Just a Thought "83"

Ephesians 6:17 (B) In addition to believing it and thinking it, the Word of God is the only offensive weapon mentioned in the list of armor.  Satan and his forces are created beings, and they do not perfectly know what you are thinking. By observing you they can pretty well tell what you are thinking, but they do not know what you are going to do before you do it.

Satan and his forces can try to influence you by planting thoughts in your head, and they will now whether you buy their lie by how you behave. If you are going to resist Satan and his forces, you must do so outwardly so they can understand you and be put to flight. We are defend ourselves against Satan and his forces by speaking aloud God’s truth.

You can not expect God to protect you from Satan and his forces influences if you do not take an active part in his prepared strategy. The armor that we must take up to protect ourselves from Satan and his forces attack: the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The first three are established because of our identity in Christ, the last three help us continue to win the battle.

Philippians 4:8 - No body loses control to Satan and his forces overnight, it is a gradual process of deception and yielding to their subtle influence. Many of the body of Christ, instead of recognizing that their minds are being peppered by the fiery darts of the enemy, they think the problem is their own fault. “If those foul thoughts are mine, what kind of person am I?” they wonder. So they end up condemning themselves while the enemy continues their attack unchecked. They will watch us to learn where we are most vulnerable and will tempt us in any area that we leave unguarded.

They tempt us through the channel of the lust of the flesh, they will invite us to fulfill our physical needs in ways that are outside the boundary of God’s will for us. Whenever we feel enticed to meet a legitimate physical need by acting independently of God, we are being tempted though the lust of the flesh.

The lust of the eyes subtly draws us away from God and eats away at our confidence in God. We see what the world has to offer and we begin to place more credence in our own perspective of life. Fueled by the lust for what we see, we grab for all we can get, believing that we need it and deceived that God wants us to have it. Wrongly assuming that God will withhold nothing good from us, we lustfully claim prosperity.

The temptation of the pride of life is intended to destroy our obedience to our ministry of reconciliation by urging us to take charge of our own lives. Whenever we feel that, we do not need God’s help or direction, that we can handle our life, that is the pride of life. Every temptation that Satan and his forces throw at us will challenge one or more of these values.

Every temptation is first a thought introduced to our mind by our own carnality or the tempters themselves. If we ruminate on that thought and consider it an option, we will eventually act on it. Instead, Paul instructs us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Escaping temptation is to apprehend every thought as soon as it steps through the doorway of our mind. Once we have halted a penetration thought, we need to evaluate it on the basis of Paul’s criterion for what we should think about.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 - The first thing we need to know about the battle for our mind, is that the main targets which must be destroyed are the fortresses in our mind, or called strongholds. Strongholds are negative patters of thought which are burned into our minds, either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing.

We must capture the tempting thought in the first frame or it will probably capture us. Once our consideration of a temptation has triggered an emotional response, we will act upon that choice and own that behavior. We may resent our actions or claim that we are not responsible for what we do, but we are responsible for our actions at this stage, because we failed to take a tempting thought captive when it first appeared at the threshold of our mind.

If we continue to repeat an act for more than six weeks, we will form a habit, and if we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent, and negative thoughts and actions we cannot control, spring from a stronghold. Simply putting on the armor of God at this stage will not solve our dilemma, these strongholds are already entrenched and fortified.

If the strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning, then we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind. Anything that has been learned, can be unlearned, but we are also up against Satan and his devil spirits who are scheming to fill our mind with thoughts which are opposed to our ambassadorship. 

Just a Thought "82"

Ephesians 6:15 - The shoes of peace become protection against the divisive schemes of Satan and his forces when we act as a peacemaker among believers, but we should not try to rationalize or explain the believer’s behavior, forgiveness deals with our pain, not another’s behavior.

We put on the shoes of peace, because we are to forgive as we have been forgiven, and we must base our relationships with others on the same criteria. If we fail to speak the truth in love and manage our emotions, anger which turns to bitterness and unforgiveness is an open invitation to Satan and his forces.

