How to Overcome Satanic Suggestions

Satan’s method to entrap us always comes through the mind. Although impure sexual thoughts are frequently the means by which he ensnares young men, a more universal means for keeping men and women of all ages in bondage is the harboring of malice. Malice can be defined as evil intentions, evil wishing, and an evil surmising directed toward other people. Satan is full of malice; he wishes absolute evil for you and your loved ones. His only intention for your life is to injure, cause despair and wreak destruction. All of the dark angels which follow him also have the malicious mindset of perfect hatred and the persistence of seeking the ruin of others.

These dark forces cannot harm you physically unless God grants them allowance. What God does permit, however, is that they touch you spiritually. They do this each day by the power of suggestion. These suggestions come via impulses to our minds in the form of evil presentations. The fallen flesh nature is allied and conducive to these impulses, and if given the unmortified chance, it will take the ball and run. The war the Christian fights daily is the killing of these strategically flesh-targeted impulses which rise to strangle the inner man.

This is where the rubber meets the road in terms of Christian sanctification. If we are unable to effectively counter these malicious suggestions, no real advancements in perfection can be made with God. We will always be hitting walls and spinning our wheels in the muck of failure. We will remain defeated and immobile and immature. All of our preaching and teaching will be relegated to paper theories and powerless theology.

The way Satan overcomes us is by exploiting our weaknesses; the way we overcome him is by exploiting his. If you would overcome Satan you must know where his weaknesses are and then act on hitting these points in the Spirit of the Lord. The secret to overcome the powers of darkness consists in conquering evil suggestions with good actions. This is surest way to defeat Satan’s attack with immediate resolve.

A common strategy of demonic forces is to implant a malicious suggestion in your mind toward someone who has offended you. If this dart of malice is not quenched or mortified, it will eventually make its way into your heart to create a stronghold of vengeance and evil surmising. The Lord will allow the devil to test you here. When the person makes an offending comment or action, we should immediately identify it as a test and keep our minds girded in Christ. Say nothing, do nothing. The flesh will immediately suffer, but you will have ceased from sinning. Satan will flee. This is the first defensive action of mortification. In time, the flesh-suffering will cease and you will have gained a certain amount of grace and wisdom which, prior to the test, you did not possess.

But Satan will hit you again, at an appropriate time, and the dart on this occasion will be one of malice. There is a great danger falling into a new trap here. You will be reminded of the offense and a burning dart of vengeful malice will assault you. This dart will come at the perfect time, and if your mind is not girded-up and your heart pure of conceit and offense before God, the dart may escape mortifying interception and lodge within you.

The way to overcome Satan at this very moment is to go on the immediate offense with good. Buy a special card and a small gift and give it to the person privately, and let them know how much you appreciate them. Do this act with sincerity, allowing God’s love to flow through you unto them by the Holy Spirit. This is exploiting a weakness of Satan, because Satan will not transmit God’s love nor will he ever desire genuine good upon another person. You will have dealt him a blow that decisively repels any campaign of destruction he might have been devising. And God will reward you deeply.

Dear believer, you can overcome Satan’s forces every time. By initial mortification and then overcoming his darts of malice with good acts and God’s love, we make good the power of our testimony: sin shall not have dominion over us, for we are under God’s grace and continually cleansed in the blood of Christ.

Your Birthright Vaccination

If we will not allow God’s Spirit to lead us to mortify the lusts of our flesh, we will find our hearts succumbing to the bondage of spiritual darkness and depression. The Holy Spirit always leads us to put our rebellious flesh to death. The lusts of the flesh come loaded with strongholds. The various fruits of the flesh; i.e. pride, greed, wrath, malice and immorality – are all infested with a virus that is lethal to the health of the inner man. God therefore exhorts us to dispose of this tainted fruit. Each day we are presented with our fleshly fruit for potential consumption. Our Great Physician silently observes our eating habits in these moments. Will we turn our heads from the rancid fruit? Will we break off just a little piece for a secret nibble? After becoming sick over and over again, the wise in Christ have finally learnt to follow their Doctor’s orders and mortify the contaminates.

