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I grew up in the “Hell no, I won’t go” generation of the Viet Nam War era. At 18 I was part of the last lottery for being drafted into military service to go fight that war. I still remember my low draft number…86. I was not excited about serving in this non-declared war. Everyone with a brain knew we were losing and it was ridiculous we were in it from the beginning. Lucky for me, they cancelled the draft and started pulling out of Nam just as I was getting out of high school and potentially being sucked into that disastrous, ill-advised vortex.

I had many friends and acquaintances that served and a couple guys from my school went and never came back. They paid the ultimate price arguably for the sins of others and the dangers those presidential decisions put our country in. Politicians and “kings” tend to be very generous with the blood of others. I have a friend who had a military career, became a chaplain, and now works at a veterans hospital counseling many of the afflicted who have never fully recovered from their experiences in warfare…from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions still suffer as we have heroes among us who have never been able to fully recover from being called into duty fighting wars that loose lips and scribbling pens have forced them into. Some fully recover, but from what I have seen, most carry the scars of service with them the rest of their lives.

There is another kind of warfare that all humanity suffers from…spiritual warfare. This is an invisible war against invisible forces of an enemy we cannot see. All of us have two natures that make up who we are…the flesh and the spirit. The invisible “DNA” that makes everyone unique in personality and thought is developed by interactions with all the people and life experiences we have been forced to deal with our whole lives. There is multi-generational evil that is passed down forcing many into unnatural behaviors that cultures for some reasons want to naturalize. In these times right is wrong and wrong is deemed right. The battle between good and evil, positive and negative, actions and reactions determine more and more who we are.

Who we are isn’t determined just by our physical image, but by the spirit and thoughts that inhabit our flesh. The greatest battles in life are usually between the physical and the “meta-physical”. Some would call it the battle between mind and the flesh. Romans 1 tells us of this battle where our spiritual nature informs us of right and wrong, yet it is clear our flesh is always warring against our spirits. The scriptures state that our physical and mental sins end up killing our spirits and make us “casualties of war”…that ever present war within our sinful natures.

“So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles (unbelievers) do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.” (Ephesians 4:17-19 NIV) 

The Bible is the most complete source of “war stories” both literal and spiritual. You have here the history of all the wars God has chosen sides in. He chose a very imperfect peoples, the Jews, to be “His people” from which lineage He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross for the sins of all mankind. He always choses imperfect people (which we all are) to join in His battle against sin and evil. He is a relational God who knows we can’t win without Him, so He has chosen us to join him with dedicated lives for pursuing good rather than evil and to overcome all flesh over time.

Jesus was the ultimate “casualty of war” as He sacrificed His life in the physical, allowing the shedding of His blood to pay the price for our fallen natures which was death. He went to battle on our behalves against the enemy of our souls who continually devours the potential good in all human kind. God the Son conquered sin and death so that we would not have to die and continue to suffer as the price of our sins. His was a substitutionary death, similar to what millions of soldiers throughout world history have experienced in dying for their countries, families, or loved ones. God SO loved the world…

Jesus’ victory is our victory. He showed us how to suffer the travails of war in this world, and He continues to show us the path to victory in the spiritual world that exists and is in our future as believers. He has promised that we no longer need to be casualties, but can be over-comers and victors in both this life and the one that is to come. “Death, where is your sting?”. Satan, where is your victory?

Evil knows it is defeated because Jesus was the ultimate casualty who overpowered death and destruction of the soul. He has restored our souls and given us the promise of eternal life. We attain that by believing ON Him. Believing ON Him means He has already defeated and saved us from destruction that we are powerless on our own to accomplish. We win because He won. We love because HE loved. We are no longer casualties of war because HE has delivered us from the bondage of sin that destroys us. We are complete only in His grace and redemption.

This is His word and promise to those who believe by faith alone in Christ alone. By trusting Him you will never be a “casualty of war”.