Sermon Title: NEVER BE SHAKEN! Is Your Salvation Safe?
Dearly Beloved,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
We need to understand something very important and insidious; everything birthed of this world undermines faith in God and takes people away from Christ and His Gospel.
The intersection of relativism and woke culture – as a case in point – has given rise to a wicked rejection of absolute morality and virtuous authority.
With no firm stand on what is moral, moral values are now subjected to the whims and feelings of any given individual – resulting in the new ‘forms’ of gender, sexuality, marriage and family.
“Don’t define my experience” has become a catch-all phrase for anyone whose intentions is to give a so-called moral basis to their perspective – regardless of how blatantly wrong it is; which makes it impossible for that individual to repent from sin and acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour as described in Hebrews 4:15:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need”
Without repentance and a heart of surrender before God, there can be no heart to receive God’s Salvation.
Their views are that since no one can ever understand nor empathize with them, they have the right to just go ahead and act on whatever feelings, passions, tendencies and proclivities they have – and no one can, or should, tell them otherwise.
Of course Christ knows our every feeling and experience in the face of every tribulation and temptation; and of course, Christ has the supreme authority to stipulate how we must live - for He is fully God, yet fully Man.
Everything birthed of this world undermines faith in God and takes people away from Christ and His Gospel.
Everywhere, children are turning away from God.
Every doctrine of this world is a barefaced lie that is diagonally and fundamentally opposed to truth; every iteration of the world’s culture – at present, the ‘woke’ culture - is antithetical to the flourishing of life and society as designed by God and demands people to rebel for rebellion sake.
This is the transcendent consequence of consuming the fruit from the tree of knowledge.
Knowledge apart from God is baseless, deficient, frivolous and vile; and ultimately condemns the one who partakes of the forbidden fruit.
Through the ages, every person is found constantly standing between the two proverbial trees.
The question is two-fold.
How do we keep eating only from the tree of life?
And how do we choose not to eat the forbidden fruit? How do we guard our minds from the message of destruction that is preached throughout the world?
If we do not want the next generations to be lost to the truth of the Gospel, we must not keep quiet; but rather, actively and intentionally proclaim the Truth.
In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Moses presents to us a timeless, yet practical, resolution as to how every child of God must proclaim His Truth.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children.
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
And yet, in order to conscientiously live out the Truth of God, we must first be very assured of our Salvation.
Our minds must be protected; so that the evil one does not rob us of the knowledge of God’s Salvation through Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Dr. Anthony Fauci - who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, advising seven U.S. presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan, and one of the world's most visible leaders in the COVID-19 pandemic response – would arguably not be a person who would wilfully make mistakes or intentionally stipulate health regulations to make life difficult, or even dangerous, for an entire nation.
However, in the past two years, he has been accused countlessly of doing both.
His role as a national leader in America’s fight against the pandemic has been made unnecessarily difficult due to a twin surge in misinformation, and irreverence for rightful authority and good morals.
Why?
Here’s the context.
In the 1900s – a mere 100 years or so ago - amongst the developed and developing countries, science overtook religion as the ultimate authority and lens through which to understand the world.
However, just around 20 years to this day, social media has overtaken science as the lens through which we understand the world.
When asked if he had any thoughts about why it has been such a struggle to mitigate the global pandemic, Dr. Fauci said as a matter of fact:
“I mean, if ever you could imagine the worst possible environment into which a global pandemic emerges, it would be in an environment of anti-science [and] complete normalization of lies.
It is just mind-boggling. I mean, if I were some diabolical, evil spirit and I wanted to cast upon the world the worst time to get an outbreak, it's when you have this kind of combination of divisiveness with the complete accessibility and spread of complete falsehood. There is nothing worse than that in the middle of a pandemic.”
In his succinct response, Dr. Fauci insightfully makes the connection between the virus - a physical plague - made worse by the propagation of misinformation - resulting in a psychological and emotional plague, connived by evil spirits; thus, logically informing us that what we are facing today, is really, a spiritual plague.
The striking similarity between viruses and misinformation – namely, community spread; because both comes in waves and almost always lead to fatal consequences – can only be sustained because of the active work of dark forces in the spiritual realm.
We are in a very serious dual-situation with the pandemic; inherent in the risks of community spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus itself, coupled with the risks of the community spread of misinformation that seemingly overwhelms even the authority and discipline of science that is undergirded by a community of responsible scientists who have dedicated decades of their lives to understanding the reality of the physical world.
Why is the authority of science overwhelmed?