Instead of insisting on the unity of the mind, we need to preserve the unity by taking the initiative to be the peacemaker in our relationships. Bitterness and unforgiveness toward other believers is the most widespread stronghold that Satan and his forces enjoy, and if we do not let offenders off our hook, we are hooked to them.

Relationally, forgiveness is crucial to our maturity, it is the glue that holds the body of Christ together. Satan and his forces use unforgiveness more than any other human deficiency to stop our growth and our ministry of reconciliation, because the unforgiving believer is yoked to the past or to a person and is not free.

Ephesians 6:16 - When our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for Satan and his forces to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Satan and his forces are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas. The main targets which must be destroyed, are the strongholds. Strongholds are negative patterns of thought, which are burned into our minds either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences.

That is why Paul insists that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning. Satan and his forces have no power over us except what we give them by failing to take every thought captive and thus being deceived into believing their lies. If Satan and his forces can get us to believe a lie, they can control our life.

Since Satan and his forces primary weapon is the lie, our defense against them is the truth. Dealing with Satan and his forces is not a power encounter; it is a truth encounter. Satan and his forces know just what buttons to push to tempt us. They have observed our behavior over the years and they know where we are vulnerable, and that is where they will attack.

The important process of renewing our mind includes managing our emotions by managing our thoughts and perceptions. Satan and his forces are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt and worry in our direction, but the only time they can hit us is when we let our shield of faith down.

A shield deflects; it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack. When we allow doubt to creep in, an actively raised shield of faith prevents this otherwise inhibiting fatigue, so the shield is the first line of defense, the enemy has to get past the shield first.

Ephesians 6:17 (A) The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that their blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ. This helmet covers our mind, intellect or reasoning. The two dangerous edges of Satan and his forces broadsword are discouragement and doubt.

We can become vulnerable to Satan and his forces deception in this area if we fail to daily put on this helmet of salvation. They are committed to fouling up our life through their deception that nothing really happened when we were born anew. They may disrupt our daily victory, but they can do nothing to disrupt our new identity in Christ.

The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against Satan and his forces, are those who have been placed into Christ. Putting this helmet on daily is important, because God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation, to tell the world God is not imputing their trespasses unto them; so we see the world still thinks he is.

Just a Thought "81"

Romans 8:14 - “as many as are led” is the Greek present tense, it is a tense of continual action. It is not something that takes place occasionally. It is not something that takes place at various times in our lives, or something that may have taken place at a time or two in the past.

God through his energizing power from on high is leading believers whether or not the ones being led choose to follow that leading. You see, the tendency of most believers is to wait for a major crisis to rear its ugly head and then they begin to seek out God leading through his energizing power from on high.

God leading through his energizing power from on high is comprehensive. It is there for all believers. It is not contingent upon our following. When things are running smoothly, we can pretty much handle things on our own, make our own decisions. We wait till crisis time, until we are frustrated or at the end of our proverbial rope and then we look for God leading through his energizing power from on high to fix things for us.

That is how Christianity so-called looks at it. That is how most of us look at it. We think about God leading through his energizing power from on high as if that leading was made available for us to access only at crisis time, but the fact is God leading through his energizing power from on high is constant. It is ever present and continually accessible. It is available to us every minute of every day of our lives. It is even available to us when there are no decisions to make.

Ephesians 6:10-14 (A) When we put on the armor of God we are really putting on Christ, and when we put on Christ, we take ourselves out of the realm of the flesh, where we are vulnerable to attack, it is not wise for us to live on Satan and his forces level. Since their primary weapon is the lie, our belt of truth is continually being attacked.

We are more vulnerable to Satan and his forces deception than to any of their other schemes, because when they tempt us or accuse us, we can recognize it, but when they deceive us, we do not always know it, that is their strategy, to keep us in the dark. If they can disable us in the area of truth, we become an easy target for their other attacks.

We cannot expose their deception by human reasoning; we can only do it by the light of the truth, it is the only valid piece of the armor against the darkness of deception. It is critical that when we put on the armor of God, we start with the belt of truth. If Satan and his forces can deceive us into believing a lie, they can control our life in that area. God’s protection is that our role is not passive, God requires us to be active participants in the defense that he has provided for us.

