It’s a folly of humans to simultaneously think too much and too little of ourselves.
If we act as though we’re essential elements to God’s plans, we can fall into prideful arrogance and self-idolatry. Or worse, become cult leaders and genocidal maniacs, justifying everything we do as a divine assignment.
On the other hand, if we shrink into habitual smallness, thinking God is so big and we’re too insignificant to matter, we deny the very reason He created mankind in the first place.
The beautiful paradox is that even though God doesn’t need our assistance, He designed us to be the intermediaries between Heaven and Earth.
We have a part to play in the cosmic battles: sometimes large, dramatic roles with global implications that get documented in history, other times (most of the time) those cosmic battles play out in small scale, interpersonal moments where we choose to love people, and in doing so, strike a death blow to the forces of darkness.
“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
— 1 Corinthians 2:12-14
Of course, doing the hard things is, well, hard. Sometimes they’re even devastating. Jesus never said following Him was gonna be easy, and taking on His assignments, as rewarding as they can be, can also be quite a slog.
“You must risk that,” said Dimble. “ I can offer you no security. Don’t you understand? There is no security for anyone now. The battle has started. I’m offering you a place on the right side. I don’t know which will win.”
— C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
He created us for so much more than fantasy football and doomscrolling. Whether we know it or not, like it or not, or are ready for it or not, the Lord is constantly priming us to walk in our authority, both collectively and individually. The sooner we get on with it, the better.
But it might be a good idea to refresh ourselves with the Gospel first.
The Simple Gospel We Forgot
One of the reasons we may feel inadequate to fill the role God calls us to is because we don’t understand the Gospel.
We might think we know it, but do we really?
For many of us, the Gospel is man-centered. It’s been presented to us with an emphasis on our sin, instead of Jesus and His power. We feel inadequate to storm the gates of Hades because we’re constantly told that we’re miserable, sinful creatures who need to crawl to the cross every day. We’re told that but for the grace of God, we’re just addicts, adulterers, hypocrites, and frauds.
For many of us, our first encounter with Jesus was when a pastor called us out, asked us to walk to the front of a church, pray some magic words, and become a member of the God Team.
Then we were instructed to go looking for other people to recruit to our team, to go awkwardly knocking on doors or accosting people in parks with the good news that they’re miserable sinners who we are here to save. And granted, a lot of people meet Jesus that way, but just as many fall away a few years later, because it was about us, not Him.
Given that high pressure conversions are elicited by focusing our our ineptitude, it’s not surprising that most Christians tend to think of themselves as unworthy to do anything super dicey in the the spiritual realm. And they’re right, because we don’t; He does the supernatural stuff, and that’s the true Gospel. It’s all about Him:
Jesus is the son of God. He was born, lived as a man, performed miracles, was crucified, died, and rose from the grave. Now He holds all authority over Heaven and Earth. Jesus is awesome. And He’ll dwell in you if you let Him.
That’s the Gospel. Our job is merely to spread it.
Did you notice what’s missing in that presentation? The focus on us. No altar calls, no “praying the prayer,” no list of prerequisites, no script. Just Jesus—who He is, what He did, and what He’s doing now.
Altar calls are not in the Bible. They are a uniquely 20th century American invention.
“This Gospel that we now know as the Gospel was largely the construction of men like D.L. Moody, combined with Billy Sunday, and then perfected by Billy Graham and Bill Bright…It is designed to precipitate decisions, not to make disciples. Here’s something that we now know as fact: 90 percent of people who pray this prayer of accepting Jesus in their heart as a result of this Gospel when they’re teenagers, have nothing to do with church when they’re 35.
Those are not good numbers.”
— Scot McKnight, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, 2015
You don’t need to raise your hand and walk up to the front of some church to follow Jesus. I didn’t, many people never do, and He dwells in them all the same.
We don’t need to fix ourselves to get right with God; there’s no laundry list of duties and disciplines you need to adhere to.
There is no set formula about hours in prayer to tally, no requisite Bible verses you have to memorize, no prayers of renunciation required to begin a relationship with Him.
Those things may come later, but learning who He is is the prerequisite to unlocking everything else He offers us. Getting to know Jesus is the cheat code for playing the rest of the game.
“I am writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit,and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spiritteaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.”
