Part One: Chapter 4
The Togethers in Worship and Battle
The Togethers as a Field Guide for Lifestyle Worship
We can and should worship in all of life, in the field, so-to-speak. Fortunately, there are fantastic opportunities to worship in our Christian relationships as we just naturally live our lives. Our very lives are to be worship, reflecting to God his nature by our obedience to his commands. The Togethers are great privileges to reflect back to God his own character.
A simple and popular definition of worship is that it is “ascribing worth to God”. Anything less than God’s character cannot be adequate to praise God. Something inferior cannot ascribe worth to something superior. So, in its essence, true, authentic worship is reflecting back to God his own character and nature. It is reflecting the attributes of God – to God.
When we praise God with words, we speak of his wonderful nature, his character, and his attributes. When we thank God sufficiently, we refer to his attributes such as his forgiving nature, his love, etc. So when we worship in prayer or in song, we use words to reflect back to God his own attributes. We describe Him by his own character, since any other description would be below Him, inferior to His standard.
Christian relationships can expand worship dramatically.
A simple and popular definition of worship is that it is “ascribing worth to God”. Anything less than God’s character cannot be adequate to praise God. Something inferior cannot ascribe worth to something superior. So, in its essence, true, authentic worship is reflecting back to God his own character and nature. It is reflecting the attributes of God – to God.
When we praise God with words, we speak of his wonderful nature, his character, and his attributes. When we thank God sufficiently, we refer to his attributes such as his forgiving nature, his love, etc. So when we worship in prayer or in song, we use words to reflect back to God his own attributes. We describe Him by his own character, since any other description would be below Him, inferior to His standard.
Christian relationships can expand worship dramatically.
. . . offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God –
which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1
holy and pleasing to God –
which is your spiritual worship.
Romans 12:1
What happens when we reflect Jesus using our bodies sacrificially? Love is self-denial for the good of others, even enemies. It is therefore sacrificial. So, when we love in the specific ways taught in Scripture, we are reflecting back to God the Father the image of His Son.
That fits the definition of ascribing worth to God, especially if we go somewhat beyond our comfort zone and reach out for more Christlikeness. Putting conscious, deliberate effort in obeying the Togethers of Scripture will result in 65 specific ways to worship God by offering our bodies as living sacrifices that cannot be done individually.
For example, when we forgive someone, we reflect to God his own forgiving character. Forgiving someone, then, is a costly and quite valuable act of worship. It is harder than singing songs in the congregation, as necessary as that is, and expresses stronger worship of and love for God.
God most delights when His people worship together. There is the praise and worship we give God occasionally, like every Sunday in an organized church or house church. But, let’s not throw out the much more frequent lifestyle worship that can go on all week long in each believer’s Christian Inner Circle relationships.
And, what if we participate in congregational worship of song and prayer but ignore worship in daily life? The words from the prophet Amos have a warning for us.
That fits the definition of ascribing worth to God, especially if we go somewhat beyond our comfort zone and reach out for more Christlikeness. Putting conscious, deliberate effort in obeying the Togethers of Scripture will result in 65 specific ways to worship God by offering our bodies as living sacrifices that cannot be done individually.
For example, when we forgive someone, we reflect to God his own forgiving character. Forgiving someone, then, is a costly and quite valuable act of worship. It is harder than singing songs in the congregation, as necessary as that is, and expresses stronger worship of and love for God.
God most delights when His people worship together. There is the praise and worship we give God occasionally, like every Sunday in an organized church or house church. But, let’s not throw out the much more frequent lifestyle worship that can go on all week long in each believer’s Christian Inner Circle relationships.
And, what if we participate in congregational worship of song and prayer but ignore worship in daily life? The words from the prophet Amos have a warning for us.
I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.... Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream.
Amos 5:22-24
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.... Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream.
Amos 5:22-24
So it seems that the relationships of believers in daily life can enhance or cancel out the worship of the congregation. See what led God to withdraw from the congregational worship of Israel.
