There is a battle going on in the spiritual realm for supremacy over humanity. The forces of good and evil are arrayed against one another for the salvation or destruction of humankind.
On the one side we have God Almighty, Jesus Christ and the forces for good who want us to find freedom and to live with them into eternity. On the other side are the devil and his demonic forces looking for every opportunity to bring us into slavery and imprison our minds.
The battleground
This spiritual war is being fought in the hearts and minds of people everywhere. We are born into sin, imprisoned by the evils of this world, and the battleground on which this war is being fought is within our minds.
This is not a physical war, it is spiritual, and if we are to have the victory we must learn how to fight in the spirit.
God has provided us with many weapons of spiritual warfare to be able to fight and win this war. Our job is to learn what they are and how to use them if we are to break free from the prisons of our own minds.
Why is the mind a prison?
We are limited in everything we do by the constraints of our minds.
Sin in particular confines us under chains of condemnation and guilt. Many people believe that they are not good enough to be Christians, or that God could never forgive their particular sins, or they walk away from Christ because of shame. Many also suffer from the weaknesses and passions of the flesh that they cannot seem to control, causing them to fall repeatedly.
Many of these issues are in the mind. They imprison people so that they cannot see the truth of Jesus Christ and break free of the shackles of this world.
While we remain in this prison of the mind, we will never break free.
When Israel was set free
You may recall from the Bible when Moses was sent by God to Pharaoh telling him to, "Set my people free!" It has been the subject of many sermons, as well as children's Bible stories, cartoons, and films.
After many signs from God and much suffering, the Egyptian Pharaoh let Israel leave Egypt. The Israelites, even though they finally left, were still considered slaves and Pharaoh sent his armies to bring them back by force.
At the shore of the Red Sea the Israelites were cornered and without an escape route. But God, who can do anything, opened the Red Sea and the Israelites crossed as if on dry land. When the Egyptians tried to follow, they became bogged, and God closed the sea over them, drowning all the armies and closing the way behind them.
They became truly set free, no longer needing to run or hide from anyone. They entered the waters of the Red Sea as slaves, and exited as a free people on the other side when all their slave masters were killed.
This series of events is an allegory for us today.
Christ is the key
Christ came to set you free, just as God set the Israelites free.
They were enslaved to Egypt, but we are enslaved to sin and the passions of the flesh. The Israelites suffered a physical prison of slavery, but today, Christians suffer a spiritual slavery of the mind and are imprisoned by the sin and passion in our nature.
But Christ came to set us free as we are told in the scripture:
Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." (John chapter 8, verses 31-32)
The freedom Jesus offers in the knowledge of the truth is not a physical freedom. It is a spiritual freedom where we put to death the passions of the flesh and where sin is taken away. Where there is no sin, there is no guilt or condemnation.
If these things are taken away, then we find the peace of Christ rest upon us. The prison doors of the mind are flung open, smashed off their hinges by the truth of Christ Jesus and we fly free in the hope of salvation that comes only through the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Spiritual warfare
As much as we would like that to be the end of this war in the spirit, it is not. The spiritual war continues to rage around us, and we must stand firm in the freedom from Jesus Christ lest we be taken captive once again.
If we let down our defences and allow the devil to convict, condemn, or cause us to doubt, then we may be lost. But when we learn to recognise his attacks and learn to use the weapons of spiritual warfare, we also learn to defend ourselves and fight back.
To learn how to fight this spiritual war, as there is too much to try and describe here, you will find more information and a free training course on my freegiftfromgod.com website.
Republished from Christian Today UK.
