Church Encourager

Last week we talked about the spiritual battle and how the kingdom of God is here but not fully here. We are in the midst of a cosmic battle. It is as though Jesus parachuted into enemy territory. He gathered followers, trained them, and then set them loose behind enemy lines with the intent of…

In our last discussion on spiritual battle we talked about who the church is and that our mission puts us on the front line of the cosmic battle. I want to dig into that idea a little deeper this week. Ephesians 6:10-12 (NIV)10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11…

So far in our series on spiritual battle we have introduced the evil cast of characters, the elohim, the rulers and authorities, how they came to be and that they are the problem. They are defeated but not departed. We have talked about how Jesus came to deal with all of the problems of the…

Last week in our series on spiritual battle we talked about Holy Spirit coming. We talked about the enemy being defeated but not departed. As we engage in the battle, we will do well to keep in mind the amazing ending of His story. Revelation 21:1-5 (NIV)1 Then I saw a new heaven and a…

We are continuing our series on spiritual battle this week by talking about Holy Spirit. Acts 1:1-8 (NIV)1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles…

As we continue on in our series on spiritual battle we will be looking at the arrival of Jesus. John 1:1-14 (NIV)1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without…

We are continuing our series on Spiritual Battle by looking at the events surrounding the Tower of Babel. As we saw when we looked at the events of the flood, God wanted Noah’s descendants to multiply and spread out over the whole earth after the flood. Instead, they choose to do their own thing and…

So far in our discussion on Spiritual Battle we are calling ‘The Fight’ we have looked at cosmology, cosmic temple, imagers, elohim, free will and the Fall. Now, let’s look into what is going on at the flood. Genesis 6:1-4 (NIV)1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born…

Last week we talked about the elohim and about free will as we continued our look at spiritual battle. This week we will be looking into what happened at the fall in the garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden The Garden of Eden was a type of cosmic temple. A place where heaven and…

In the first part of our series on spiritual battle we introduced the ideas of cosmology, cosmic temple, imagers, and elohim. This week we are going a little deeper on who the elohim are and we will also begin the discussion on why there is evil in the world. More on the elohim The word…

This week we are going to start laying the foundation for our new series we are calling ‘The Fight’, in which we will be looking at spiritual battle. We are going to introduce some terms and some ideas that we will need to have as we dig into this series. The four ideas for this…