For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Amos 5:12
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
Amos 5:12
It would seem that churches would want to protect the acceptability of their worship services by preaching all of the Togethers of Scripture. This might be the very best way of “covering all the bases”. What alienated the nation of Israel from the Lord in Amos’ day might be different than the ways we offend the Lord thousands of years later.
It is Christian relationships that give the church most important and essential opportunities to reflect to God His own character. Each of the 65 “Togethers” is an act of worship in that each is reflecting in some important way God’s own nature back to Him.
We need to keep in mind that the kind of worship we can give right now cannot be given any other time, not even in heaven. This is because some of the Togethers and their worship as reflection of God’s character and love must be done where sin exists. For example, we can only keep one another from the love of money before death releases us to heaven. In heaven there will be no love of money as none of us will sin. God obviously does not love money and works to keep us trusting in Him rather than our monetary resources. Now is the only time we can work like He does to keep other Christians from putting their love and faith in money.
The magnificent, great privilege to worship God through these temporal Togethers is limited to this earthly life within sinful opposition. In other words, if we want to deal with Christians while they live surrounded by evil as God does and Jesus did when He walked this earth, we better do it now. We cannot reflect back to God the difficult worship of these loving actions contested by sin once we are in heaven where there is no sin.
Consider that a very special event is coming to town and it is the only possible chance we will ever have to participate. It will never come again. That event could be an evangelistic crusade, a special movie that perfectly matches our interests, a championship athletic event that might never occur again in our lifetime, or a visit from our great grandmother who will most likely die before we can ever see her again. We would not want to miss it! We would do all we could to rearrange our schedules so as to be able to take part.
When we look at the Togethers of Scripture, we find that all of them can offer us opportunities to worship and praise God in some specific way only this side of heaven. All those wonderful opportunities to reflect to God his own graciousness toward sinners will disappear when we go to heaven, since there will be no sin or sinners there. Everything we do now with the competition of attractive sin or opposing sin is fantastic worship that cannot be done in heaven.
Let it be stated very clearly. This is the only time we will get to honor and glorify God through all 65 Togethers as related to man’s sinfulness. This is a one-time, limited opportunity.
Of the 65 Togethers, it appears that 30 will be completely lost when we die. We will never get another chance to reflect back to God in behavior with one another his loving nature and character with regard to sinfulness. There will be no more opportunity to hurt with one another and imitate our Lord’s crying over Lazarus. We will never again be able to battle temptation together and reflect God’s standing with us in our weaknesses. We will never again be able to live as Christians in a non-believing society and show love to unbelievers in the fashion that God provides rain to the just and the unjust. And we will never again be able to proclaim the gospel to unredeemed men and women imitating God’s declaration of His existence through nature or His reaching down to save men and women from their sin in other ways.
Furthermore, there are another 35 Togethers that will have application in heaven, but will lose their application to the sinfulness in mankind. Although in heaven we will have the opportunity to hold to the truth together, we will never again be able to worship God by holding to the truth in the face of challenge as did Jesus in the wilderness when He was challenged by Satan. In heaven we will most likely still administer God’s grace to one another, just not to sinning men and women. And while in heaven we will live in unity, it will be much, much easier and not reflect the same unity that was hindered by sin.
It is Christian relationships that give the church most important and essential opportunities to reflect to God His own character. Each of the 65 “Togethers” is an act of worship in that each is reflecting in some important way God’s own nature back to Him.
We need to keep in mind that the kind of worship we can give right now cannot be given any other time, not even in heaven. This is because some of the Togethers and their worship as reflection of God’s character and love must be done where sin exists. For example, we can only keep one another from the love of money before death releases us to heaven. In heaven there will be no love of money as none of us will sin. God obviously does not love money and works to keep us trusting in Him rather than our monetary resources. Now is the only time we can work like He does to keep other Christians from putting their love and faith in money.
