1. Get in shape.  Like with any martial art, you just don’t jump into it immediately, ready to fight from day one.  There is preparation and training. And there is physical conditioning.  The same applies spiritually.  Spiritual Krav Maga relies on the power of God for its effectiveness, and we must do our part to act as triggers to unleash that power.  That means we have to be spiritually in-shape.  We need to be in-tune with God, solid in our relationship with him.  We have to be prayed up, strong in faith, well-rested in him, and well-fed in spirit.  The story comes to mind of the seven sons of Sceva who tried to imitate Paul and cast out demons. Though they were religious, they didn’t have the relationship with God Paul did.  And they were overpowered, beaten up, wounded, and sent on their way defeated (Acts 19:11-16).  Or, after Jesus and his inner three disciples come down off the hill after his transfiguration, the other disciples are trying unsuccessfully to cast an epileptic spirit out of a boy.  They’re confused by their failure.  Weren’t they doing everything correctly?  But Jesus explained that their faith was weak, that sometimes they needed additional preparation of prayer and fasting before tackling that particular battle (Mt 17:15-21).  And it’s no different for us.  We have to be on sure ground with God; knowing who he is and who we are.  Be prepared, build your spiritual muscles before jumping into a fight.  You have to commit to a life of spiritual discipline if you want to be a skilled fighter — even just to protect yourself and your family.

2. Act only under orders.  We are not ronin, rogues or vigilantes.  We do not go off looking for a fight, or take on battles we have no business being in.  As servant warriors of the King, our job is to accomplish the mission HE assigns to us, not run off with our own agenda.  And this ties in with being prepared mentioned earlier.  We need to be sensitive enough to hear the Spirit’s voice, to discern his leading, to make sure we’re not acting on impulse or misunderstanding.   We have to be confident that what we’re doing is according to his will and his plan for us.  God has the entire battle strategy lined up, and we will only be effective when we’re acting in accordance with that plan.  Because God isn’t going to empower anything he hasn’t authorized.

3. It’s better to fight in pairs.  There’s nothing like having a buddy guard your back when you’re in a fight.  And when the thugs come at you in groups — and don’t they always? — having another set of fists helps even the odds.  The spiritual side of this is the power God has imbued agreement and unity. Like in corporate worship, there is a distinct increase in the dynamic level of God’s presence and power when saints worship and pray together.  There is a special manifestation of his presence when two or three are gathered.  And, as he said, “if two of you shall agree about anything, it will be done for you” (Mt 18:19-20).   Perhaps that’s why Jesus sent the disciples out two by two.  From the very beginning, God ordained that we should not be or act alone (Gen 2:18).  So, find someone to train with; find someone to fight alongside you. Remember, there is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian — and even the Lone Ranger needed Tonto. 

4. Never against people.  This is where spiritual Krav Maga is directly opposed to physical Krav Maga.  We employ physical and material triggers to unleash God’s power, but our weapons are never against human beings. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers …” (Eph 6:12).   People are often used by the enemy as weapons against us, but we must keep in mind that God still loves these people.  And it’s hard to have confidence in God’s support when you’re trying to beat up another one of his kids.  God deals with people; he will be their judge.  That is not for us, nor is it for us to beat them.  When Jesus sent out his disciples, some of them were rejected, thrown out of town, and probably physically abused.  They asked for permission to call down fire from heaven to destroy those people.  Obviously, those people were opposing God and his movement, so they needed to be removed.  (The disciples’ bruised human egos probably had something to do with it as well.)  What was Jesus’ response?  “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Lk 9:55) — or put another way, “that’s the enemy’s way; that’s not how we do things.”   God’s heart is that everyone would come into relationship with him; people are his Number 1 priority.  We need to stay focused on the driving force behind people, and attack that enemy.

There are probably many other underlying rules of engagement, many more principles for effective spiritual combat.  But if we do not master these four basics, we will always be held back from reaching full impact.  Our lives are a spiritual battleground, and the stuff that blows up in our daily lives is just the material shrapnel driven by spiritual energy.  We need to be trained and conditioned, ready for the fight, and we must only act under God’s authority, in accordance with his strategy and plan.  And while we should adopt the aggressive attitude and methodology of Krav Maga, our main fight lies in a different dimension.

Krav Maga !

• Fight on both fronts: spiritual and physical
• Get aggressive: switch from a defensive to an offensive role
• Use whatever is at hand as a weapon

Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. (2 Cor 10:3-4)

We live in two realms, two dimensions: the spiritual and the material.  So, to live an effective life, both aspects must be addressed.  The spiritual contains the real power, but the natural is the trigger to release it.  The two must work in harmony.  Action – Impact.  Trigger – Power.   This is the same principle as Faith-Works: without the works, the faith is “dead”, unreleased, and therefore no result is ever realized.

So, in real life, we must seek to act on triggers to release or activate God’s power to generate the results.

What is the trigger for any given situation?  It can be discovered by answering the basic question of “what is in your hand?”   This is a biblical principle.  When God commissioned Moses with the impossible task of freeing the Israelites from the most powerful empire in the world, Moses balked. And God asked Moses: “What is in your hand?” (Exo 4:2-3) That simple staff was the key to confronting Pharaoh, unleashing 10 plagues, parting the Red Sea, and winning battles. And we are instructed,“whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecc 9:10).   When Moses looked at what he had, all he saw was a stick.  God saw a tool he would use to unleash the miraculous.  It is also a key of Krav Maga: use whatever is available as a weapon.

