Take Your Rightful Place
I've been noticing a repeated theme throughout Scripture and in the lives of people today. Here it is: if you don't take your rightful place as a daughter or son of God, the enemy will come and take his wrongful place. What we don't take hold of is truly up for grabs. Disbelief and slothfulness does not make your identity in Christ any less true, but it does make it a lot less tangible and real in your day to day life. Anything we refuse to submit under the Lordship of Jesus and receive under His care is a playground and footstool to Satan and his forces.
I don't share this to scare you or give the enemy any more credit than he deserves. I think we, in and of ourselves, our flesh, are most of the time our own worst enemies. Yet there is a real battle happening in the spirit realm each and every day. I once heard that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but we are spiritual beings undergoing a momentary, physical, human experience (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin). When we realize that our renewed spirits are the truest, most real things about us, we start to operate in a totally different manner.
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 says: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
I love how Paul uses words of war in these verses. Living in this world but not of this world is no easy, nonchalant task - it's a means of war. It's a spiritual battle each day and a choice to not play nice when it comes to claiming Christ and forsaking unrighteousness.
The Israelites would fall into captivity every time they began to forsake God, relax the commands of His Word, and partner with the cultures and habits of those around them. I urge you, friend, please don't make the same mistake.
What lies are you battling today? What truth are you forsaking? What beneficial or spiritual habit do you need to integrate? What has God asked you to do and you've been struggling to complete? Get serious about it. Paul says to demolish strongholds: aka tear down and disprove every false security and place you run to other than God. Everything and anything that does not align with the knowledge of God, come at it with truth and displace it with light. Paul also says to take captive your thoughts: aka your thoughts are slave to you, not the other way around. Christ has set you free.
Philippians 4:8 says "...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Friend, where does your mind wander? What are the majority of your daily thoughts? When we fixate on the things of Heaven, when we meditate on truth, when we seek the fruits of the Spirit, we will begin to see glimpses of Heaven on earth, truth lived out, and evidence of fruitfulness from faithfulness.
My challenge + encouragement to you today is this: get real honest with yourself and with God. Ask Him where you've allowed the enemy, lies, or your own harmful tendencies to consume more space than the things of Jesus. Then, start to change one habit this week. Pick your choice weapon to battle and win the spiritual struggle happening in your heart and showing up in your actions. For me, I recently started listening to worship music and meditating on truth before bed rather than scrolling/comparing/worrying about the next day.
Start taking your rightful place as God's child, Christ's co-heir, and the Holy Spirit's home. Get serious, make one change, take it day by day, and see the footholds the enemy once had become the places your feet are firmly grounded in the Way, the Truth, & the Life.
additional verses on taking your rightful place + battling with spiritual weapons:
Ephesians 2:1-10 // Ephesians 6:10-20
✍🏼 Emily Ordonez | Author, Speaker, Writing Coach