The magnificent, great privilege to worship God through these temporal Togethers is limited to this earthly life within sinful opposition. In other words, if we want to deal with Christians while they live surrounded by evil as God does and Jesus did when He walked this earth, we better do it now. We cannot reflect back to God the difficult worship of these loving actions contested by sin once we are in heaven where there is no sin.
Consider that a very special event is coming to town and it is the only possible chance we will ever have to participate. It will never come again. That event could be an evangelistic crusade, a special movie that perfectly matches our interests, a championship athletic event that might never occur again in our lifetime, or a visit from our great grandmother who will most likely die before we can ever see her again. We would not want to miss it! We would do all we could to rearrange our schedules so as to be able to take part.
When we look at the Togethers of Scripture, we find that all of them can offer us opportunities to worship and praise God in some specific way only this side of heaven. All those wonderful opportunities to reflect to God his own graciousness toward sinners will disappear when we go to heaven, since there will be no sin or sinners there. Everything we do now with the competition of attractive sin or opposing sin is fantastic worship that cannot be done in heaven.
Let it be stated very clearly. This is the only time we will get to honor and glorify God through all 65 Togethers as related to man’s sinfulness. This is a one-time, limited opportunity.
Of the 65 Togethers, it appears that 30 will be completely lost when we die. We will never get another chance to reflect back to God in behavior with one another his loving nature and character with regard to sinfulness. There will be no more opportunity to hurt with one another and imitate our Lord’s crying over Lazarus. We will never again be able to battle temptation together and reflect God’s standing with us in our weaknesses. We will never again be able to live as Christians in a non-believing society and show love to unbelievers in the fashion that God provides rain to the just and the unjust. And we will never again be able to proclaim the gospel to unredeemed men and women imitating God’s declaration of His existence through nature or His reaching down to save men and women from their sin in other ways.
Furthermore, there are another 35 Togethers that will have application in heaven, but will lose their application to the sinfulness in mankind. Although in heaven we will have the opportunity to hold to the truth together, we will never again be able to worship God by holding to the truth in the face of challenge as did Jesus in the wilderness when He was challenged by Satan. In heaven we will most likely still administer God’s grace to one another, just not to sinning men and women. And while in heaven we will live in unity, it will be much, much easier and not reflect the same unity that was hindered by sin.
Just as we do not get to choose our biological brothers and sisters, we do not get to choose our spiritual brothers and sisters either. But what comes along with loving the Father is loving all His other children–even the really annoying ones! While it might seem to be easier to go off and live in isolation rather than put up with those we are not naturally attracted to, there are responsibilities that come with living in a spiritual family. We reflect our worship of God by living in respect with our Christian brothers and sisters. How we treat the people around us on a daily basis is the real test of our love for God.
editor’s note within 1 John 5
“The Voice Bible” by Ecclesia Bible Society |
Even worshiping God together now is different than it will be in heaven. Now church worship is sometimes challenged by desires to do other things rather than attendance at church worship services. While there are undoubtedly good reasons for missing church services, there is also the pull of less legitimate reasons. Placing the worship of God in church, in daily devotions, or even on a personal retreat is difficult now because of less than holy desires. In heaven it will be easy to make worship top priority without any sin tempting us with competing activities.
In order to make lifestyle worship of God a regular part of our lives, we must know and be able to automatically remember the 65 Togethers and apply them to life in our Christian Inner Circle relationships. In order to capture precious opportunities to give this more difficult worship to God through true Christian community, especially in our friendships, families, and marriages, we need great familiarity with the Togethers. Implementing them is how we help bring an answer to our prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
The Togethers as a Strategic Battle Plan
In order to make lifestyle worship of God a regular part of our lives, we must know and be able to automatically remember the 65 Togethers and apply them to life in our Christian Inner Circle relationships. In order to capture precious opportunities to give this more difficult worship to God through true Christian community, especially in our friendships, families, and marriages, we need great familiarity with the Togethers. Implementing them is how we help bring an answer to our prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
The Togethers as a Strategic Battle Plan
Every time we implement one or more of the Togethers we defeat Satan in some important way. Some of the Togethers are specifically for battle, such as Battle Temptation Together and Test the Spirits Together, plus 7 others. But all of the other 56 Togethers defeat Satan in some specific way. For example, Pursue Holiness and Perfection Together is a Together that defeats Satan’s attempts to keep us trapped in our sinfulness so that we dishonor God.
