Gospel.com Blog

One of the paradoxes of Christianity is that, while our faith is centered around sharing Christlike love and peace, our private spiritual lives are vividly likened to a battleground. Warfare and battle are apt metaphors for our constant struggle to resist temptation and remain committed to the principles of the Bible.

What does this “spiritual war” look like in our lives, and how does it manifest? More importantly, how do we make sure we win this war? In a short devotional essay on spiritual war, Al Menconi explains where this spiritual warfare takes place… and lays out a battle plan for victory. Menconi believes that our minds are the ground zero of this spiritual war, and that we’re particularly vulnerable to spiritual attacks that come at us through the entertainment we absorb:

Instead of Satan announcing that he is our enemy and warning us that he wants to undermine our spiritual life, he has convinced us he is our friend and he simply wants to entertain us. And we deserve to be entertained….

I believe that this is a major reason why so many Christians are struggling with their spiritual life. We have allowed our minds to be “conformed to the values of this world” (Rom. 12:1) without even realizing it. Things that once were considered offensive, now entertain us.

If this is true, shouldn’t churches take a stronger role in educating believers on how to fight in this spiritual battle for our minds? Most churches and parents want to avoid the entertainment issue entirely. But we can’t. It is all around us! It shapes our world, but it doesn’t have to shape us!

Does this ring true to you? What sort of entertainment fills your idle time—and is it entertainment that conforms you to the mind of Christ, or to the values of the world around us? How have you and your family approached the difficult task of discerning between entertainment options?