The bloody stripes and death of Jesus Christ have enabled God to send the Holy Spirit to offer an antidote to the virus. The Old Testament law provided the superficial antiviral; the New Covenant Spirit, however, offers the vaccine. Many Christian believers do not understand this, and so they live virus-infected lives, in unmortified bondage to sin and pain. To be given the vaccine, they must repent. Genuine Spirit-led repentance precedes and underlies mortification. By the on-going dynamic of mortification, the viral darts of the world, flesh and devil are trapped at the entry-level and put to death before they can infiltrate our minds and re-contaminate our hearts.

May the Lord open our eyes to the vaccine we are all afforded through Christ Jesus. Dear believer, if you have not yet claimed your birthright vaccination, begin asking God for this free gift today. Stop trying to heal yourself. Stop using the antiviral of the law to cover-up the breakouts, and instead seek the vaccine which shields and protects your inner man from the virus ever touching him. This is true Christianity. This is what separates us from the rest of the sin-infected world and makes Christians absolutely unique. No other religious system offers the vaccination; it is through Christ alone that we are first made clean and then offered a lifetime shield of protection.

Legal Suffocation

Many believers who were once filled with power and unction to serve God are now cast down, confused, dry and ineffective. They spend their days in powerless confession, having a form of religion that brings to them a sense of emptiness, shame and dejection. No fruit is to be found on their branches, no water to aid the thirsty, and no burning, prophetic Word of God on their lips to release people from bondage and infuse the very life of Him Whom they profess to serve.

Each day offers a fresh hope to break free from the lukewarm stagnation, but that hope is quickly dashed as they find themselves once again defeated inwardly and subject to a prevailing power that keeps them from experiencing New Covenant victory. The occasions of real joy and intimacy with God are far and few between; they are but the rare and cherished exceptions of a life where the norm is filled with abject failure and a brooding disappointment over reoccurring excursions into sin.

These believers have not yet been led by the Holy Spirit to mortify their minds, and because of this they can not take each thought captive to the obedience of Christ. They instead allow Satan to inject poison into their unprotected hearts – a poison masked with a bittersweet flavor and therefore swallowed with minimal resistance. Once inside the heart, the poison opens up like a virus to strengthen the flesh to rebel against the spirit. When the believer yields to his flesh and commits sin, God’s peace is immediately recalled from his spirit until confession and repentance is made. If he continues in backslidden sin, a stronghold emerges.

Wicked spirits are given legal authority by God to erect strongholds in the hearts of all believers who fulfill the lusts of the flesh. When a believer acts upon a sinful impulse, he or she violates the law of God and forfeits the liberating power of His grace. The defiled conscience cries out for the cleansing blood of Christ, but the mind is now infected with a virus that cripples the believer’s faith unto restoration. The virus leads to a stronghold taking hold of the heart, and if this stronghold is not demolished, it will grow into a cancer that will eventually destroy the believer from the inside out.

You can tell if someone has a stronghold by observing the activity of their speech. The merchandise of the tongue will sooner or later belie the content of the heart. When the Bible speaks of guarding our hearts against “roots of bitterness” from springing up, it is talking about these very strongholds. Roots, by nature, go deep down into the soil and infiltrate the ground. They are invading organisms; they suck life from the underground to give life to an above-ground manifestation. In the same way, spiritual strongholds go down deep into the dirt of the polluted heart to attach themselves to the spirit. When the spirit attempts to rise up and seek divine help without true repentance, the stronghold’s clutch tightens and chokes the cry with legal suffocation.

Christians who are addicted to internet pornography, for example, are suffocating beneath a stronghold. Believers who love to debate and criticise are being choked as well. Deep down, they know they are dying. They know they have a virus; they know something is terribly wrong within. If we could see into their true spiritual estate, we would see chains of darkness encompassing their inner men. We would see strongmen digging claws into their minds.