Ephesians 6:10-14 (B) It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusations of Satan and his forces, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another. The insidious reality of Satan and his forces relentless assault of deception on our mind can keep us from experiencing maturity and freedom, because our past has shaped our present belief system and will determine our future unless it is dealt with.

Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns. Many people that are of the body of Christ have obsessive-compulsive behaviors because of this relentless battle for their minds, and the battle for our mind can only be won as we personally choose truth.

Those who put on the breastplate of righteousness know that we have peace with God, for a person to have to make their own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. We could not make peace with God, to say that anyone could make peace with God, would be to limit God to his mercy, because grace is the foundation on which Paul’s entire ministry was built. There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished.  

Just a Thought "80"

1 Corinthians 3:10 - Romans is the doctrinal foundation upon which believers are to be established in the age of grace. Truth designed to give us stability, is truth designed to give us security. God did not intend that believers be insecure, so the security doctrines come first in God’s building process for his grace-age saints. God stabilizes us in the book of Romans.

Only when we come to see ourselves as God sees us and are able to fully appreciate and understand who God has already made us to be and who he has made us to be in Christ, can we become in our behavior what he wants us to be in that aspect of our lives. When a believer’s behavior is consistently inconsistent with what that believer professes to believe, the answer lies in a failure to fully appreciate one or more aspects of the foundational truths in this blueprint in the book of Romans.

If we understand the foundational concept as we see it presented by Paul here in the book of Romans, that will go a long way in our understanding ourselves and others appropriately. An insecure foundation will always show stress factorization somewhere along the line.

Sound doctrine is the means by which God transforms the thinking of those engaged in the study of his Word rightly divided. As we understand what God accomplished for us, and build upon that foundation the truths of who he has made us to be by placing us into his son, we begin to view ourselves as God views us, and there is great security to be found in doing so.

Romans 3:24 - What made Adam’s sin such a catastrophic loss for the human race is heightened by the fact that people are unable to do anything to alter their sinful condition. Human wisdom, human reasoning would say, “Give us a law. Give us some way to perform. Give us a few balls of our own to hit, so that we might earn back what we lost through Adam.”

God would have to do for the human race, what the human race was totally incapable of doing for themselves. God would of necessity have to credit the righteous faithfulness of someone else to the account of hopeless and helpless human race.

The human race was given a Redeemer and the price the Redeemer paid through the shedding of his blood to ransom the human race was a satisfactory payment to take those sins off the table of God’s justice forever! However, the fact that Jesus Christ became a Redeemer of ALL the human race, does not mean that ALL the human race will accept the gift the Redeemer purchased on their behalf.

To be justified, does not mean to BE perfectly righteous in performance. It also does not mean to become perfectly righteous or even MORE righteous in performance through time, it means having Christ’s perfect righteousness freely credited to the account of the ungodly who believe.

Christ’s faithfulness was the only faithfulness sufficient to merit God’s favor. God used our faith in Christ’s faithfulness as the means whereby he would credit Christ’s righteousness to our account.

Romans 5:8 - So, it is not a question of getting new forgiveness for new sin, we had to have someone take care of that sin issue for us and thank God that he had his son take care of that issue for us; God’s son taking ALL the sins of the human race upon himself and satisfying the Father’s righteous demand for justice for those sins.

Sin, or coming short of the measure of who God is, is that which stood in the way, or stood between God and the human race. Christ’s blood dripping on God’s Ark of the Covenant (The Ark Moses was instructed to build) was sufficient to satisfy God’s righteous demand for justice.

God’s attitude towards a believer does not fluctuate in response to action, it is not condition on a believer’s behavior. Paul is telling here at the very outset of Romans chapter 5, that being justified results in an unchanging attitude of peace with God for every believer.

The avenue of our faith in Christ’s faithful performance on our behalf, rather than peace based upon our performance, results in an unchanging attitude of peace with God for every believer. We now have available for the enjoyment of our everyday experience an everlasting peaceful relationship with God!

