Revelation 12:11 says, "And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death."

I've asked a member of Living Hope, Melissa Helland, to write about the blood of Jesus as a part of our spiritual warfare. Please read and be blessed by her excellent writing and insights.

Peace, Tim

"There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins"

William Cowper, 1770

Is Cowper serious? It almost sounds like a horror movie mansion with a fountain of blood. I can almost hear the high pitched scream. When Cowper sat down quill in hand to write that hymn he didn’t soften the message for my modern ears.

As I cringed over the macabre imagery, my Dad asked us to pray for an eight-year-old girl in Georgia. A dog mauled her while trying to protect her dog from a savage attack. Doctors performed 13 hours of surgery with more the next day on her severely damaged arms. They gave her a transfusion where they hooked her vein directly up to a blood donor’s vein. Dread over her missing arm squeezed my heart.

Next, my dad made the connection between a direct transfusion and a fountain of blood in Cowper’s hymn. It got me thinking. Would I hook my vein up to hers? Absolutely. I imagine you would too. And here Jesus gave all his blood for me so I could be snatched from the ravages of sin’s sharp teeth. In heaven, God’s going to finally kill sin for all time kind of like the owner shot the dog that mauled the girl. But sin is still here. What about salvation for today?

The daily salvation Jesus offers is remarkably like that direct blood transfusion and Cowper’s fountain. The words of the hymn don’t sound gory to me anymore. Now there’s just a little girl inside me hooked up to a Savior willing to give me a direct blood transfusion today -- “a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emanuel’s veins.”

So if we acknowledgeable the reality of spiritual warfare and take up the challenge to actively engage our enemy, we need to know our about the weapons at our disposal. Many Christians might identify God's Word, the Bible, as one of our primary weapons. Ephesians 6:17 refers to the Scriptures as "the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God". But how do we wield this sword?

Read more: The Weapons We Use (Part 1)

I think of this line in connection with duels of earlier centuries. The choice of a weapon can make so much difference. There is a classic scene in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. A bad guy wielding a sword tries to stop Indy in the marketplace. After 10 seconds of fancy sword work, Indy simply pulls out a gun and shoots him. He wasn't concerned with a fair fight; he wanted to continue with his objective at the time.

Read more: Choose Your Weapon