You are of a Royal bloodline. Born again by the Blood of Jesus. You are kings and priests to His God – now…your God. Daughters and sons of the Most High God.
Two things must become familiar to you – Firstly, there is the protocol of the Palace and secondly – there is who you are…who you were created to be.
Men and women that are noble, integrous, honorable, trustworthy, faithful, courageous, self-sacrificing and deeply loyal to God the Father and to your King, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Righteous in the sight of God – that is who you are.
The Holy Spirit is the one who is writing God’s code of conduct upon your heart. Expunging deception so that The Truth may be revealed in you.
Let go of anything that hinders that. We cannot cling onto the rotten corpse of our past and expect to be living out our God given destiny in the Kingdom. There are NO corpses in the Kingdom of God.
Jesus Christ came to resurrect us from the corpse that we were. Let it go. You MUST fight for your TRUE identity.
Thirdly, you are His warrior and you have been entrusted with a life and death quest. It starts with this instruction: Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Be bold, be courageous. Put on the whole armour of God.
We finished Part One with:
You know now who you are and why you must put on the helmet of salvation daily. The helmet is the part that protects our head – the gateway to our heart.
In order to protect our heart, the place where the issues of our life spring forth, it is essential for us to understand how important it is to protect our thought life.
2 Cor. 10:3-6 – For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
Part Two.
In our last teaching we spoke about all that became ours in our gift of salvation when we became a new creation in Christ.
Under attack.
The enemy is going to come against you to strip you of your identity. When you come under attack, three things are being challenged.
- Your genealogy.
- Your inheritance.
- Your purpose.
Ephesians 2:4-6 – But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up together, and made us sit together (where?) in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Rising up to take control though will require you to have an understanding of where your armour is compromised and fixing that will equip us to take authority.
As far as I currently understand it…there are three reasons why we don’t “see” clearly. These three things could be robbing you and I of living as a son of God.
- How I see God. My God consciousness – my understanding of God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and their involvement in my life will affect my ability to believe.
- How God sees me. My self-consciousness – a consciousness of my shortcomings which I somehow believe disqualifies me from my inheritance.
- Any deception of the enemy that I have believed. The belief system that the devil has built into my understanding and which I have come into agreement with. (NB. If I believe it, I won’t even try to resist it!)
To find the weakness in my armour, I have to know the truth about these three areas.
The helmet of salvation and our thought life.
Understanding, seeing clearly, having revelation of the truth with regard to all three these areas is imperative so that we cannot be deceived. It protects us when the enemy tries to deceive us through the gateways of our senses and our thought life.
How do we respond to this attack?
2 Corinthians 10:4-6 – For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (not My will, but Your Will be done), and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
Lets get Practical.
Go on the offensive by declaring these aloud! The enemy cannot read your mind. He only gets to understand what you believe by what comes out of your mouth.
- I declare today that I know my mind is the battlefield, I will be its commander and not its soldier.
- I am a warrior of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is my commanding officer. The holy bible is my code of conduct and the whole armour of God are my weapons of warfare.
- I will not fear for You are with me. I will not be dismayed for You are my God. You will strengthen me. You will help me. You will uphold me with Your righteous right hand (Is. 41:10).
- I will be strong and courageous for the Lord will be with me wherever I go. (Josh. 1:9). Right here and right now, You are with me.
- You my Lord have already defeated the enemy and You have destroyed his works (1 John 3:8).
- No weapon formed against me will prevail and I will refute every tongue that accuses me. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from God, declares the Lord (Is. 54:17).
- I receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon me (Acts. 1:8).
- Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).
- At the mention of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Rom. 14:11).
There are two parts to protecting our thought life, namely:
- Taking responsibility for what is sown in the ground of our hearts:
1:1 – Comparing whether incoming thoughts or information line up with God’s truth.
1:2 – Analysing what the outcome will be, if I continue to meditate on this thought or information I have received - Replacing the deceptions and contaminated thinking by renewing our minds with God’s truth.
Protecting our thought life – Taking Responsibility for what is sown in the ground of our hearts.