This is why the Word of God exhorts us in so many places to not trifle with sin. The power of hell is like an open Venus Flytrap. The believer comes near to it, drawn by its deceptive sweetness and the hunger of his own flesh, and makes cautious contact to explore sin’s pleasures. As he ventures deeper into the sweet darkness, the jaws suddenly close around his heart and he is caught. A virus enters his system as the old law of sin and death retakes dominion over his life and holds the believer captive against his own will. The peace of God flees from his soul as deep spiritual depression sinks in. He is ensnared by an angelic force that must be expelled by God.

For the genuine child of God, it is in this lair of sin where true brokenness and wisdom are fostered. For every believer encompassed by strongholds, if he will not doubt God’s love for him there is an assured freedom awaiting his release. The Lord’s timing is always predicated upon infallible wisdom which is bent for the Christian’s perfect good. The believer must hold on and have faith for this. The repentance that incapacitates the strongman’s claw must be granted by God. It cannot be worked up; nor can it be willed. In fact, the more we struggle to extricate ourselves, the tighter the bonds become and the deeper into the jaws we sink.

The Christian’s duty is to continually cry for the deliverance of the Holy Spirit, and to hate with a holy passion those chains which suffocate the inner man. To utterly abhor the diabolical law which incarcerates our joy and throws us into backsliding tailspins. Dear Christian, give the Lord’s ear no peace until He at last frees your soul from the jaws of sin and opens your eyes to the New Covenant birthright given you freely through Christ.

On that illustrious day you will experience the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. The claws will release you, the chains will burst, the flytrap will open wide. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ will set you, the captive, free. The power of God will transform your life. The wisdom of God will prevail upon you the daily necessity of Spirit-led mortification to prevent future strongholds. The love of God will sustain your spiritual gaze unto looking soley unto Christ, and the grace of God will protect you and deliver you from all virus-laden temptations with an ongoing efficacy.

Mortification is Defensive

Many Christians have the misguided notion that they should be attacking the devil’s kingdom. They have been exhorted by preachers to “raid” the enemy’s camp to get back what was stolen, to invade neighborhoods and spoil demonic dominion, etc. Prayer vigils are conducted for this very purpose, along with prolonged fasts and all sorts of other campaigns – activities that are nowhere to be found in New Testament scripture. The motives behind these activities are undoubtedly well-intended, but are they an accurate portrayal of spiritual warfare? Are they effective in the long-term? Do they aid in sin deliverance on the individual level?

No, they do not. The reason they do not work is because God has never called His children to invade Satan’s kingdom and “take back” objects, spiritual or otherwise. Christians are called simply to resist and rest. Satan’s forces have already been defeated on Calvary, long before the world was created. It was a battle fought and won by Jesus Christ, our Captain and the Supreme Commander of the Army of the Lord. He single-handedly disarmed all the principalities and powers through His death on the cross, and in one decisive blow, took from Satan the keys of death and hell and set the captives free. The victory was conclusive, definitive, eternal.

The Christian today is called to live and walk in Christ’s conquest by faith. The child of God is not called to invade, but rather to resist Satan’s advances, to withstand, to yield not. In this mortifying resistance, the child of God must know that he has the strategic advantage as he withstands Satanic fury from a safe place. The defeated forces, on the other hand, have the profound disadvantage of always attacking uphill, of raiding a locked castle. Our placement in this fight was won soley by Christ Jesus before we were born.

In the wilderness, Satan approached Jesus; the Lord did not provoke. This is extremely important to see. In the Garden of Eden, the serpent propositioned Eve; Eve did not initiate the conversation. Satan is always the provoker. The person who goes looking for a confrontation usually does so out of insecurity; he feels as though he must prove something, and, paradoxically, those who relentlessly wage war against Satan’s camp are usually defeated by some inner, secret sin. This inward defeat fuels their outward aggression and incites them to rally other Christians to “attack the enemy” by staging prayer-walks, long fasts, preaching marathons, etc. At the end of all the activities, however, they are still defeated by sin.

