Subject: The Christian Warfare

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 6: 10 – 20

Memory Verse: James 4: 7

Objective: To understand that submitting to God brings true victory.

1. What is expected of Christians according to the apostle Paul? 1 Timothy 6: 12; 1 Timothy 1: 18 – 19

2. Who should we become and what is expected of us? 2 Timothy 2: 3 – 4; and what did Paul say of his own life? 2 Timothy 4: 6 – 8

3. How is the Christian warfare described? 2 Corinthians 10: 3 – 4, Ephesians 6: 12; and what should the Christian fight against? 2 Corinthians 10: 5

Note: One of the fiercest enemies in the Christian's daily warfare is his human nature with its inordinate lusts (Galatians 5: 19 – 21). This nature in us sometimes produces deceitful and degrading impulses, lust, greed etc. Our nature will destroy us spiritually unless we resist its unrighteous impulses that lead to sin.

4. What has Jesus done for us? Galatians 1: 3 – 4; and what should be our attitude towards the world's social order with its glitter and glamour? 1 John 2: 15 – 17

5. How are Christians specially admonished? 2 Corinthians 6: 14 – 18, James 4: 7, Revelations 18: 4; and does it mean that we should isolate ourselves? John 17: 15 – 18

Note: Jesus' prayer in the John 17 shows that God does not expect us to move away from the rest of earth's population to escape the world's distractions. Rather, we should strive to abstain from the ways of the world that are defined as sin in the Bible.

6. What should one expect from the world when we try to live according to God's law? John 16: 2 – 3, 1 Peter 4: 3 – 4, John 15: 18 – 21; and what should our response be? Mathew 5: 43 – 47, Romans 12: 2 – 21