The devil wants none of the Togethers done. If he can’t stop us, he can try to get us to do them superficially or minimally. For example, hospitality is a biblical instruction. If we see the intent of Scripture, we recognize that hospitality is to be done often as a way of making other Christians feel accepted and welcome. We will cooperate with the enemy if we offer hospitality only occasionally.
We are in a war! Perhaps we should call it the WAR of All Wars.
God is not done with Satan. Jesus defeated the devil at Calvary, but somehow there is still battle to be done. Jesus in us is still dismantling damage caused by the evil one.
The devil wants none of the Togethers done. If he can’t stop us, he can try to get us to do them superficially or minimally. For example, hospitality is a biblical instruction. If we see the intent of Scripture, we recognize that hospitality is to be done often as a way of making other Christians feel accepted and welcome. We will cooperate with the enemy if we offer hospitality only occasionally.
We are in a war! Perhaps we should call it the WAR of All Wars.
God is not done with Satan. Jesus defeated the devil at Calvary, but somehow there is still battle to be done. Jesus in us is still dismantling damage caused by the evil one.
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
1 John 3:8
1 John 3:8
The devil harasses us, but it should be the other way around. Christians are to march confidently against the very gates of hell and wreck havoc for Satan. Each of the Togethers is useful in winning battles against him and destroying evil.
. . . I will build my church,
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Matt 16:18 (ESV)
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
Matt 16:18 (ESV)
We are to defeat evil especially in our Christian relationships. Often this is rescuing people who are being destroyed by values, actions and other things of the world, all of them powered from behind the scenes by forces in the unseen spiritual realm.
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.
Eph 6:10-12
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.
Eph 6:10-12
Sometimes we fight evil by speaking out for God from the words of the Bible. At other times we fight evil with the love of the Togethers, each being Scriptural instruction for holiness.
The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
2 Cor 10:4
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
2 Cor 10:4
To understand the necessity of winning victories for God, every Christian needs to understand the universal war between God and the forces of evil led by Satan. God's honor has been challenged. We fight for His glory! And it is real war, with real pain on a regular basis. With the Commander-in-Chief leading the charge, we cannot be in love with safety. Moment by moment, donning our armor and grasping our spiritual weapons, we Christians must urgently face the difficulties of battle. Following Jesus our Lord and using his great weapon of graceful love, we are vulnerable to frequent injury, especially emotional. But then we don't want to disgracefully enter heaven's gates without battle scars, do we? We want to be like our Savior-King!
The thing we must remember is that the malice of the “the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” are not to be contested alone whenever possible. Many important people of faith have met defeat by facing evil alone. Remember King David who because he was alone committed adultery and murder. In our day many well-known pastors and Christian leaders have been defeated because others were not involved in their lives to protect them from disaster. How many congregations have been hurt by sexual sin of their leaders?
For this reason, God created mankind to be interdependent for strength to fight the devil and evil. God purposely designed Adam to be incomplete, even though without sin. Adam would have to have a helper to be strong and capable for God's work. (Genesis 2:18) Eve was then created to be Adam's helper. She, too, was perfect -- yet incomplete -- and would need Adam's help. Alone, each would be perfect, yet incomplete and vulnerable. Only together were they perfectly complete and completely perfect. Only together would they be able to win the battle with the serpent in the Garden. Only together would they be able to turn down the tempting of the devil to eat the forbidden fruit.