1.1 Comparing whether incoming thoughts or information line up with God’s truth.
Our five senses are very instrumental in how we acquire information. We smell, feel or taste something and it begins a thought process in our mind. It has the ability to access memories that we have or it stimulates an emotion – joy, fear, perhaps sadness or anger.
When we watch or listen to something, it has the ability to write something in our mind.
Our five senses, together with our imagination, enable our mind to access stored information and memories as well as write new information into our soul realm (our mind, will, emotions and imagination).
It is what we do with that information though that has the capacity to influence our behaviour and actions in that moment as well as in the future.
The Word of God is clear – how does this information, this thought, line up with God’s truth?
2 Cor. 10:3-6 – For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
If this information or this thought is exalting itself above God’s truth then it is a stronghold and you have to pull it down. How? Don’t even tolerate that stronghold. It is seeking to bring you into captivity and into darkness. Cast down those arguments by declaring the truth of the Word aloud. Be obedient to Christ who is the Word. You do what you know is right. If you need to repent, do that and then bind the enemy.
James 4:6-7 – God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
1.2 Analysing what the outcome will be, if I continue to meditate on the thought or information I have received.
You receive a video clip from a friend – immediately, as you watch it, analyse it – what emotional response can you feel rising in your soul? Is it fear, anger, indignation, pride, judgment or anything else that you know is going to cause you to react contrary to God’s will? Ask yourself, what would please the Lord in this moment? Ask God to help you. Don’t allow your emotions to rule. Pray! Pray! Pray! Pray for the people. Pray for the situation. Pray for the country. Declare the Word over everything and bind the REAL enemy. Also, don’t send it on!
James 4:6-7 – God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Somebody is perfectly mean to you. If you allow your emotions to rule in this situation, you could very possibly violate the Word of God. Remember that your fight is not against flesh and blood but that it is actually the enemy trying to get you to sin and dishonour God. Instead, walk away, turn to the Lord for help to do His will. Never react! Pray!
I personally have found that if I forgive that person and start to pray for their salvation or for their peace or however the Holy Spirit leads me, I am immediately filled with His peace because I have not allowed the real enemy access to my life.
James 4:6-7 – God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
You find out some bad news – immediately, do the same thing. What does the Word say about this thing? Is this a contradiction to the Word? Don’t even tolerate that stronghold. It is seeking to bring you into captivity and into darkness. Cast down those arguments by declaring the truth of the Word aloud and KEEP CASTING them down! Pray in the Spirit.
James 4:6-7 – God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Ps. 27:1 – The Lord is my light and my salvation; who shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of who shall I be afraid?
Ps. 62:2 – He (the Lord) only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved.
Ps. 140:7 – O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, You have covered my head on the day of battle.
In all of these scriptures David is reminding himself that the Lord is his light, the Lord is his strength, the Lord is his rock, the Lord is his defence, in every area the Lord is his salvation. He is taking responsibility for his thought life by focusing on that one truth…no matter what he faces in the day of battle, the Lord is his salvation.
Paul says much the same thing…
1 Thess. 5:8 – But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and as a helmet the hope of salvation.
From a spiritual standpoint then, the helmet of salvation speaks about protecting our mind, which is the gateway to the heart (how?) by focusing our thought life on the Lord of our salvation and what that salvation encompasses.
The entire point of this all – is not to let any of these things that are contrary to the TRUTH of God’s Word – drop down into your heart where it now has power to produce in you what the devil sent it to do!
Protecting our thought life – Replacing the deceptions and contaminated thinking by renewing our minds with God’s truth.
The territory of the un-crucified thought life is the beachhead of satanic assault in our lives. To defeat the devil, we must be renewed in the spirit of our minds. – Francis Frangipane – “The Three Battlegrounds”
Beachhead – An area of land near the sea or a river that an attacking army has taken control of and from where it can move forward into enemy country.
It is true that we have been delivered from the power of darkness and that we have been conveyed into the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ (Col. 1:13). We are not trapped in darkness if we have been born of light.
