A disciple lives to learn from their master and to become like them. This is our ultimate life purpose as Christians—to learn from the Master every day, to become like Him, and to do the works that He did.

          Many aspects of Christ’s life that we should seek for our own are: loving God above all things, loving others with the faith in God to help them, living pure and holy before the Lord, knowing His ways and being able to teach them, knowing the times and accurately predicting the future, etc. Many protest that Jesus could do these things because He was God. However, He emptied Himself to become a man. He did not come to show us how God lives but to show us how we are to live. If we abide in the King, we will also exercise His authority on earth.

          In John 17:18 when Jesus prayed to the Father, He said that as He had been sent into the world, He was sending us. This means that we have been sent into the world with the same purpose as Jesus, excepting the atonement, of course. Jesus appeared to “destroy the works of the devil” (see I John 3:8). We are sent with this same purpose. This is why we have been given the divinely powerful weapons for the destruction of strongholds. Each of us has evil strongholds that we should be assaulting until they are destroyed. Seldom are we sent to do this alone, rather this is a main purpose for the church on the earth at this time.

          Just as it is a basic military principle that we cannot defeat an enemy we do not see, the more clearly we see the enemy and understand him, the greater our advantage in the conflict. Fundamental in this unfolding and ultimate conflict is our training in righteousness and devotion to truth, searching it out and standing on it without compromise. Yet we are also warned not to be ignorant of the enemy’s schemes.

          In 2008, we began to pray for the Holy Spirit to move in our country. We asked for the Spirit of Truth to reveal truth that was hidden that we needed to know. This happened quickly as appalling things being done by our own Government began to be revealed. More shocking than what was being done to us was how few actually cared. The economy was foremost on most people’s minds, and certainly this is a crisis that threatens us, but it seemed to give tacit approval to the trampling of many of our basic rights and freedoms.

          The revelations that have come out recently about the practices of the IRS to crush political dissent, the NSA’s virtually all-encompassing ability to monitor the communications and whereabouts of American citizens, and the Government’s proven willingness to use such ability to crush political dissent, are the biggest advance of the tools of totalitarian control in history. What are we going to do about it?

          First, we must not let fear control us. We must also understand how citizens of the kingdom have far greater power than any power on the earth. The Holy Spirit’s ability to monitor behavior, and even the intentions of the heart, will always trump the NSA’s. Even so, we do need to understand how and why the totalitarian control mechanisms are being prepared and how the spirit of this world intends to use them.

          Hitler and Stalin never had the means of monitoring and controlling their people that is now in the hands of our Government. We may believe that our Government has the best of intentions for this, but their recent behavior clearly reveals otherwise. Even if this Administration had the best intentions, who can guarantee that future leaders will not abuse this ability?

          The illumination of this by the Holy Spirit is for a purpose. The spirit of this world may be planning to use the increasing technology, but I would rather have the Holy Spirit than any amount of technology. Even so, we need to grow in our spiritual authority, gifts, and abilities just as the world is growing in technology. The divinely powerful weapons given to the saints can destroy even the worst evil intent, or most powerful enemy strongholds. Will we use them? If we will, everything that has been intended for evil can be turned into good.

          If the Holy Spirit is behind the revelations that are coming, then He will also provide a means for countering the enemy’s schemes. There are two main factors we must keep in mind. The first is that people are never our enemy. We are not warring against flesh and blood, but against evil powers that are using them. Our ultimate victory is to see the people, who are now being used as enemies, set free too.

          The second factor is that the Holy Spirit is the Helper, not the Doer. He will do His part, but He expects us to do ours. What is our part in these matters now?

          Our first part is to look to the Captain of the hosts for His leadership. We have a Resource that no amount of human ingenuity will ever be able to match. We have a Source of knowledge and wisdom with power to instantly unravel any scheme of the devil or man.

          The Holy Spirit knows more about every human being than the NSA will ever know. He also knows the future. I have conversations almost daily with people in government or politics. I have a great personal distaste for politics in general. However, I have come to love, respect, and learn from some who I think are called to do what they are doing. I think I have been able to help some of them. Yet one overriding mentality that I believe is a major stumbling block to the kind of leadership we need today is the over-concern for how people or the media are going to respond to an initiative. Far more important than what coalition will make up the magical 51% vote is how do we recover the favor of God? This must begin by turning to Him and acknowledging that we must have Him.