Hearts At Rest

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
1 John 3:19-20

As a pastor, I have recommended counseling for a countless number of people. I am a strong believer that getting to a place of emotional health often requires the help of others, and sometimes professionals, to help us see our blind sides and the deeper wounds in our hearts.

When counseling is done well, especially when done by someone with a Christian worldview, it can be a good first step toward emotional healing and emotional health. However, I’ve also seen the darker, more damaging side of counseling.

Do you know people who have gone to counseling for years, even decades, and are not much better than they were before? They are no more free and no more like Christ than when they started counseling? Sometimes they are worse? Me too. Unfortunately, as a pastor, I have had front row seats to see how very common this is. It is so common it is embarrassing.

John reminds us in this passage from 1 John 3 that what truly sets our hearts at rest in God’s presence is not an endless cycle of morbid introspection. The key to emotional health and healing in our hearts, he tells us, is having confidence that God is greater than our hurts, our emotions, our past and that He knows everything. Which means instead of spending years in an introspective search for all that is wrong with us, we can simply seek God and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the things deep in us that need healing.

The apostle Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians about the “search engine” capabilities of the Holy Spirit:

…these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.
1 Corinthians 2:10-13

In a subsequent letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds them that it is the Spirit that does the work of transformation in us. He said:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18

The Holy Spirit is a master at searching the deep things in our heart and in the heart of God and bringing them to the surface so that our heart can be healed. So often we struggle to see ourselves the way God sees us, so we either end up blind to our own sin or we end up with a lot of self-condemnation.

The beauty of allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal things to us–rather than endlessly, introspectively searching for what is wrong with us–is that He is able to masterfully avoid the traps of justification and condemnation. He reveals to us what needs to be healed, what needs to be surrendered, what needs to be faced, what needs to be forgiven, what needs to be confessed, but does it without an ounce of fear, avoidance, shame or condemnation. He also knows when to reveal it and when to wait until we can handle seeing it. As John said, “If our hearts condemn us, we know God is greater than our hearts…”

Counseling, without also engaging in the inner healing ministry of the Holy Spirit, can become just a self-absorbed exercise in endlessly talking about oneself. And we all know people that love to endlessly talk about themselves. It is a sign of the very opposite of emotional health.

Morbid introspection assumes: 1) I will have the ability to see what the problem is, 2) I will want to do something about it, and 3) I will be able to do something about it. But we need the Holy Spirit to enable us to do all of these things. Without the Spirit we are blind and powerless to enact real, deep and lasting change in our lives. Christian counselors know this better than most.

What we need to cultivate is 1) the willingness to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal areas that need addressed in our life and 2) the ability to listen to the Spirit’s direction. So much of Christianity has lost the ability to hear the intimate voice of the Shepherd. Jesus said, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me“(John 10:27). But rather than cultivate the ability to hear the Spirit speak to us, direct us, and reveal things to us (1 Kings 19:12-18), we’ve substituted that kind of intimacy with other people telling us what’s wrong with us.

I will always be an advocate of counseling, especially by those who do therapy from a Christian worldview. But I do not think it is the ultimate solution to our problems nor should it be done in a vacuum. I believe it should be used as an aid, a helpful addition, to the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit speaking to us and revealing to us what He wants us to see when He wants us to see it. This allows us to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” (Hebrews 12:2) rather than turning our attention to self-absorbed introspection.

Why Jesus Appeared

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
1 John 3:8

We get from John one of Jesus’s primary mission statements. Jesus came to destroy the devil’s work. But what did that include?

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them.
Matthew 4:23-24

Destroying the devil’s work looked like four main things: 1) teaching about the Kingdom of God, 2) preaching the gospel, 3) healing every disease and sickness and 4) casting out demons/deliverance.

Jesus summarizes this mission in the synagogue in Nazareth by reading a prophesy about Himself from Isaiah 61.

