02 Dec On Mission Warrior (2 of 12)
December 2nd, 2017
OMMA Family,
The famous 18th-century preacher and theologian, Jonathan Edwards once said, “Natural things were ordered for types of spiritual things.” God uses things we are familiar with to teach us truths about Himself and how He operates. Our spiritual journey in this life is often likened to a war and we are compared to warriors. At On Mission Martial Arts, we like to use the martial arts as a picture of even more important spiritual truths. Although from a Martial Arts standpoint, our goal is to develop Black Belts and Masters of the Martial Arts, even more important to us is the spiritual growth of each student. The goal here is to develop an ON MISSION WARRIOR during our martial arts journey. There are TWELVE important distinctives that we desire to impart to all of our OMMA students from the attached document, which defines the On Mission Warrior. I hope you get a chance to take a look at it today. Think of it as our 2017 OMMA Twelve Days of Christmas! 🙂
Between now and the end of the year, I am going to share a little bit about each one of these 12 distinctives of an ON MISSION WARRIOR. My objective is to share with our OMMA community what some of our deeper goals are and how they integrate with the martial arts training and community we provide. I pray that they will bless and encourage you as we all fight the battle of flesh vs. spirit and temporal perspective vs. eternal perspective.
TWO (2 of 12): To live a victorious life, I must be daily filled with the Holy Spirit.
“And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” (Ephesians 5:18, ESV)
If your child were going to school in fear of a group of bullies that he or she had no strength to overcome, this would be a fearful and discouraging situation to be sure. What if, in this situation, the child’s 10th Degree Black Belt martial arts instructor said that he would walk to school with your child and bring them safely to their class. Certainly, this expert in combat would have no issue at all dealing with a group of bullies and the child would be protected and safely brought to his or her destination. We’d probably think them crazy if they turned down this offer! Yet, we often live our lives this way. We have access to the most powerful person in the universe and He has offered to walk with us through all our trials in this journey of life. And not only walk with us, but give us access to His power through His Spirit.
To have victory over the enemies we face – the devil, the world and our own flesh, we must by filled daily with the Holy Spirit. To grow in character and become more like Jesus Christ, we must daily be filled with the Holy Spirit. All the ten challenges that follow in our journey to become an On Mission Warrior depend on the power of God’s Holy Spirit, not our own strength!
Keep Fighting the Good Fight!
Blessings,
Marco
OMMA Founder/Senior Instructor
Yondan – 4th Degree Black Belt
P.S. -Here’s a really helpful article I enjoyed reading on the Spirit-filled life –
https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-44-spirit-filled-life-ephesians-518