As Iron Man sharpens War Machine, so one die-hard disciple of Jesus sharpens another

Proverbs 27:17 says

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

I experienced this today.

I just came back from 4 hours with Jesse at Second Cup where we engaged in a time of mutual sharing, encouragement, strategizing, and dreaming together about how things could be in Toronto.

It's so refreshing to be with another brother who is so passionate, radical, and willing to not only die for Christ but live for Christ. God has given us similar passions, similar experiences growing up in the same Christian sub-culture of Toronto CBC spirituality, similar experiences living an extended time out of Toronto to learn more about the world as well as about Toronto by being outside of it. God has given both of us a heart for Toronto. While we're not sure whether or not he's gonna be in Toronto soon, it was refreshing just to dream with a fellow spiritual Jack Bauer.

Spiritually refreshing. emotionally motivating, intellectually stimulating, strategically innovating. Invigorating on multiple dimensions. I really appreciate this brother of mine.

It's not that I don't know any other passionate Christians in Toronto my age, I do. But I don't know too many who have the same commonalities in the following respects:

1)from personal experience, being somewhat disillusioned with "traditional North American church"
2)who have lived outside of Ontario for a long period of time
3)who are convinced that spiritual formation (understood biblically) can change the world
4)who are initiative taking/proactive "Jack Bauers" for Christ

This brother is, and I was greatly blessed catching up with him today. I really hope I get to work with him in the future. It would be a dream of mine to collaborate with him. He's gifted in ways that I'm not. He's experienced in ways that I lack. He can see potential blindspots in idealistic dreams. He's not afraid to straightforwardly challenge my ideas/thinking/strategy when he sees potential implications of my train of thought.

There is a certain type of brotherhood that one can only experience when one is in the trenches together with a fellow soldier, where both are fighting and sacrificing for a cause that is greater than themselves. Although I do not know this brother too well, I feel this way when the Lord blesses me with opportunities to go to war against the enemy with him.

Because Jesse has "been in the game" longer than I have, I feel like he's iron man, and I'm war machine.

He has had experience "putting" and "being strong" in the full armour of God to struggle against the rulers, authorities, and powers of this dark world, and using the power of various portions of God's spiritual armour to engage in the invisible warfare against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:10-12)

I would be privileged to collaborate with him like the following scene with iron man and war machine and to take a stand with him for Christ "when the day of evil comes" (Ephesians 6:13). When it comes to the spiritual armour of God, intentions aren't enough. One cannot just have good intentions, put on the armour of God and passively sit there without training oneself how to use it. One has to be trained how to use the armour, and to proactively "be on guard, stand firm, and be strong with courage" like what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:13. For example in meditating on the Word of God, there is a world of a difference in mechanically saying verses like a spell Harry Potter style and expecting that in and of itself to expel demons compared to using creative/novel/deep ways of actively meditating in the Spirit on certain verses in certain ways in certain contexts to ward demons off.



God has given me a vision to raise up a spiritual army of soldiers of Christ to combat evil, hate, destruction, with Christ's power of love. Spiritual warriors well trained in the experiential use of God's spiritual armour. God has given me the passion to raise up a generation of spiritual "iron mans" for Christ who put on armour that enables them to engage in spiritual warfare in ways that would be impossible without it, just like how it would be impossible for iron man to fight the bad guy in iron man 2 without his iron man body suit. Just like iron man, we soldiers of Christ must not passively put on the suit and do nothing, but learn how to work with the suit to fight evil. The suit of armour is grace. God has given it to us, and we do not deserve it. Nevertheless, we must learn with hands-on experience how to navigate, work with, and control each part of the suit until it feels like each part of the armour is like part of our body itself. I have a desire to be trained in as well as train others how to consistently have the armour of God with us, so that when the day of evil comes unexpectedly, we may be able to take a stand our ground against the enemy, not by our own ability, but by proactively working with the grace of God's armour and his mighty power. Demons can attack us at any moment. They come and assault unexpectedly like thieves. And when they come, we have to have the armour of God with us on hand and fight.