How does this apply in reality?  Two examples from my own life:
1. Financial.  I’ve been working the same job for nearly 6 years now.  And I’ve been diligent and productive — I’ve done it “with all my might,” you might say.  In other words, I strive to be a valuable asset to my employer.  And I wanted a raise.  We don’t get annual cost of living adjustments, but every couple of years the company will do evaluations and give us some token of appreciation — usually in the low single digits.  I wanted more, and honestly thought I’d earned more.  I prayed quite a bit about it, not wanting to get caught up in discontentment or bad attitude, and making sure I wasn’t just being greedy.  I waited till I had some inner “go ahead” from God.  Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not the most outgoing or aggressive person around. I’d make a lousy salesman.  But I knew I had to force myself past timidity.  And I scheduled a lunch with my boss to discuss my situation.  That lunch turned into an 8 hour meeting, and I walked out victorious.  I got a double-digit percent increase.  (By the way, this was the second time this has happened in recent years, applying the exact same strategy but at different jobs: diligent work to prove my value, prayerful preparation, then respectful but assertive confrontation.  And the results were identical.)

2. Health (my current battle).  Got a cold.  Yeah, sure, a petty thing.  But it can make me miserable and cause me to miss work.  Two fronts: I’m quoting scripture to myself whenever I think about it: “he took my infirmities and bore my diseases, and by his stripes I am healed”, “I will drive sickness out from among you”, “no plague shall come near your dwelling”, “behold I give you power … and nothing shall by any means hurt you”, etc. Whatever Word from God that seems relevant, I’m speaking to myself and my sickness.  That’s the spiritual.  On the physical side, I’m getting rest, not overexerting myself, and I’m taking vitamins aggressively (not your once-a-day half-hearted approach).  Okay, gotta admit, it’s still dragging on.  Going on day 5 now.  But my symptoms are light — noticeably lighter than in the past — and I haven’t needed to take cold meds to get through the day.  I barely need to blow my nose, no sinus pressure, only mild congestion, no cough, no achiness.  Not the miraculous results I’d hoped, but definite improvement none the less.  And I’m not giving up.  Persistence till I win.  “Krav Maga!”

And the adventure continues ….

For a while now, I’ve been sensing a trend in myown spiritual life.  When I spend time with God, I often walk away with some impressions about assertiveness, passivity, “chutzpah” — similar concepts around the theme that God wants us to take a more active role in our own lives.  So often we slip to one extreme or the other: we either ignore God entirely, pursuing our own goals and desires, trying to do everything in our own strength, or we settle into times of false piety where we place everything in God’s hands, sit back in wait-mode, and become passive observers, letting the random winds of life carry us where they will.

There is the middle ground I believe we are supposed to occupy.  Christians live in two realms simultaneously. We are flesh and blood, and we live in a material world.  And we are spirit beings, existing in a realm more receptive to divine influence — and in contact with other evil spiritual forces which oppose God and us.  This is not some intellectual or philosophical perspective; it is real life, and is so natural that most times we are hardly aware of it.  Real life is such that as we go through our day-to-day routines, we are constantly confronted with challanges, trials, battles, pains, and sufferings. And if we are to be overcomers, if we are to win any of these battles, we must fight them on both fronts: physical and spiritual. 

Krav Maga is an Israeli martial art, a ferocious hand-to-hand combat form of self-defense.  It was developed in the 1930s to help protect the Jewish community in Czecholslavakia from Nazi thugs. Later, its inventor brought it Palestine during the British Mandate and introduced it to the Haganah, the Jewish underground army there, where it has since become the official unarmed-combat system of Israeli Special Forces units.   Its basic principles are simple:

• do not get hurt
• go from defense to attack as quickly as possible
• do as much damage to the attacker as quickly as possible
• attack the opponent’s vulnerable points
• use any available objects as weapons
• be constantly aware of everything that is happening around you.

This type of defense tactic seems appropriate to Christian life because it focuses on fighting under worst-case conditions — like so much we find ourselves caught up in.  It assumes the enemy is out to destroy you and that you must do whatever it takes to defeat him and remain unharmed. And it is particularly aggressive.  How is this Christian?  Jesus warned us that we should expect trouble in this life, and he informed us of our enemy’s mission: to steal, kill, and destroy (John 16:33; 10:10).  We ARE on the defensive.  We must expect to be attacked.  And Jesus’ own life demonstrates the seriousness of his own work to break the power of the enemy. “God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

Like Jesus, our mission is to go around doing good and freeing others from the oppression of the enemy — beginning with ourselves.  God planned these missions for us long in advance (Eph 2:10), and it’s time we stopped being the passive victims of chaos and trouble, and become the forceful agents of his Kingdom he designed us to be.

For me, this is going to be an experiment in spiritual growth, an adventure.  I’ll try to post specific examples of what problem I’m attacking, and what weapons I’m using against it.  And I invite you to join in.  Post your own battle plans and strategies.  What weapons work for you?

We need to begin looking at specific areas of our lives where we are being attacked: health, finances, relationships, personal issues, our jobs, our hopes and dreams, anything else that is out of order in our lives or the lives of those around us.  And working in both the physical and spiritual realms, we need to use the objects at hand as weapons to turn the situation around: faith and works, prayer and action.  We need to see how we can move from a defensive to offensive posture as quickly as possible.  And expect God to meet us there in the struggle.  He never rewards passivity; we cannot expect his power to be released if we’re just sitting patiently with our hands folded.  “Forceful men lay hold of it.” 

Now, when you encounter your next problem, shout to yourself “Krav Maga”. Think street-fighting.  Think “go on the attack, turn the tables as quickly as possible”.  And “use whatever is available, both physical and spiritual.”   We walk in both worlds, we must use the tools of both worlds.