Ephesians 6:11-12 “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Deuteronomy 28:7 – “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways”
Psalm 37: 12-16 – “The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked.”
The self is one of our many enemies. We must fight daily against its weakness, insufficiency, and selfishness. The self must be brought under subjection.
The self is primarily manifested in the flesh, so when we war against ourselves, we fight mainly against our flesh.
Secondarily, we fight against the weakness of the mind. Because any glitch we have in the mind will manifest itself in the body. The body is merely a messenger for our thoughts and a vessel that represents the cumulative results of our mind’s work.
Therefore, even though we mainly wrestle against flesh and blood, the war must begin in the mind. Once the mind is under control, then the body can be brought under control.
We make the mistake of assuming that the enemy is primarily in the outside world while an enemy is already living within us as a parasite. Many temptations come from within our minds (James 1:14-15). The primary enemy is within.
We can never defeat an enemy outside the walls of our minds while simultaneously fighting treachery inside our minds. The internal war is won before the external war is won. We must focus on the enemy that is our own self, then we may conquer the world.
Application
The mind is odd in that it can be defeated by itself. Two opposing forces can collide in the recesses of our minds, originating from our thoughts. The victor is the one who is fed the most thoughts. The thought held the longest in the mind is the one that will win and take root in the mind.
Therefore, we must encourage the correct thoughts, because the thoughts that win will be the thoughts that become our life. It is even established in the scientific fields that we have extreme difficulty forcing throughs out of our minds and not allowing them to bubble up. But we also know that evil thoughts can be crowded out by consciously inserting good thoughts.
Practical tactic: Choose the thoughts you want to have in advance and when unwanted thoughts begin to bubble up, replace them with the thoughts you want. Force negativity out of your mind by filling it with positivity.
When the mind is won, war can be waged in the body. The body of man is primarily overrun with lusts of all kinds. Sex consumes the vast majority of man’s thoughts and personal cravings. He also lusts for power and money, but primarily because these tend to bring even more sex to the one who holds them.
Skills and status are also objects of lust.
The lust for sex is the primary driver of man.
All invention, creation, and construction are the results of sexual energy. This energy must be harnessed and controlled because there are very few ways to use it properly.
Men spill their seed using porn or prostitutes when they could instead use that energy to create. You should avoid confronting this lust head-on. Try instead to redirect it to other outlets.
If you war against the lust of the flesh to repress it, it will find a way to force an outlet because it is too powerful of an energy source to be contained.
Redirect the strength of the enemy into anything that will gain more power for yourself. This is how you defeat the flesh. Everything can be viewed in terms of sex, because as men, this is our greatest battle, and this battle pervades all other spiritual battles we face.
Few make it out alive because they try to war against their own biology. Men use dams to redirect the power of a river, you must use strategically placed dams to redirect your own sexual power into constructive and creative endeavors.
This requires leaving the house and building success using the power of the enemy against him. This can be done. If this war is won, all other wars can be won. Place armor on your mind. Gather your thoughts on the task at hand. Wage total war on yourself and unleash your raging fury upon your imperfections.
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