#5 in Know Your Enemy
“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”
Spiritual warfare is not when you wrestle with demons, it’s when you wrestle with your own thoughts.
We DO have an enemy that tries to attack us with fiery darts of deception and illusion, but those strategies only affect us if we allow those darts to have a place in our minds. If we keep our minds focused on the Lord and His Word, the enemy can not influence our life. The enemy will come, but he can’t stay long because he will flee from you as you stand in your identity and keep your mind on the Lord and His truth. His truth about Himself AND YOU!!
How can keeping your mind be the winning strategy for an enemy as evil and powerful as the devil? Because he has already been stripped of any and all authority, he has no right to your life.
Know, and stand in your identity and authority in Christ!!
There is another crucial factor in standing and resisting successfully - a clear conscience. You will have a more challenging time standing and resisting the enemy’s lies if your conscience is burdened with fear, insecurity, guilt, and shame. If your conscience is distracted by carnal thinking, it could take your focus off the Lord and cause you to entertain the lies of the enemy.
What are his lies? It sounds like this; Maybe you’re not saved. God is disappointed in you. You will never succeed. You’ll always struggle with this sin. No one likes you. You’re an impostor. Your mother was right about you. You should have been a comedian because your life is a joke. You have cancer. Your husband doesn’t love you anymore. You have fallen out of love with your wife. etc…
If you are already struggling with those thoughts, the enemy will try to reinforce those lies. It’s easy to send away obvious lies from the enemy, but he’s subtle. He will whisper things to you that are already rolling around in your heart and mind. How do they know what’s in your heart and mind? They listen to you and observe your behavior. They can’t control you, read your mind, or make you think things, but they can reinforce what’s already in you.
Humans are designed to perceive spiritual beings, so it’s not a mystery that we can perceive signals from angels and demons. The key is to be able to turn your thoughts and the eyes of your heart back to the finished work of Christ and the truth of God’s Word.
You can develop the discipline of putting off those thoughts, along with their associated emotions, and put on the truth. It’s already in your heart, just nourish it by spending intentionally thinking on a feeling God’s Word in your heart and mind
The Sin Factor
I’ll take it a step further. If you are struggling with sinful habits or thought patterns, your conscience will most likely struggle with guilt and shame, making you an easier target for the enemy. The enemy will wait until you’re weak, vulnerable, and afraid to fling his wimpy arrows at you. And the state of your conscience will be a major factor in the effectiveness of those puny darts.
So avoid sin!! But if you fall, remind yourself that Jesus is your sin offering, offered once for all of your sins. Recapture your confidence in the complete salvation Christ provided. And change your thoughts to be in alignment with what Christ accomplished in His obedience. Walk yourself through these truths to recapture confidence, then deal with the guilt through confession of sin.
When your conscience is burdened
Acknowledge the presence of God in your life
Acknowledge that He loves you and will not forsake you because he forsook Christ in your place
Acknowledge that Jesus bore your guilt and shame so you can roll it on to Him
Acknowledge that God gave you a new nature, so you are not locked into those sinful patterns
Stand firm in your new identity in Him
Exercise your authority and tell the enemy to leave
Sometimes the enemy is your own thought rather than an evil spirit. Turning your own thoughts to the truth of God’s Word can be a more challenging task than running off a demon. A clear conscience is paramount in this scenario.
How to Clear Your Conscience
Acknowledge that you’re forgiven in Christ
Acknowledge that you are a new creature and you are not doomed to repeat the cycles creating the guilt and shame
Confess your sin and failures to the Lord
Allow Him to strengthen you as you stand and resist
Confessing sin is not when you convince God how sorry you are, and He gives you more forgiveness. Instead, the process of confessing sin is more related to clearing the air between two people who love each other and are committed to a loving and healthy relationship.
For most Christians, confessing sin feels like you're turning yourself into the police and preparing for the judgment and punishment of your crime. It's more about clearing your conscience and being honest with God. He's faithful to help you when you are weak but you have to own where you are so you will allow Him to help you.
A large percentage of the church teaches that God is angry with you, or disappointed in your sin, and separates himself from you for a period of time. And once you confess your sin God can then fellowship with you again. Some even teach that if you don’t confess ALL your sins you might not be saved.
God is a righteous judge, but he tried, judged, and punished Jesus in your place, giving you Christ righteousness once the sentence was com[pleted. Because of that, God is not holding your sin against you. Confessing sin is more about releasing the burden on your heart and experiencing the forgiveness that’s already available in Christ.
When you experience God’s already given forgiveness, it will cause confidence and boldness to come back to you and strengthen you amid the battle. In addition, a clear conscience is more receptive to turning back to God’s truth and ways of thinking, making it easier to stand against the enemy.
We are our own worst enemy oftentimes because we weaken ourselves through our behaviors and destructive thought patterns. In the sermon above, I go into much more detail about this process. I pray it is a blessing to you as you make a stand against the enemy and live in the freedom available to you in Christ.
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