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Sunday, January 6, 2019

Satan's Target

Fill Your Brain With God's Word
Romans 12:2 tells us, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." You see, changing the way you think ultimately changes your perspective, A change in your perspective changes what flows out of your hearts and how you act in the world. Paul’s words aren’t anything new. "Change your mind" is the central and powerful theme of Jesus’ first sermon in Matthew 4:17, "From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus challenged the people to change their ways and patterns of thinking because it doesn't matter how many times you read through the Bible, or parts of it, if your mind doesn’t change in the way that it thinks, then you will just impose your personal biases and labels on the words you read instead of reading and digesting what was actually meant by Jesus' words. The purpose of changing our thoughts and ways of thinking, is two-fold. First of all as we are warned in Mark 7:20-22, "And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21) For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22) coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness." Our thoughts become who we are and will fall approximately 18 inches down from our brains right into our hearts! It can definitely produce many harmful issues in our lives if we don't change those thoughts. So good thoughts, positive thoughts, godly thoughts, wholesome thoughts will produce the same that flow from our hearts. But as stated in Mark 7:20-22 above, evil thoughts produce evil and dark actions that flow from our hearts. Secondly, our thoughts can sabotage our faith! We are told to take our thoughts captive in 2 Corinthians 10:5, "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," That is pretty powerful because think about a time in your life when a thought suddenly "popped" into your head that was not wholesome or godly, but fleshly in nature, and you didn't take it captive. It inevitably turned into sin that flowed from your heart.

And our THOUGHTS are the target of Satan! He wants you to doubt the TRUTH of God's word! He wants you to doubt the love of Jesus and wants you to believe his filthy lies! You see, my dear friends and readers, he knows by dropping those ungodly thoughts in your heads can ultimately provide him a gateway to enter into freely. By doing so, especially when you are at your weakest, it can, and often times, will, destroy your Faith! Satan will target your thoughts in order to target your faith. We have all had moments of doubt out of our fleshly views. When we are overwhelmed with problems bigger than we are, it's easy to have moments when we worry, and worry is doubt. Many would like to argue that point, but what are we doing when we begin to "worry" about a situation that we find ourselves in? We doubt God's provisions. We doubt God's grace and mercy. By worrying, we take our focus from our FAITH in everything we know! But isn't that exactly what Satan wants us to do? Absolutely! MOMENTS of doubt should remain just that....moments. Our faith can kick in and overtake those doubts replacing them with trust and truth! It's when you stay IN those doubts, begin believing the lies of the enemy and weaken yourself in the process. Remember, in 1 Peter 5:8, we are commanded, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." The goal of Satan and his demons is simply that....to devour those he seeks out to destroy! It's his only real power actually. As a child of God, you should never say the old saying of "The devil made me do it!" If you are truly a child of God, he didn't make you do anything. You chose to fall for his lies and stumble on your own volition. He can't "make" you do anything. However, he can tempt you, and he can also oppress you once you give into his sinful "suggestions."

In January of 2015, I wrote an article called "Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life" that can be found here. If you haven't read it, this would be a good companion article to my current one. Our thoughts are powerful no matter what thoughts they are, be it good or bad. They have a lot of power to change our lives for the better or worse and those same thoughts can also effect others around you as well, for better or worse. In my recent article, "When God Moves...A Testimony of Faith" that is found here, there were a few times when my worry swelled a little bit more than I wanted to admit. I knew it was the lies of Satan or one of his demons trying to torment me and make me doubt that God was going to take care of me. As you can imagine, after reading about that particular hardship, it was a pretty worrisome situation with a rather gloomy outlook. In the flesh, that is. I also knew just how quickly my thoughts could spin out of control, causing me all kinds of undue stress, more than I was already dealing with. I didn't want that to happen nor did I want the enemy to take hold of any thought and run with it! I was cognizant of my worry/borderline fear and the lies of the enemy enough to be able to cry out to God to take my worry and "borderline" fear away and replace it with His peace and promises! That's just it, though. I recognized it. I caught it before it became a wildfire out of control. I prayed a hedge of protection around my thoughts from allowing anymore doubt to slip in because I KNEW, and experienced many times, His provisions and I would remind myself of those times throughout the journey. It made me turn my eyes and heart and thoughts to Jesus MORE than ever! The more I focused, the more peaceful I became. Then one day? I laid it completely down at the foot of the cross and walked away! Peace was given and I lived my life daily as though it was already done. Expectantly I guess you could say. Afterall, we are to pray with expectations. I came upon a profound quote that I would like to share with you. A.W. Tozer once said, "Prayer unites God and the praying man in one and says God is omnipotent and the praying man is omnipotent (for the time being) because he is in touch with omnipotence. Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may find mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let us come boldly. We should come humbly but no man should be so humble that he doesn't ask. We should be humble but we should dare to ask, seek and knock. There must be expectation. One of the greatest snares in praying is to pray vaguely."