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free…
Luke 4:16-18

We see here that destroying the devil’s work includes the same things–preaching/teaching, physical healing, and deliverance. If these were the main components of Jesus’s mission, and Jesus then passes His mission to the Church when He ascended and sent the Holy Spirit, then this mission is now ours.

One of the primary missions of the Church is to destroy the devil’s work. We are to do as Jesus did. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you“(John 20:21). Jesus said that we who believe in Him “will do the works (He has) been doing,” and that we “will do even greater things than these” because He was going to the Father (John 14:12).

We are called to: 1) teach about the Kingdom of God, 2) preach the gospel, 3) heal every disease and sickness, and 4) cast out demons. And Jesus told us that the way we would accomplish this mission was to “go and make disciples of all nations” and teach them “to obey everything” that He taught the original disciples (Matthew 28:19-20).

Most churches in America are only doing one or two of these, which is why the devil’s work in the world is not being destroyed. Instead, where the church doesn’t take up the full mission of Jesus, the devil’s work in the world runs rampant and creates chaos and unbelief. We were called to more than this!

Who is a child of God?

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
1 John 3:1-3

There are moments with the Lord when His Presence comes so near, when His love is felt tangibly in quiet moments with Him, that I weep with gratitude for getting to be so close to Him. One day it hit me like a ton of bricks: it is the greatest honor of my life to have the Spirit of God dwelling in me! What an incredible and undeserved honor!

God the Father lavishes His love on us. He doesn’t hold back. If we find we can’t feel His love, we: 1) rely on the truth that we know from scripture that His love never ends, and 2) find out what wound, hurt, or sin in us is separating us from experiencing His love. The problem is never on His end.

It is common to hear people say that all people are children of God. It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not what scripture says is true. This passage, among others, makes clear that followers of Jesus alone have the unique privilege of being the children of God. Paul makes this point emphatically in his letter to the Romans:

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Romans 8:14-16

When the New Testament addresses “the children of God” it is talking about those who have given their life to Jesus, have received the Holy Spirit, and have been adopted into the family of God. It’s our second birth, when we are born of the Spirit (see John 3:3-8), that makes us children of God not our first birth.

In the 1 John 3 passage above, John makes a clear distinction between children of God and those of the world. Those in the world will have a hard time with children of God just as they had a hard time with Jesus. Likewise, our adoption into the family of God causes us to want to purify our lives because Jesus Himself is pure. Being a child of God means we long to be like Jesus!

Rejecting Jesus

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
1 John 2:20-23

John tells us that the reason he writes these sorts of things is because of “those who are trying to lead you astray”(1 John 2:26). And when we read the above passage, we are reminded that there are many theologians and leaders in the church who are still trying to lead people astray with false teaching.

Here’s the reality: it is impossible to read the above passage the leave any room for universalism. Universalism says that people with all different religions and belief systems will ultimately be accepted by God the Father. It says God accepts all belief systems equally and so everyone will make to heaven to spend eternity with God.

But the only way to hold a universalistic understanding is to completely ignore this passage of scripture (and many others like it). One cannot believe in the Bible and be a universalist. You can pick one or the other but not both because the two are incompatible.

John is clear about what the truth is. The truth is that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. To deny Jesus is to reject God. To deny the Son is to deny the Father. There is no equivocation here. John makes no attempt to soften his language or side-step this foundational truth. If you acknowledge Jesus for who He really is, then you have connection and intimacy with the Father. But if you deny that Jesus is who He says He is, then you are simultaneously denying the Father.

John confirms this truth by referencing the anointing of the Holy One, the Holy Spirit. It is the internal witness of the Spirit that confirms the truth of these statements. About the Holy Spirit John goes on to say, “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things…”(1 John 2:27). The Holy Spirit is ultimately our teacher and our guide. He confirms the truth of God’s word in us. And the Holy Spirit never contradicts the word of God.

What is interesting to notice is that the same sections of the church that dabble in the falsehood of universalism have also created distance from themselves and the things of the Holy Spirit. When we stop listening to, engaging with, receiving gifts and power from the Holy Spirit, our teaching is sure to become more and more influenced by the corrupt thinking of the world.