As He placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God's challenge to Satan might have been something like, "O.K., let's see if you can destroy the glory I receive from men." The Lord of All wanted a showdown with this upstart angel turned devil. Our God set the stage for a long conflict to humble Satan before his eternal banishment to the stinking lake of burning sulfur. Out of the humble dust of a small planet, God raised up a race which could defeat the proud boasting of a super-intelligent, extremely powerful spirit-being. But the human race could only defeat Satan if they remembered God's plan for them to help each other and work together.
God was not trying to show Satan that His glory could not be stolen. God has such power that He could have protected his glory merely by wishing Satan and his demons out of existence. No, God's prescription for the proud devil is to humiliate him for thousands of years through the defeats Satan meets at the hands of God's people.
So to begin this humiliation, God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and challenged them to defeat Satan by mere obedience to one very simple rule: "Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!" Obedience is really love for God expressed to honor Him. Obedience ascribes value to God and is, therefore, worship. Worship through obedience defeats Satan.
So the devil had to try to break the humans' obedience.
God set the stage for the showdown, not Satan. Satan's embarrassing defeat would come at the hands of puny creatures who could not stand alone on their own two feet, so-to-speak, but together could move mountains and defeat evil, vicious, fallen angelic beings.
As the setting for Adam and Eve's first assignment together, one that would require this "together" kind of strength, God specifically designed a unique garden - the Garden of Eden. It was a beautiful place, teeming with plants and animals of all kinds. In the middle of the Garden God placed The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, one tree among hundreds to set the stage for His showdown with Satan.
Satan developed his strategy. It is the same today: he divides people so they cannot be strong together and then offers to them things God does not want for them.
What made Satan's strategy so remarkable and effective were two things. First was the high level of the devil's understanding of God's design of humankind. Second was Adam and Eve's low understanding of the very same thing. Actually, it seems that the first two humans just forgot God's strategy for His people's strength – to help one another.
Therefore, when the devil showed up in the Garden of Eden as a serpent, he spoke only to Eve. Sadly, Eve forgot to bring Adam into the discussion. She acted as if she did not need a helper. Without Adam's help, Eve succumbed to the tempter's lies and ate of the forbidden fruit.
Sadder still, Adam did not take leadership and get involved, did not actively take hold of his “helper” assignment. While Satan held the infamous conversation with his wife, Adam remained silent, doing nothing to help Eve with the fatal decision. Then he made his own decision that brought sin into the human race. Together, they would have been strong enough to resist the temptation. But both Adam and Eve chose to act independently, making autonomous decisions.
God saw and planned for this disaster. His marvelous surprise was sending His Son to earth years later, born of a virgin, to conquer Satan by dying on the cross for men's sins. Jesus defeated Satan and took away his power over death. Because of Christ’s substitutionary death, God could forgive humans and accept them into His kingdom.
The defeat has happened. But the humiliation is not over. Satan is not yet humbled enough. A very great amount of humiliation is necessary to balance the pride that ruined God’s heaven.
Like the angels, we were created with the same capacity for moral choice so that we could show our love for God through obedience. But there was one critical difference from angels in our design. Mankind was created to be strong together and have to depend on one another for strength. Adam and Eve, and all people, were specifically designed to be interdependent rather than self-sufficient.
Evil will often come to us individually. First of all, it is inside of us. Thoughts not in keeping with our identity in Christ. Desires that are not God’s desires for us. Self-condemnation. Not having been taught that God created us to need each other’s help, we often fight these internal evils alone, not knowing that is a formula for failure. Whatever “internal demons” we battle, there are Togethers that will bring help from those in our Christian Inner Circles.