The Christian is a wrestling warrior in the strength of rest and resistance. The great secret of Christian victory is in silent immobility. The Christian is to be a stalwart light in a dark world. Lighthouses are immobile structures, built upon rock – they do not assail the storm; the storm assails them. The light which emanates from them is bright and penetrating and cuts through the encroaching fog to bring stability to those who drift. The waves of the sea may rage against the rocks, but a healthy lighthouse is able to withstand even the harshest elements and yet keep its light shining. This is a wonderful picture of the mortifying Christian.

Beloved, God has not called you to invade, but to project. Mortification is a defensive measure, it is protective. It is a shield to guard the heart from the lightening of Satan’s temptations, a helmet to keep the fog out of the mind, and a breastplate to maintain the pure bulb of Christ’s illuminating righteousness. This light comes from within us, from the holy abode of God’s Spirit. Mortification keeps the glass through which it shines self-free and as transparent as possible in your life.

An unadulterated beam is imperative to your ministry, dear Christian! You must stand strong in all Christ’s righteousness and integrity if you are to prevail against the misty night of evil entrapments. God has spiritually inaugurated your lighthouse to be a beacon of purity and safety above the sin-ravaged maelstrom we know as the world. Sailors are lost, drowning, doomed in the maelstrom without this light. Will you mortify the elements to keep this light pure? Will you resist the storms? Are you amply fortified to withstand the typhoon of devilish allurements directed at your soul?

Move not then from the rock of your station. Know your impregnable foundation and everlasting soul-anchor in Christ. Let the storms rage, let your defeated foe hurl all the elements of earth and hell against the walls of your mind, only move not from where God has erected you. Remember: you hold within your bosom the Light of the World, the very Life of Jesus Christ. Protect it, project it!

Mortify the Tongue

For those who would trust God to guide them into a life of dynamic mortification, the first area to begin with is the tongue. Tongue-mortification is an area that shows amazing results in a very short period of time. You will grow in astounding grace and wisdom almost overnight if you will but allow the Holy Spirit to lead you into the mortification of this little member. The Word of God teaches us that an unmortified tongue can destroy a person’s entire walk (James 1:26). Because the tongue has the power to defile the whole body (James 3:6), the man who is able to bridle it is called “perfect” by God’s standard (James 3:2). These are tremendous allegations!

The good news is that the tongue is easier to mortify than you think. Tongue-mortification was the first area the Lord led me into after He filled me with the Holy Spirit, and this is the area which has yielded the greatest dividends in terms of peace and joy for my life. Every follower of Christ must be able to restrain his or her tongue if they mean to experience God’s best and be lifted to a new level of authority in their ministry. Tongue-mortification is able to safeguard your soul from depression. The proverb “Whosoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles” (Proverbs 21:23) conveys this truth in a most straightforward way. I cannot count the number of times I have been led by the Spirit of God to remain silent on a “hot issue”, only to be blessed by some amazing revelation on a scripture a few days later. Dear saint, if you would enter into this divine realm of soul-protection and wisdom, determine at once to restrain your tongue with the help of God.

For starters, by the grace of God, resolve to speak no more criticisms of anyone, including ministers and other people with whom you do not agree. Offer nothing but blessing and edification to their account, and if there is no blessing or edification to be merited, remain silent. Take your example from Jesus Christ, who withheld speaking publically even the man’s name who would betray Him. You may warn others to not follow certain examples, but leave all character judgment to God alone. By keeping silent and allowing God His sovereign right to judge and punish, you absolve yourself from any reciprocal judgment and protect yourself from the harassments of the enemy.   

It is crucial to mortify all slander and evil communication from your speech at the entry-level. The tongue can only speak of and fingers can only type that which has gone unmortified in the mind and has entered the heart. Be therefore sober and keep a constant watch over your mind and the thoughts that enter it. Watch out for any penetrating impulses of bitterness; all bitter thoughts should be immediately rejected and mortified before they can manifest audibly or in print. God has given us the responsibility to mortify bitterness at ground zero. By doing so, we keep the poison from infiltrating our system and spreading to the tongue for release.

