Jan | 31 | ‘Prance and Picnic’

Key Word:- CHOOSE

Title:- ‘Prance and Picnic’

2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

Calvin Miller in his book ‘A Requiem For Love’ pens this insightful verse at the beginning of one of his chapters. It says:

“The wings of demons are as a white as angels wings
Their halos are as golden bright
They sing as well as angels, too
But only when it’s night”

I do not begin to know a lot about ‘spiritual warfare’. I need to know a lot more that’s for sure. However,

• I do know that it hurts.


• I do know that it is destructive.


• I do know that it is a total warfare.


• I do know that it is deadly and


• I do know, Oh God help us, that we Christians in our ignorance, both prance and picnic on a most terrible battlefield, for we have been most thoroughly deceived.

Let me speak as a man, for maybe ‘Prance and Picnic’ need to be the name of the firm of undertakers, funeral directors if you will, that intern so many of us Christians in maudlin morgues of malevolence, well before our time, even before we have ever struck a blow for God. I am not talking about physical death here but rather, of being held by our necks under the stomping foot of our enemy. I am talking about being maybe miserable, being sullen, cynical or even blissfully ignorant! Whatever works for the enemy to keep us useless in the Lord and locked away in a dungeon, it is that we shall find imprinted on the backs of our necks! Remember, even if it is delightfully decorated it can still be a dungeon and in your case today dear friend, it probably is! Maybe you need to get a good friend to check the back of your neck for you?

One strategy of our enemy has been to remove the warrior spirit from the church of the living God so that we can neither fight nor love well and replace it with a liberal latitude, of loose living and lousy loving. The kind of loving that is smulchy, shallow and in the end self-serving and self-protecting. A most pitiful and outwardly swooning ‘amour, amour.’ True warriors both fight and love well. However, in the church most of our loving is in the end a load of sentimental old tosh! We need to stop dabbing our eyes with tissues and sniffling over some delightful little email full of puppies and good luck if we send it to seven of our friends; we need to stop shaking our head at some terrible T.V. images whilst we continue to eat the abundance off our warm and over filled plates; we need to stop sighing at what we consider to be extremists in Christendom when thay take axes to the roots of nasty trees; stop laying up for ourselves treasure that will burn; stop protecting our worm food and finally, Oh God finally, we simple minded and disobedient disciples, need to get back to the Cross, take a good hold of it and then go and climb back on the alter of living sacrifices! We need to start loving with hard love friends, tough love! We need to get dead to our self, go put the sandwiches and soda away in the picnic basket, stop prancing around like mad blind idiots on this terrible battlefield, put on our flack jackets and our helmets and lay hold of our Armalites! Good grief, what are we doing Christians? Remember, ‘Amour’ is for the stage but ‘Armor’ is for active soldiers in very a real battle.

When we finally die to ourselves, then we shall find ourselves and truly live and when we finally have done with this world, we will change it.

Let us get real today, for goodness sake. Then when we begin to smell the sulphur and the cordite let us behave like men and run to the clash of arms and the shout of war!

Listen: - Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.1 Peter 5:8-9

Pray: - Lord Jesus Christ, Commander of all the angel armies, teach my fingers to fight and my hands to make war! In Your victorious name I ask it, amen.