Willpower as Spiritual Weapon
Dear seeker after truth in God’s love, as we advance in our exploration of spiritual warfare, we are skipping forward all the way to the end now to encounter a weapon of unmatched potency: Willpower. This is not the typical definition of willpower however. What is it then? This is not human determination’s mortal brutishness, but the divine energy fuelling the soldier’s journey, a life driven by God’s Love through our spiritual origins.
The Life Driven by Love
In Structural Virtues Theory (SVT), Willpower stands as the twelfth and final virtue and culmination of all the preceding. It is the “life driven by Love,” propelling us towards our divine destiny through our origination. Rooted in Analysis aspect and Spirit (divine love) moment which is submission to the power of God’s Will, it embodies self-fulfilment within community and virtues.
Coming hot off the tail of Courage, which is divine love in Perseverance, Willpower transcends mere endurance by harmonising our will with the Will of the highest power in all existence. In sharing this truth, we cleave confusion’s fog, shield of God’s fruits of the Spirit defending against despair’s darts. In Logos domain, where all things converge, Willpower guides us through any ambiguity, with purpose yet humility.
Courage: Shield of Justice
Accompanying our potent weapon in the Lord is Courage, the virtue enabling firmness despite adversity. Elucidated in Logos “11th,” Courage is virtue’s hatred antidote, a shield protecting our souls from the onslaught of even the deepest temptations. Hatred always stems from a place of weakness, deemed legitimate or not.
Courage cannot be bravado. Nothing in this is for show. This is a virtue most visible anyhow. The spiritual warrior must resolve themselves against the darkness and there is no other way to do this but in self-denial through Jesus, our unyielding light, confronting fear with unwavering faith. In spiritual warfare, Courage sustains us through trials and tribulations.
The reason for bringing up Courage and Willpower after the discussion about Honour and Temperance is that these, like many relationships in the SVT, are replications. Courage is Honour dipped in Perseverance and Willpower is Temperance steeped in Analysis for the higher features of Logos domain, bringing the Honesty aspect of God’s reason back around to divine Love: Spirit.
The Apostle’s Battle Cry
Paulus encapsulates Spirit when he exhorted readers and listeners to “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). Fight. Never give up. Good. God’s goodness. Faith. Absolute trust. This battle cry resonates most deeply through the ages, summoning every soldier in Christ. It calls for engagement in this conflict, having nothing to do with flesh and blood but principalities and powers. So where does your discernment point you? Brother, sister, dear seekers after God’s Will, I can only ask, what brings you greatest sorrow when you look out upon the world? How can you honestly help? Realistically, not in modern abstractions or denials of human systems. The “good fight” transcends all physical powers, embodying spiritual discipline, a continual striving towards virtues and righteousness, strengths which set us apart from wickedness and materiality.
Resurrexit Spiritus
In Resurrexit Spiritus’ framework, this battle holds deeper significance. Here, spirit resurrection is not a singular event but continuous, in works of the Spirit and divine Grace interplay dynamically. This dialectical reasoning of Logos converges truth and love in experience’s crucible; prayer. Pray. Talk to others about the things you say in prayer, if you are ready and it would be helpful for them. Discuss the good, concentrate on progress, improvement, and redemption. Do not backslide. Self-denial is acceptance of your highest self in Jesus, and this is the purpose in it all. Balancing inspired Willpower with a reasoned and sceptical humility, Courage with discernment reveal spiritual mastery’s path and disciplined virtue-building through re-conditioning of the heart.
Jesus’s parables illustrate this persistent spirit. The persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8) exemplifies unwavering faith and relentless pursuit, a testament to Willpower and Courage’s power through our internal divine connection. Initially unmoved by her pleas, the judge eventually relents, not from compassion but exasperation! Exasperate the material, crucify it, and save yourself through deepening trust, as manifests in our creative reflection toward goodness. You were made in the Image, and must act it.
Self-Definition’s Path
In Logos’s recuperative domain of Resurrexit Spiritus (Risen Spirit; RS), self-definition’s path is fraught with challenges but then the mould is always present and obvious in that next step. The soldier navigates doubts and temptations in realigning the lower domains as guided by Willpower and Courage, which, along with Loyalty, double figure the finality of Logos domain. This means that the journey for virtues demands our confronting inner darkness.
The sword of truth, wielded with the divine energy, cuts right through deception’s fog every time, revealing the stark and most pertinent reality beneath. It enables discerning God’s voice amidst worldly noise, the compass guiding past temptation and moral quagmires on to firm, straight, and narrow foundation.
Dear seeker, embrace the path of faith wholeheartedly. Cultivate Christ’s Willpower and Courage as His soldier, a disciplined faith warrior steadfast in truth. Within is the spirit’s resurrection, love’s eternal victory over darkness, light over shadow. Let Courage and all the other virtues it protects be the front of your shield, may it be attached firmly, and may you strike out with the sword of truth shared, defined by the power of God’s inescapable Will.