By the time many seminarians finish seminary, they’ve been filled with false teachings and emptied of any intimacy with the Spirit. They start doubting the truth that they read in scripture and begin distancing themselves from the authority of the word of God. As someone who went to seminary, I saw this firsthand in my own life and I continue to watch it happen to others. No wonder the churches in American are shrinking and dying. We need to return to the boldness that John writes with, proclaiming the exclusivity of Jesus as the Christ and the only way to the Father!

The Fog of Unforgiveness

Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them.
1 John 2:9-11

John reveals here the bad fruit of living in unforgiveness. Unforgiveness leads to resentment, and resentment to bitterness. Bitterness creates a breeding ground for hate. This is why living a lifestyle of forgiveness is absolutely essential for those who follow Jesus.

We forgive because we have been forgiven. When someone hurts us, there is a relational indebtedness that occurs. There is a feeling that they “owe” us. Forgiveness is choosing not to hold onto that debt. It is not saying that what they did was okay. Just the opposite. Forgiveness is saying that what they did was not okay and yet, because we’ve been forgiven, we will release the debt and cancel the indebtedness. Jesus taught us this in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matthew 18:21-35.

From this parable we learn that Jesus has forgiven us way more than what He is asking us to forgive. The debt that has been canceled for us is way more than the debt we are canceling for others. We also learn that living in unforgiveness leads to our life being tormented by the enemy. John is echoing that reality here in this passage of 1 John.

Unforgiveness, which eventually turns into hate, causes us to walk around in darkness. We lose the ability to see reality clearly. Everything gets filtered through the dark lenses of hate, bitterness, and resentment. When we live in unforgiveness, we lose our ability to dream about our future because we are stuck in the past. The chains of hate are shackling our life to the person who hurt us, and we find ourselves unable to move forward. Forgiveness is the only thing that will break that chain.

I wonder how many people who say, “I don’t know where I am going in life,” don’t need to “find themselves” but instead need to forgive someone who hurt them. They wander and meander in life and can’t figure out why. Maybe John is telling us one possible reason. Maybe they don’t know where they are going because the darkness has blinded them. Maybe darkness has been given permission to invade their sight because they were unwilling to forgive and the fog of hate clouds their future.

In The Light

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life…
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
1 John 1:1, 5-7

Once again we see that the message we receive in the books of the New Testament are not speculation about Jesus. What we are reading are the eyewitness accounts of those who “heard,” “have seen,” “looked at,” and “touched” Jesus Himself.

The message that John is proclaiming is one that he heard from Jesus and now is relaying to us. What is that message? God is light; in him there is no darkness. There is no imperfection. There is no lack of justice or lack of love. There is no darkness at all.

Having fellowship with this kind of God means that we too must walk in the light. We too must live out the truth. And when we stay in the light, two beautiful things happen.

First, we have fellowship with one another. There is a unity that results from purity. There is a community that is born out of holiness. Walking in the light not only connects us intimately with the Father, but it begins to connect us with others who are walking in the light. We become the family of God. We become true brothers and sisters in Christ.

We too often think “personal sin” has no effect on anyone but ourselves. But we see here that sin, even when it is so-called “private,” has communal ramifications. Infection in one part of the Body, when not addressed, spreads to the rest of the body. Sin brings division.

The second thing that happens when we walk in the light is that the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. Here John mixes his metaphors, but we get the picture. Light cleanses and purifies. The longer we stay in the light, walk in the light, live in the light the more different areas of our life get cleaned out. Layer by layer the Holy Spirit restores and heals. Room by room the light of Christ exposes the moldy areas and lets fresh air in.

There are people who do “good things” who are walking in darkness. Walking in darkness is about being out of step with the Holy Spirit and heading in the opposite direction of Christ. It’s a lack of surrender. It is a self-directed, self-sufficient, self-absorbed life. Walking in darkness is about the trajectory of a person’s life.

