New Iberia is a wonderful place. It’s a curious concoction of, just to name a few, native american, spanish, french, african, and german influences, mindsets and traditions. It’s a city with a checkered past, a hopeful present and a bright future.
As with many cities across the south, and I’m sure across the world, there are old ways, thought processes, practices(works), mindsets, or ideologies that need to be put to rest. There are some new ones that don’t need to be given life. More specifically, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like ~ Galatians 5:19-21a. What’s needed here is the Kingdom of God!
New Iberia has been occupied by darkness for quite a while. I say occupied because the occupants don’t own any part of the city; they are here illegally and they have to be removed forcefully. Matthew 11:12 says: And from the days of John the Baptist until the present time, the kingdom of heaven has endured violent assault, and violent men seize it by force [as a precious prize—a share in the heavenly kingdom is sought with most ardent zeal and intense exertion] AMPC.
The truth of the matter is that we are at war. We are at war in an unseen realm, with an unseen foe. While we can’t see our enemy, we know how he works and that he desires steal, kill and destroy. We can’t fight an unseen enemy with normal weapons. The word, prayer and praise and worship are a few of the weapons that we employ in war.