What is Lurking Behind the Darkness?
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 (thoughts) and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
2 Cor. 10: 3-5.
Introduction
We are not engaged in just a football game, a video game, basketball game or a playground. We are engaged in a war. We are at war and the battlefield is your mind! Satan wants to control your every thought. Our responsibility is to fight those thoughts of evil and think on Christ. Bring your thoughts into obedience to Christ. Our weapons are mighty through God. It is the bible, prayer and through our surrendering to the power Holy Ghost. How do you think? What goes through your mind? What or who is controlling your thoughts patterns? A Christian person must keep their mind on the things of God.
Our Mind
Thoughts are powerful either to harm us or to help us. In Proverbs 23:7, ‘For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. How do you think when you are alone? Who is controlling your mind? Many are alone with their own thoughts. What do you talk to yourself about?
He that rules his mind, having self-control (control you mind) is more powerful than to conquer a city. Prov. 16:32.
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isa. 26 :3
Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.
Prov. 25:28.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. 2 Timothy 1:7
Our Carnal Mind is at Enmity against God.
Your mind must be disciplined. It must be taught to think on that which is God’s will. Your mind does not want to do anything that God wants to do with us, for us, or through us. We are alienated and separated from God. Your mind made that decision. It will not submit to the will of God.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God… Rom. 8:7
This is so because the corrupt nature has a hostile attitude toward God. It refuses to place itself under the authority of God’s standards because it can’t. Rom. 8:7
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled. Col. 1:21
We have a Blinded Mind
The devil has supernatural power to blind your mind if you let him. I have seen the power of the enemy not just with unbelievers but with believers who let their mind be taken over with darkness. I have seen Christian men and women give place to the devil in their minds and wind up in terrible situations. These men and women came from Christian homes but they gave place to the devil and experienced terrible situations in their lives. They are led captive by Satan. The Holy Ghost that can open your eyes to the truth as you let Him. He is a gentleman and will not force you.
“ whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.”
2 Cor. 4:4
Doubtful Mind
Many people, even Christian are constantly doubting the goodness and care of God towards them. They are always worried about tomorrow.
And seek ye not what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubting mind. Luke 12:29
Double Minded Person
How many Christian call God their Father a liar by saying yes one minute and the next by letting circumstances govern their minds and lives. When you doubt you sin. When you vacillate, you sin. Many are torn right now between their desire to love and serve God but feel the pull of their sinful desires. You can’t have it both ways. You must choose who you will follow. There is a broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow road that leads to eternal life. At that narrow gate is the Cross of Jesus. And it all will be decided in what you will do about Christ in your mind first. Is a liar? Is he crazy? Or is He the Son of the living God? You must choose.
“Whatever is not of Faith is Sin.” Rom. 14:23
But let him ask in faith, never wavering; for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1:6-8
How do we fix our Minds.
The fixing on our minds involves discipline. When we come to the Lord Jesus Christ our spirit is born a new. We are new creations and have a new spirit people that lives in an ungenerated body and ungenerated mind. In our walk with the Lord Jesus Christ we must take command of our minds. As we think so we will speak. And as we speak so will we live. What comes out of our mouth is what we have been thinking. Our words are locators of either the world and I loyalty to it or God in our loyalty to Him.
• Renew
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Rom. 12:1-2
• Know what you have in Him
His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Thereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And besides this, using all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Therefore brethren, give diligence all the more to make your calling and election sure, for if ye do these things ye shall never fall. 2 Peter 1:2-11
• Think on Purpose
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace shall be with you.
Phil 4:8-9