Prisoner of Darkness

John 3:18-21 states, “He who believes on Jesus meaning, staying committed to His care and puts 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 does not put them self in His care, 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 or the test 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 were evil. “For every wrongdoer has an intense dislike of having their evil deeds being exposed and will not come into it 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 practices 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 light is defined in the Greek as phemi: meaning, to show or make known ones thoughts.

This word loved the darkness is defined as a sensual addiction to pleasure contrary to what God intended for the people He created. When we love darkness, it means, we have become a rogue or a naughty child.

The word evil is defined as, deteriorating to an inferior, diseased or degraded human being who has become a prisoner to their own feelings and desires, and needs to be set free to participate in the blessings of God.

In reality, this condition has become a stronghold in their life that hinders their ability to interact with the Holy Spirit. 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 in this condition.

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.

This Gospel of Jesus dying for mankind to restore a broken relationship 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 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? Is it because they are not being taught correctly the love of God? 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 adopted into God’s family the moment God planted His D.N.A. in us when we accepted Jesus into our hearts. We now have the spiritual ears for the Holy Spirit to talk to us and bring us up by accepting the advice of Lord and not in the advice of men. The body of Christ is so fragmented, unfinished and incomplete with (spot and wrinkle in their own minds) that, unless God raises up people who are totally sold out to Him, there will be too many Christian limping their way into heaven. For me I am learning to be faithful in the things that the Holy Spirit wants me to do in my own daily travels.

We need to realize that, if we are living in our own soulish fleshly desires, we have no hunger and thirsting in seeking the Lord. When we live with this halfhearted condition, there is no power to live the Christian life and we deceive ourselves. I hear from many people, “don’t make a big issue of this thing 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. You have to realize that once addicted to evil, these life styles never come to an end. Addictions to the lust of the flesh never get totally fulfilled, these cravings grow day after day. This type of soul sickness gets worse and worse and can become a bondage in ones life.

Now 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 line 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 us on temporary soulish pleasures that have no value for our eternal lives?

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. 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? Have 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 having 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, which 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 to get serious about this family relationship we have in God’s kingdom. 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 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 use human 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. In as much as 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 so we can 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 the Apostle write this almost two thousand years ago. First, we have to be aware and come to grips with the fact 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 the 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 but still married and not saved. He came in to talk to me and 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 warfare in the Greek is strateia: meaning, 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 or guests meaning, spiritual forces in high places. 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 our allegiance to Jesus by having an attitude of taking His side in all matters. Moreover, let Him direct our encounters in all of our travels. Don’t make judgments with your own understanding: and depart from evil.” Unless we get the mind of Christ in all matters, we will continue to be wise in our own eyes.

Let’s get honest. 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 on the word day and night, we are having fellowship with the Holy Spirit and walking in the counsel of being exposed to His careful examination and allowing Him to approve or disapprove of our thinking and guarding our decision-making.

The Devil works under the cover of darkness or in a strife-covering environment constantly trying to deceive the ignorant. You cannot stay in neutral when you are in a war; you are going either 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.

This scripture goes on to say that we received God given weapons. In the Greek the word weapons is hoplon: meaning, offensive tools for war. It says God has given us weapons plural. 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 stronghold in the Greek is ochuroma: meaning a fortified castle, and us being controlled by an uncertainty that brings fear and a guilty conscience in our own minds between the Lord and ourselves because of us reasoning in a right and wrong mentality. Therefore, we see here that the real battle starts in our minds. 1Cor. 2:16 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 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 are death or a stronghold. ” To grow up and change, you have to have a willing heart. God will pursue us but He will not force us to comply with His ways. What is it going to take for us to realize that a relationship with God is not something that,

We pencil in on our daily schedules to see when we can fit Him into our uncommitted life styles. For our shame and dis-grace to treat the Lord of glory with such contempt and for us to have such a feeling of our own superiority.

We need to stand up within ourselves and with all the people we come into contact with and correct or prove those things that are false and contrary to God’s interpretation of His word. How do we correct and rebuke if we don’t have the word of God implanted in our hearts and mind as the word of God directs us to do. What can you argue with the Devil when he shows up to dump guilt and condemnation on you in your thought life, if you don’t have the main weapon that is the word of God? The word of God in Hebrews 4:12 is described as, “being like a two sided sword and is alive and full of power and it will penetrate deep within our thought lives to expose and sift and analyzes what are God’s thoughts verses what are our thoughts.” You notice here that it says that it is alive. It’s alive because the Holy Spirit is a living person who we can communicate with as any other living person on the planet.