We can’t claim to have fellowship with God, intimacy with God, friendship with God and continue to walk in darkness. Those two realities are incompatible. Walking in the light doesn’t mean we are perfect. We can walk in the light and make mistakes. We simply recognize our sin or error, ask forgiveness, repent, get up, and keep walking. Walking in the light is about moving in the direction of the light, not about being perfect. It’s about keeping in step with the Spirit and letting the Light guide our steps.

God is Patient

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
2 Peter 3:8-10

Why doesn’t God come and bring justice, fix all the wrong in the world, and make everything right by putting an end to evil?

Peter answers that question here in two ways:

He will.
Not yet.

There will be a day where God brings His perfect justice “on earth as it is in heaven.” There will be a day when God sets everything right. It will be a day when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

But the reason it hasn’t come yet is because of God’s grace and patience with humanity. He wants everyone to come to Him in repentance and be saved. He holds back His judgment so that more and more people can come into the Kingdom. And as revival fires blaze around the world, that is exactly what is happening.

Read stories of Brazil, China, Mozambique, Pakistan, Indonesia and Ukraine. People are coming to know Jesus by the hundreds of thousands. If you’re not aware that nearly the whole world is in revival, it is only because the staleness of American Christianity has blinded us to the reality of what is happening around the world.

So while we wait for the final consummation of God’s answer to evil in the world, we are to be the answer to evil in the world. We who have been and are being transformed into the image of Christ, who have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, who are the hands and feet of Jesus in the world are to partner with God to usher in His Kingdom on earth right now.

Jesus told a parable about God patiently waiting before bringing judgment. He gave us a picture of how God sees the history of humanity.

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”
Matthew 13:24-30

Prevalent False Teachings

Peter is warning the early Christians about false teachers that will try to influence the Church when he says this:

For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”
2 Peter 2:18-19

Sound familiar?

Beware of leaders and teachers in the church who think they are offering freedom by saying things like, “That lifestyle isn’t really sinful.” They think they are offering freedom by not calling sin what it really is. But instead they are peddling slavery dressed up as freedom. Their message is appealing precisely because it appeals to the lustful desires of the flesh. It calls itself love when really it is licentiousness.

This false teaching is especially appealing to those who are “just escaping from those who live in error.” In other words, this kind of message appeals to new or immature believers who haven’t yet been grounded in the truth of God’s word.

Here are some common versions of this kind of false teaching:

You don’t need a church community. It’s better to be spiritual on your own than commit to (what they call) “organized religion.”
Sex before marriage is normal and good. Those who champion purity are just oppressive in their forcing of Victorian Era morality on us.
The only way to really love the LGBTQ community is to let them express their sexuality however they want.
Abortion is a women’s right because the fetus a part of her body, and she gets to decide what to do with her body.
Pornography is a just a coming-of-age rite of passage for teen boys and can actually help young women throw off oppressive patriarchal sexual repression.
Other people dictate my emotional state. So if I am offended or hurt by something, I bear no responsibility. The other person must account for the harm they have done to my emotional wellbeing. If I am offended, someone else (other than me) is to blame.

The list could go on but much of this false teaching pervades our current American culture. In each case above, there is an appeal to the selfish, sinful nature. That is why these false teachings have become so popular. In response to each of the above, here is the truth that we find in God’s word:

Christianity was never meant to be done alone. We were meant to live in community as the Body of Christ. Most people who avoid church community do so because they never healed from an old, emotional wound. Many don’t want to look at the mirror that community often holds up to our own lives.
Sex before marriage is common but not healthy. It ushers in all manner of destructive things into our lives. Besides helping to create a rape culture and a culture of promiscuity, sex before marriage is damaging to our bodies, our emotions, and our spirits.
There is a better way to love those who are attracted to the same sex than saying “do whatever feels right.” This advice is bad advice in every area of life, including our sexuality. There is real freedom available in Christ from the distortions of the LGBTQ version of sexuality.
The unborn baby has its own body that needs protecting. No one should have the right to kill an innocent life. Abortion violates the body of the unborn baby in the worst possible way. The most vulnerable in our society should be protected, not discarded.
Pornography is a major part of the human trafficking network of oppression. It rapes the mind, objectifies women, and fosters toxic and violent sexual fantasy. It destroys healthy sexuality and has become an addiction that is destroying our society.
Other people do not have control over my emotions, I do. I am responsible for how I react to people. I am not a victim of the world around me. I must take ownership of how I respond to the hurtful and harmful things that are sent my way. Most of the time, when I am offended, there is a combination of things happening, some of which I am responsible for and some of which I am not. Maturity is learning to discern the difference.

