I haven’t seen much of the spiritual realm. Not comparatively. I have occasionally seen demons and paranormal activity; I dabbled in the occult and experienced a great deal of power, then I was “delivered” (we could say exorcised), and experienced the even greater power of the Lord, multiple miracles, et cetera, et cetera. But I do not see most things most of the time–not in that realm.
But this is the point:
Most people do not see the spiritual realm, but it nonetheless exists. And if Christians DID see it… well, I think they would live quite differently (in fact, I think everyone would).
We wouldn’t, after all, allow poisonous snakes and deadly spiders to infiltrate our homes. Not if we could see them. Not if we were sober. We would get shovels and bug spray and hire an exterminator–anything to get rid of the problem. And yet, many of us DO have such in our homes, and sometimes in our bodies. We live in a way that is detestable to the Lord. We do things and watch things and listen to things and think about things that we don’t even realize are destroying us; we don’t realize our actions are attracting the enemy and beginning a cycle of temptation, lust, sin and death (James 1). Worse is feeling oppression and conviction and making excuses to deal with it later.
If only we could see what we were up against. If only we understood what weapons we as Christians have against the powers of darkness.
For the follower of Jesus there really are no excuses. It’s a question of who and what we Love.
