The WOFOYO Podcast
The WOFOYO Podcast
WOFOYO SHORT: Kingdom Warriors
Have you been raised in a passive, complacent church culture that shies away from concepts like spiritual warfare? You're not alone. In this eye-opening episode, we challenge the notion that Christian faith should be passive and non-confrontational.
Drawing from scripture, we explore Jesus' own words about the kingdom of heaven suffering violence and how the violent take it by force (Matthew 11:12). This isn't about harming others, but about approaching our spiritual lives with strategy, purpose, and decisive action. Remember when Jesus overturned the money changers' tables? That wasn't a passive response—it was righteous action that directly confronted corruption.
We dive into the fascinating connection between military mindsets and kingdom understanding. It's no coincidence that centurions feature prominently in the New Testament as people who quickly grasped Jesus' authority. Their training in discipline, organization, and strategic thinking prepared them to recognize spiritual truths. This military framework offers valuable lessons for believers today: staying mission-focused, properly utilizing resources, maintaining awareness, and developing spiritual discipline.
Just as martial arts training uses mirrors to show the difference between what you think you're doing and what you're actually doing, spiritual training reveals your true condition. When you understand your limitations through disciplined practice, you become more aware of God's grace working through you. This is why we train—not just to be prepared for spiritual battles, but to recognize when God is moving supernaturally in our lives.
Ready to move beyond passive Christianity? Subscribe now and join us in discovering what it truly means to be a kingdom warrior who takes spiritual ground with purpose and power. When you know yourself, know your enemy, and remain in Christ, there's no way you lose.
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Hey everybody, welcome to another WoeFo Yo Short. This is C-Dub. Last week I put out a short that was not so short and it might not be what some of you all are used to. I'm not apologizing for that at all, but I do want to get in further depth because some of y'all, especially if you've been raised in a complacent and passive church, the idea of being spiritually active and I might have used the word violence, training violence that might be foreign to you. I just want to demonstrate real quick in this short I'm going to bring up some examples that this should not be a foreign concept to the believer, that if you actually get in the word for yourself, it talks about this Matthew 11, I believe it's verse 24, jesus talking about John the Baptist.
Speaker 1:From the time of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Is this lovey-dovey? Is this violence against your fellow man? No, it is not. But it is violent in the fact that you are taking spiritual ground, that you press into it, that it involves strategy, that it involves purposeful intent, strategy that it involves purposeful intent, violence of action, even if it is spiritually. Even when I talked about self-defense. I recommend you be aware, but we're not going out there starting trouble, doing violence unprovoked on people. No, no, no, but be prepared to protect yourself.
Speaker 1:In addition to this, I want to point out that Jesus one time resorted to violence in overturning the money changers' tables and really as soon as it started affecting money, now we really got to take care of Jesus. Now we got to do something about it. They were talking about it before. They might have had a plan in motion before, but as soon as the money changing tables get turned over, now we got to put this plan into action. Well, some of y'all are like well, grandma didn't teach me to do this. This isn't the way that I learned it. Well, you might have learned it wrong. Or, if I'm being nice, you might have just learned it incomplete. So, yes, love your neighbor, love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your might. Bones and I have talked about this in our book. We've discussed it in almost every episode, this principle that we really started to see the kingdom when we learned about kingdom versus just church as usual, and what Jesus preached was repent the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What John the Baptist preached was repent the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When you start studying kingdom now, you're dealing with something that is different than what we've done for a long time now, but it is a principle that, if you understand there are characteristics of a kingdom, if you really want to understand kingdom man, buy you a Miles Monroe book. I may buy you a Miles Monroe book.
Speaker 1:One of the more mentioned jobs in the New Testament is the centurion. Now, was it centurions that crucified Christ, that did the literal act? Yeah, sure did. We're involved in it. These are men of force. These are men of force. These are men of violence.
Speaker 1:However, if we go to Matthew eight and Luke seven tells the story of the centurion who has a servant and Jesus I'll go to your house. Everybody vouches for this centurion We've covered this recently but he goes. I'm not even worthy that you should come under my roof because he was a Gentile and Jesus was an observant Jew. You just say the word my servant will be healed. I am a man under authority. I have servants. I know what authority is. I can say to this one go, do it and he does it. I am a man under authority. I'm a man that has authority. You just say the word, Jesus, and he'll be healed. Sure enough, that's what happens. Jesus said I've not seen so great a faith in all of Israel.
Speaker 1:Also in Matthew 27,. As Jesus dies, there is a centurion who recognizes what's going on. Who recognizes what's going on? Two people at this time have said you are the son of God. Peter centurion goes. The sky was dark. Jesus utters his last, he gives up the ghost and now there's an earthquake and the centurion goes. Truly, this was the son of God. He recognized what it was. Second person to say it, the first Gentile believers. Who is it? It's Cornelius over in Acts 10 and his family.