So you see, out of our hearts, will come the thoughts that we think! Our hearts are full of all kinds of desires. Our desires are oftentimes expressed through our thoughts. The thoughts that linger. The thoughts that take up residence. The thoughts that become the fuel for our heart's to act upon. They become who we are so it's important to know what thoughts are residing in our home of thoughts! While intricately connected, we need to understand how the condition of our hearts directly impacts the nature of our thought life. If we are dominated by our sinful nature and heart, then our thoughts will ultimately seek out to destroy us, but more so, all that God loves. However, if we're controlled by the Holy Spirit, our thoughts will bring life, peace and joy into our existence, into our beings, and even to the lives of those around us! So what does this actually mean?

It simply means that no amount of OUR efforts or thought control will EVER be enough when it comes to the problems that we face in our lives. And we face a multitude of them ranging from the small and mundane to the over the top overwhelming ones! Controlling our thought life is important, yes. But, we must get first things first. We must love God FIRST above ALL things, above ALL people in our lives, and yes that means your blood relatives to your spouses. When we love God, we will OBEY God. When we run to Jesus, our thought life will soon follow because the more we run to Him, the more we learn His ways, His thoughts and His love. It's all about what we focus on. It's about where we allow our thoughts to wonder, then reside. In John 15, Jesus warns us that apart from Him "we can do nothing." So it's ONLY through an intimate relationship with Jesus that our hearts, minds and lives can be transformed. The transformation doesn't happen overnight and as long as we are alive in this fallen world, it will be a DAILY sanctification and we'll always be a work in progress. But without daily intimacy with Jesus Christ, without running to Him anew every moment daily, our thought lives remain in a precarious and vulnerable position. They become so vulnerable that Satan is just waiting in the shadows to attack that very precious part of our bodies! That's his portal to enter and he knows this about us.

See, our minds have the capacity for evil....to think evil thoughts, to think bad thought, to think less than holy thoughts. The Apostle Paul was intensely aware of the mind's capacity for evil thoughts. Someone can dwell upon lustful thoughts, wrong thoughts about some member of the opposite sex. Another person may seethe with jealousy and envy in his mind toward other people that they may be comparing themselves to. While others still are so desperately consumed with pride and with overly high thoughts about themselves. The "works of the flesh" in Galatians 5 is a long list of sins, many of which are sins of the mind. Let's see what Galatians 5:19-21 has to say, "Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, v20) idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, v21) envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." So if you really look long and hard at those "works" you will easily find the sins begin in the mind, with thoughts that begin to take up residence.

This said, leads me to the world of 2019 and how 2018 set the grand stage for "thought control." I know that seems to be a scary thought in and of itself, but this is exactly what is happening and it's part of the agenda at hand. Satan and his minions, better known as demons, knows what fear can do to a people, nation and tribe! And what better way than to put fear into the world but by thoughts in order to control the outcome. Planting evil thoughts, diabolical thoughts, unwholesome thoughts and divisive thoughts then sitting back and watching humanity destroy itself and eachother! He will use any means available to him to accomplish what he sets out to do. Worse yet, he will use any means available to him that is willfully given to him by blinded sheep. Right now, he seems to be using the mainstream media and social media to infiltrate the minds and thoughts of those who still choose to believe everything that is said coming from those organizations "reporting" techniques without question. By this statement, you have probably already guessed that I do not, nor will I, watch the MSM because I see their agenda. I still do not have any social media nor will I start. This blog is about as close as it gets but even so, I control it.

