FIGHT

The Scripture tells us to fight the good fight of faith. But if you’re like me you can get tired of the fight. I.am.so there…are you? Ugh. So today I’m dusting off my big guns and getting back in the fight. We won’t win if we do not fight. Yep…we get weary it happens. But we cannot stay there. 

I took an excerpt from a message I taught on spiritual warfare, which will also be in my book (buy the book-buy the book)…sorry shameless plug! It’s a reminder we are in a fight and we must participate to win! Let’s do this…put on your gloves and get in the ring!

“We are natural beings living in a natural world fighting a spiritual war against an unseen enemy. We can’t physically see this war or our enemy but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there or it isn’t real. We tend to want to fight the things that we can see, but we need to keep in the forefront of our minds that just because our eyes can not see the spiritual realm we are fighting doesn’t make it any less real. 

Exactly how is this war fought? What does it look like and how does our enemy wage war against us? He wages war in our minds; the mind is the real battlefield. Satan attacks our physical bodies with sickness and disease but his real battlefield is in our minds, waging war against us with thoughts that he wants us to believe are ours. He wants us to believe his lies that he plants there. 

According to 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we are Triune beings. I am a spirit, I have a soul and I live in a body. Before we are born again our spirit man is dead. But in salvation our spirits come alive to God, this is how we have relationship and communion with God. If my body is damaged and dies, me, the spirit goes to be with the Lord, my physical body is not the real me, it simply houses me so I can live on this planet. 

I have a soul, which is my mind, will and emotions. God’s design is for my spirit man to be in control. God wants my spirit to be strong so it can influence my will to choosehim and his ways. The enemy works through my soul, my mind will and emotions; planting thoughts in my mind so my emotions will react and do what he desires me to do. Satan wants to control my soul through influencing my mind. He has no access to my spirit only my mind.

We grow up believing that all of the thoughts that fill our head are ours.Those conversations we have in our heads, please tell me it’s not just me who has this problem; those conversations sound like our voice so we don’t realize it’s our enemy speaking lies to us. He’s been doing this a long time and is very good at what he does. Before we are saved our mind is carnal, any thought that comes to our mind we just think it, if we think we should do something we just do it. We are not making decisions based on what is true or what God wants for us. Ephesians 2:3 states, “among who also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind…” This is how we lived before giving our lives to God. Our minds were filled with thoughts of blame, revenge, hatred, and lust, everything contrary to God’s word.

But after we are saved 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 states what we are to do with our minds, “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” We are to examine every thought that comes through our minds to see if it is lining up with God’s word and his will, is this true, is this right etc. If it is not we are supposed to take that thought captive and pull it down, resisting it’s message. This is not easy and requires a lot of work and effort on our part. 

Philippians 4:8 tells us, “ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.”  When the battle is raging in our minds, the battle no one sees, this is when we battle to take control of those wrong thoughts and reasoning’s that are not lovely or biblical. We fight; we make the exchange for what he is offering us to what the word of God says.” 

This is the fight we fight to gain control of our thoughts and push back on the enemy. We get weary; it’s ok because it’s work to do this. So we rest and refuel then we get back in the fight. Today choose to get back up, to fight, and to win. You can do this!