Because the forces that undermine and attack scientific findings transcends logic and common sense – both of which are functions of the mind – come not from this physical world, but from the forces of darkness that belong to a spiritual realm.
We need to understand that in the authentic study of science, new discoveries compel new responses.
The study of science is constantly evolving.
With every new scientific discovery, how we understand the matter at hand, and thus, how we must respond to the new data must evolve and change correspondingly.
With the twin surge of misinformation, and irreverence for rightful authority and good morals, there begets a wilful ignorance that science is about data and evidence, which evolves and corrects itself.
When data and evidence changes, the science must change.
The real wrong happens when the science changes, and there is failure to change with the data and evidence.
Dr. Fauci has been accused time and again, of making mistakes, or even ‘flip-flopping’, in the face of an evolving understanding of the COVID-19 virus.
To compound the problem is a huge, underlining phenomenon that we are faced today; which is one of the key reasons why we are caught in the COVID-19 pandemic amidst a pandemic of misinformation – and that is, ‘false equivalencies’.
In the age of social media, it is clearly observed that almost any anonymous individual’s comment can be equally weighed against a tried, tested and proven professional like Dr Fauci.
These are people who would go online, after getting a gut feeling about a certain matter; most likely triggered because they have either been inconvenienced, or offended, by the professional opinions of the likes of Dr. Fauci, and post their opinions right beside an educated and experienced practitioner for the world to read.
What do you think would follow?
A community spread of misinformation.
It is ridiculous for anyone to make life worse for healthcare workers. But that was exactly what we saw in the weeks past, with misinformed protestors harassing, bullying or even attacking healthcare workers right here on Vancouver island.
We have seen this too many times; even with Nobel Laureates whose opinions – even though substantiated by their credentials, long years of research, the acknowledgement of their peers - were marginalised in favor of someone with a gut feeling who posts their thoughts online.
You say, “that doesn’t happen.”
However, if you were to pay close attention to the effects of misinformation within society, you would quickly realise that there is a majority who believe that someone’s gut feeling can be weighed equally with a professional’s opinion on the same matter.
And if we were to think more deeply about this unsettling phenomenon, it all boils down to a severe unwillingness to be inconvenienced, and a wrongful belief that we all have a right not to be offended.
By the mere fact that we have chosen to live in society; of course, for the greater good, we may find ourselves inconvenienced.
Of course, if you say or do something wrong, you will be called out for it.
When you are called out, of course, you will be offended.
When you speak to a topic that is clearly out of your depth, of course, you will be ignored; which is offensive, but hey... it is for the greater good that you are ignored.
The phenomenon of ‘false equivalencies’ is, indeed, a demonic scheme that has gained traction. It is a frightening reality ; and in this sense, the world has gotten worse.
Do not be mistaken.
The world has always had the same depth of sin and wickedness.
That is not what has changed.
What has changed is that the reach of sin and wickedness has gained tremendous grounds in the last 20 years or so.
Social media has a tremendous impact on how far, how wide and how quickly sinful ideologies spread.
The rapid rise of ‘false equivalencies’ brings that threat very close to home.
Such is the state of our world – characterised by irrational defiance against rightful authority, loss of absolute morality, and a hyper-sensitivity towards anything deemed remotely offensive to them.
The world now seems to be governed by extremely thin-skinned people; who feel that they have the right not to get offended, but also the right to blurt out anything that comes to their minds about how human life ought to look like, how human society ought to function and how the human person ought to behave – forms of being human that is strikingly in defiance to God’s Will for us.
Which is why now more than ever, it is critical for Christians to put on the helmet of salvation, so that our minds are guarded and fortified against the lies of the devil that threaten our faith and embrace of God’s Salvation and Will for us.
And that is why the Apostle Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:17:
“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The battlefield against the forces of evil is in our minds; and we must wage it in the Power of the Holy Spirit and with the word of God.
To repel the demonic scheme of false equivalencies, it is important that we put on the helmet that protects our minds from worldly ideologies and messages of destruction; so that God’s Kingdom values and His Gospel are kept safe and secured in our minds.
Resolute commitment to regular corporate prayer “in Spirit and in Truth”(John 4:24) must become our spiritual discipline of taking up “the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
What the devil is trying to do – through misinformation and worldly ideologies, at present namely, woke culture - is to capitalize on false equivalency and cause people to set themselves up against God; and attack both Creator and Creation in the mistaken and wicked belief that they are on same standing as God.
Can we ever be on the same standing as God?