Just a Thought "79"

Colossians 3:2 - The natural tendency of the flesh is to set our affection on the things of the earth and the things of the flesh and allow those things to rule our mind. We are not to hold the things on the earth so near and dear so as to rule our minds. Paul’s desire is that we refocus our minds, renewing of our minds day by day.

Paul would not have us be defeated believers, depression is Satan’s weapon to defeat us. Depression is a rush of negative attitude that results from a vacuum of joy. Joy is the opposite of negative attitude. Depression is negative attitude based on fleshly happenstance in the absence of hope. Is the primary focus of your mind on the circumstances at hand in your life?

When it comes to a mind set of joy, Paul takes us to a re-direction of thought and its up to each of us individually. It is our responsibility to focus our own minds appropriately and according to Paul its a redirection of thought based upon the accomplishments of Christ. The cause of depression is almost always related to fleshly circumstance, people, things and worry over those three.

Galatians 4:21 - Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior? Would more righteousness be needed than the Savior’s righteousness, when it comes to the human race? Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed, or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need?

The lunacy of desiring to be under the law was in the fact that the Galatians actually thought they could perform the law in a manner that would make them more righteous before God. They were trying to perfect their righteousness, to cap off the righteousness they have in God’s sight. They thought they could enhance their righteousness through their performance, through their rule-keeping, and they were using the law.

God used the faithfulness OF his son and the faith of the Galatians in his son’s faithfulness to have resolved God’s justice for their sins as the criterion. If our only righteousness in the sight of God comes through our union with his perfectly righteous son, is it not idiotic thinking to suppose that our righteous works can ENHANCE the righteousness that belongs to Christ, to whom we have been joined? The Galatians were not falling back into sinful practice, they were falling back into law practice. They were falling back into the mindset that their righteousness before God was tied to their performance.

Philippians 3:2-3 - Paul warned to guard against those who would promote a righteousness through performance idea. Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision.

Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul is simply drawing a contrast between those who were relying upon ritual for righteousness and those who place no confidence whatsoever in their flesh for a right standing before God.

Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual here was circumcision. 

Just a Thought "78"

Romans 5:9-10 - “much more” The goal of the apostle Paul is to establish us and every believer in the knowledge of our sanctified standing before God, our being in his son. These are “much more” security doctrinal passages that we find in this section of Romans, you will see Paul using that term over and over again.

Justification and Sanctification are “much more” assurance doctrines that Paul is giving us as to the security that we as believers have being placed into Christ. Paul wants to establish our minds in the “much more” assurance that we have, so we can have that stability of mind and stability of emotions.

This is security. This is who we are in Christ, we can not lose it. So, this is a “much more” doctrine when it comes to the establishment of the mind of the believer and the truth of their secure identity in Christ. You see, God could only grant a gift decree of the very righteousness of Christ to those God would be joining to his son, Jesus Christ. This is why our faith in Christ’s faithful sacrifice is essential.

Romans 6:19-21 - “to iniquity unto iniquity” The general principle works across the board. One pleasurable  indulgence, leads to another pleasurable indulgence. One serving of self, leads to another serving of self. Words spoken in haste, lead to other words spoken in haste, harmful words, to further harmful words. One sin leads to another sin, to iniquity unto iniquity.

Paul is exhorting us, as believers to bring our conduct in line with our identity in Christ. The believer makes the choice of who they will obey and you are a slave no matter what you choose. We serve the sin nature rather than our Savior, as we serve self rather than the Body of Saints to whom we are as equally and intimately joined, as we are joined to our Savior.

We were free from imputed righteousness before we trusted Christ as our Savior. You see, it is one thing to be righteous in the eyes of the world, many people have that kind of righteousness, but Scripture clearly distinguishes between the righteousness that people attempt to produce in themselves and that type of righteousness that is credited to a person’s account called imputed righteousness.

Human righteousness comes from self-interest-motivation, it is self-glorifying and unbelievers are under no obligation to serve righteousness. It should not surprise us to see what we see now and what we will be seeing in an increasing manner as time goes on in the world today. The unsaved world is simply serving the master they are under.