In Matthew 4:1 through 11, it gives the account of Jesus when He walked the earth and was trying to complete His Father’s will for His life. It says that, “He was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, to be tempted by the Devil.” This word wilderness represents a territory or temporary home and we are a temporary resident. We’re going to live our eternity in heaven with the Lord.

Nevertheless, for now we are here. The Holy Spirit was the one leading him in the wilderness. If He’s our Lord and Master and it was His example to be led by the Holy Spirit for His temporary time in this wilderness, are we better then Him. It’s what He thinks that counts not what we conjure up in our own minds and opinions. It goes on to say that He was tempted and enticed by the Devil in His mind and person three times to go against God’s plans and ways for Him to accomplishing His Father’s will in His life. Read the encounter for yourselves and you will notice that all three times the answers He gave the Devil was what the word of God said and not what He thought? If this was His example of walking in victory, we need to stop kidding ourselves that; there can be another way in our thinking of growing up in God’s family. He and He alone can only be our example.

Ephesians 6:10-18 describes what our weapons are that God has given us to overcome evil. “be strong in the Lord and draw your strength from Him as your having fellowship with Him. Allow Him to put His armor on you so you can be a heavily armed soldier and then, you can successfully stand up against the strategies and deceptions of the Devil. We are not fighting against people in our own human understanding of things, but against a tyrant, master spirits and world rulers of this present dark and wicked age who live in this heavenly (supernatural) atmosphere.

Therefore, by having God’s armor on we will be able to stand firmly in place and be able to handle all crises. First tighten the belt of truth around your loins and having on the breastplate of righteousness, you will be able to make correct judgments that will keep you in right standing with God.

The first weapon stated here is the weapon of truth. Scripture tells us that the truth will set us free from any thing contrary to God’s will. When we live in denial and in darkness by lying to ourselves about the true condition of our hearts, we cannot participate in kingdom living and our lives are wasted on trivial pursuits that have no consequences in eternal matters. God’s judgment of things makes up truth. If you’re not listening to His truths and acting on it, life has no real meaning. This scripture says to tighten the belt of truth around our loins. The word loins in the Greek is osphus: Meaning, hip or procreative power. God is the author of procreative power; its how He brought all of exists into being. We need to know God’s truths from His word and use it as Jesus did against the Devil when He was tempted. Since the Devil is a liar and the father of liars, he can’t stand the truth and he shakes when we use it, however, only when it is being inspired by the Holy Spirit. It’s only as we have our daily fellowship with the Holy Spirit, recognize His voice, and say what He tells us to say that, we can use this weapon.

Next weapon stated is the breastplate of righteousness. This word breastplate in the Greek is thorax: meaning an upper chest protector or a corset. This represents a heart protector where the issues of life take place in our being. Its how we get our assurance and deep rooted connection between God as our Father and us knowing that no matter what happens in our lives nothing can ever separate us from His love and holding power. I never cease to say this over and over that; we need to know without a shadow of a doubt that, when we made Jesus our savior, we were adopted into God’s family permanently.

Righteousness means that, when God the Father looks at us He sees Jesus His perfect son.

As long as we have people teaching in pulpits childish understandings of their concepts of the love of God that says, He loves us when we do this and He forsakes us when we do that.

Eternal security has to cease from being interpreted as a doctrine of Devils or a license to sin, as it is being interpreted in many circles. We are eternally secure but, we can through faulty teaching and bad choices be living out of fellowship with God and grieving the Holy Spirit because, we stop Him from comforting and strengthening us in our daily warfare.

Therfore, that is why there are so many Christians that have no commitment and a stick to it attitude no matter what happens. When the warfare gets to hot they fold and run away and deny their savior as Peter the Apostle did in his childish years of growing up. Without integrity in ones life you have no example to represent the Love of Jesus Christ to the world The word of God tells us that our statements in life should be either yes or no. The Holy Spirit doesn’t compromise. He tells it like it is and we can do nothing less. Its time to put our childish thinking away and! Grow Up!

The next weapon is the shield of faith. The word shield in the Greek is thureos: meaning, a shield shaped like a door that can be opened and closed. The word faith is pistis: meaning, a consistency of confession, being persuaded and the truthfulness of God. As God showed me this concept it made me realize, what a commitment and trust God has for His children to give them a powerful weapon like this. As we learn how to use it, we are able to have the ability to control our thought life by being able to close and open this door type shield when we need to. To me it was a very practical application that was simple to understand. When the Devil shows up to dump his garbage in our minds we keep it closed.