Take for example that one of us thinks of herself as a failure and has trouble believing she can do a good job at anything because her unhealthy parents constantly told her that nothing she did was good enough. Those in her Christian Inner Circle have been taught to pray for her, but little else. We pray but feel so inadequate. That feeling is only because we have not been taught our responsibility for one another and how God works His miracles through the biblical interactions of His people. A few of the Lord’s prescribed Togethers that would help this woman overcome her false estimation of herself are Encourage One Another, Be Devoted to One Another, Accept One Another, Be Hospitable to One Another, Treat One Another Equally, among many others. Perhaps the most important one is Commend One Another. Internal evils often take much time and effort through love from those in a damaged person’s Christian Inner Circle.
Evils will also come from outside. A single mother struggling to provide for her children financially will have a car tire blow out, among a hundred unexpected expenses that will fill her with discouragement and despair. To get needed funds from her church will take time and much more humiliation than if those in her Christian Inner Circle know the specific Togethers that place responsibility squarely on their shoulders. If church leaders would teach the Togethers of Look Out for One Another’s Good, Keep One Another from the Love of Money, Serve One Another, Show Mercy and Be Compassionate with One Another, Meet One Another’s Needs, and Share with One Another such people in our Christian Inner Circles would be safe from many bad things.
Furthermore, fighting evil and the things designed by Satan goes beyond one of us helping out another though a few of the Togethers. A person with a negative self-image needs more than one person to invite her into their homes to feel likeable. A struggling single mother needs many friends and relatives to share funds for needed school supplies or a set of new car tires. Too often when we hear of someone’s need we consider only what we can do, not taking seriously our responsibility to mobilize the people of God to defeat many evils.
Feeling helpless is often righteous, while feeling hopeless denies our relationship with God. Helplessness should lead us to know that we all need God’s help and those of us who have someone feeling helpless in our Christian Inner Circle need to know that God often gives their helplessness to us to take care of. Therefore, whenever we see someone struggling and in a helpless situation, most of which will be a person in our Christian Inner Circle, we need to mobilize other Christians’ help.
This responsibility for one another in our Christian Inner Circles where need is noticed that eludes formal church recognition highlights a problem best addressed by organized church leadership. Any Christian with no Christian Inner Circle or one that is too small needs help in being enveloped in love by more people. Like a wolf pack in the wild seeks out prey that is too alone, so the devil can attack those Christians in our church, at our place of employment, or in our neighborhood who do not have a sufficient number of Christian friends and relatives who know their biblical responsibilities of the Togethers.
Church leadership needs not only to teach the Togethers and expect church members to obey the Scriptures that make up the Togethers, but they need to tie isolated people into friendships. Small groups can do this if they do not turn their memberships over frequently. However, church leaders will still need to ask those most comfortable with hospitality to have lonely people over together for the purpose of introducing them and explaining how the church would like them to consider a friendship together with each other and Jesus.
The disaster of contemporary Christianity is that we have lost sight of how very important it is to work together to fight evil and defeat the devil. Because we want those in our Christian Inner Circles to have good lives, we should be on the watch for how Satan might attack them. The Togethers as not just good ideas for Christians more serious about their faith. They are absolutely necessary and practical for all of us. And they are responsibilities God has given all of us.
Satan wants us to not know that or forget it. He is counting on Christians being in the faith for an “easy ride”. We must help one another not to want a comfortable life of faith. When was the life of Jesus so easy on this earth? If we are His followers, we should be alarmed when we see no evil to fight. Perhaps we need to take our minds from solely looking for the footsteps of Jesus in the sand carrying us and look for His footsteps to follow. Until we do, the church will be little different from godless society.
The thing we must remember is that the malice of the “the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” are not to be contested alone whenever possible. Many important people of faith have met defeat by facing evil alone. Remember King David who because he was alone committed adultery and murder. In our day many well-known pastors and Christian leaders have been defeated because others were not involved in their lives to protect them from disaster. How many congregations have been hurt by sexual sin of their leaders?