Determine also that you will no longer debate. Cease from defending your theology or seeking to assert your convictions upon others. Stabilize yourself in the holy vacuum of God’s peace. Learn to partake of the quiet confidence and security that comes from knowing who you are in Him. Study to be silent and to mind your own affairs (I Thessalonians 2:11). Others may seek to draw you out in rebuke and challenge, but you must resist the temptations of self-defense. As you surrender your right for autonomous action, God will manifest on your behalf to guard your mind and soul with great wisdom and power. A hedge of protection will suddenly go up, and allow you, like Christ, to “walk through the crowd” and escape the ruckus.

Many believers engage in character assassination. Their tongues are used as spears in the hands of Satan. They create blogs and preach entire sermons dedicated wholly to tearing-down flesh and blood, when instead they should be focusing on the spirit that drives the flesh and blood they attack. When a believer directs his or her tongue to destroy another person – regardless of where they may stand in spiritual matters – they paradoxically allow Satan to gain a foothold in their own lives. A clever tactic of the enemy is to flaunt a controversial object or person before the evangelical masses like a decoy and then wait to draw out the victims by their tongues. When you see someone engaging in fault-finding, criticising, back-biting and character assassination, you know that they have no understanding of this tactic, and are laboring under a Satanic smokescreen.   

If the object or person in question is something sanctioned by God, no amount of criticism or slander will hurt it. It will prosper regardless. God, however, will allow Satan to hurt those who assail it. Dear saint, do not allow yourself to be taken captive by the fowler, by the hurter of souls, because of your tongue. Those who have already been taken captive are still active in their ministries: they write intelligent and scripturally-astute articles against their opponents and are quick to defend themselves with cloaked acerbity and wit. They may be correct doctrinally, but their ministries are fruitless and void of God’s Spiritual anointing on account of their unmortified tongues. Do not be deceived, do not follow their example.

If you would prolong the joy of the Lord in your soul, put an end to all snide remarks and having the last word. Speak peaceably, humbly, meekly to your spouse and children, to your co-workers, to strangers. If a word or comment escapes mortification and regrettably leaves your tongue, be sure to quickly apologize and ask for forgiveness. We must always humble ourselves in the sight of God and take the blame for our unmortified Adamic misgivings. Over time, this will become a divine habit as we gain more and more control over the tongue’s fire.

You can begin this very rewarding exercise in mortification right away. Think of how many times during the day you are provoked to speak. Begin to see each opportunity as a lesson afforded in tongue-mortification, and then observe the Holy Spirit’s swift reaction to your obedience. Dear saint, if you’ve ever had doubt as to how God honors those who honor Him, try this today: From this point on, do not defend yourself anymore; cease from all debate and contention; stop criticizing other people; speak only of that which is good and virtuous; remain silent if there is nothing commendable to mention in a person, and apologize immediately for any failure in tongue-mortification. In all this, the Holy Spirit will guide you if you but lower your defenses and ask God for the equipping grace.

Always remember that criticism and ill-speaking are not divine attributes; they are Adamic to the core. Even after our spiritual conversions in Christ, the wicked inclination to unleash the tongue resides in the flesh. Until the impulses are overcome by us collaborating with the grace of the Spirit, unedified communication will be the norm in our walks instead of the exception. It will take spirit-infused grace to overcome the Adamic habit of unedified speech, but once we resign ourselves to God’s influence, the norm will be for us to use our tongues to bless and enrich rather than fault-find and smear.

Dear saint, pure speech that edifies the spirit and soul is God’s will for your life. The mortified tongue is a rare jewel to be coveted. Very few men and women have discovered the secret of its power and the pleasure it gives to our Loving Father. It is precious because it comes with a great price. Won’t you pay this price through daily mortification? I can tell you without any doubt – and from much personal experience – that the dividends paid out by God for this investment are nothing short of miraculous.

The Mortification of Things That Edify Not

The Apostle Paul was inspired to mention four times in the New Testament that all things are lawful to the believer in Christ (see 1 Corinthians 6:12a&b and 1 Corinthians 10:23a&b), because the Holy Spirit knew legalism would be such a deadly snare for so many. However, there is a disclaimer that goes along with this truth: All things may be lawful to the believer, but all things do not edify the spirit. All things may indeed be lawful, but the follower of Christ must not allow himself to be brought under the power of any of them.

