The Rules of Engagement

Your Military Headquarters and the Commander in Chief

Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. —2 Corinthians 5:20, emphasis added For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. —Ephesians 6:20 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying , Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! —Isaiah 18:2, emphasis added Because this is true, the church is the official embassy of the government of heaven. We use the church building as a place for the fivefold ministry leaders to work and minister to people within the church as well as to win unbelievers to Christ. We also use it as a central meeting place to fellowship together, to learn of our new assignments and commands, to be debriefed on the next move of God, and to discuss administrative and legislative matters concerning the body of Christ. The apostle Paul foretold of the growing impor tance of the body of Christ to meet together. In Hebrews 10:25 he says that we should not forsake the “assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” We need the meeting together of the body of Christ so that we can support each other to stand even in the heat of battle. Like the embassy, the church also stands as a place of refuge, a place of spiritual asylum and sanctuary. We can run to the church when we are battle weary and beaten down. In the Old Testament, the altar in the temple was a place where those who feared for their lives could go and grab on to the horns of the altar. No one could touch them there. (See 1 Kings 1:49–51.) T he C hurch I s the E nemy of the D evil Everything the devil is and does is contrary to God’s laws. He is rebellious, and because he continually seeks to bring harm on God’s creation, he is an

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