For this reason, God created mankind to be interdependent for strength to fight the devil and evil. God purposely designed Adam to be incomplete, even though without sin. Adam would have to have a helper to be strong and capable for God's work. (Genesis 2:18) Eve was then created to be Adam's helper. She, too, was perfect -- yet incomplete -- and would need Adam's help. Alone, each would be perfect, yet incomplete and vulnerable. Only together were they perfectly complete and completely perfect. Only together would they be able to win the battle with the serpent in the Garden. Only together would they be able to turn down the tempting of the devil to eat the forbidden fruit.
As He placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God's challenge to Satan might have been something like, "O.K., let's see if you can destroy the glory I receive from men." The Lord of All wanted a showdown with this upstart angel turned devil. Our God set the stage for a long conflict to humble Satan before his eternal banishment to the stinking lake of burning sulfur. Out of the humble dust of a small planet, God raised up a race which could defeat the proud boasting of a super-intelligent, extremely powerful spirit-being. But the human race could only defeat Satan if they remembered God's plan for them to help each other and work together.
God was not trying to show Satan that His glory could not be stolen. God has such power that He could have protected his glory merely by wishing Satan and his demons out of existence. No, God's prescription for the proud devil is to humiliate him for thousands of years through the defeats Satan meets at the hands of God's people.
So to begin this humiliation, God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and challenged them to defeat Satan by mere obedience to one very simple rule: "Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!" Obedience is really love for God expressed to honor Him. Obedience ascribes value to God and is, therefore, worship. Worship through obedience defeats Satan.
So the devil had to try to break the humans' obedience.
God set the stage for the showdown, not Satan. Satan's embarrassing defeat would come at the hands of puny creatures who could not stand alone on their own two feet, so-to-speak, but together could move mountains and defeat evil, vicious, fallen angelic beings.
As the setting for Adam and Eve's first assignment together, one that would require this "together" kind of strength, God specifically designed a unique garden - the Garden of Eden. It was a beautiful place, teeming with plants and animals of all kinds. In the middle of the Garden God placed The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, one tree among hundreds to set the stage for His showdown with Satan.
Satan developed his strategy. It is the same today: he divides people so they cannot be strong together and then offers to them things God does not want for them.
What made Satan's strategy so remarkable and effective were two things. First was the high level of the devil's understanding of God's design of humankind. Second was Adam and Eve's low understanding of the very same thing. Actually, it seems that the first two humans just forgot God's strategy for His people's strength – to help one another.
Therefore, when the devil showed up in the Garden of Eden as a serpent, he spoke only to Eve. Sadly, Eve forgot to bring Adam into the discussion. She acted as if she did not need a helper. Without Adam's help, Eve succumbed to the tempter's lies and ate of the forbidden fruit.
Sadder still, Adam did not take leadership and get involved, did not actively take hold of his “helper” assignment. While Satan held the infamous conversation with his wife, Adam remained silent, doing nothing to help Eve with the fatal decision. Then he made his own decision that brought sin into the human race. Together, they would have been strong enough to resist the temptation. But both Adam and Eve chose to act independently, making autonomous decisions.
God saw and planned for this disaster. His marvelous surprise was sending His Son to earth years later, born of a virgin, to conquer Satan by dying on the cross for men's sins. Jesus defeated Satan and took away his power over death. Because of Christ’s substitutionary death, God could forgive humans and accept them into His kingdom.
The defeat has happened. But the humiliation is not over. Satan is not yet humbled enough. A very great amount of humiliation is necessary to balance the pride that ruined God’s heaven.
Like the angels, we were created with the same capacity for moral choice so that we could show our love for God through obedience. But there was one critical difference from angels in our design. Mankind was created to be strong together and have to depend on one another for strength. Adam and Eve, and all people, were specifically designed to be interdependent rather than self-sufficient.