I see the divisive talk and how they are pushing for everyone to be forced into believing, accepting and acting against all that God has forbidden and spoken against. I watch as they spew out lie after lie knowing full well the repetition will eventually effect those who are susceptible to receiving those lies. I watch how calculated each "story" is and how "forced thought" is being pushed on the masses which eventually incites protests, hate, anger, rage and a full blown war against those who don't "fall in line" with the same thoughts and agenda as a specific group. Sadly many people are still choosing to believe the lies and are being swayed daily to the far left extreme, giving up their freedoms that our men and women have fought, and died, for. They are submitting to the agenda willingly and that saddens me. What isn't realized is the conditioning that many have fallen victim to in the name of "security," "safety," "tolerance," and "controlled thinking." This is simply part of the end times and it is clearly pointing to reprobate minds marching forth into a New World Order. It will happen. It's just a matter of when. This post is not about politics, however, what's behind the politics is the basis of this writing. Thoughts. Planted. Deep. To control and condition one's thoughts is to control a nation and convince the people to follow them to the slaughterhouse without asking questions. Some of you are old enough to know that repetition is a form of mind control. It forces certain thoughts, actions, words to be imprinted deeply in one's psyche. Once imprinted, those thoughts drop to the heart and from the heart flows who you are.....Why do you think the secular radio stations "choose" specific songs to play over and over and over? They are promoting a message, a fad, a darkness. There's a message they want to be "heard" by the youth and that conditions their psyche right into belief. It "changes" minds and changes how some people see situations. It desensitizes what should convict someone and allows that person to accept things blindly. Same is true of anything evil. Ritualistic abuse tends to make an abuser out of the abused. Watching evil against humans whether in real life, reading or the movies, begins to desensitize humanity to the real issues and the real evil going on whereby slowly manipulating their minds into accepting what wouldn't ordinarily be accepted. The list goes on. But for the sake of this writing, I will stick to how the world is being inundated with planted thoughts and planted seeds of hate, divisiveness, rage and selfishness.

In this world right now, I've never seen such division and rage as I have in the past few years. But 2018 was an especially evil one full of rage and hate like never before. It was coming at you from every direction at break neck speed, so much and so fast that it was impossible to keep up. As I sat back and watched events unfold, I realized Satan was having the time of his life watching the "rotten fruits" of his labor come to fruition. What a wake up call! It is here that I will inject a little poison to an already dying situation. There are people, groups, and organizations that want to take away the freedoms from the masses and in trying to do so, they must first succeed at controlling their minds. Gun control is being pushed like never before so to get the majority on board with taking guns away from those who rightfully choose to own one. Making liberal issues primary up front, in your face, issues and pushing their agenda on the masses in order to force others into believing and accepting what is a sin in the eyes of God. Creating chaos to gain control of what we think, do and say. Yes, I said say. Our speech is being patrolled as much as anything else. Opinions will soon be a thing of the past UNLESS it agrees with the side that has Satan backing them and pushing the agenda to tear down what's left of freedom. One must agree with sin and abominations or face their own persecution of sorts by being labeled with some very nasty and inaccurate names. Recently, in the building where I work, I overheard a conversation about a subject that is hot right now and very divisive. The conversation was going ok until one person disagreed with the other. One was a liberal and the other called themselves a conservative libertarian. The liberal became outraged in a way that was a little disconcerting and began throwing all sorts of slurs at the other person. The things I heard coming out of that person's mouth was shameful to say the least and could have potentially caused professional discord as the one spewing the hate "threatened" to take it further up the chain of command because the subject pertained to a protected class. What happened to the good old days when everyone could discuss issues and differences without causing so much hate and threatening careers just because one didn't agree with a point of view.

The Sword Of Truth
Satan is driving this huge vehicle right into the pits of hell and I'm praying more people wake up to what is really going on! Satan has left a spirit of rage like no other hovering over the minds of groups of impressionable yet uninformed people. There is a spirit of hate, rage, division, selfishness, evil doers, wrath and hatred. All of those things begin with thoughts. Thoughts that take over one's lives and cause pain and suffering. Thoughts that slip down the 18 inches to the heart and change a person's attitude and actions and eventually who they become. Thoughts that consume them like a fire burning out of control. Thoughts control an outcome....be it good or bad. But Satan is full of these diabolical thoughts and he is proud of his pathetic accomplishments thus far. We are told in Ephesians 6:12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." No truer words could be spoken about the state of our fall right now! All the people who are causing this confusion, hate, division and pushing Satan's agenda are victims too. Victims to Satan's lies. They've become his prey and willingly followed not knowing exactly what they're doing or who they are doing the bidding of! I'm not making excuses because everyone has a choice. However, as it says above in a powerful way, we DON'T wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness and against the spiritual hosts of wickedness! Satan and his demons. That's who we are wrestling against. That's what we are seeing for those who have eyes to see. It's not the people. They are the vehicles of Satan's lies. They just deliver what they are told. They want the "here and now" promises of worldly things. They don't know the Lord Jesus Christ and Savior! It's hard sometimes to remember that especially in the rage filled time we live in, but we must remember!

