Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Wild at Heart chapter 8 ~

In the book Wild at Heart by John Eldridge he talks about how men need men in their lives and they need challenges to overcome. It's an interesting book because in today's environment the wording and the thoughts caused me to look around and make sure nobody else could hear them because they were out of line with the equality and equity/equitable results from different beginnings rhetoric that is so prevalent today.

There was one chapter, though, that really caught my attention. In chapter 8 he talks about the battle that we are in with the ruler of this world. As Christians we are taught that God is ruler of everything and can do everything and is everywhere and knows everything. But there's a lesson the either is minimized or I didn't quite catch it at this level about Satan. Satan is not equal to God by any means. He is the ruler of this world that we live in and that's hard for me to grasp. It's hard for me to ask because if God is omnipotent and omnipresent then how can somebody else rule what he created. That's a question for theologians to argue about.

The thing that caught my eye in this chapter was him talking about the birth of Jesus being an invasion. And how so much more was going on in the background than just Joseph and Mary going to pay their taxes and a baby being born in a manger instead of in a house with a midwife and all those things.

It casts a different light on the angelic host that sang to the shepherds. For me it turns them into a battalion of protectors that were there in case something started to go wrong with the birth of Jesus. If Satan had gotten to where he was about to kill Jesus because he was trying really hard. But the invasion and injection of God in the form of man into this world was successful and we learn all about the great things that are the good news of Jesus and we are led to make a choice.


But those battles that are present but not seen with our eyes are still happening. I catch glimpses of them in my life is and it doesn't make sense. I see teaching on illness actually being caused by spiritual issues instead of physical issues and scoff initially after reading a little bit more and then listening to this chapter in this book it makes me wonder if I was wrong to scoff.


As we live in our enlightenment so many things that were commonly accepted before and during the Age of Enlightenment as it is called are being torn down and discarded. They're being scoffed at and treated as foolishness. The idea that God can help you if you just pray and the idea that you can be saved is laughed at.


And Satan uses entertainment undermine so much of what's in the Bible. Zombie movies and shows are so popular, but zombies are dead people that are reanimated through some weird thing that makes them zombies. Jesus was no zombie but he was resurrected after he had died for us.

The chapter specifically and the rest of the book was energizing for me has a guy. I don't know if the girl identifying as a guy would get the same thing out of it. But it's worth a tumble if you get a chance. Check it out at https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08BYZBC8C/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1635366486&sr=8-1