{"id":460,"date":"2018-04-05T11:07:09","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T11:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=460"},"modified":"2018-04-05T14:25:45","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T14:25:45","slug":"the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html","title":{"rendered":"The 3 Levels of Spiritual Warfare You Need to Engage in Daily"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash-logoOlivia
unsplash-logo<\/span>Olivia Snow<\/span><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether we realize it or not, spiritual warfare is all around us. If you choose not to engage in it, that doesn’t mean you’re exempt. It simply means you’re undefended (click here<\/a> for more info on spiritual warfare). There are three levels of spiritual warfare that you need to engage in on a daily basis:<\/p>\n

Personal<\/strong><\/span> – You need to saturate your mind with truth (belt of truth). You need to live right (breastplate of righteousness). You need to wield the word of God (sword of the Spirit). When you engage in spiritual warfare, you do so to protect yourself first and foremost. But this is only the first level of spiritual warfare.<\/p>\n

Defensive<\/strong> – You have a calling not just to protect yourself but those you love. You have a responsibility to defend your family from spiritual attacks. How do you do that? By engaging in spiritual warfare. When you pray continually for them, you cover them in armor. When you express and live out your faith in front of them, your shield of faith begins to cover them as well.<\/p>\n

Offensive<\/strong> – Spiritual warfare is not just a defensive game. It’s offense as well. As believers we have the high ground, and we’re called to take ground from the enemy. We’re called to engage in spiritual warfare on behalf of those who don’t yet know God. We’re called to do spiritual warfare for the lost. When you walk in the Spirit, you’re putting on the shoes of readiness and allowing the Spirit to direct your steps to the daily conversations you need to have. When you invite others to church, to community, you’re inviting them to the safety and protection of the herd.<\/p>\n

Christians are called to engage in spiritual warfare on three levels: personal, defensive, and offensive. Let’s get to it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether we realize it or not, spiritual warfare is all around us. If you choose not to engage in it, that doesn’t mean you’re exempt. It simply means you’re undefended (click here for more info on spiritual warfare). There are three levels of spiritual warfare that you need to engage in on a daily basis:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[57,56],"class_list":["post-460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-next-steps","tag-armor-of-god","tag-spiritual-warfare"],"yoast_head":"\nThe 3 Levels of Spiritual Warfare You Need to Engage in Daily - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you choose not to engage in spiritual warfare, that does not mean you are exempt. It simply means you are undefended.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The 3 Levels of Spiritual Warfare You Need to Engage in Daily - Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you choose not to engage in spiritual warfare, that does not mean you are exempt. It simply means you are undefended.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-04-05T11:07:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-05T14:25:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/04\/olivia-snow-265289-unsplash-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Daffern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@joshdaffern\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The 3 Levels of Spiritual Warfare You Need to Engage in Daily - Next Steps","description":"If you choose not to engage in spiritual warfare, that does not mean you are exempt. It simply means you are undefended.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The 3 Levels of Spiritual Warfare You Need to Engage in Daily - Next Steps","og_description":"If you choose not to engage in spiritual warfare, that does not mean you are exempt. It simply means you are undefended.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html","og_site_name":"Next Steps","article_author":"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","article_published_time":"2018-04-05T11:07:09+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-04-05T14:25:45+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/04\/olivia-snow-265289-unsplash-300x200.jpg"}],"author":"Josh Daffern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@joshdaffern","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html","name":"The 3 Levels of Spiritual Warfare You Need to Engage in Daily - Next Steps","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/04\/olivia-snow-265289-unsplash-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2018-04-05T11:07:09+00:00","dateModified":"2018-04-05T14:25:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c"},"description":"If you choose not to engage in spiritual warfare, that does not mean you are exempt. It simply means you are undefended.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/04\/olivia-snow-265289-unsplash-300x200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/04\/olivia-snow-265289-unsplash-300x200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/04\/the-3-levels-of-spiritual-warfare-you-need-to-engage-in-daily.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The 3 Levels of Spiritual Warfare You Need to Engage in Daily"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/","name":"Next Steps","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Josh Daffern","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c","name":"Josh Daffern","description":"Born and raised in California, Josh graduated college from California Baptist University and spent two years as a missionary in Africa before coming back to America and finding the love of his life (Robin). Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. Enjoy the blog!","sameAs":["http:\/\/joshdaffern.com","facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","https:\/\/x.com\/joshdaffern"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/author\/jdaffern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}