Firearm training? When loving-your-enemy-training is as popular as firearm training, we’ll be on the road to curbing gun violence. Society recognizes the need to train for physical health, but too often ignores the need to train for mental health.

Physical weapons force compliance. Spiritual weapons release so much love and light that they create voluntary compliance. Violence can physically subdue a person, but spiritual weapons can transform human hearts.

It’s dangerous for people to be armed with physical weapons, but unarmed with the fruit of the Spirit. The smart weapons are the spiritual ones.

Arm yourself with compassion and kindness. Learn to use them as weapons against evil.

When you put on God’s armor and live in awareness of His presence, you don’t feel a need to protect yourself. If compassion was consistently glorified as heroic and violence seen as weakness, the world would be better off. Nonviolence requires the ultimate courage.

The supernatural, spiritual gifts, listed in the Bible, are powerful spiritual weapons, that you can learn to use. Some people are so concerned about the “right to bear arms” that they ignore their right to learn to use spiritual weapons.

Being physically armed can help you “stand your ground,” but being spiritually armed will make you a better person. Spiritual weapons boldly confront evil with love, not with hate.

Only spiritual weapons can protect you from anxiety and discouragement. Guns are useless in fighting emotional duress. If you haven’t fought inner battles to become secure in your own mind and heart, nothing outside you can give you peace.

To use spiritual weapons is not to be unarmed. It’s to be armed with the real presence of the living Jesus.

If you’re defeated in your heart and mind, outward victory means little. First defeat your inner enemies and secure peace within.

Listening to your thoughts and feelings can miss you up. Commanding them to align with Jesus will set you free! First win within and then without a doubt you’ll win without. Be an inner winner!

“Christ in you” isn’t a coping strategy. It’s the living Jesus filling you with glorious hope! Violence is a sign and symptom of fear, but the Bible says that “Love casts out fear.” “Fight the good fight of faith,” not the bad fight of anger, violence, and hate.

The safest place a person can be is in the center of God’s will, armed with the fruit of the Spirit. How we need spiritual weapons! “Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude.” 1 Peter 4:1