CAPS Warfare

Avoiding 4 things in your life can improve the outcomes of your warfare against your enemies drastically:

C omplaints – spending time complaining instead of praying or prophesying better outcomes can lock me as a prisoner in the situations about which I am complaining. (1 Corinthians 10:10)

A ccusations – even if the people I am accusing of evil are truly guilty of it, unless I am called to expose them to authority, or am an authority to whom they are accountable, my accusations may simply be only gossip or condemnation. On days I even accuse others in prayer, asking for God to deal with them harshly. If I am not interceding that they will be corrected in His mercy and love, He may only be hearing my accusation, and be disinterested in listening. Satan is the accuser of my brothers (Revelation 12:10). He was overcome in that capacity. I don’t want to be.

P hilosophies – when people are discussing current events or theologies or other philosophies, I always want them to know my version of wisdom. It is always superior to theirs, of course. It clearly demonstrates how in tune I am with the Spirit of Wisdom. It should impress them. By a surprising contrast, however, I am wrong at times. Even when I am right, there are days when making noise about my opinion will alienate me from people Jesus died to give me the privilege of serving with love and a call to salvation. The more I invest in having people hear me from their values system or cultural system or fears system instead of from mine, the more likely it is that they will hear the invitation of the Deliverer to the freedom to which He would like to call them through me (Proverbs 18:2).

S ecrets – Hiding evil things so that we are not exposed and shamed is very different from hiding things that are valuable so that we can protect them from abuse or theft. Jesus warned His followers against laying their pearls out where pigs could reach them or putting holy things within reach of dogs (Matthew 7:6). Hezekiah was once deceived by a group of visitors from Babylon into thinking that they had come to honor him. He showed them all of his treasure and all of the treasure in the temple of Yahweh to confirm to them how right they were in honoring him (2 Kings 20:12-19). Isaiah quizzed him about who had been visiting him and why. When Hezekiah answered him, he prophesied that everything he had uncovered would be hauled away to Babylon, which then happened (2 Kings 24:8-17).

Jesus was silent on many occasions in which He could have defended Himself quite well. There are powerful lessons to be learned in those examples of being confident that our Deliverer is at hand and can do things better without our involvement sometimes.