In Rev. 3:20, Jesus tells us that, “He stands at the door of our hearts and knocks and if we respond to Him and open ourselves up to Him when He shows up, He will come in, discuss with us His plans, and train us in the warfare that we are all going through.

In turn, we will be over comers and will be able to sit beside Him as a sovereign King and Priest having great power to rule and reign with Him.” You have to really be living in extreme darkness in your life or have a serious brain deficiency to not want to be close to Him and be in His company at all times. I can write unending volumes on the definition of faith because of the fact that, Jesus Himself is our faith. Every thing He thinks, feels, and His very being and intense passions rubs off on us as we hang out with Him. To be like Him that has to be our first desire.

The next weapon is the helmet of salvation. The word helmet is perizonnumi: meaning, to prepare one self for action and to tighten a belt around your mind. The word salvation is soterian: meaning, our defender, safety, rescuer and savior Jesus the Christ. We see here that there has to be created in us a security and total persuasion by God in our gut that, there is no way we can lose this war no matter what ever the adversity. This helmet or attitude of confidence cannot be tightened around our minds unless we are totally sold out with a concentrated effort in us seeking after the Lord and His counsel. We said earlier that the battle we are fighting is in our minds.

Romans 12:1-2 states that, “ we are to present all our mental reasoning and will power and dedicate our lives to be earnestly and totally devoted to God’s causes. When we do this, it makes God rejoice over our enthusiasm. Us having this attitude makes sense because of what He has done for us. We are not to conform to these wordily ways of outward shallow customs. Therefore, we are to be inwardly changed by the entire renewing of our mind and in turn by this happening in us, we will know what God’s perfect and acceptable will is for our lives.”

The next weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the authority of God. The word sword is machomai: meaning a knife, to fight or the administration of justice. The word Spirit is pneuma: meaning, superhuman or the Divine God, Christ’s Spirit the Holy Spirit. I don’t know how God can make the interpretation of this any clearer. This gives us the authority as God’s children to rise up in the authority of the Holy Spirit to fight these demonic forces in this present age. This is what God’s kids are supposed to be doing, going, about their Heavenly Fathers business administering His justice in the lives of people on this planet. We are not to do this in our own fleshly self-righteous attitudes by sitting in judgment and portraying God as some kind of control freak wanting to inflict punishment and pain.

This type of warfare has to be administered through us by the author and lover of our souls who became a servant and ultimately died on a cross for our sin and the sin’s of the whole world. We need get a hold of what it means to die to self by the Holy Spirit’s leadings and unless we do that, we have the capability of becoming the Devil’s disciple coming in the name of the Lord and ministering self-righteous concepts that, we have been reaping on ourselves for years.

This way of ministry has no power to deliver others or ourselves. Scripture tells us that; “the Devil disguises himself as an angel of light.” It says only Jesus is the true Light of the world. We cannot expose the darkness in others or us by our false and fleshly interpretations of God’s ways. It’s time for us to not be afraid and let the Holy Spirit check us out and see if there are any wicked ways in us that, we don’t know about.

We now come to the last weapon that is talked about in this scripture. The weapon of prayer, (Intimate conversations with God) this is what it’s all about. Prayer is our endless conversation with God now and forever. It’s His life and our life becoming one life. Therefore, we see that there is no end to this weapon. It’s the weapon that makes all the other weapons work. Moreover, to me this is our greatest weapon. It is also the weapon that we need to discipline this fleshly body to lay down and die. It’s where we receive our stability, and sound minded thinking. Wisdom in the day and night hours of our life, His hugs, rebukes and chastisements, that are needed for our safety and guidance.

It’s the way we search for His presence, play, and joke and carefully listen for Him to reveal new wisdom’s of His ways as we learn to be comfortable with His friendship. I have found that over the years my prayer life more than anything has changed.

The word prayer is proseuchomai: meaning, to be in a humble state before God in worship, adoration and requesting. The prefix of this word is pros: meaning, on all occasions and together with at all times. The scripture that we have been using says that we are in warfare against spiritual wickedness and a force in the supernatural atmosphere. Let’s realize that this is an outward force trying to impregnate us with ideas, emotions and principles to do its bidding. It is a spirit of anti-christ. Now that we’re God’s children and the Holy Spirit lives within us; let’s learn to trust Him to keep the door of the house of our temporary stay on this planet locked, when the Devil shows up to bombard our thought life with things that have no eternal value. We will never know how to keep our armor on without our Commander and Chief inspecting us to see if we are equipped to go into battle. Walking with the Lord doesn’t have to be a chore in our lives. What we have to do is lay down our lives and allow Him to live big in us.