In 1 John 5-7 John makes this statement. "This is the message we have heard from God and we're telling it to you. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we are sharing a common interest with Him and are walking in darkness, we are lying, because we are ignorant of the truth. However; if we walk in the light as God is in the light, we can have fellowship with one another and the blood that Jesus Christ shed at the cross cleanses us from having a sin conscience mentality."

In John 3:18-21 he also said this "He who believes on Jesus; by (staying committed to His care) and also putting their total trust in Him is not judged or never comes up for judgment. For him there is no rejection, condemnation or guilt and he incurs no eternal punishment. However, for him who is not committed and trusting in Him, he is judged already and has already received his sentence because, he has not trusted in the only begotten Son of God. He is condemned or guilty for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ's name alone.

Now the basis of this judgment by which men are judged lies in this statement. The Light, Jesus Christ has come into the world. However, people loved the darkness and will not come into the Light because; their motives and deeds will be exposed because they are evil. "For every wrongdoer has an intense dislike of having their deeds exposed because, of their evil thinking, motives and the works of their heart.

However, when we walk in the light, the Holy Spirit will expose these motives and the Lord will discipline us. When we practice truth, do what's right, and allow our attitudes and motives to be seen by God for what they are. This will make us able to become obedient and changed with God's help into the person God always intended us to be."

This word for light in the Greek is phemi: It means to show or make known ones thoughts. The word loved the darkness is defined as a sensual addiction to pleasure contrary to what God intended for the people He created. Christ came out of heaven to become a human being to die on the cross so that; we could be delivered from this idea of living in denial and in darkness. When we live like this; we have become a rogue or a naughty child. When ones heart is evil; scripture says; a person has deteriorated to an inferior, diseased or degraded human being; who has become a prisoner to their own desires and they need a deliverance to be set free to participate in the blessings of God.

This addiction can also exist in a born again child of God as well as the people who do not know Christ. This condition becomes a stronghold that hinders their ability to interact with the Holy Ghost. Can somebody tell me why anyone in their right mind would want to be addicted and be a prisoner to this kind of life style? Some of the conditions that I have had a chance to observe and minister to were people that were so talented and did not start out wanting to live like this. However, because of their dysfunctional background, lack of a father's love and being deceived through faulty thinking, they needed a soul healing inside as bad as some people need a miracle by God to heal their physical body.

The first and greatest love gift that God ever gave to His creation was His son Jesus who sacrificed Himself on a cross in one of the most grotesque deaths ever perpetrated by man.

Jesus actually suffocated to death as He hung there on the cross for the entire world to see. When people get a Holy Spirit revelation in their souls of this act of love by Him; it will change their destiny.

Jesus dying for mankind to restore a broken relationship with them because of Adams sin; has been preached I believe in every form and planned endeavor imaginable. I personally believe from my own experience that, if one has made a personal commitment to Christ and has become this new creature that is talked about in 11Cor 5:17 and knows that the Holy Spirit is living inside them, then I ask the question, why; are their so many Christians living in this soulish human condition of evil that we have just defined? I personally believe that; they are not being taught correctly the love of God and they have unresolved issues against God because of the many hurts and disappointments they have had in their life.

Paul the Apostle states that before he met Christ he thought up ways to do evil and ran with the pack of others who did the same. However, when he became a Christian; he put away those thoughts to do evil and his childish ways and decided to run the race for the life that, God had always planned for him.
Scripture tells us that we were spiritually adopted into God's family the moment God planted His DNA in us when we accepted Jesus into our heart. We now have the spiritual ears for the Holy Spirit to talk to us and mature us by accepting the advice of the Lord and not be deceived by the doctrines of men. The body of Christ is so fragmented and incomplete with (spot and wrinkles in their own minds) that, unless God rears up His children who have become totally sold out to Him, there will be too many of His kids limping their way into heaven. I am learning to be faithful in the things that the Holy Spirit wants me to do in my own daily travels.

When we live with half heartedness, we have no power to live the Christian life and we deceive ourselves. I hear from many people, "don't make a big issue of seeking God, it will all work out. Who knows when Jesus will return, maybe never? I have things to do in my life, I don't have time to pray or seek the Lord all the time. I‘m a good person, why do we have to talk about God every day? You need to relax and have some fun in your life. Sunday is for seeking God the rest of the week I must try to survive and work to pay my bills. Your problem is you are too serious about the commitment that you've made to God.

Well I'm saved now and I can now go and do my thing. I can stay a child in my understanding of this new life that Jesus gave me. I've known God for years and I can make it on my own, It's not important to really look in to this idea of why somebody would die so horribly for me when I don't even know the person. I think I will do something to feel better, I'm not happy enough. Maybe if I snort some cocaine and get high then I won't have to deal with some of these fears and lack of fulfillment in my life. What I really need is some sexual fulfillment. You know I have physical needs that have to be met, this is normal."

Therefore, it ends up with a relationship that is a temporary fix and we find out that; it doesn't satisfy for long. Once addicted to evil, these life styles never come to an end. Addictions to the lust of the flesh never get totally fulfilled and these cravings grow day after day. This type of soul sickness gets worse and worse and can become bondage in ones life. I can understand people from all lifestyles that haven't had an experience of knowing that, Jesus is the Son of God and a living Savior that they can have a relationship with. Somewhere along the experiences of growing, we forgot or never really knew that believing in Jesus and being committed and trusting in Him was not a one-time deal. What is it going to take before we come to realize that, we are being manipulated by demonic forces that want God's kids and the world to waste the precious life that God gave them on; temporary soulish pleasures that have no value for our eternal Godly relationship. When Christ in not first in your life; there is no order and life has no meaning.