With the belt of truth, we can do more than just "memorize and recite to ourselves what is true". We can also take lies in our head (it is important to get what I want right now) and extend those lies all the way out to their logical conclusions in our imaginations to show their utter absurdity (I don't know what's best for myself and I have regretted what I wanted a lot in the past, and God in "birds eye view" knows what's best for me and looking out for me, so I don't have to look out for myself).

With the breastplate of righteousness, we don't just merely remind ourselves that "Jesus makes me righteous" (although that's true). But we create habits of righteousness with our bodies (Romans 6:13) so that our physical bodies end up with embedded righteous habits and rid themselves of destructive habits [such as holding our tongues {our tongues are so powerfully influential on our whole being like what James says in James 3:5-6} when someone disses/insults us rather than naturally just responding back in direct or indirect retaliation with it, and blessing those who curse us by natural instinct due to bodily training of the tongue].

With the Gospel of peace, we do not merely intellectually remind ourselves of the gospel, but we walk, jog, and run according to the rhythm and "spirit" of Good News that makes us more agile in battle, since we take ourselves lightly and live in an attitude free of self-condemnation due to deleting the "negative emotional programming" of getting down on oneself when one fails, and in turn installing the "positive emotional programming" of not putting one's hope for success in one's own efforts/abilities, but in God's providence. This gives one spiritual agility.

With the shield of faith we, on the subconscious level, learn to live with an interpretive framework that makes sense of all of life's events in light of Romans 8:28 (and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose) and use our imagination to imagine how the huge rocks that Satan throws at us to prevent us from crossing an uncrossable river get caught by the hand of God, and placed in front of us as the next stepping stone to cross on.

With the helmet of salvation we learn to live all of life in the psychological context of eternal life, which defined in John 17:3 by Jesus himself as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom God has sent. We recognize that the "knowing" that Jesus himself is talking about here is not intellectually acknowledging the existence of God like Judas, Pharisees, and demons also did, but actively engaging in interactive relationship with God every moment of life. With training in putting on the helmet of salvation, our minds are protected from the dangerous tendencies to encounter life's events without acknowledging the concrete/social/immediate presence of God with us in whatever circumstance that we're in and instead we have the attitude of "wherever we go, God will be right beside us to experience everything with me inside of me."

With the sword of the Spirit, we learn to meditate on the word of God in creative ways appropriate to different circumstances that require flexibly prescribed methods that change hour to hour. Just like playing different piano keys at different times on the piano according to the "will" of the song's notes at certain times, we meditate on different scriptural verses of the Bible at different times according to God's specific "will", or "chapter"/"mood"/"spiritual weather" at the time. The Word of God is living and active. If something is living and active it is organic/dynamic/spontaneous to a certain degree. This is far from being like Harry Potter's wand.

We also learn to pray in the Spirit. There are probably over a thousand ways of praying. A lot of us western churches only regularly practice 2-3 methods.

So learning how to apply the God's gracious tools of spiritual armour and becoming familiar with how to use them in active combat, we will be able to deal with unexpected spiritual terrorist attacks when they come at us without warning by having the armour of God with us wherever we go. So when the day of spiritual terrorism arrives, we will be able to stand our ground, and after we have done everything, to stand (Ephesians 6:13)



Just imagine a whole generation of spiritual iron mans who can do this!







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Since I want to become a cop, I've been trying to equip myself in multiple ways which I think would come in handy if I do get hired as one. Therefore, I've been researching and applying ways to read people's microexpressions (what emotion psychologist Paul Ekman is known for researching and specializing in [i.e. the book "emotions revealed") more in social situations. I've also applied some of the stuff I've read about body language in Joe Navarro's book "what every body is saying".

The results are shocking (assuming that I'm applying the instructions properly). It's like I can (sometimes but not always) see more through people's smokescreens of false/artificial facial expressions (especially false smiles). What subtle giveaway signs of masked emotions that used to escape my awareness are starting to register on my "social emotion radar" and its shocking! What a deceitful world we live in!