Thoughts on Spiritual Warfare

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I was out for street healing a few days back and something that the leader said during the debriefing struck me - we were able to see so much healing and part of the reason was because we were under corporate anointing, that some people were congregating somewhere and praying for the street healing ministry.

It led me to think of what Paul actually exhorted to the Ephesians (and some people may have heard me saying this even before this):
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you ( ὑμᾶς)  may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. - Eph 6:10-17
In the passage quoted, we have frequently quoted these verses to individuals but Paul was clearly teaching this to a group of people, also known as the church. The context of Paul's address to the Ephesians is that he was addressing the church and the original Greek word used for 'you' ( ὑμᾶς) in the passage is the plural form. The implication for this passage is this: that spiritual warfare is not meant to be fought alone. Even when we are out there doing ministry ourselves, it needs to come under corporate covering of the church, because the whole church is in this together. There is simply no place for the vigilante ministry to happen and become fruitful. It also means that the church needs to come together and becomes cognizant that everybody is in this together and nobody is an island.

However, I was just thinking, how many of us are thinking that we are alone in this whole entire fight, or how many of us are thinking of doing things alone without the corporate blessing of the church? Say all we want about submitting under authority and misguided leaderships of churches but one question to the individual - what makes you think that you are not as misguided as the leaderships whom you accuse of being misguided? What gives us the right to judge when we don't even bother to remove the plank on our eyes? My key point here is that the church simply cannot afford to have vigilante ministries or vigilante personnels going out doing their own things - it is just like someone in your platoon decided to do covert operation by himself without the necessary covering. The Scripture says it clearly that spiritual warfare is a corporate affair, and let it remain a corporate affair.

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