Now we also must remember that the devil was originally one of God's angels, one of His best. Then due to his pride and boastfulness, he went astray, and took a third of the angels with him in his rebellion. But please don't forget this one most important piece of information; the devil is ONLY one angel. Powerful? Of course he is but he isn't omnipresent like God and can only be in one place at one time. This is where the other evil spirits come in to help him out. They're his posse if you will, and his servants of iniquity. Dark forces cannot prevail once the Light has been shined upon them! Satan and his demons are dark, evil and ugly beings. They are only here to destroy and cause great destruction upon this earth and in the lives of others. But don't ever forget, God is always with His children, and God's angels are also protecting us and watching over us. To understand how his demons, minions, spend their time, just read the New Testament and you'll get a pretty good idea! They mess with people in a variety of ways, with a variety of tactics, with a variety of temptations. Of course their biggest goal is to keep people from knowing and following Jesus Christ as their Savior. The devil automatically and instantly loses his footing in that person's life when they become a Christian. Naturally, with anything else, there is often a progression in which the demons appear to follow when it comes to temptation and their evil tactics. They learned it all from their fallen, rebellious master, Satan. The nature of Adam and Eve's temptation in the Garden of Eden was through the eyes. You see, the eyes were seduced after the mind had begun to embrace the lies of Satan until finally the body also engaged in sin by eating the fruit. The boundaries were blurred in the mind which is a foundation of his temptation; the forbidden fruit was gazed upon lustfully, and the body then dove right into it. Sin was born with the thought first. The devil and his minions will target the mind (thoughts) the eyes, and the body. The natural progression of how he works. Humans experience temptation on each of those levels. As man gives into one, the next temptation begins to wrap itself around him and take hold. Then the demons pounce on each one of man's sinful choices, like a cat pounces on its prey, which in turn draws him deeper into depravity. Exactly what's happening as I write this to you!

Stalking Its Prey as Satan Stalks Us
The analogy of a cat and prey is one that I see fitting for something like this. A cat is a hunter as we all know. They are the predators of all that they were created for and they're extremely adept at being hunters! With unsurpassed hunting skills and a keen eye, they have perfected the sneak attack. Cats stalk their prey. They eye them first. They remain focused on that one prey. They watch their movements. They will wait for the right moment. They will map out their path in advance that leads them to the success of the kill. They wait and watch for the prey to be unassuming, weak, and then, with no warning, it pounces from a distance, catching its prey without the prey even knowing what hit them. Sometimes the great hunter will play with its prey, confusing them, all the while honing in on the sneakiness of the impending kill. Stealthy. Sly. Swift. Some prey fight to get away and is ultimately released, but not without being unscathed to some degree. The majority though simply fall victim to their demise. Same can be said of Satan and his demons. Only humans are their prey. Demons have witnessed weaknesses of humans for centuries. They know the tried and true sins and temptations. But remember, Satan cannot create anything new, nor can he tempt you beyond what God has given you power over. Satan can only drudge up the past, what's been tried and true. Why do you think he always wants you to focus and dwell on your past? He can't do anything new the way our God the Creator can and does ever second of the day! Satan is full of pride and wants to be like God which was the reason for his fall in the first place. If they know what tempted you in the past to make you fall, well, guess what? That's exactly what they'll use again. Over and over until you finally give in, IF you do!

1 Corinthians 1:10, "I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought." If only this were true today! His words are true, but I mean if this were to be practiced instead of what is being followed, what a wonderful world we would live in! There needs to be a major breakthrough of Truth. We need to be vigilant right now with what thoughts we allow to reside inside of our minds and which thoughts we believe. Believing the wrong things will ultimately produce wrong feelings. Wrong feelings will ultimately produce wrong actions. You see the patterns clearly. Satan wants our thought life to be full of his lies so he can cause such discord amongst the children of God so we don't follow 1 Corinthians 1:10 as we should! The mind is a fragile organ because it can easily be covered up (for a little while, at least), thereby making the mind difficult to capture for Christ. We can often retreat deep within the walls of our own minds, thinking about things that we only let be known to ourselves and God. By doing so, it becomes difficult for others to detect and know what we're really thinking inside our heads. However, we really need to remember that God DOES know our thoughts, He is concerned about them, He cares what thoughts take us captive and oftentimes they will eventually come out into the open. They will eventually come out into the open because we become what we think.....The greatest area of sin in the believer's life isn't typically in the arena of our actions, but rather in the arena of our thought life. Even after we've been saved by Faith in Jesus Christ and have become born again believers, we all still have to contend with the old nature, all of us still have trouble with undesirable thoughts that keep popping into our heads. Some of these thoughts can be quite surprising, sometimes confusing, and sometimes even condemning. But they are secret thoughts and they are all undesirable.

