In life here on earth, success is often the result of knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent; in sports, in business, etc. As a result, the mental struggle we go through is wearing and puts us in a constant state of stress. Well, it should come as no surprise that all of that results from the spiritual stuggle we enter into every morning when we wake up. And he biggest problem we often encounter is that we don’t really know who our enemy is, which causes us to focus our efforts in the wrong direction.

We have been delivered from sin but, unfortunately, we have not been delivered from our human nature. And it is there that we hold onto things like our personal prejudices that need to be eliminated. Our problem is that, in our best human efforts, we focus our energy on trying to overcome them. What we forget, in the process, is that there are some things we are not to fight in the flesh and one of them is “sin.” In that arena we are to stand still. We need to learn to draw upon God’s power and not rely on our own, which will always be weak, insufficient and ineffective.

Ex 14:13 And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.

And the secret to that is to remember that our fight, our battle, our warfare is not against sin. We can not allow ourselves to be consumed with the sin that besets us because Jesus has already dealt with sin on the cross. Our warfare is to be concerned with something altogether different. We are in a war to turn our natual life into a spiritual life, the life that resides within each member of the bride.

2 Cor 10:3-6 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. 

And winning those battles is never easily accomplished. It is done by making one moral decision at a time, decisions that are always against our natural desires. And those decisions have to be made with the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit, which will not come if we are focused on the issue of sin. We need to allow Him to tear down those barriers that the enemy sets in our path that keep us from standing on the knowledge of God, the knowledge that fills His Word and empowers us to demolish those barriers.

And how do we do that? It’s hard for us but it is so simple!

Through our relationship with the Holy Spirit and being obedient to His leading. That is the transformation of our character that only He can accomplish. Our part is to ask, seek and knock, and then be obedient to allow Him to accomplish the transformation. But that will never happen if we forget that Jesus has already overcome the sin the enemy wants us to focus on. We need to take every thought into captavity to the obedience of Christ and when we do, we will see that our obedience is fulfilled. Our sins have been overcome and cannot hold sway against us because Jesus has already dealt with them. Our requirement is to take every thought that the enemy throws at us in an attempt to get us to change our focus from the spiritual to the natural into captivity and cast it down. And we accomplish that by keeping our focus on the road ahead… walking out the sanctification we have already been given, being transformed into the image of Jesus along the way. And to do that we have to know our enemy and the tactics he uses to keep us focused on the sin that has already been dealt with. Those are the strongholds that the Holy Spirit will reveal to us and lead us out of… if we will allow Him!

How do we destroy those things in our human nature that hold us back? By ignoring them and trusting and allowing the Holy Spirit to keep our focus where it needs to be so that He can deal with them. He is the only One who can transform us from the inside out.

Easy to say, hard to do without a daily commitment!