Of course not!
The Bible is clear.
No human being can ever come close to knowing the true greatness of God.
“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.” (Psalm 145:3)
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
“Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor?” (Isaiah 40:13)
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.” (Isaiah 40:28)
Can we ever be on the same level as God the Creator?
If not, who are we, and why are we even questioning the designs of His Creation?
The battlefield is in our minds; and the battle is for our minds. (Ref: Romans 1:18-32)
If we do not protect our minds, defiance against God will surely follow.
If we do not protect our minds, we become self-serving; we give in to our sinful desires and proclivities – sinful tendencies.
If we do not protect our minds, we expose ourselves to doubts regarding God and consequently, doubts regarding our own salvation.
If we do not protect our minds, we partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and with our eyes now opened to our nakedness; and minds now ‘woke’ – awakened to a reality without moral foundations; we are left with no anchor, no absolute; no foundation to discern good and evil.
Listen carefully.
All gray areas of this world are black in the eyes of God.
Everywhere that is not in the light of God is in darkness.
The idea that we can distinguish between good and evil apart from God is - in itself – very evil.
And that is why the Apostle Paul further exhorts us in 1 Thessalonians 5:7-9:
“7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.
8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
For us who believe in God’s salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, we protect our minds from the deceptions of the evil one when we:
Rest in the Light of God;
Remain sober and alert through the Holy Spirit; and
Resolve to be faithful and loving all the days of our lives.
The battle for our minds is already here.
Is your mind protected by the hope of God’s Salvation? Do you lose hope easily?
Does the hope of God’s Salvation cancel out and displace every worldly ideology?
To lose hope is the result of an assault on your mind through the demonic schemes of doubt and false equivalencies.
As citizens of the world surrounded by evil, we must be saturated with the goodness and holiness that is the work of the Spirit of God.
Wear the hope of Salvation on your head as a helmet to protect your mind – by spending time daily praying in the Power of the Holy Spirit and receiving His Power to live for the glory of God, and committing to corporate prayer in the Name of Jesus!
Be sure to be part of a Disciple Life Prayer Group!
Do not buy into false equivalencies; especially when it comes to understanding the truths of the Bible.
Protect your mind, keep it pure – by displacing wickedness and wrongful thoughts with the worship and word of GOD and then;
Follow through - by keeping wickedness and wrongful thoughts out by keeping your mind filled with the worship and word of God, undergirded with the truth of God found in the Bible and the Spirit’s Revelation.
A impure mind is like a wound that you need to flush – to rid it of all dirt and contaminations that can give you an infection.
Flush out the weakness and wickedness in your minds with the Spirit and Truth of God; and in the same manner, keep it constantly filled with the Spirit and Truth of God.
Thus, we must:
Rest in the Light of God – by daily walking with Jesus through prayers in the Spirit and Truth; displacing the darkness in our minds with the light of God;
Remain sober and alert through the Holy Spirit – by being aware of the insidious onslaught of worldly wine that puts you into a drunken stupor; displacing sinful ideologies with His Kingdom values;
Resolve to remain faithful and loving all the days of your lives; displacing doubts and fear with faith and love.
Protect your mind in Christ.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done; on earth, as it is in heaven.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for empathizing with my weakness; that through Your finished work of Atonement for my sins and resurrection from death, I am free from the bondages of sin and may come before God’s throne of grace with confidence – that I may receive mercy and find grace to help me in my time of need. (Ref: Hebrews 4:15)
Holy Spirit, protect my mind – that the evil one does not rob me of the knowledge of God’s Salvation through Christ Jesus, my Lord and Saviour.
Protect my mind from every worldly ideologies and message of destruction; that Your Kingdom values and Gospel message remains safe and secured in my mind.
May I daily put on the helmet of the hope of salvation – so that my mind is guarded and fortified against the lies of the devil – as I wage this war in the battlefield of my mind with the Power of the Holy Spirit and with Your Holy Word.
Forgive me, Lord, for the moments I failed to protect my mind – resulting in doubt, disobedience, and defiance against You.
Grant me wisdom to discern Your Will for every aspect of my life; to constantly rest in Your light; remain sober and alert through the Power of the Holy Spirit; and resolve to be faithful and loving now and forevermore.
Holy Spirit, help me conscientiously displace wickedness and worldliness with the worship and word of God; and saturate me with Your Holiness, that every unholy ideology be kept out of my mind.
May I walk daily with You, Lord Jesus.
Thank You for protecting my mind and securing my faith in You alone.