All of those secret thoughts, those deeply personal thoughts, that pop into our heads aren't really an accurate measure of our spiritual condition. It's what we continue to think about, what we continue to delight ourselves in, what we continue to dwell upon, what we continue to focus on that tells more accurately what we are, who we are and where we stand spiritually. While we can't ever completely get rid of the sin-nature here in this life, in this fallen world, we can definitely keep it in relative control. So how can we do this? How can we change our thoughts to change our lives? Simple. We focus more on the thoughts of God. Let's take a quick look at what the Scripture says that have been given to us to help us along in this process. I'll start with Philippians 2:5, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." We need to cultivate our spiritual thinking, and the Scriptures give a list of worthy objects that we ought to be thinking about. Some of those worthy objects are found in Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things." This is a beautiful reminder of how we can change our thoughts from bad to good simply by meditating on the pure things of Christ to renew our minds! The word "think" means "to dwell upon" or "to focus attention upon." Those endearing qualities such as kindness, loyalty, helpfulness and the like are qualities we all should seriously be thinking about daily. Spirit-controlled thinking can amazingly elevate our thoughts and bless our whole life! Who wouldn't want that for themselves! Philippians 4:8 isn't so much a call to battle or fight those wicked thoughts that come knocking on our minds doors, but to conquer evil thinking by thinking upon good, pure and spiritual things!

You see, the world wants you to be a part of it. It wants you to operate in the flesh, be worldly, desiring all worldly possessions. It wants you to believe all the lies that are polar opposites of what God commands in the Bible. It wants you to change your thoughts to mirror the thoughts that Satan deploys. It wants you to become as the world became and act as the world acts. It wants YOU. It wants your mind to be controlled by the thoughts of the workers of iniquity. It wants to steal your joy, your truth, your foundation. It wants to lie to you, to confuse you. You mustn't confuse the world with the people. Satan is the "god" of this world and the world is Satan's playground. Satan and his demons are roaming around frantically trying to consume as many as they can, but their hunger is never satisfied. Nor will it ever be! Satan wants the same glory that is given to God. Satan wants the same control and the same kind of following. Satan is sewing discord, hate, viciousness, evil, division and rage throughout the land. Not just in the United States, but in the world. The USA may appear to feel it greater because of all of our freedoms that we have been blessed with, and because we are a Christian nation, and it's why so many people want to live here, and live the American dream. But this world is also trying to tell you what to think, how to think and why you should think a certain way. It's using as many people as possible, it's using many avenues as it can overcome. Why? What can be gained from this? Well, the main reason is fulfilling prophesy and the return of Jesus! But the stage has to be set up. If thoughts are manipulated into believing lies of the enemy and those thoughts cause people to act out evil, hateful, divisive actions, then part of the battle has been won. Matthew 24:11-14, "11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12) And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13) But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14) And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." This is happening right NOW. there is lawlessness. There are false prophets preaching a different gospel. The love of many has grown cold and continues to do so.

Taking your thoughts captive will help you maneuver through this barrage of control and manipulation that is happening all over the world. The Bible tells us that we can actually take "captive" what we think about. Isn't that powerful to know that WE can take and hold captive what we choose to think?! It's our responsibility actually! The verse that gives us this revelation says we have to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. v4) For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, v5) 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," We're being told to grab a hold of our thoughts and make certain that our thinking, as well as our thought life, always line up in the proper ways that He wants us to be thinking about all things. These are choices that we have to make and in order to grab a hold of our thoughts and to hold them captive, we need to consciously decide that we WANT and DESIRE to think as Christ does! 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." In this verse, God is telling us that not only can we get a sound mind from Him, but we also can obtain a mind that has a spirit of power and love in it. This verse actually starts out by telling us that we have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit that is of power, love, and sound mind. Fear! Yes, fear can let the doors wide open for spiritual attacks and for unclean thoughts for sure. Timothy 1:7 is a verse that I would highly recommend memorizing because with all of the crazy things that can hit us, and blindside us, in this life, you really have to believe and stay grounded on the powerful promise of this verse!

