest of heroes without reason. In this way we have traded away the things that once made us human, for the things that have robbed us of our humanity. In this way we have lost ourselves to an existence of nothingness, and inherited a life without purpose or meaning or fulfillment. Still, we linger on, relentlessly eager to prove ourselves right, to honor the things we have made, and to forget that we too were made.

There is a word that some use to describe all this. It is an old word, and ancient word carried down from generations long ago. Sin is the English translation of this word, but these three letters are not enough for us to really appreciate what it means. Sin is the absence of our creator’s touch. Sin is the thing that he did not create. Sin is the thing that we created when we first disobeyed our creator, the thing that we have fed continuously ever since, and the thing we nurture and feed in our lives every day. We are the producers of imperfection, suffering, and pain. We are the authors of every detestable act that exists. We eat sin, we bathe in sin, we grow sin, we give birth to it through our thoughts and actions, and we bend ourselves to its will.

But there is a hope that still survives. It is an ancient hope, and for those of us who have received it, we carry with us an eternal privilege—for those of us who have chosen to fight, our heritage is different. Our sin has been erased. We find solace in the Master who has willingly given his life, our only ransom from the disease of sin, from despair, defeat, destruction, and death. It is with his strength alone, imparted to us through the very shedding of his blood that we carry on. He has given us a chance to leave behind the broken shadows of the men and women that we once were, and instilled within us the light to become who we are meant to be. In his greatest expression of love, he became nothing that we could become something, he became dirty that we could become clean, and he died so that we could truly live. We once sought to understand the way to purpose, to meaning, and to fulfillment; he told us that he is the way. We once sought to create our own way and to live by our own truth; he told us that he is the truth. We once sought to live in ways that would satisfy our desires, to extend our years, and to escape our deaths; he told us that he is the only life there is.

He is God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is Jesus the Christ, who came to earth through the closed door of a virgin’s womb, taking on flesh as a man, and walking among our ancestors. He is the redeemer who suffered and died on a Roman cross between two thieves. He is the image of the invisible God, laid to rest in a tomb. He is the King of kings, who took his life back up again and rose from the grave three days later. He is the Lord of lords, and he ascended into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God the father. He breathed his Holy Spirit—the Spirit of Truth—into us, his body, his church, and he will return for us at the end of the age.

Until then, we have work to do.