I thank You and pray all these in the Name of our King, Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dearly Beloved,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
We need to understand something very important and insidious; everything birthed of this world undermines faith in God and takes people away from Christ and His Gospel.
The intersection of relativism and woke culture – as a case in point – has given rise to a wicked rejection of absolute morality and virtuous authority.
With no firm stand on what is moral, moral values are now subjected to the whims and feelings of any given individual – resulting in the new ‘forms’ of gender, sexuality, marriage and family.
“Don’t define my experience” has become a catch-all phrase for anyone whose intentions is to give a so-called moral basis to their perspective – regardless of how blatantly wrong it is; which makes it impossible for that individual to repent from sin and acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour as described in Hebrews 4:15:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need”
Without repentance and a heart of surrender before God, there can be no heart to receive God’s Salvation.
Their views are that since no one can ever understand nor empathize with them, they have the right to just go ahead and act on whatever feelings, passions, tendencies and proclivities they have – and no one can, or should, tell them otherwise.
Of course Christ knows our every feeling and experience in the face of every tribulation and temptation; and of course, Christ has the supreme authority to stipulate how we must live - for He is fully God, yet fully Man.
Everything birthed of this world undermines faith in God and takes people away from Christ and His Gospel.
Everywhere, children are turning away from God.
Every doctrine of this world is a barefaced lie that is diagonally and fundamentally opposed to truth; every iteration of the world’s culture – at present, the ‘woke’ culture - is antithetical to the flourishing of life and society as designed by God and demands people to rebel for rebellion sake.
This is the transcendent consequence of consuming the fruit from the tree of knowledge.
Knowledge apart from God is baseless, deficient, frivolous and vile; and ultimately condemns the one who partakes of the forbidden fruit.
Through the ages, every person is found constantly standing between the two proverbial trees.
The question is two-fold.
How do we keep eating only from the tree of life?
And how do we choose not to eat the forbidden fruit? How do we guard our minds from the message of destruction that is preached throughout the world?
If we do not want the next generations to be lost to the truth of the Gospel, we must not keep quiet; but rather, actively and intentionally proclaim the Truth.
In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Moses presents to us a timeless, yet practical, resolution as to how every child of God must proclaim His Truth.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children.
Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
And yet, in order to conscientiously live out the Truth of God, we must first be very assured of our Salvation.
Our minds must be protected; so that the evil one does not rob us of the knowledge of God’s Salvation through Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Dr. Anthony Fauci - who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, advising seven U.S. presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan, and one of the world's most visible leaders in the COVID-19 pandemic response – would arguably not be a person who would wilfully make mistakes or intentionally stipulate health regulations to make life difficult, or even dangerous, for an entire nation.
However, in the past two years, he has been accused countlessly of doing both.
His role as a national leader in America’s fight against the pandemic has been made unnecessarily difficult due to a twin surge in misinformation, and irreverence for rightful authority and good morals.
Why?
Here’s the context.
In the 1900s – a mere 100 years or so ago - amongst the developed and developing countries, science overtook religion as the ultimate authority and lens through which to understand the world.
However, just around 20 years to this day, social media has overtaken science as the lens through which we understand the world.
When asked if he had any thoughts about why it has been such a struggle to mitigate the global pandemic, Dr. Fauci said as a matter of fact:
“I mean, if ever you could imagine the worst possible environment into which a global pandemic emerges, it would be in an environment of anti-science [and] complete normalization of lies.
It is just mind-boggling. I mean, if I were some diabolical, evil spirit and I wanted to cast upon the world the worst time to get an outbreak, it's when you have this kind of combination of divisiveness with the complete accessibility and spread of complete falsehood. There is nothing worse than that in the middle of a pandemic.”
In his succinct response, Dr. Fauci insightfully makes the connection between the virus - a physical plague - made worse by the propagation of misinformation - resulting in a psychological and emotional plague, connived by evil spirits; thus, logically informing us that what we are facing today, is really, a spiritual plague.
The striking similarity between viruses and misinformation – namely, community spread; because both comes in waves and almost always lead to fatal consequences – can only be sustained because of the active work of dark forces in the spiritual realm.
We are in a very serious dual-situation with the pandemic; inherent in the risks of community spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus itself, coupled with the risks of the community spread of misinformation that seemingly overwhelms even the authority and discipline of science that is undergirded by a community of responsible scientists who have dedicated decades of their lives to understanding the reality of the physical world.
Why is the authority of science overwhelmed?