If you want to get a quick snapshot of your spiritual life, just take some time to examine your recent viewing and thinking. Those things that you gaze upon, look upon, and what you think about will determine the pattern of your life. Then as the nature of the process is, your body will tend to dive into whatever has become the strongest influence upon your eyes and your mind. This is why it is so imperative to ensure what you are thinking, gazing upon and looking at is wholesome and godly! All those hate-filled, evil, divisive, rageful thoughts that come flying at us, we have a choice of what to do with each of them. We can leave them alone to reside inside of our minds to ultimately influence who we become and how we act in the worldly ways. Or we can take them captive, pray for the replacement of wholesome and godly thoughts and turn from them so we can walk closer with Christ and become more like Him. There is a path of godliness, and there is a path of sinfulness. If the choice was left to ourselves, every single one of us would choose the sinful path all the time because it's our sin nature. However, our God comes to us in His grace and mercy and He forgives us. Through faith in Jesus, our sins are washed away. And then the battle really heats up. If we thought we faced temptations before we knew Christ, it's nothing compared to what happens after we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The battle becomes more intense because the demons go absolutely nuts when we accept Christ as our Savior. They know transformation is at hand and they know they cannot take up residence inside of a believer. They hate Jesus Christ, and therefore they hate and detest Christians. Since they hate Christians so much, they target them more than anyone else. You see, the cross of Calvary is where the devil and his demons were defeated, and they all know it. Colossians 2:15, "Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it." Satan nor his demons can READ our thoughts or minds. He can plant the thoughts there and influence our thoughts though. He knows what you say out loud and your actions. As I've said, he knows what works and where our weaknesses are.
Master of All Lies

John 8:44, "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it." Satan is the father of lies. That's what he does and that's who he is, a liar. He doesn't speak truth and he won't. He detests the Truth and the very one who IS the Truth! Everything that is unclean, ungodly, worldly, of the flesh, evil, divisive, deceptive, etc., is from Satan himself. So all the manipulation of thoughts, all of the calculated mainstream media foolery, all of the mainstream media manipulation of the truth and its agenda is all from Satan himself. What you hear from these outlets are for one agenda, for one purpose. What you see as a result of what's heard from these outlets are a direct result of the control of the thoughts to get the masses to believe the lies, to protest and fight and rise up to cause others to fall. Satan is in their driver's seat and is driving them off of the cliff! Satan’s accusations were so persuasive that he convinced a third of the angels to rebel against God. You see, Satan is persuasive enough to even draw angels from God’s presence. Let not your thoughts be in line with his and let not your actions be actions pleasing to Satan! Don't focus on the things of the world, nor those things which are temporary. Don't get caught up in his dirty, little evil schemes to control your thoughts to inevitably control your actions and pull you further from the Lord! Remember, 1 John 4:5, "They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them."

John 8:32, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

Only the inspired Word of God can reveal and defeat the devil's lies. Every fiery dart that is aimed at us can be blocked by God's Word. Even Jesus used the Word of God to defeat Satan's attack on the Mount of Temptation. Matthew 4:1-11, "Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2) And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. 3) Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." 4) But He answered and said, "It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' " 5) Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6) and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He shall give His angels charge over you,' and, 'In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.' " 7) Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.' " 8) Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9) And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me." 10 )Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.' " 11) Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him."

So, if we are to win the battle of the mind we must:

1) Love God's Word
2) Know God's Word
3) Memorize God's Word
4) Meditate on God's Word
5) Believe God's Word
6) Use God's Word
7) Do God's Word
8) Receive God's Word
9) Become God's Word

By doing the above, we will be able to start "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," as it is written in 2 Corinthians 10:5.

In closing, please remember how valued you really are by our Lord and Savior! Our Creator God created you and loves you beyond anything else you've ever felt before! The following attests to our value and how to overcome those attacks by the enemy!
1) Abounding Grace - 1 John 4:4, "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." When the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will raise up a standard against him. Where sin abounds grace abounds much more.
2) Extraordinary Power - There is power in the blood of Jesus and that power can absolutely cause us to overcome all the power of the enemy, including intrusive thoughts. Jesus is our refuge and strength.
3) Uncommon Faith - The righteous man falls seven times a day, but rises again. Always keep your faith intact.
4) God's Word - Even if you know the Word, you can't sit back and relax. If you've been in church a long time, you can’t relax. The enemy is looking for any "crack in the armor," be it small and innocuous or huge and noticeable, to move into your life. The enemy is never satisfied unless he can take the high value target out. You!
5) Holy Spirit Intercession - Know that when you feel like giving up; know that He lives to make intercession for you.

Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things."






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