The Battle for the Mind

April 26th
BETA
Chapter 7 – The Battle for the Mind – Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Ephesians 6: 11 -13.

Illustration:
Imagine that your mind is like a coffeepot filled with coffee. What you really desire is for the pot to have nothing but clear, clean water. The problem is that there’s no place to empty the pot. Sitting beside the coffeepot is a huge bowl of crystal clear ice, which represents the Word of God. Because you are only able to add one or two cubes of ice per day, the process of clearing up the water may seem a little futile at first. If you continue to add ice each day, however you will begin to see the color of the water turning a lighter color as the coffee becomes more diluted. As long as you continue the process, the contents of the coffeepot will become more like water and less like coffee-provided, of course, that you don’t add more coffee.

Pause for thought:
How can you stand up against deception if you don’t know you are being deceived?

If Satan can convince us to believe a lie, he will keep us in bondage emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and we will lose at least some degree of control over our lives. His primary strategy is to distort the truth about our identity and position in Christ and also our understanding of God. We need to understand what Scripture says about this battle for our minds in order to protect our walk with God.

CELEBRATE RECOVERY Principle 4 - Openly examine and confess my faults to God, to myself and to another person whom I trust.Step 4: We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. (Lamentations 3:40)Step 5: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. (James 5:16)Lamentations 3:40 “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.