The picture I shared here with today’s post...caught my eye a week or two ago when I saw it posted on a friend’s FB page. Take a moment to read through that again: 

 “People swear they’re fighting demons when the whole time they’re fighting the consequences of their choices.” 

 Here’s something for us to chew on: Why can’t it be both? 

 Yeah....I’m gonna ‘go there’ today....once again. We need to. Ignoring this topic does no one any good at all. In fact, it is probably the reason so many people today are suffering in the ways they are, and that includes countless folks sitting on church pews and who have their names on church rolls. 

 Demons. Devils. Evil and unclean spirits. The powers of darkness. (Eph. 6:12) 

 They are not just some figurative characters woven through the poetic language of fictional tales and old time bible stories. 

 They exist and are quite real. 

 To be consumed or overly preoccupied with them is unhealthy. But to ignore them is even far worse. 

 Not long ago I was having a conversation with some folks who would not personally subscribe to the claim of being ‘believers’ (followers of Christ). The subject touched on some particular behavioral traits of people and I implied that I believed probably had more to do with a ‘spiritual’ influence. I was asked if I thought it was ‘demonic’ and I just left it at ‘spiritual’ in nature. 

 Later I replayed that conversation in my head and was struck with the realization that we have so handicapped ourselves in trying to walk through this world and figure out life and understand our existence with a ‘third’ of the pieces missing. 

 Try finishing a puzzle with 1/3 of the pieces missing, or riding an ATV 3-wheeler with one tire bad; or sitting on a 3-legged stool where one leg is missing. (Should I go on?). I sure would not want to set one of my expensive camera and lens combos on a tripod that had only two legs. 

 And yet, humanity, for the most part has just tried to steamroll through this life ignorant of one of the three major parts of our existence. And if not ignorant of, then maybe just choosing to ignore that component for a host of reasons...or at best, give it a shallow head nod of acknowledgement but nothing more than lip service. 

 I’m talking about the ‘spirit realm’ of not only this world we live in, but our created beings as well. 

 Take a look at 1 Thess. 5:23 where Paul expressed a prayerful desire that “the God of peace Himself might sanctify us completely; and that our whole spirit, soul, and body might be preserved blameless a the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

 Did you catch that? Our whole ‘spirit...soul...and... body’. God created us to be ‘triune’ in nature, or ‘three parts’. 

 You only need look back to Genesis 1 to see where God created us in “His own image and likeness”. (26-27) 

 And guess what? Jesus taught us that “God is Spirit”. (John 4:24). As in, God is a ‘Spirit being’. 

 When He created the heavens and the earth and all that is in the earth, He saved His best work for last and on the sixth day, God created man. We are told that “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being or soul’. (Gen. 2:7) 

 So let’s pause here and reconnect with what Paul stated there in 1 Thess. 5 where God’s restoration plan includes sanctifying us wholly in ‘spirit, soul, and body’. 

 Humans were created as spirit beings (in God’s image) where we would inhabit or live in a physical body (flesh and blood) and we would possess or have a soul. Most would agree that the ‘soul’ is that part of us that houses our emotions and will and intellect. 

 Interestingly, after God created man, we are told “He planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.” (Gen. 2:8). And just as a sidenote, we see in other places in the bible where when a garden or vineyard is planted, God has this thing about putting a ‘hedge’ placed around it. (Matt. 21:33; Isa 5:1-5) I’m thinking for those of you who might be serious gardeners; - it’s not uncommon to put up some kind of protective fencing around your plants to keep the ‘beast of the field or the birds of the air’ from ‘devouring’ your fruit...do you not? :- ) 

 And do you recall what God told man after He set him there in the garden and pointed out two trees in particular? He told him that he could eat off any of the trees in the garden with the exception of one. Just one, lone, tree he could not eat off of. God then added this warning: “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen. 2:17) 

 So which tree did the serpent tempt them to eat off of? Yep. That one tree. You should be familiar with that story by now where they heard ‘another gospel’ spun by the serpent and they believed it instead of God’s message. And life on earth changed forever. Sin entered the world, as did ‘death’ and Adam and Eve were forced to leave the garden God had created for them where they fellowshipped with Him daily. Sin does that, you know...it separates us from God and brings death. (Rom. 5:12; Isa 59:2; Rom. 6:23). God gave them one command, and they broke it. That is what sin is...breaking God’s commandments or law. (1 John 3:4) 

 Did God not warn them saying in that day, they would ‘surely die’? So here comes the great paradox...Adam and Eve are banned from the garden (where God was) and a cherubim (angel) was set there with a flaming sword to prevent them or anyone else from coming back in. (Gen. 3:24) 

 Yet Adam and Even apparently continued to ...exist, did they not? They had kids, and multiplied and life rolled on from what we read. So did they...’die’? Did God lie? Of course God did not lie...it’s impossible for God to lie. (Heb. 6:18). But as far as God was concerned, they were ‘dead’ to Him. Which ought to tell us something. Apart from God, we can have no life. 

 Do you remember the story of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15? What did the father say about his son who had left and joined himself to another country, but then came to his senses and returned? “This is my son who was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found”.(24) 

 And what did Jesus tell those Jews who were searching the scriptures looking for ‘life’: “You are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:40) 

 Now look at Eph. 2:1-3 where it describes our condition prior to returning to God, through Jesus. “You He made alive, who were dead...in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit (demons) who now works in the sons of disobedience...” 

 Why were we ‘dead’? Because we were separated from God and another ‘spirit’ was actively working IN us. In fact, if you read on there, it tells us plainly how...those demon spirits were able to work or function IN us...through our sinful, fleshly desires and appetites as we ‘fulfilled the desires of the flesh and of the mind’. (3). Sounds as if he is alluding to our physical bodies and our souls but says nothing of our ‘spirits’. That is because our ‘spirit’ was dead. 

 You really need to spend some time meditating and digesting those three verses there in Ephesians 2:1-3 as so much is packed in there for us to see and understand. 

 But when a person truly comes to God...through Jesus; as in coming to Him with their whole heart...just like that prodigal son did who came to his senses and was broken and humbled and returned to his father...it is then that we are made alive. Oh, that line about ‘coming to his senses (Luke 15:17)...would you mind turning to 2 Tim. 2:24-26 and read that...while underlining vs. 26. What two points stand out to you there? 

 Join me tomorrow? ;-)