Eyewitnesses of His Majesty

For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
2 Peter 1:16-18

Peter writes to believers in Jesus to remind them of the truth they were taught. He assures them that he and the other apostles were eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus’s life. These aren’t “cleverly devised stories” that we read about in the New Testament. Peter was there when Jesus healed people. He was there when Jesus cast out demons. Peter was there when the fish and loaves were multiplied and when Jesus walked on water. He saw Jesus’s power on display firsthand.

Peter recalls here the moment when he was an eyewitness, with James and John, of the transfiguration. In fact, Peter was the one who spoke to Jesus in His transfigured form as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Here is Matthew’s account of that moment:

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.
Matthew 17:1-8

It is important that we remember that when we read the New Testament, we are reading firsthand accounts of people who were there. These are people who were expecting their own death in the near future, as Peter did, and decided to start writing down things for future generations Christians.

These are not made up stories passed down from one person to the next. And these are not accounts of a good rabbi teaching nice things. These are eyewitness accounts of the miraculous power of the Son of God, God-incarnate, Jesus the Messiah.

One of my favorite quotes about the validity of the resurrection of Jesus comes from Charles Colson:

“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.”
Chuck Colson

These apostles gave their whole life for the truth of the gospel, the truth of what they saw with their own eyes that they passed on to us through the writings of the New Testament. We have now experienced in our own lives what they said was true and our lives are forever changed by it. Now we have the honor to give our whole lives to Jesus and the truth of the gospel. Now it’s our turn!

Resist

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…
1 Peter 5:6-9

The enemy is real. Satan is not a fictitious personification of evil. On several occasions I’ve ministered to a demonized person and seen the demon take control of the person’s body, face, and voice. I’ve had demons talk to me through these heavily demonized people. And while I shut down their chatter immediately, these occurrences only verify the truth of scripture that warns of the reality of our enemy.

This passage clues us into areas that can come under attack by our enemy, the devil, who prowls around like a lion looking for someone to devour. Any area of our life where we haven’t humbled ourselves becomes an easy target. That’s why the exhortation to humble ourselves comes before the warning about Satan’s attacks. An area that we’ve not submitted to the Lord but have pridefully held under our own control becomes an easy target. It becomes a weak spot in the wall of our spiritual defenses.

Likewise, any area of anxiety becomes an easy target. Fear is like artillery that softens up our spiritual defenses before the enemy attacks. Any area of our life where we are full of anxiety, fear and worry will be targeted. This is why we must cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us.

If there is an area of our life where we are not “alert” and of “sober mind,” it will likely be targeted as well. These tend to be areas of addiction or ways that we indulge in escapism as a way to cope with pain and hurt we experience in our life. These become areas where we no longer operate with a “sober mind” because we are self-medicating with our favorite drug, pleasure, or form of escape.

We need to sure up these vulnerable areas in our life. We’re commanded to stand firm and resist the enemy’s attack. We need to strengthen these weak spots in our walls. We must remember that these words from scripture were written to Christians. Just because we have the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean that we’ve automatically surrendered every room in our house to the Lord. And any room in our heart, mind or body that hasn’t been given over to the Lord can be broken into and occupied by the enemy.

The Holy Spirit has infinitely more power than the demonic invaders, but we must hand the Spirit the keys to that room. We must give the Holy Spirit permission to take over and revoke the right of the enemy to be there. Otherwise, we remain a house divided.