Knowledge of the Love and Grace of God, the Key to Victory in Spiritual Warfare in Heavenly Places.
The apostle John tells us that God is love, He loves us so much that He sent His beloved Son, His only begotten Son, His Son in whom He is well pleased, to come into this world as a Man to suffer and die for us. The Father and Son wanted to enlarge their family; they wanted to bring into their family, children who they could pour their love upon. In the beginning they said, “let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” However they knew what would happen; man would sin and serve Satan. Satan would become the god of this world. So they had a plan waiting in the side-lines, it is called grace, all man would need to operate it is faith, it couldn’t be operated by our own works, what we do to please God, our works are tainted by our self-life, it had to be faith in God alone.
The letter to the Ephesians 2:4-6 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” In verses 7-9 we read “That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast.”
It is because of His great love towards us, even when we were dead in our sins, that He has extended His grace towards us, by saving us and then raising us up together in Christ to be seated in Him (even right now) in heavenly places. What wonderful love and grace.
We are in heavenly places by faith, we experience being there when we worship God in the Spirit.
We often long for God to come down amongst us, but in reality when we are in the presence of God, we are experiencing the presence of God in heavenly places. When the church starts to experience the presence of God in heavenly places it has an effect on our surroundings here on earth. People around us sense God and react to it.
What the church needs to recognise is its position ‘in Christ’ in heavenly places. Worshipping God in the Spirit is worshipping God in heavenly places; this will have an effect on the people around us on earth. When this happens the devil will attack us to undermine our position in heavenly places. We are in heavenly places by God’s grace and we need to stand firm against the devils accusations by recognising that we are who we are in Christ by God’s grace alone. It is all by God’s grace and not by our own achievement. The devil will try to convince us that we are only allowed in heavenly places if we are good enough, and that if we fall below that standard then we are not worthy to be in the heavenly places. If we believe him we will become miserable powerless Christians here on earth. This is our warfare in heavenly places and this is why we need the full armour of God on.
How do we maintain our position in heavenly places and withstand the enemy? To know the answer to that we need to understand what the Bible says about our warfare and our standing.
Jesus said that “No one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will plunder his house.” (Mark 3:27). Satan is the strong man, his house is the world; he is the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air. To have an effect on this world we first of all need to get the victory in heavenly places.
We are told to put on the whole armour of God that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. The Bible says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Ephesians 6:11-13).
So what truth do we stand on? Whatever this truth is we need to hold onto it. We must not let this truth slip from us, we stand firm against the powers of darkness when we stand in this truth. It is faith in God’s love and grace towards us. The devil will try to rob us of it, he will use people to undermine it in our lives, but we must stand firm in it.
So, what is the grace of God? What does grace mean? Grace means “undeserved favour”; it is God blessing us with His favour which we don’t deserve, the reason being because He loves us. Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” To actually try to live a holy life in order to please God, is pride. If we are proud we cancel out God’s blessing towards us. Without faith it is impossible to please God, to replace faith with works or even to mix works with faith, means we are trying to earn God’s favour and we don’t understand His wonderful love and grace that He longs to give us as His dear children.
The works that are acceptable are the ones that God has prepared for us to walk in, not the ones that we do in order for Him to bless us. When we try to deserve favour we are not exercising faith, it is faith that opens the door to grace.
When we first believe on Jesus, we are justified by faith and “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:1-2). Grace is not just for salvation, it is what we stand in continually.
In 1 Peter 5:5-6 we read that we should all be submissive to one another and be clothed in humility for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. In verse 12 Peter says, “I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.”
Faith, humility and grace all go together. In James 4:6 we read that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
Romans 5:20 tells us that where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.
In Romans 6:1-2 Paul asks the question, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Then he answers the question, “Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” In verse 14 Paul states “For sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are not under law but under grace.” Then in verse 15-18, He says, “What then, shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.”
So grace is not a license to sin but a blessing that God freely gives to us because we are His children. The most wonderful blessing is to be in His presence and to worship Him in the Spirit. We don’t deserve it, but if we thought we did deserve it then we would miss out on it because grace is “undeserved favour.”
Now, getting back to our warfare in the heavenly places, we are told we must make a stand on our position, which is in heavenly places; we do this when we understand grace. The devil will try to convince us that we don’t deserve to be in Christ in heavenly places because we are unworthy and that God can’t bless us because our lives fall far short of God’s standard. God tells us that it is nothing to do with that but with faith in the grace of God and the blood of the Lamb.
God loves us, He knows who we are, we are His Children in Christ, and He just longs to bless us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. If we believe God we will be blessed, if we believe the devil we will lose out and find ourselves crushed and defeated and having no effect on this earth.
In Romans 8:32 we read, “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.”
We are told to resist the devil and he will flee from us, the devil is the accuser of the brethren. In Ephesians 6:10 we are told to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, to put on the whole armour of God that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. In verse 13 we are told, “Having done all, to stand.”
So, when the devil comes accusing us, how do we resist him? We tell him about our wonderful Father in heaven who loves us so much that by His grace He freely gives us all things. He sent Jesus His beloved Son to die for our sins, who came and paid the full penalty for all our sins and continually washes us in His blood to cleanse us from sins. He rose from the dead and is now seated in His Fathers throne in heavenly places having purchased us with His own precious blood and we now belong to Him, and even though we don’t deserve it, His love is so great for us, that He blesses us and gives us all things. How great and wonderful He is.
Mark Greenwood February 2024