But lurking within our soul are areas of darkness, strongholds that the enemy has strategically built into our psyche over many years. These may be opinions, beliefs, wounds, habitual sins, or works of the flesh, pride, selfish ambitions, jealousy, bitterness, resentment, hatred and the like.
Through experiences and misleading information, our minds have been contaminated and influenced by the enemy and the effects of this darkness – these deceptions, these untruths, lie hidden in our soul.
Very often, we are not even aware of these strongholds in our lives but these are triggers that the enemy uses to manipulate our behaviour. They are the “beachhead’ of the enemy!
These areas of darkness in our soul are exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ wants to target so that by the Holy Spirit they can be removed from our lives.
If you remember from Eph. 5:25-27, Jesus is busy cleansing and sanctifying us so that we can become the glorious church.
We know that God is working with us to transform us into His image.
In order to transform us into His image, it is God’s determination to write His laws in our minds so that through this gateway, the Holy Spirit is able to put God’s law into our hearts. It becomes a part of the fabric of who we are…the image of Christ.
Heb. 10:16-18 – This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them, then He adds, ‘Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
Paul implores us in Rom. 12:1-2 – I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed (How?) by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
As we study His Word, our minds are renewed, and our hearts are changed when we submit to Him BUT it is in this process however, that we will first have to come face to face with what is NOT His image in us.
If we desire for our minds to be renewed, we must realize that we cannot embrace the resurrection of transformed behaviours and attitudes without enduring the cross. We must be willing to die to self, our own will and thus allow Him to crucify what is not His image in us.
Understanding and confronting the darkness in our soul.
If we tolerate this darkness, through the tolerance of sin, we leave ourselves vulnerable to satanic assault. For wherever there is wilful disobedience of the Word of God, there is spiritual darkness and the potential for demonic activity. – Francis Frangipane.
This is not talking about areas devoid of visible light but it is essentially a complete spiritual and a moral darkness. It is the absence of God, who is light. Everything contrary to God’s light dwells in spiritual darkness.
It is vital that we recognize that the darkness to which Satan and his angels have been banished is not a physical area. It is spiritual and if we choose to tolerate the presence of sin in our lives, then that spiritual darkness (that area in our soul that is devoid of God’s light) dwells in us.
That is why Jesus warned, “Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness (Luke 11:35).
There is a light in you. ‘The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord’ (Prov.20:27).
Your spirit, illuminated by the Spirit of Christ, becomes the lamp of the Lord through which He searches your heart. There is indeed a holy radiance surrounding a true Spirit-filled Christian. But when you harbour sin, the ‘light which is in you’ is darkness. Satan has legal access, given to him by God, to dwell in the domain of darkness. We must grasp this point, the devil can traffic in any area of darkness, even the darkness that still exists in a Christian’s heart. – Francis Frangipane
That is why it is so important that we don’t tolerate darkness in our own lives!
1 John 3:8 – He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
When God reveals areas of darkness in our hearts, it is not to condemn us but because it is God’s determination to destroy the works of the devil in our lives so that we can be free to dwell in His light.
James 4:6-7 – God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
We must seek to maintain a humble and honest heart before God. He gives grace to the humble. Don’t try to defend yourself when the Holy Spirit shows you an area that needs to change because God resists the proud.
Instead surrender to the Lord. Be honest with yourself. Is what you are doing something that Jesus would do or approve of?
It is essential to understand and know that it is in the context of humbling ourselves before God and repenting for any darkness in our lives, that we will find the devil fleeing from us as we resist his attack against us.
Eph. 6:10-12 – Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles (deceit, trickery) of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Clearly we understand from this portion of scripture the following:
We must be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might – Our hope of salvation is the Lord.
We can be strong in the Lord (why?) because we already know that Gen. 1:26 – creating His image in us – the very purpose of God for our lives, was the SOLE reason for the plan of salvation.
We can be strong in the Lord because we know that God is going to perfect His plan and purpose in us!
Heb. 10:16 – This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them.’
Is. 64:8 – But now, O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay and You our potter; and all we are the work of Your hand.