When I was a young man, I trained in a variety of martial arts – Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. One day, I asked my Shotokan sensei which style he thought was best. He said, “You don’t fight the style, you fight the man.”

I have seen imposters who wore a gi (karate uniform) and hid behind bluster and the reputation of their fighting style, but as the old saying goes, “they couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag.” Those individuals did not have what it takes to engage in real, down and dirty conflict and survive. It was all style without substance. The same applies to spiritual warfare. It boils down to the depth of our character, not the height of our posturing.

The day of the superstar Christian is waning, thankfully. We are seeing the Lord call forth those who have developed a depth of character in the conflicts of spiritual warfare outside the spotlight of the latest conference venue or the smoke and mirrors of a ministry stage. These warriors don’t care about ministry rank or uniforms. They simply get the job done. They are not impressed with anything except the Lord and doing His will. That is what makes them dangerous to the plans of hell.

Rank in God’s Kingdom is something only the Lord can assign because our measurements are flawed with personal preferences that blind our interpretation of reality. The Lord looks to the heart where the character of a warrior is formed.  Warriors in the Spirit spend time training their character in seasons of peace so that when a season of conflict comes they can engage a threat and put it down before it is able to compromise their character.