What To Do When You Feel Like Giving Up
(Taken from the 'Jonas Clark Ministries')
Spiritual warfare against the mind releases fear, confusion, despair and offense.
Spiritual battles are not fought with fleshly ordnance. scri pture declares, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh” (2 Corinthians 10:3). Spiritual warfare is using the Word of God and your delegated authority to oppose demonic opposition against you.
The Holy Spirit is still giving us understanding of the ghostly powers that battle against us. scripture says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood” (Ephesians 6). The Apostle Paul makes it clear that we are in a spiritual war and declares that, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.”
Before we attack principalities and powers let’s learn how to pull down the warring thoughts and imaginations that rise within us. Paul continued, “Casting down imaginations.” An imagination is an image, a picture formed in the spirit of your mind of something unseen. Something that exists only in the imagination is not real unless you give life to it. Have you experienced an imagination today? What did you do with it? Did you cast it down and move ahead or have tea and biscuits on white clothed tables?
Spiritual warfare against the mind releases fear, confusion, despair and offense. scripture says such things do not come from God, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).
Let’s start with confusion. Corrupted imaginations can affect sound judgment and inject confusion into your life. Left unrestrained they will release uncertainty and cause difficulty with problem solving, staying attentive and remaining focused. Confusion is like a grey haze that dares you to enter. Mental murk is the symptom of a weapon that clouds truth. That’s why its source needs to be justly observed. Sometimes it is caused from lack of rest, health or disinformation that affects your ability to solve problems or clear your thoughts. At other times it’s the result of spiritual attacks, warfare within your mind that produces mixed-up thinking. When the haze assaults remember that, “God is not the author of confusion but of peace” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Often confusion is a spiritual attack against your mind that has little or nothing to do with the general circumstances surrounding you. If attacked by confusion plead the blood of Jesus over your mind and watch the cloudiness disappear like the morning fog at sunrise.
Sad news can release despair. Yet dismay from spiritual warfare usually has nothing to do with a winter’s tale. Have you felt like you just wanted to give up and quit? Monday morning has come and you just want to turn back. One of the surest signs of spiritual attack against the mind is the feeling that you want to throw up your hands and quit. Despair feels like a lonely winter. It is the capricious notion that everything is wrong and nothing will turn out well. It is an attack against hope. scri pture says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Notice that faith activates hope that resides in the unseen realm within. You have probably heard much about the importance of faith, but faith activates hope. Hope is the stuff that dreams are made of. That’s why the spirit of this world attacks it so. If the enemy can destroy your hope he can disarm your faith. Those times when you feel like quitting and the whole world is against you are sure signs that victory is right at the door. Pick up your double-edged sword and slay that feeling.
WINNING THE MIND WARFARE
Confusion can also be the result of witchcraft that whispers in your ear. In my book “Exposing Spiritual Witchcraft” we learn that witchcraft is a spiritual force that battles against the spirit of your mind. Ungodly imaginations, for example, can have you entertaining works of the flesh and take you right out of the Spirit.
Some people are like the lone Joshua trees found in Southern California’s Mojave Desert. They are surrounded by desert and void of the refreshing waters of the Holy Spirit. Those who live according to their own hearts walk in spiritual parchedness. scri pture describes them as those that, “Have forsaken my law which I set before them and have not obeyed my voice neither walked therein but have walked after the imagination of their own heart and after Baalim which their fathers taught them” (Jeremiah 9:13-14). Baalim was a darkened prophet that ministered in divination and witchcraft because of a covetous heart. He sold-out God’s chosen for “the rewards of divination,” power, prestige and money (Numbers 22:7).
Thoughts that take you out of the Spirit are evidence of the spiritual war against your mind. Beware the fate of the foolish Galatians. Some thoughts are works of witchcraft within your imagination. Bewitching imaginations that lead you away from God’s principles and precepts into the flesh need to be bound and cast down (Galatians 3:1-3).
Witchcraft works best inside one’s imagination. Enchanted images are simply focal points the prince of the power of the air uses to steal Christ’s abundant life. scri pture describes witchcraft as a work of the flesh. “But if you be led of the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions and heresies” (Galatians 5:18-20). Witchcraft is a work of the flesh because people have the power to cast down orphic imaginations or to entertain them and walk them out. Beware the ritual of pictured witchery. You give life to an imagination by speaking it. scri pture declares that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” You have to be careful what you speak because the world of the spirit doesn’t operate on what you mean, it operates on what you say (Mark 11:23). When you speak the imaginations that attack your mind you prophesy over your life. So be cautious with your words because speaking vain imaginations, an activity of your flesh, is a form of witchcraft according to the scri pture you just read.
Others may have witchy thoughts about you and speak them over you. When they do, they give life to it and pass the assignment on. Now you have to deal with those spoken words. Not only was the imagination working within their imagination leading to wrong conclusions but now they’ve released the assignment of that imagination against your life; when they do that releases confusion, a form of witchcraft. If this happens to you, don’t receive it. Don’t think about it. Don’t agree with it. Don’t repeat it. Bind it up and cast it down.
Someone may say, for example, “I was thinking about you last night and recommend that you double lock your doors tonight because I just feel danger in the air.” Or they may talk about how you’re going to be sick and so on. Don’t give life to other people’s fleshly munitions.
When spoken, vain imaginations release demonic assignments through fear. If someone releases fear at you through one of their imaginations bind it up. You can declare God’s truth over your life by saying, “No weapon formed against me can prosper in Jesus’ name!” Remember that warring against imaginations means that you chain every thought, every word and every imagination to the Word of God, even the gossiping words spoken by others. This is why some Christians are taken out by imaginations because they don’t know how to campaign against them. Use God’s Word in your life and take dominion over vain imaginations. Avoid other people’s imaginations and don’t try to combat thoughts with thoughts. Instead use the Word of God and your spiritual authority to take them captive.
MEDITATION AND REFLECTION
Spiritual warfare is using the Word of God and your delegated authority to oppose demonic opposition against you.
Before we attack principalities and powers let’s learn how to pull down the warring thoughts and imaginations that rise within us.
One of the surest signs of spiritual attack against the mind is the feeling that you want to throw up your hands and quit.
The world of the spirit doesn’t operate on what you mean, it operates on what you say.
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Sun Jan 18, 2009 3:44 am