According to scripture, the man or woman who is led by the Holy Spirit is the true child of God (Romans 8:14). God fills His children with the Holy Spirit so that they can walk in Him and mortify all things that edify not the spirit. As we walk with the Lord in the beauty of holiness, careful to keep our consciences clean and thoughts pure, our inward man is afforded light, divine strength and wisdom. The Spirit of Christ fellowships with our spirits in a holy abode, and as we continually abide in Him we are informed as to what is edifying for our spirits and what is not.

It is not so much the physical acts that are subject to holy mortification as it is the impulses of the mind. When we are young and immature in Christ, the Holy Spirit deals more with our brute actions than with our thoughts: He deals primarily with our speech, our manifested doings in the flesh – in short, the physical results of yielding to temptation. But as we mature, the focus gradually shifts to our hidden thoughts and to our unseen motives. He zeros in on hypocrisy, white-washed religiosity, selfishness, greed, spiritual pride, unspoken malice. Before we commit a deed, while it is yet in the embryonic stage of our mind’s evaluation, God scans the motive and then prescribes for it either liberty or mortification. Responding to His judgment with an “amen” constitutes a spiritual sacrifce acceptable to Him. The deed in question may be a perfectly legal one, but not expedient to our growth in grace or to the edifying of our spiritual nurturing, which is the reason God compels us to mortify. Other believers may be permitted to do that which God forbids you to partake of, but this is because He deals with us as individuals, according to the light we have, and not as a collective group.

A man with a floodlight can see a much greater area in circumference than a man with a candle. Spiritually speaking, the former will have much more to mortify in depth and detail than the latter. The greater the maturity in Christ, the more meticulously God impresses His mortifying scalpel to the soul of all that which edifies not. With the depth of the light, also comes the corresponding empowerment for us to comply with His impressions of mortification. We find we are able to obey; we are able to put the thing to death and continue on with Him in unbroken fellowship. This power is given to us through the in-filling of the Holy Spirit. The man or woman who is filled with the Spirit of God can instantly know what is edifying and what is not; that is, what is expedient and edifying for their inner man and what is not. It is God Himself who instructs them, woos them, exhorts them and then empowers them to mortify.

We know from the letter of God’s Word those things which are universally forbidden for every believer. Namely, the outward manifestations of sin: fornication, lying, adultery, theft, sorcery, etc. We need to understand that these goliath infractions are but the result of a negligence in mortification at the inner level of inception; they are the outer volcanic eruptions of molten strongholds, of deep and dormant unmortified lusts.

Scripture shows us that the end result of seed sewn to the flesh is a corrupt crop (Galatians 6:7). As our walks flourish in Christ, we are given more wisdom as to the dealing of the seed before it hits the dirt of our flesh to germinate into corruption. Advanced mortification begins at ground-level: at the nucleus of differentiation between that which edifies and that which does not. God’s Spirit leads us to put to death the non-edifying impulse at the point of entry, before it can vivify the flesh and sink its talons into the soulful logic of our Adamic nature.

We may use soulish things for our intellectual stimulation and enjoyment, but when it comes to the feeding of the spirit, we must be able to tell the difference between that which merely refreshes the soulish outer man to that which revitalizes the spiritual inner man. Just as you would not pump diesel into a gasoline engine, the fuel for the soul is wholly incompatible for the edification the spirit. Conversely, spiritual sustenance is often bland (if not foolish) to the soul’s taste if the spirit is yet dead in trespasses and sin.

There is a host of material and pursuits we indulge in which edifies the soul but does nothing for the spirit. If we are attempting to feed our spirits with soul food – and pass such nutrients off as inner-man edification – we have deceived ourselves. There is much Christian wrangling, debating, theorizing and speculating that masquerades as spirit-food for edification, but which is, in reality, non-edifying vanity that should be mortified. Such activity may be legal to the believers, but legality does not always presuppose expediency. The way to differentiate between the two is by submitting yourself to the mortifying influence of God’s Spirit in the “little things” of your walk.

