In my message before the last one we discussed the personal renewal of our minds throughly the Holy Spirit and through vision. Now to be completely renewed our minds must become more like Christ’s mind.

For the rest of you time here on earth and the rest of my time, we need to work to develop our minds to be like the Mind of Christ.

So far we learned that Step 1 - We need to KNOW Christ. Step 2 we need to surrender control. So today we are going to to talk about step 3. In this step we are to wage war against evil. Too many people in this day in age don’t seem to believe that Satan is real and he has an army of demons working with him. Often I see Christian and non Christians make jokes about Satan. People think that they are too sophisticated to believe such a thing.

Well let me tell you those people are completely wrong and the people who deny these beings are extremely vulnerable to their attacks.

Now, what do you think is the most volatile place where Satan and his demons attack us? If you guessed our minds you are absolutely correct. The last thing the devil wants is for us to have a Mind of Christ. He will do all he can to keep you and I from achieving this goal.

He will attack us through words that may cause us to doubt God. He will attack us with images of lust for money, power and sex. He will attack us through some circumstances that leave us vulnerable and in a weakened state of mind. Lets take a look at what Paul wrote in Rom 7:22-25 22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. NASU

Notice how Paul described his internal struggles as a “war with my mind” How are we to overcome this? How can we possibly win this war with Satan and his demon bombarding us all the time.

Well a very simple strategy for this goes like this. When something comes into our mind such as greed, self doubt or a sexual image comes into our mind, DO NOT Give in for even a few seconds before mounting a counter attack within your mind.

When these thought come in, immediately yell out loud “STOP… Get out of my head” Then immediately go into prayer by saying something like “Dear God, in the name of Jesus, save me now, I am your. I submit to you now”

Now it doesn’t end here, you need to get a counter image into your mind. Fight for it and do NOT ease up. We must come up with an image that is so powerful that the other image cannot survive. The image I come up with is the Crucified form of Jesus Christ. I remember watching the movie The Passion of Christ. I know what that movie showed does not even compare what Jesus went through. Think about the lashings He went through. Picture His flesh being ripped out of His body and the excruciating pain He felt every time the whip with barbs on it dug into His flesh. Think about the pain He felt when spikes went through His wrist and ankles. Think about the thirst He had when he was hanging on that cross. Think about the excruciating pain He felt every time He struggled to take a breath.

You see , no matter what thought was attempted to come into my mind, it is immediately wiped a way and I am there with Christ at Calvary. I am now winning the battle because with God’s help, I was able to replace that sinful image with the image of the One who defeated my sin for me.

So the outcome is a renewal of my my mind. Satan is defeated and any guilt is removed. Lastly God’s will is discerned. You see the closer I walk with God the more I know God. The more I read and study His Word, the closer I am to him. That is what He wants from us a very close personal relationship. This is the coolest most incredible thing in the world!!!!!! How awesome God is! With the Mind of Christ You are free to be the person God created you to be! What are your thoughts? Please share them with everyone by commenting below

Pastor Bob

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 3:00 am and is filed under Weekly Message, Sermons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.