Evil will often come to us individually. First of all, it is inside of us. Thoughts not in keeping with our identity in Christ. Desires that are not God’s desires for us. Self-condemnation. Not having been taught that God created us to need each other’s help, we often fight these internal evils alone, not knowing that is a formula for failure. Whatever “internal demons” we battle, there are Togethers that will bring help from those in our Christian Inner Circles.
Take for example that one of us thinks of herself as a failure and has trouble believing she can do a good job at anything because her unhealthy parents constantly told her that nothing she did was good enough. Those in her Christian Inner Circle have been taught to pray for her, but little else. We pray but feel so inadequate. That feeling is only because we have not been taught our responsibility for one another and how God works His miracles through the biblical interactions of His people. A few of the Lord’s prescribed Togethers that would help this woman overcome her false estimation of herself are Encourage One Another, Be Devoted to One Another, Accept One Another, Be Hospitable to One Another, Treat One Another Equally, among many others. Perhaps the most important one is Commend One Another. Internal evils often take much time and effort through love from those in a damaged person’s Christian Inner Circle.
Evils will also come from outside. A single mother struggling to provide for her children financially will have a car tire blow out, among a hundred unexpected expenses that will fill her with discouragement and despair. To get needed funds from her church will take time and much more humiliation than if those in her Christian Inner Circle know the specific Togethers that place responsibility squarely on their shoulders. If church leaders would teach the Togethers of Look Out for One Another’s Good, Keep One Another from the Love of Money, Serve One Another, Show Mercy and Be Compassionate with One Another, Meet One Another’s Needs, and Share with One Another such people in our Christian Inner Circles would be safe from many bad things.
Furthermore, fighting evil and the things designed by Satan goes beyond one of us helping out another though a few of the Togethers. A person with a negative self-image needs more than one person to invite her into their homes to feel likeable. A struggling single mother needs many friends and relatives to share funds for needed school supplies or a set of new car tires. Too often when we hear of someone’s need we consider only what we can do, not taking seriously our responsibility to mobilize the people of God to defeat many evils.
Feeling helpless is often righteous, while feeling hopeless denies our relationship with God. Helplessness should lead us to know that we all need God’s help and those of us who have someone feeling helpless in our Christian Inner Circle need to know that God often gives their helplessness to us to take care of. Therefore, whenever we see someone struggling and in a helpless situation, most of which will be a person in our Christian Inner Circle, we need to mobilize other Christians’ help.
This responsibility for one another in our Christian Inner Circles where need is noticed that eludes formal church recognition highlights a problem best addressed by organized church leadership. Any Christian with no Christian Inner Circle or one that is too small needs help in being enveloped in love by more people. Like a wolf pack in the wild seeks out prey that is too alone, so the devil can attack those Christians in our church, at our place of employment, or in our neighborhood who do not have a sufficient number of Christian friends and relatives who know their biblical responsibilities of the Togethers.
Church leadership needs not only to teach the Togethers and expect church members to obey the Scriptures that make up the Togethers, but they need to tie isolated people into friendships. Small groups can do this if they do not turn their memberships over frequently. However, church leaders will still need to ask those most comfortable with hospitality to have lonely people over together for the purpose of introducing them and explaining how the church would like them to consider a friendship together with each other and Jesus.
The disaster of contemporary Christianity is that we have lost sight of how very important it is to work together to fight evil and defeat the devil. Because we want those in our Christian Inner Circles to have good lives, we should be on the watch for how Satan might attack them. The Togethers as not just good ideas for Christians more serious about their faith. They are absolutely necessary and practical for all of us. And they are responsibilities God has given all of us.
Satan wants us to not know that or forget it. He is counting on Christians being in the faith for an “easy ride”. We must help one another not to want a comfortable life of faith. When was the life of Jesus so easy on this earth? If we are His followers, we should be alarmed when we see no evil to fight. Perhaps we need to take our minds from solely looking for the footsteps of Jesus in the sand carrying us and look for His footsteps to follow. Until we do, the church will be little different from godless society.