Because the forces that undermine and attack scientific findings transcends logic and common sense – both of which are functions of the mind – come not from this physical world, but from the forces of darkness that belong to a spiritual realm.
We need to understand that in the authentic study of science, new discoveries compel new responses.
The study of science is constantly evolving.
With every new scientific discovery, how we understand the matter at hand, and thus, how we must respond to the new data must evolve and change correspondingly.
With the twin surge of misinformation, and irreverence for rightful authority and good morals, there begets a wilful ignorance that science is about data and evidence, which evolves and corrects itself.
When data and evidence changes, the science must change.
The real wrong happens when the science changes, and there is failure to change with the data and evidence.
Dr. Fauci has been accused time and again, of making mistakes, or even ‘flip-flopping’, in the face of an evolving understanding of the COVID-19 virus.
To compound the problem is a huge, underlining phenomenon that we are faced today; which is one of the key reasons why we are caught in the COVID-19 pandemic amidst a pandemic of misinformation – and that is, ‘false equivalencies’.
In the age of social media, it is clearly observed that almost any anonymous individual’s comment can be equally weighed against a tried, tested and proven professional like Dr Fauci.
These are people who would go online, after getting a gut feeling about a certain matter; most likely triggered because they have either been inconvenienced, or offended, by the professional opinions of the likes of Dr. Fauci, and post their opinions right beside an educated and experienced practitioner for the world to read.
What do you think would follow?
A community spread of misinformation.
It is ridiculous for anyone to make life worse for healthcare workers. But that was exactly what we saw in the weeks past, with misinformed protestors harassing, bullying or even attacking healthcare workers right here on Vancouver island.
We have seen this too many times; even with Nobel Laureates whose opinions – even though substantiated by their credentials, long years of research, the acknowledgement of their peers - were marginalised in favor of someone with a gut feeling who posts their thoughts online.
You say, “that doesn’t happen.”
However, if you were to pay close attention to the effects of misinformation within society, you would quickly realise that there is a majority who believe that someone’s gut feeling can be weighed equally with a professional’s opinion on the same matter.
And if we were to think more deeply about this unsettling phenomenon, it all boils down to a severe unwillingness to be inconvenienced, and a wrongful belief that we all have a right not to be offended.
By the mere fact that we have chosen to live in society; of course, for the greater good, we may find ourselves inconvenienced.
Of course, if you say or do something wrong, you will be called out for it.
When you are called out, of course, you will be offended.
When you speak to a topic that is clearly out of your depth, of course, you will be ignored; which is offensive, but hey... it is for the greater good that you are ignored.
The phenomenon of ‘false equivalencies’ is, indeed, a demonic scheme that has gained traction. It is a frightening reality ; and in this sense, the world has gotten worse.
Do not be mistaken.
The world has always had the same depth of sin and wickedness.
That is not what has changed.
What has changed is that the reach of sin and wickedness has gained tremendous grounds in the last 20 years or so.
Social media has a tremendous impact on how far, how wide and how quickly sinful ideologies spread.
The rapid rise of ‘false equivalencies’ brings that threat very close to home.
Such is the state of our world – characterised by irrational defiance against rightful authority, loss of absolute morality, and a hyper-sensitivity towards anything deemed remotely offensive to them.
The world now seems to be governed by extremely thin-skinned people; who feel that they have the right not to get offended, but also the right to blurt out anything that comes to their minds about how human life ought to look like, how human society ought to function and how the human person ought to behave – forms of being human that is strikingly in defiance to God’s Will for us.
Which is why now more than ever, it is critical for Christians to put on the helmet of salvation, so that our minds are guarded and fortified against the lies of the devil that threaten our faith and embrace of God’s Salvation and Will for us.
And that is why the Apostle Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:17:
“Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The battlefield against the forces of evil is in our minds; and we must wage it in the Power of the Holy Spirit and with the word of God.
To repel the demonic scheme of false equivalencies, it is important that we put on the helmet that protects our minds from worldly ideologies and messages of destruction; so that God’s Kingdom values and His Gospel are kept safe and secured in our minds.
Resolute commitment to regular corporate prayer “in Spirit and in Truth”(John 4:24) must become our spiritual discipline of taking up “the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
What the devil is trying to do – through misinformation and worldly ideologies, at present namely, woke culture - is to capitalize on false equivalency and cause people to set themselves up against God; and attack both Creator and Creation in the mistaken and wicked belief that they are on same standing as God.
Can we ever be on the same standing as God?
Of course not!
The Bible is clear.