— 1 John 2:27-28 (NLT)
But not everyone is ready to level up. If you’re in a new relationship with Jesus, rest in it. It’s okay.
Just focus on how Jesus lived and loved people until you’ve made it a lifestyle. In fact, many Jesus followers never learn how to do that, and it’s sad because love is the most potent weapon we have against the enemy. If only more people used it.
Use Your Words
Once you learn how to recognize His voice, He’ll eventually ask you to take on tougher assignments. That next level is where the devil loves to operate, getting us to question our authority and God’s ability.
Couching self-doubt with, “Who am I, Lord?” statements might feel pious, but it’s really just an excuse to deteriorate into safe obscurity. Travel too far along that path and we begin referring to ourselves as sinners, or addicts, or the fallen.
When we see ourselves that way, life becomes a daily exercise in coping, praying we can endure our current struggles just long enough for Jesus to return and make it all better. The problem with that is that again, it’s all about us. When we wear our sin as an identity, when we’re constantly revisiting our failures instead of learning about His power and presence, we wallow in swamps He already called us out of.
That’s not our mission. Our mission is to do whatever God designed us for, difficult or not.
Third Heaven Warfare
In 1945, C.S. Lewis completed his Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet (1938), Perelandra (1943), and That Hideous Strength (1945).
They’re an amazing fictional depiction of mankind’s role (and responsibility) in Third Heaven warfare1 and well worth your time if you’ve never read them.
In Perelandra, the main character, Ransom, is transported to a virgin planet2 populated by an Eve figure.
Soon after arriving, a Satan-like character emerges on the scene, lying and attempting to corrupt the woman and the fresh world. Ransom, knowing history and the enemy’s tactics, realizes God has selected him to stand in the gap and hopefully spare Perelandra (and the woman’s future offspring) the fate experienced on Earth as a result of Adam and Eve’s Fall.
Ransom, perhaps as you and I would also be, was filled with self-doubt in his ability to meet such a task.
“What was the sense of so arranging things that anything really important should finally and absolutely depend on such a man of straw as himself? And at that moment, far away on Earth, as he now could not help remembering, men were at war, and white-faced subalterns and freckled corporals who had but lately begun to shave, stood in horrible gaps or crawled forward in deadly darkness, awaking, like him, to the preposterous truth that all really depended on their actions; and far away in time Horatius stood on the bridge, and Constantine settled in his mind whether he would or would not embrace the new religion, and Eve herself stood looking upon the forbidden fruit and the Heaven of Heavens waited for her decision.”
— C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
But then it dawns on him: God designed His Universe to incorporate ordinary men and women as the intermediaries between the natural and the supernatural. We have a role, and God designed us for it.
“Either something or nothing must depend on individual choices. And if something, who could set bounds to it? A stone may determine the course of a river. He was that stone at this horrible moment which had become the centre of the whole universe. The eldila of all worlds, the sinless organisms of everlasting light, were silent in Deep Heaven to see what Elwin Ransom of Cambridge would do.”
— C.S. Lewis, Perelandra
There’s a lesson in this for us. The opportunities to fulfill our role as image bearers of God are all around us, and we’re more than capable.
When we see a dejected woman in the parking lot, crying, alone, the heavenly hosts look to see what we will do about it.
If we apply that knowledge to our daily grind — the actions we take, the words we speak, the messages we send, and the counsel we give — things change rapidly and dramatically. If we don’t, the demons breathe a sigh of relief.
When we notice a marriage teetering on the edge of divorce, or that child wrestling with depression, or that government official grieving orders that go against his or her convictions, the angels and demons wait with bated breath, excited or terrified to see what those who carry the authority of Jesus are going to do about it.
Or, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis: The Heavenly hosts are silent in the supernatural realms, waiting to see what you and I are going to do.
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Footnotes:
1: The notion of three (or more) heavens is a somewhat undefinable concept. Often, and for our purposes here, Third Heaven is used to refer to the supernatural realm. By that token, First Heaven would be the natural atmosphere and Second Heaven would encompass the stars and the universe. However, there are other arguments that say both Second and Third Heaven are where the unseen figures reside. Here is a short video by Michael Heiser pontificating on the concept.
2: Although, since the main character travels to other planets, you could also argue the Space Trilogy involves Second Heaven warfare, too. Just do yourself a favor and read them.