Book Comment: Conquer. Your Battle Plan for Spiritual Victory

 

In his book, Conquer. Your Battle Plan for Spiritual Victory, Michael Youssef says of the Devil, “… as Christians we find ourselves constantly at war with him. If that is not your experience of the Christian life, then something is wrong.”

Youssef asserts that the Devil exists but that obedience to the Lord pushes him away. You have many doors to your soul and you need to close those doors to prevent illegal entry. You must lock as many doors as you can. You do this by prayer and Bible study.

The Devil is a liar and deceitful, but he does not (cannot) break and enter. Like the famed fictional vampire Count Dracula, he can only enter if you invite him in. If you resist him in God’s name, he will run away. The battle is already won.

As with most books such as this, what you get from the book depends on what you bring with you. You may not agree with everything the author says. Luke (see below) advises you to think for yourself.

Information you will need to search for this book: Youssef, Michael, Conquer. Your Battle Plan to Spiritual Victory (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2015)

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Christians

At some time during their lives, the following people have publicly identified themselves as Christian.   Inclusion in this list does not indicate approval or disapproval of the person, of their orthodoxy or lack of it, or of their actions.  Readers are encouraged to suggest persons who should be included on this list.  This is a recurring segment in this blog.

Andrew Stanton: (b. 1965, Massachusetts, USA) Film director, screenwriter, producer, voice actor. Two Academy Awards (Best Animated Feature) for Finding Nemo and Wall-E.

Vladislaus III Dracul: (b. 1431, Wallachia (Romania) – d. 1477; aka: Vlad Dracula; Vlad the Impaler; Vlad Tepes) Prince of the Romanian principality of Wallachia.  The family crest was a dragon hanging down from a cross.  In Latin “draco” means dragon, in Romanian it means “devil.”  Romanians and others in the region remember him as a Christian prince who repelled the Ottoman advance into Romania.  He was praised for this by Pope Pius II, who also criticized his methods.

When Ottoman envoys refused to remove their caps in his presence, he had their caps nailed to their heads and sent them back to their Sultan, Mehmet  II.  When mehmet II lead his forces to the outskirts of Tirgoviste, he saw “the Forest of the Impaled,” 20,000 Turkish prisoners impaled through their bodies on sharp poles sticking up out of the ground.  He signed his name as “Drakula” or “Drakulya.” To much of the world ,he is considered to have been brutal and sadistic and he is the real-life inspiration for the fictional vampire character, Count Dracula.  Roman Catholic.

http://www.bucovine.com/en/pages/vlad_tepes.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vlad_Tepes_002.jpg

Y-Ben Hok: In 2008, Y-Ben Hok, the pastor of a 132 member Ede tribe Christian congregation, was arrested in Vietnam and died in police custody.  The official report was that he committed suicide.

Johann von Staupnitz (b. ca. 1469, Saxony – d. 1524)  He was the vicar general of the Augustinian Order in Germany and a personal friend of the monk, Martin Luther.  He never became a Protestant and complained of the uproar the movement caused within the Roman Catholic Church.

Kim Shin-Jo: In 1968, North Korean Kim Shin-Jo was a member of a thirty-one person assassination squad sent into South Korea to kill President Park Chung-Hee.  Kim was the only one of the assassins to survive the attack.  North Korea executed his parents after he became a South Korean citizen in 1970 and converted to Christianity.  He eventually became the pastor at Sungrak Sambong Church in Gyeongg- do.