Christians should expect spiritual warfare, Scripture tells us. Prophetic preacher and ordained minister Dr. Kim Maas says spiritual warfare “is something that we need to deal with, and we shouldn’t shy away from it.”
Because we have an enemy that is roaming the earth, Maas says on the Move Forward With Dr. Kim Maas podcast on the Charisma Podcast Network, we must prepare for warfare, and we can’t ignore it or hide from it, either. “Warfare is just going to be part of the process.”
At the same time, says Maas, “Not everything is the devil. I think sometimes we’re too quick to run to that. Sometimes we automatically think, Well, I’m having a tough time in this one area, so it must be the devil,” she says. “Sometimes it’s not the devil. Sometimes it’s a test from the Lord to see if you’re going to be faithful with something. Did you know that when you get a prophetic word, oftentimes, things will go in the completely opposite direction?”
Dr. Heidi Baker of Iris Global, whom Maas calls “the Mother Teresa of Mozambique,” had an experience that shows us sometimes an encounter is both a test from the Lord and spiritual warfare. Baker once came to a Randy Clark conference as a burned-out missionary. “Randy was speaking, and he called her out and said, ‘Heidi, do you want Mozambique?’ It was a word of the Lord. It was a prophetic word. She said yes,” Maas says. “And then she was wrecked by the Lord for several days, having an encounter with the Holy Spirit where He came upon her in power, and the prophetic word had to do with seeing healings and people being raised from the dead and planting thousands of churches and seeing millions of people come to the Lord. And so when she went back, the first 18 months were just hell.
“And she prayed. She took this word and ran with it, which is what you’re supposed to do, to begin stepping into it already. And she started to lay hands on people and pray for the sick, and nobody was recovering. And as a matter of fact, all their funding dried up. And then … she and [her husband] Roland were sick,” Maas explains. “And she had to push through all of that until the prophecy came to pass. So what was that? Well, it was a test of her faith. First of all, it was a test that God allowed … And then it was also warfare because the enemy wanted her to turn back and not press in to receive it.”
For more about how you can walk in faith and discern true spiritual warfare, listen to this podcast.