Speaker 1:So think about this. Who gets the principles? It's centurions, it's military people, and one of the things that would behoove us to start thinking kingdom which is why it's going to offend a lot of people with a traditional passive church mindset is that, when you understand anybody that's ever been in the military, and for all you military folks out there, yeah, we all joke about it and we all have our little sense of humor about it, about how inefficient things can get and some military leadership can affect bad leaders, but it also attracts really good leaders. Bones and I were Army, have several friends that were others, but you understand strategy, that kingdom mindset, that of being a spiritual warrior as well as being trained to be an actual warrior, which is what the military does. They help you to understand strategy, helps you to have awareness.
Speaker 1:And the other thing that a lot of people don't like to talk about in the Christian life is discipline Organization. It helps you to stay on mission. Organization it helps you to stay on mission. Military training helps you to assess and properly utilize your people and your resources. So let's say you have authority, or let's say you have a group of people, prayer group. You might not be going and saying, hey, I need you to go out here and you need to do this and you need to do that, but it helps you to keep things organized.
Speaker 1:One of the ladies that I interviewed in June, Carol McDonald, one of the best I've seen at balancing the spiritual prophetic gifting that she has as well as being able to organize small groups so that they are effective. It's a military mindset that she has, even though I don't know if she's ever been in. It helps you to properly utilize the people that you're working with, that you're praying with, and if you have resources at your disposal, it also helps you to stay on mission and properly utilize them and not get distracted. So how do you keep from getting distracted from all that? How do you keep from getting distracted when you have people that are going hungry and then your church board is telling you you need a new sound system? Which is more important? Feeding the people in your congregation or the women's luncheon, feeding the people in your congregation? Or making sure somebody doesn't miss their rent, or, if their house burns down, they got a place to stay, taking care of people, or going out and witnessing to those that are less fortunate, or those who are, in this day and age, deluded, and going out and ministering to them. Or building bigger barns. If you know that parable, you know how that ends up. It helps you to properly assess and be able to better utilize the people and resources at your disposal.
Speaker 1:Now, some of y'all might have had exception with the word violence, but as someone who's trained in it with the word violence, but as someone who's trained in it different levels you know you can call it self-defense, but a lot of times if you're defending yourself against somebody who's trying to do you violence, then you're using some form of violence, controlled, not just letting things go and not losing it, not giving in to hate and frustration. And all this you train so you can properly do combat. And in my line of work, if we have to use force, there's a set of rules and you don't go. There's a time when, like the ultimate, oh no, this is happening and it's. It's survived by any means necessary. But as soon as those parameters no longer apply, there's rules, or else not only would you get fired, but you would end up in jail Not on my list of things to do. One of the things that happen is proper training helps you, first and foremost, to understand you. You go. What in the world are you talking about?
Speaker 1:For a couple years I trained taekwondo Me and my youngest boy. We did it together About the time high school football started. He didn't have the time and he didn't have a vehicle. So guess what? Dad was there and had to step back. No way I was a black belt or anything like that. No, but I learned some things, learned some principles, and you equip that with some other training. You know, it's a tool in your arsenal, it's a tool in your toolbox that you can use.
Speaker 1:One of the interesting things was, though, that I first discovered first started training, they have mirrors on the walls. Why do they have the mirrors on the walls at the dojos, at the martial arts studios? Because they say do this movement and you imitate that movement and you look at your body and there's variances. What you think you're doing, you're not actually doing so. For that reason, they have the mirror. Well, when you properly train, all of a sudden, if you're doing regular practice and doing it properly, you can close that disconnect pretty quick, and those are structures. Now, hold it, hold that position. Where do you think your hand is Now? Look at it. No, it needs to be at this angle. Look at your foot. What are you doing? So it helps you do that.
Speaker 1:Other reason you train, once you spar, you learn how different opponents do, and, man, you know some of these folks that are doing MMAs, man, the MMA competitions. They have watched footage after footage after footage after footage of their opponents and how they operate, what their tendencies are, what you need to be looking for. They break it down, just like they do in the NFL or NBA. This is what the other team does, this is what your opponent is going to do. So part of training and training in violence, one of the benefits of that is you learn of the different attacks of the enemy and you learn how to deal with it effectively.
Speaker 1:Lastly I just wanted to bring up this because we're talking about violence and military and centurions, and all that when you know your own limitations, when you understand your opponent's capabilities. The other thing that training does because you're distinctly aware of your limitations as well all of a sudden it makes you way more appreciative of God's grace, because there are times you go in and it is time to go and you perform and things happen that are way beyond you. This is why you train. This is why it pays to be ready, this is why you push yourself to be better. This is why you stay disciplined in your physical conditioning, in your awareness, but also in prayer, also in getting in the Word, also in your fellowship with the Holy Spirit and making sure that, as you're led, that you are using the gifts that the Holy Spirit has provided, so you don't get rusty and all of a sudden forget how to use them when you start to do things that are way beyond you, what training does, and training for violence, spiritual violence. It helps you to become acutely aware of God's grace and since you know the enemy, since you know yourself and you know God's grace, you become very conscious of when he has stepped in. And when he stepped in and you remain in him ain't no way you lose.
Speaker 1:Wofo Yo. Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We hope this challenges you and causes you to be kingdom effective. You can always check us out at wofoyoorg or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, spotify or all. We'll even check us out on YouTube. For both of myself, this is C-Dub, reminding you that if you're going to grow, you've got to wofoyo. Get in the word for yourself.