Philippians 4:9 - Paul was no stranger to adversity, to calamity, to distress, to stress, for that matter, everywhere he went, they were right under his heels. Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today, because Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ.

How did Paul face adversity? Paul assessed the situation, he made statements such as, “I have learned” and “I reckon,” he reasoned things through. We are to access our situation. Why would we need to reason out the source of the problem? There are avoidable suffering circumstances and there are unavoidable suffering circumstances that come our way.

Avoidable suffering has to do with the choices we make in our lives. When we sow an inappropriate choice, we can count on the fact that sooner or later, we are going to be faced with an unfortunate circumstance. Many problems come our way simply because of our insistence upon having our way. How many problems would disappear if we could all conduct ourselves in a more Christ-like manner when it comes to the sacrifice of self in preferring others over self?

Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today. Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation. Satan had for more reason to give it his all when it came to Paul. 

Just a Thought "77"

Romans 7:24 - “O wretched man that I am” do you suppose Paul would want us to believe that we can produce through our fleshly efforts, what Israel was totally incapable of producing through their fleshly efforts, or for that matter, what Paul knew that he could never produce through his fleshly efforts even after his conversion. Paul never used the word fruit in connection with any believer as being the product OF that believer.

You can set yourselves apart all you like behaviorally, you can start any number of things and cease doing any number of things in order to gain holiness before God, but you will do no better at reaching that goal then the foolish Galatians, who were themselves flirting with the idea of progressive sanctification.

Paul did not praise them for their gallant efforts to become more holy people through fleshly production, he gave them a name, he called them foolish people! We can do great wonders when it comes to relative righteousness, but measuring up to God’s standard of righteousness, none of us will ever do so apart from God decreeing that to be so.

“Look at where I was, look at where I am now,” that is famous among many groups that are meeting today, and they have to have a testimony by a person showing the other people there where they were and how far they have progressed. The capacity of the human race to EARN the measure of righteousness that belongs to God is “Zilch.”

Romans 2:3 - Arrogance! It is such a shame that so many people today are trusting in their goodness to get them to heaven. God is going to see you as having no need of the saving work of his son. The human race is guilty before God! God has decreed it! NO excuse will suffice to pardon it. Paul wants us to understand that there is no refuge in human goodness.

When we put our human hearts under the microscope of God’s truthful judgment, we are going to find out that we need much more than human righteousness to have a perfectly just standing before God. We need a Savior and Jesus Christ is that Savior! They have the responsibility of making a decision. I will believe it or I will reject it. God’s given them that choice; love does not force itself.

According to Romans chapter one, God’s attitude toward ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness of the human race is being revealed in scripture. The guilty verdict that God has just declared upon the human race, do you think that you are going to escape that guilty verdict. Do you think for one moment that God is going to give you a non-wrath-worthy pass; that Christ needn’t have died for your sins; that your sins are of such a non-serious nature that you have no need of a Savior in the first place?

The first characteristic of a self-righteous moralizer is Arrogance. Here is a person who is looking down their nose at someone else, yet they are doing the very same things in another form! It is a Son issue today, not a sin issue! There are many who will spend an eternity apart from Christ, because they refuse to accept what Christ accomplished on their behalf.

2 Corinthians 5:17 - Paul is not talking about a believer gaining sinless perfection at the point of their belief or at any other time for that matter. When Paul talks about “a new creature” he is not talking about sin in an individual’s life, he is talking about all that we once were in Adam, prior to salvation.

The issue for life everlasting is not what church you attend or to which denomination you belong or how religious you are, or even whether or not you are a good person in the worldly sense of the word “good.” The issue in eternity will be to which man are you related? Romans 5:19 is about identity, contrasting two men; Romans is really the story of two men and the people who are related to these two men.

Do you have your identity in the first Adam, or do you have your identity in the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Once saved, we are no longer in Adam, at the very point of our believe we are that instant “in Christ.” In God’s eyes we are no longer who we once were, we are now the new creation, having been forever joined to our Savior.