No human being can ever come close to knowing the true greatness of God.
“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.” (Psalm 145:3)
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
“Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor?” (Isaiah 40:13)
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.” (Isaiah 40:28)
Can we ever be on the same level as God the Creator?
If not, who are we, and why are we even questioning the designs of His Creation?
The battlefield is in our minds; and the battle is for our minds. (Ref: Romans 1:18-32)
If we do not protect our minds, defiance against God will surely follow.
If we do not protect our minds, we become self-serving; we give in to our sinful desires and proclivities – sinful tendencies.
If we do not protect our minds, we expose ourselves to doubts regarding God and consequently, doubts regarding our own salvation.
If we do not protect our minds, we partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and with our eyes now opened to our nakedness; and minds now ‘woke’ – awakened to a reality without moral foundations; we are left with no anchor, no absolute; no foundation to discern good and evil.
Listen carefully.
All gray areas of this world are black in the eyes of God.
Everywhere that is not in the light of God is in darkness.
The idea that we can distinguish between good and evil apart from God is - in itself – very evil.
And that is why the Apostle Paul further exhorts us in 1 Thessalonians 5:7-9:
“7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.
8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
For us who believe in God’s salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, we protect our minds from the deceptions of the evil one when we:
Rest in the Light of God;
Remain sober and alert through the Holy Spirit; and
Resolve to be faithful and loving all the days of our lives.
The battle for our minds is already here.
Is your mind protected by the hope of God’s Salvation? Do you lose hope easily?
Does the hope of God’s Salvation cancel out and displace every worldly ideology?
To lose hope is the result of an assault on your mind through the demonic schemes of doubt and false equivalencies.
As citizens of the world surrounded by evil, we must be saturated with the goodness and holiness that is the work of the Spirit of God.
Wear the hope of Salvation on your head as a helmet to protect your mind – by spending time daily praying in the Power of the Holy Spirit and receiving His Power to live for the glory of God, and committing to corporate prayer in the Name of Jesus!
Be sure to be part of a Disciple Life Prayer Group!
Do not buy into false equivalencies; especially when it comes to understanding the truths of the Bible.
Protect your mind, keep it pure – by displacing wickedness and wrongful thoughts with the worship and word of GOD and then;
Follow through - by keeping wickedness and wrongful thoughts out by keeping your mind filled with the worship and word of God, undergirded with the truth of God found in the Bible and the Spirit’s Revelation.
A impure mind is like a wound that you need to flush – to rid it of all dirt and contaminations that can give you an infection.
Flush out the weakness and wickedness in your minds with the Spirit and Truth of God; and in the same manner, keep it constantly filled with the Spirit and Truth of God.
Thus, we must:
Rest in the Light of God – by daily walking with Jesus through prayers in the Spirit and Truth; displacing the darkness in our minds with the light of God;
Remain sober and alert through the Holy Spirit – by being aware of the insidious onslaught of worldly wine that puts you into a drunken stupor; displacing sinful ideologies with His Kingdom values;
Resolve to remain faithful and loving all the days of your lives; displacing doubts and fear with faith and love.
Protect your mind in Christ.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done; on earth, as it is in heaven.
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for empathizing with my weakness; that through Your finished work of Atonement for my sins and resurrection from death, I am free from the bondages of sin and may come before God’s throne of grace with confidence – that I may receive mercy and find grace to help me in my time of need. (Ref: Hebrews 4:15)
Holy Spirit, protect my mind – that the evil one does not rob me of the knowledge of God’s Salvation through Christ Jesus, my Lord and Saviour.
Protect my mind from every worldly ideologies and message of destruction; that Your Kingdom values and Gospel message remains safe and secured in my mind.
May I daily put on the helmet of the hope of salvation – so that my mind is guarded and fortified against the lies of the devil – as I wage this war in the battlefield of my mind with the Power of the Holy Spirit and with Your Holy Word.
Forgive me, Lord, for the moments I failed to protect my mind – resulting in doubt, disobedience, and defiance against You.
Grant me wisdom to discern Your Will for every aspect of my life; to constantly rest in Your light; remain sober and alert through the Power of the Holy Spirit; and resolve to be faithful and loving now and forevermore.
Holy Spirit, help me conscientiously displace wickedness and worldliness with the worship and word of God; and saturate me with Your Holiness, that every unholy ideology be kept out of my mind.
May I walk daily with You, Lord Jesus.
Thank You for protecting my mind and securing my faith in You alone.
I thank You and pray all these in the Name of our King, Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.