Little by little, you will begin to see the difference between that which truly edifies, and that which does not. By putting the right fuel in the right engine, we will make strides as far as redeeming the time and maximizing the productivity of our meditations.

May the Lord God bring us into the deeper light of this area.

Essentials of Mortification: Demolishing the Stronghold

When our inner man ebbs low in strength, the flesh will rise up to bully the mind. This is because the flesh is subject to a law which renders it incompatible to true holiness. This law animates and drives the flesh to grapple with the spirit and undermine all of God’s doings for us in the way of sanctification. If our thought patterns and imaginations are undisciplined; if we are negligent in guarding what comes into our body through our eyes and ears, we can get hit with a flaming missile and jeopardize our intimacy with the Lord.

Being hit with a missile can lead to a stronghold being erected in the heart. These strongholds are the causes behind all the spiritual depression, defeatism, critical thinking and excursions into pornography that so many believers are shackled to. Deep within, a spiritual sabotage takes place to where the believer becomes overwhelmed by a sinister law. With his mind, he knows God’s law is righteous and good, and he desires to follow it perfectly and to be set free from his bondage – but a stronghold blocks the way to freedom. The stronghold manifests itself every time he attempts to obey God and progress.

It begins in the ungirded mind by a little dart slipping in and being allowed to develop and infect. The dart should have been mortified before the penetration occurred. Wearing the helmet of salvation and girding our minds with the armament of Christ is how we deflect these darts from entering in and creating strongholds. A believer who has the mind of Christ takes all thoughts instantly into captivity to the obedience of Christ. This is how God protects us.

If you get hit with a flaming missile and become infected with a stronghold, you’ll need the Holy Spirit for deliverance. Many Christians think it is normal to always be hurting, defeated and depressed. They think it is normal to not have any power with God, or to not have a ministry that changes people’s lives. The truth is that a “defeated Christian” is an oxymoron in the purest sense! Your birthright in Christ is not to be defeated and depressed. No, God’s will for your life is to overcome sin with absolute purity, to maintain a clean conscience, to experience the power of His divine nature, to minister abundant life unto others, and to enjoy unbroken victory and joy through Christ Jesus.

Dear saint, if you would walk undefiled with God and with divine power to impact other souls for Jesus Christ, you must learn to discipline your thought life. This is infinitely more important than winning theological debates or preaching homiletically-correct sermons. One can accomplish all these and yet be thoroughly defeated. You can walk with religious honor and praise before men and yet be utterly crippled before God.

Spiritual depression and defeatism for a believer under the New Covenant is due to a judgment of God. The judgment’s purpose is to work for the believer’s good through chastening. A precept of God was transgressed and as a result the Lord’s peace was immediately withdrawn from the believer’s spirit; God’s hedge of protection was lifted from the mind, and spiritual depression set in. The judgment of God allowed the powers of darkness to infiltrate and erect a fortress to bully the starved spirit. Satan’s torments are then used by God to foster a deep humility and profound brokenness in the believer. This is precisely the state in which the grace of God can flow most abundantly – and for many, this is where the true Baptism in the Holy Spirit occurs, after years of failure and whitewashed defeat.

Dear saint, God will allow your failure and pain to continue on for years and years, if necessary to prepare you to receive His overcoming grace. In that day, His emancipating love will flood your spirit like a tsunami and demolish all the stronghold walls in your heart. The flaming darts will all dissolve and you will be set free and swept clean. His Spirit will then teach you how to keep future darts out through the mortification of the flesh, through the girding of the mind, and through the guarding of the heart in collaboration with the Spirit of Holiness.

Essentials of Mortification: Resting and Conquering

Have you ever wondered how God’s method of overcoming sin works within the believer? The battle that rages within and without the child of God is a purely spiritual one; one that is replete with angelic fighting and invisible weaponry. If our eyes could be opened to see even a moment’s glimpse of this warfare, we would be speechless. Our inner men are in the midst of this battle, and our minds are often the canopy under which the fiercest fighting is conducted. As with earthly battles, there are moments of calm reprieves interspersed with vicious attacks. The battles are daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and are but the components of an entire war which is fought over the span of the believer’s lifetime.

