Thursday, December 12th, 2024
Sometimes we read a scripture and we think we understand it to mean one thing, but as we spend time seeking and diving deeper we realize it has a quite different meaning. This happened for me recently while reading Luke 11:21-23:
21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. 22 But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils. 23 He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
It’s easy to think that verses 21 and 22 are talking about a physical confrontation between humans, but in this case it’s a picture of a spiritual battle. Which we will talk about more. Verse 23, if read too quickly, almost seems a little out of place, but it’s actually the bow that ties it all together.
The first strong man represents the powers of darkness. These are the ones that cherish their possessions and rely on their own skills to keep them safe. The “one stronger than he” is actually Jesus. Jesus’ mission while He was on earth and Holy Spirit’s mission now is to purify us and get rid of all that is keeping us from relying on God and God alone. To me, this represents deliverance. We are all holding onto burdens, curses, imperfections and sins. Jesus’ resurrected life has overcome all of these things for us. He wants us to live free and delivered from all of this false armor that we trusted in.
The word “spoils” in verse 22 in the original Greek is actually the only occurrence of this word in the Bible. According to the Lexicon it means “the arms stripped off from an enemy”. What are arms for? That’s where we get our strength. When our enemy loses his arms, he has no power against us. This is part of the spoil that Jesus wants to divide among us.
Now that we understand the first two verses we can see that in the last verse, Jesus is asking us to partake of this adventure with Him to set the captives, sinners and sick free. Every time someone lets the light in we are, as the body of Christ, taking back more of what the enemy has stolen. From here, we have even more spoils that we can pass on to the next sinner saved by Grace.
Final Thoughts…
Do we live life as if our enemies have no arms or are we giving them more authority than Jesus? It’s a humbling question to ponder. We cannot serve light and darkness at the same time. Either we are working with Jesus or we are working against Him. The good news is that if we find ourselves on the wrong side of the equation it’s as simple as repenting and asking Father to show us how to overcome and take spoils with Him.