Our struggles living on this earth are against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world. The realm of the spirit is the unseen world. We cannot see them, but they can see us. So our fight is with the mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. They are all in the unseen world of the spirit realm.
The unseen demonic spirits come against us primarily through our minds. The demonic spirits bombard our minds with knowledge through what we see and hear. They seek to oppress our minds with negative narratives.
Therefore, our greatest defence against the devil is to guard our thoughts with God’s Word and to be a doer of God’s Word.
RENEWING OF OUR MINDS
We guard our minds, firstly, by renewing our minds with God’s Word.
As we renew our minds with God’s Word – the Word of Truth – when negative thinking from the devil comes, our minds will reject them.
The mind has the Word of Truth to compare with the negative narratives the devil brings and readily rejects them.
However, if we do not have the Word of Truth in our minds, what is false will persuade us to be true. This is what it means by deception. We have been persuaded that what is false is true.
Our spirit is created new, a new creation. The old spirit man has passed away.
But our mind has to be renewed. It was not created new on the day we were born again.
We all have the world’s thinking, and many believers have wrong teachings embedded in their minds.
So, we need to renew our minds with God’s Word, which is God’s truth. When we renew our minds with God’s Word, any thinking of the devil will be judged by our correct thinking because of God’s truth. And our minds renewed with the truth of God’s Word will repel all the devil’s lies.
Our mind is the battlefield. The devil fights us in our minds with his thinking.
We must renew our minds and think away from the devil’s thoughts. We pull our thoughts away from the devil’s thoughts.
With God’s Word and truth in our spirit and renewed minds, we can conscientiously pull our minds away from thinking the devil’s thoughts. Our spirit influences and brings our minds away from the devil’s thoughts.
John 1:1 (NKJV)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Word was God, and the Word is still God. God and the Word are One. When we read and hear the Word, God is speaking to us.
1 John 1:5 (NKJV)
This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
Since God is light, and God is the Word, then the Word is light.
When we renew our minds with God’s Word, we flood our minds with the light. The devil’s thoughts are darkness and evil.
But as he brings his thoughts into our minds, the light of God’s Word will dispel them. Light dispels darkness. This is true with natural light and darkness; it is also true spiritually.
Hence, with our minds renewed with God’s Word, they will be full of light, and darkness cannot abide. Our minds will distinguish and reject darkness.
There are two ways we do the Father’s Word:
a. We do the Father’s Word written in the Bible.
b. We do what He instructs us to do.
We renew our minds to think the way the Father thinks, and we will agree with the way He thinks and His ways of doing things.
We would not be easily deceived if we renew our minds and do God’s Word.
We not only have to hear and receive the Word, but we also have to act on it before it will do us any good.
Believers themselves have to do something about the saving of their own souls. As they undergird their souls with the Word, Satan will not have an open door of access to them.
The major way believers close the door to the devil is to renew their minds with the Word and by practising it.
Suppose believers never learn to renew their minds and keep thinking like they did before they were redeemed under Satan’s dominion. In that case, they will eventually act according to their unredeemed thinking. Soon, the devil will dominate them instead of standing in his authority against him.
Christians who have failed to renew their minds forfeit the privilege to enter into all that belongs to them in Christ while they are here on earth.
And even though they have victory over the devil in Christ, they never understand how to stand in that victory successfully because of an unrenewed mind.
Our thinking is also transformed when our minds are renewed with the Word. When our thinking is transformed, our acting is transformed.
WRONG THINKING OPENS THE DOOR TO THE DEVIL
Have you ever noticed that one reason people get depressed is that they think wrong thoughts?
Thinking wrong thoughts can give evil spirits access to the realm of their souls. For example, sometimes believers think about the past and how So-and-so treated them. They then get depressed.
The devil tries to help them to get depressed by bringing oppression against them.
But believers can get depressed simply by allowing themselves to think of wrong thoughts. That gives Satan something to work with, and it gives him access to their minds.
Satan operates in the realm of the five senses by using wrong suggestions, thoughts, and feelings to influence people to do wrong.
Ephesians 4:27 NKJV
nor give place to the devil.
Thoughts of guilt, condemnation, worry, and anxiety are the devil’s thoughts, and he will accommodate believers to think on the negative side of life.
Therefore, renew our minds with God’s Word.