January 19, 2004

"The Army of God"

The Body of Christ is an army.  We have to remember that.  We are the Body of Christ.  We are God's army.  We are fighting powers unseen (see Eph 6:12) but not unseen to God.  So that's why it's His army, and it's His battle as well.

One very important weapon that He has given to us is militant intercessory prayer.  All of us who are intercessors have had this experience before that when we have asked God to do something, and He has moved.  When St. Paul said that Jesus was now sitting at the right hand of the Father in a far more excellent ministry, that of intercession (see Heb 8:6; 7:25), he must have had these deep insights into militant intercession.  Paul was so incredibly aware of the war that he was involved in.  He thought of himself as a soldier, and he thought the same way about those to whom he wrote letters.

In intercessory prayer, we actually come against the powers of darkness.  It's real, spiritual warfare.  We can only do this in the power of the Spirit because this is a battle with spirits.  So we stand firm in the gap, which is an intercessory gap.  We bridge this gap.  We stand between whomever we are praying for and Satan and the powers all over the world, people, and events-anything that is in between.  We stand in the gap. 

And so we have to have this wartime mentality.  Otherwise, when the retaliation or harassment comes, and it does come, or when the harassment comes, and it does come, we might say, "Why me?  I'm not going to get involved in this anymore.  Why me?"  Well, why not me?  We're in the army now. 

Scripture says, "The Lord is a warrior" (Ex 15:3).  He is a warrior.  St. Paul said, "I have decided to send  you  Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker, and companion in arms" (Phil 2:25).  Do we think of each other as fellow soldiers?  This is what St. Paul said to Timothy, "Bear hardship along with me as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2Tm 2:3).  I looked up the definition of army in the dictionary, and this is what it said, "A body of persons organized, armed, and trained for war to advance a cause."  Doesn't that sound like what God wants to do with us?

The Church, the massive Body of Jesus Christ, is organized.  It has the head, Jesus Christ, and it's made up of many parts but only one Body.  The Catholic Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 811).  The Church is one body of many, many parts. 

So the Church is an army, and it has its Commander.  What are the Church's weapons?  St. Paul said, "We do indeed live in the body but we do not wage war with human resources.  The weapons of our warfare are not merely human.  They possess God's power for the destruction of strongholds" (2Cor 10:3-4).  That's an inspired word of God, coming through Paul, saying that we have weapons of God's power to overthrow these strongholds.   "Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil" (Eph 6:11).  We are standing in the gap, but we can't stand there as prayer warriors in this militant intercessory dimension if we do not have on the full armor of God.  The Church has given us weapons.

Does the Church receive training in warfare?  Yes.  Psalm 144:1 says, "He trains my hands for battle.  He trains my fingers for war."  So not only do we have God's armor and weapons, wisdom, and expertise to guide and direct us, but most importantly, we have God Himself.  The Lord is a warrior (Ex 15:3).  The Lord is with us, and the battle belongs to God (1Sm 4:47).   God Himself is our power. 

To be an army, you have to have a cause.  Does the Church have a cause?  Yes.  Our cause is that God's Kingdom will come.  So we literally go into the enemy's camp and take back what he has stolen from us.  The Kingdom of God needs to come.  "So that at Jesus' name every knee must bend in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth, and every tongue proclaim to the glory of God the Father: Jesus Christ is Lord!" (Phil 2:10 )-that is our cause.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "Sword of Intercession: Militant Prayer," Omaha, NE, 2003.