I'm sitting here realizing as I have many times in my Christian life that, some born again believers will never come to grips and get in touch with the fact that, being a Christian means, you have to be a soldier in the army of Christ and be doing battle in spiritual places with demonic forces. For me as I think back over the years with just having a desire to help people and trying to be a person who wanted to stand in the gap for God that; there hardly was a day that I didn't have some adventurous interacting with God and people that God allowed to come across my path.

Just recently over the last two months I ran into a young couple that has three beautiful alert children all under seven and one on the way. Now these are born again people. Young husband on drugs and physically abusing his wife and at the present time in jail serving time for beating his wife. Give you another example just happened today. I talked to an elderly woman living with her husband and him being on disability social security, only receiving eleven hundred dollars a month. House paid for and giving it to their daughter who is married to a man who is not working. He has kids from a prior marriage who were sexually molested. This woman told me she has to help her daughter so they have a place to live so they can get on their feet.

I recently attended a bible study with a group of people who God allowed to cross my path. They were born again believers who had no awareness of how much God loved them. One couple living out of wedlock and her being pregnant and he just finished a ten-year sentence for selling drugs and is playing around with other women. Let alone the bondage in the man of anger and resentment dominating his life. In reality, he is addicted to a spirit of murder. I could write another hundred pages of one encounter after another of people who are born again believers that have no concept of living in a world of spiritual forces that are at work to destroy and maim every thing that God created for His glory.

I believe with no reservation that, the body of Christ (God's kids) have got to get serious in their relationship with their Heavenly Father and learn how the kingdom of God operates in their lives. Unless this takes place, Christ body will be a bunch of vagabonds wandering in the wilderness and never getting in touch with what's real as far as God is concerned.

11Cor. 10:3-5 Paul the Apostle states, "even though we live and walk in a fleshly body, we are not to carry on warfare according to our own human intellect and reasoning. For us who are Christians; our weapons are not things of the flesh but weapons that are God given and are mighty before God for the overthrowing and destruction of strong holds. We are to correct and approve through arguments all theories and reasoning and every thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God. We are to reject every thought and purpose that has kept us a prisoner to not be able to walk in obedience to Christ, Who is the only one who supplies the power for us to live in total freedom." Let's discuss the meaning of this paragraph according to what God meant when He had Paul write this almost two thousand years ago.

First, we must be aware and come to grips that; there are spiritual forces and demonic activities going on manipulating and motivating people to steal kill and destroy in one form or another. You may not want to get in touch with the reality of this but, that is not going to make this warfare that this scripture is talking about go away. I can remember talking to a young girl a few years back that asked me to have a talk with her boy friend that was getting a divorce from his wife and not saved. When he came in to talk to me; I was able to talk to him about making a commitment to Christ. In praying for them, she first told me even though she was saved, she couldn't really sell out to God because she was afraid the devil would beat her up and kill her.

               ? Born again believers afraid of the devil?

This word for warfare in the Greek is strateia: It means, military service, being a soldier and to contend with strong delusions towards sexual and bodily appetites of all kinds. It also means; an army of angelic or heavenly hosts which are spiritual forces in high places influencing us with evil persuasions.

Proverbs 3:5-7 tells us, "trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not to our own understanding. In all our ways admit, be thankful and confess your allegiance to Jesus by having an attitude of taking His side in all matters. Moreover, let Him direct your encounters in all of your travels. Don't make judgments with your own understanding and depart from evil."

Unless we use the mind of Christ in all matters, we will continue to be wise in our own eyes. You cannot depart from evil if you are not living a life style of meditating on the word of God day and night. When we meditate, we are having fellowship with the Holy Spirit and walking in His counsel and He is carefully examining and approving or disapproving our thinking and guarding our decision-making. The devil works under the cover of darkness or in a strife-covering environment trying to deceive only those who are ignorant of interpreting God's word correctly or not seeking it.

You cannot stay in neutral when you are in a war. You are either going forward or falling back from the grace of God. Ignorance of God's ways leaves us with what this scripture tells us not to do that being, we use our own human intellect and reasoning in trying to figure out how to control demonic forces at work in our lives and the lives of others.

You cannot get in touch with the spiritual world with your own human mind and senses. The spiritual world is another dimension.

This scripture goes on to say that we received God given weapons. The Greek word for weapons is hoplon: It means offensive tools for war and there is more then one. You can't know what your weapons are and how to use them if you're not allowing yourself to be trained in spiritual warfare. It's time to take our Christian walk seriously and start to grow up. These weapons given to us by God make us able to overcome strongholds that hinder us from being all that we can be in God's kingdom.

The word for stronghold in the Greek is ochuroma: It means, a fortified castle, and us being controlled by an uncertainty of our future that brings fear and a guilty conscience in our thinking between the Lord and ourselves because; we reason in a right and wrong mentality. Therefore, we see here that the real battle starts in our mind.

In 1Cor. 2:16 Paul states, "Who has known or understands the counsels and purposes of God as to instruct Him and tell Him what to do. However, since we are now born again believers, we have the Spiritual mind of Christ in us that, supports and keeps us focused on His thoughts with the feelings of His own heart."

In Romans 8:5-7 Paul also states. "Those who use their own reasoning are controlled by unholy desires because; they set their own mind and agenda on things that satisfy their own fleshly desires and cravings. However, if we function and are controlled by the Holy Spirit with His mind, we then have the power to fulfill God's purposes in our lives. Our mind or our own reason and intellect without the Holy Spirit is death or a stronghold. "

Continued in part 2