Into the Fray

In his book Don’t Waste Your Life and his sermon series on the book of Romans, John Piper calls for having a wartime mentality when it comes to the’ Christian life. We are fighting for the glory of God and the souls of our neighbors, who are casualties in the fray. To paraphrase Don’t Waste Your Life, the church has been lulled into believing that we are in a time of peace. We often live lives of comfort, nonchalantly going about our business as if we are safe from the dangers of war. Yet Scripture tells us that Satan prowls around like a lion waiting to devour us. Peter declares that sin is waging war against our souls. Paul encourages us to fight the good fight and hold firmly to the faith as if someone were trying to rip it from us. This does not sound like peace. These verses and many others are brilliantly prophetic of the reality in which we live. Every day we see the casualties of this war. That is, if our eyes are open. The effects of sin are ravaging our friends and neighbors, not to mention the church itself. The questions I, Are we going to fight? (Brad House, Community, p. 19, 20).