When you are ready to come to God, it be “you” who repents of your sins, who confesses with your mouth, and who believes with your heart. When you are ready, it be “you” who is wants to submit to God, to praise him, and to worship him. When you are ready, it be “you” who humbly comes before God and it be “God” who accepts you as you come, who forgives you of your past sins, and who wipes clean your slate. But more importantly than anything else, it be “God” who reconnects his Spirit with your spirit, giving new life to your spirit. And for those of you who have experienced this, you know the feeling that comes upon you when this happens. You get this fire all up in your spirit as if it has been supercharged. You get this unbelievable desire to serve, praise, and worship God for everything that he has done for you. But this is when the real war begins and when all of your battles start.
And so the war begins but there be more to this war than you could ever imagine. Most believers do not know that we war on two fronts. On the one front, our newly found spirit nature wars with our flesh, our old sinful nature. On the other front, we war against persons without bodies.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).
We wrestle against the evil rulers of the unseen world, which include the mighty satanic beings, the great evil princes of darkness, and a huge number of wicked spirits who rule this unseen world. And while we see the daily struggles of those who succumb to poverty, sickness, and death, the primary battle involves depression, fear, discouragement, low self-esteem, worry, anxiety, confusion, doubt, and many other tactics. This battle takes place in the arena of your mind and is unavoidable. It knows no bounds, no gender, no age, no race, and no religion. It attacks everyone. For on this battleground the war is waged for the control of your soul.
Your mind is the road by which the evil rulers of the unseen world gain access into your life, your personality, your emotions, your family, your finances, your marriage, your body, and your home. They specialize in trying to keep you in bondage through the control of your thought-life. They know that which controls the mind, controls the soul. As you fail to maintain your thought-life, you will live far below the standards that God has set up for you. Your mind plays an important role in your walk of faith; therefore, it is tremendously important that you guard your mind and your thought-life. Everything hinges on your mind and controlling your thought-life. Your thoughts will always precede your actions.
We are warned to be sober and watchful because we have an adversary. This adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion looking for those whom he can devour (I Peter 5:8). So, how does this adversary come against us? Well, his tactics have not change since the first temptation and there are really no secrets to his approach. He tries to control you through your mind, with thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. These thoughts, ideas, and suggestions are usually tied to your five senses. Your sense of taste, touch, smell, hearing, and seeing, offers him an avenue into your mind and are the areas he tempts in order to gain control of your thought-life. When you give in to the lust of the flesh (your sense of taste, touch, smell, and hearing), the lust of the eyes (your sense of seeing), and the pride of life (your mind where you think you are special because of what you look like, what you have, and/or who you are), you become carnally minded and forgo all that is spiritual (I John 2:16). Your five senses play a major part in your self-fulfilling, sinful evil nature and greatly contribute to your carnal mind. Your carnal mind only wants to satisfy your fleshy physical needs and appetites, like that itch that cannot be satisfied; the more you scratch, the more you itch. And we discovered from a previous discussion that “carnal mindedness was enmity against God,” bent on only following our evil flesh nature and never wanting to obey or please God (Romans 8:5-8).
The battleground has been set, the arena has been staged, and the battles have begun. This battle is totally unavoidable and will never end. But we need to know our enemy and we need to know that he is very predictable. The same things that he used on the first man in the Garden of Eden are the same things that he uses today. And because of this information we should not be ignorant of his devices (II Corinthians 2:11). Learning his tactics, his weapons, his devices, and understanding his mode of operation will put us in a good position to win the battle.
We pray that this inspirational message will be a blessing to you as well as informative. If blessed by this message, please share so that others may be blessed as well. Amen.
Enjoy your blessings - KW
No comments:
Post a Comment