God’s Word teaches us that Satan’s host has already been defeated in the boundless realm of eternity. The war was fought and won when Christ was slain on Calvary before the foundation of the world. What you and I are experiencing now is the time-bound manifestation of this war, with Satan’s efforts to derail individual soldiers. The enemy knows that if he can hinder a soldier’s advancements unto perfection by keeping the conscience defiled, the propagation and proliferation of the gospel will be stymied. With no consistent victory over sin on the personal level, and no measure of conquest over fleshly temptation, the soldier is unable to transmit the life of Christ through his ministry unto others. If a Christian cannot overcome evil in his own walk, he surely cannot teach others to overcome with any measure of authority in theirs.

We read in scripture that God enables us to overcome by strengthening our inner men with might by the Holy Spirit (Eph. 3:16). This happens when the indwelling Spirit of God fortifies our own spirits with the life of Christ. The power of the Spirit is grace – the grace to overcome the temptations of the flesh, the devil, and the lure of the world’s wicked system. Only the believer who makes it his daily aim to abide in Christ is given this divine power. By putting on the Lord Jesus Christ daily by faith, and making no provision to fulfill the lusts of his flesh, the child of God enters into a walk that safeguards his soul from the wiles of the enemy. This spiritual wrestling against the giants of the land is wrought through the strength of God, through His weapons and armor, and it is by His strength that the soldier is rendered instantly victorious.

In the same way the Lord Jesus slept in the boat during the storm, so the child of God may rest in the heat of the battle when he has the mind of Christ. This, then, is a concept the world cannot grasp: conquering by resting. When our inner men are strengthened by God we can rest during the fiercest of warfare and effortlessly overcome. The reason many of us are defeated by the enemy is because we have not learned to rest in the might of the Spirit. We try too hard to fight; we grit our teeth and attempt all sorts of methods in mortification that are independent of the all-conquering power of spiritual repose, and as a result we become defeated legalists.

The great victors of the Christian battle are those who have understood the secret of rest. They have identified that the “greater is He in that is in you” is God Himself abiding within them, breathing might into the inner man so that they can partake of His divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust (II Peter 1:4). When God gives the believer revelation of these truths, he instantly ceases from striving, and like Jonah, voluntarily sinks into the depths. As soon as Jonah’s head went beneath the surface of the water, he could no longer hear the boisterous wind and crashing waves. Going beneath the water meant death, but with that death came great peace and rest.

Hear me now, dear believer in Christ. Would you have peace from all the storms in your life? Are you tired of failure upon failure, of defeat and depression, of confusion and empty religious effort? Do you wonder how Jesus Christ could sleep peacefully in the hull of a storm-tossed boat, amidst the howling wind and furious waves? He calls you and I to do the same in the midst of our own storms of flesh and temptation. It is the concept of resting and conquering.

Observe how a falcon soars high above a valley. He gained that altitude by beating his wings and overcoming gravity, climbing higher and higher until he reached a thermal and another law took over: the law of aerodynamics. Now he just soars effortlessly; he transcends gravity – the pull of the earth no longer has dominion over him. Beloved, this is a picture of the grace of God cancelling out the dominion of sin’s law. God’s will is that we soar effortlessly over an already-won battle, having taken on the divine nature of victory. There is great rest in the thermal. The thermal is a picture of the Holy Spirit breathing power into our inner man.

Let us therefore beat our wings in defiance to the law of gravity, and allow God’s Spirit to lift us higher and higher. See every wing flap as a mortifying blow to the flesh. Hide the Word of Christ deeply in your heart. Call on Him as you gain altitude, lest you soon become discouraged and plateau. Wait on the thermal; endure suffering, buffet your body into submission, take all thoughts captive to Christ’s obedience. May this be our daily experience: resting and conquering.

May we all enter into this liberating truth.