So last Saturday night I finally got to see Kill Bill Vol. 2. If you haven’t seen this movie yet and you are planning to see it and you don’t want anything ruined for you then you may not want to read this until you have seen the movie. WARNING: POTENTIAL MOVIE SPOILER. DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.

Of course if you know anything about these Kill Bill movies, you know that they are basically the story of revenge with the bride trying to find and kill Bill. Well towards the end of the movie Bill says something interesting. Actually, it doesn’t have too much bearing on the movie or the outcome or anything, but I just thought it was interesting. As he and the bride are having a conversation, he notes that Superman is his favorite superhero. He goes on to say that what separates Superman from say Spiderman or Batman is in his identity. While Spiderman wakes up as Peter Parker every morning and Batman wakes up as Bruce Wayne, Superman really wakes up being Superman. Parker and Wayne put on their superhero costumes to become their super counterparts, while Superman does just the opposite. Because Superman is from Krypton, he wakes up with all of his super powers (but the real question is what super powers does Batman have?) and has to put on a costume to be Clark Kent. He, in actuality, is Superman (or Kal-El) that wears a Clark Kent costume and not the other way around. He actually has to try to hide super powers instead of putting them on like the others.

Now this is important because this is how some of us live. One of my favorite verses is “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). Many of us think that we wake up as Clark Kent and we need to try to become Superman. But, how do we become Superman? Some people think that it is through prayer or doing good things or pleasing God in some way. This is, however, incorrect. We wake up being Superman. Once we are born again, we automatically wake up being children of God and we are therefore able to receive all of the benefits that it entails. Keep that in mind because somewhere in our past Satan has convinced us otherwise. Instead of waking up as a victor we wake up as a victim.

Part of being a superhero is knowing your enemy. If you know how your enemy is going to attack you can know how to defend yourself and counter-attack. The Bible tells us to put on the whole armor of God so that we “may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). Notice that we put on the armor of God not to withstand the devil, but to withstand the “wiles” or strategies of the devil. The devil will try to attack you in many ways so it is important to know what he will do.

Probably the biggest way the devil will attack you is by causing doubt or unbelief. If he can make you doubt God or his Word, he will have taken away two key components of the armor: your sword, which is the Word, and your shield of faith (Romans 10:17, Ephesians 6:16-17). This is why it is so important to know your Word. But is also important that you learn to trust God’s Word no matter the circumstance. See, the Word won’t do you any good if you don’t trust it, just as a sword won’t do you any good if you keep it in its scabbard when an enemy is coming because you don’t trust its reliability. Learn to have faith in God’s Word. If you don’t, you will be like everyone else who heard the Word “but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it” (Hebrews 4:2). To those that hear the Word but don’t mix it with faith, it does them no good. So keep studying and learning how to use God’s Word. Learn what it says about you and learn what it says about your enemy. If you keep doing this overwhelming victory will truly be yours.