-As a Christian, you have enemies.
In fact, you have three enemies that are currently fighting you.
But are you fighting back?
Do you know how to fight these three enemies?
Because there are three different enemies and they are fought three different ways.
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The Bible says that we have three enemies that we face.
And that enemy is Satan, it's the world, and it's the flesh.
According to Ephesians 2:1-3, it says the following:
"And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
in which you once walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others."
So we see that before we were dead in our sins,
and as people who were dead in our sins,
we walked according to the course of this world,
and according to the power of the prince of the air,
and the spirit of the demons, the devil, demonic spirits,
were operating in the sons of disobedience.
So we were sons of disobedience,
and we lived according to the lust of the flesh,
we lived according to the desires of the flesh and our mind,
and by nature we were children of wrath.
And so we have actually, you know, three main enemies.
Is the world, the flesh, and Satan.
And we fight these three enemies differently.
The world is the enemy that is around us.
Satan is the invisible foe.
And the flesh is our inward foe.
So how do we overcome Satan?
And you probably have seen a lot about overcoming Satan in this YouTube
and you will see more but let's just kind of break it down.
Bible says the our weapons of warfare are mighty in God.
We overcome Satan through spiritual weapons.
These weapons are the Word of God, the name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus,
the Armour of God, and the testimony of Jesus.
And committing our life to obedience to the Lord as it says in Revelations,
"They overcame him by not loving their life till death,
after the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony."
When Jesus faced the devil in the wilderness,
He fought the devil not with His fasting,
not with His prayer,
not with His separation, not with His holiness,
He fought him with the Word of God.
And so Satan will most likely will attack us through our thoughts.
I truly believe that Jesus in the wilderness was not tempted like the movies portray.
Where Satan was there with a fork,
or Satan was there like this scary figure and then he just spoke against Him.
I believe that Jesus was tempted the same way you and I get tempted.
In fact, the Bible even says that He was tempted like us.
And when I get tempted, I don't have devil showing up,
I have thoughts coming into my mind.
Scripture talks about fiery darts, you know,
and these fiery darts they are thoughts.
There is impulsive, intrusive, foreign, alien thoughts. They are not mine.
And the devil wants you to make you feel like they are your thoughts.
And so Satan will attack you through your thoughts.
He will question the Word of God,
he will question your identity,
he will bring doubt,
he will try to bring distraction,
and he wants you to be disarmed so you can be defeated.
And so if you are able overcome these thoughts and how can you overcome them?
You overcome them by speaking God's Word.
Please understand, not just thinking God's Word.
You know, we don't overcome demonic thoughts, satanic thoughts,
by thinking godly thoughts.
We have to speak God's Word.
"Let the book of the law not depart your mouth." Joshua 1:8
"The Word of the Lord is living and powerful,
sharper than any two-edged sword." Hebrews 4:12
You have to speak God's Word against the enemy.
Now Jesus could have easily told Satan, "Get behind Me, devil!"
you know, but He said, "It is written."
Because He modeled for us as well the power of His Word.
When the devil comes against you like a flood, raise a banner against him.
That banner is the holy Scriptures. Okay?
Number two enemy that you have is this enemy called the world.
"We overcome the world," so we overcome the flesh--
we overcome Satan by fighting him directly with God's Word.
We overcome the world by fleeing it.
By getting away from it.
Now the world, I don't mean parks and mountains, birds and nature.
The world, I'm not talking about your non-christian friends.
The world I'm talking about is the system of this world.
The evil of this world.
But sometimes it could include toxic places,
and people that are bringing you down from Jesus.
Now and there lies a problem because the Bible tells us to go into this world,
but for those of us who are still walking in the process of our obedience,
deliverance and sanctification,
sometimes there are certain places, we shouldn't be walking into.
In fact, we have to run from them.
Because the people in those places are way more deeper committed to Satan,
and the kingdom of darkness than we are to God.
And for some of us, those were the places the Lord delivered us from.
And going in there, those places will suck us back into our old life
versus us delivering people in those places to God.
I have so many stories.
When I was a youth pastor of young people
who were too eager to go evangelize to their, you know, druggy friends,
by going on trips with them and vacations with them.
And I would encourage them, "Don't do it. You are not that strong yet.
I know you got a lot of fuego.
But it takes more than a fuego to overcome the world.
You have to be grounded in God's Word."
The Bible says blessed man he doesn't sit, he doesn't walk, he doesn't stand.
It's not because he's so weak. He's so blessed.
But there is certain places this blessed man doesn't go.
Joseph ran from Potiphar's wife.
He didn't pray for her.
He didn't try to evangelize to her.
He didn't flirt with her. He fled her.
And so there is this principle overcoming
and walking in your deliverance and walking in your victory,
is your ability to run from things.
Paul says to Timothy, "Flee youthful lust."
And so there are places that honestly trigger things in you.
There are people that trigger things in you that you just have to distance yourself
and walk away from those things.
If you are walking in the mall and you're looking, you know,
there's Victoria who has no secrets,
you know, the goal is not to, "Lord, cloth her with the garment of righteousness,
with dignity and holiness,"
No, just turn your eyes and just keep on walking.
Like turn away from that.
If something keeps causing you trip up, the Bible says,
"If your arm causes you to sin, cut it off."
You know, if your TikTok causes you to sin, just walk away from that.
So walk away from the world.
Flee the world.
So we fight Satan but we flee the world.
A lot of people what they do is they do the opposite.
The fight the world, and they flee Satan.
The Bible tells us to submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from us.
You're called to flee the world. Not flee Satan.
Satan should be fleeing from you.
But he will only flee from you proportional to you fleeing the world.
It doesn't make you a coward when you flee the world.
It actually makes you courageous.
Because it takes courage to walk away, distance yourself,
unsubscribe, cancel the subscription, walk away from certain things.
And honestly leave that garment in Potiphar's wife's hands and say,
"I don't want to associated with that, I don't care what you think about me,
but that's not me. I'm not going to do that."
It takes a lot of courage and conviction to do that.
And so even Jesus when He overcame Satan, may I remind you,
at that time He overcame the world too.
Because He distance Himself from the crowds.
He distanced Himself from the hustle.
He distanced Himself from the buzz of life.
He was in isolation.
He was in wilderness.
That is not where the world is.
The world is where the cities are at, villages, streets,
He was alone and He was in the wilderness.
And so the way you overcome your second enemy is to flee.
Your first enemy is to fight.
The third enemy is the flesh.
And the way we overcome the flesh is we feed our spirit.
We feed our spirit.
Now few things I want to highlight first and foremost.
The Bible says in Romans that our flesh was crucified with Jesus.
And then in Galatians Paul says, "No longer I but Christ who lives in me."
And so we have to start victory over the flesh
from the position that flesh is already dead with Christ.
The discipline that we apply is not so that our flesh can die,
even though Paul says, "I die daily."
You know, Paul says, "I discipline my body."
But we start, as Christians,
from the position where apostle Paul told us to start.
Where we are dead already. Our flesh is dead.
We don't have two natures.
We are one nature, the new nature,
but we can have two mindsets. Carnal thinking and the mind of Christ.
And that's where the problem lies.
So your flesh is dead already with Jesus,
that's why when you got baptized, you identified with the death of Jesus Christ.
Know you may say, "Well, that's cool Vlad but the reality is my flesh is not dead."
So that's where we have to walk from that position right now
of God's truth and see it manifest in our lives.
The same way God calls you righteous. You might not feel righteous.
In fact, you might not act righteous right now.
You know, God calls you victorious. You might not feel that.
And so we stand from the position of God's Word.
So we don't fight the flesh. Okay?
First and foremost, we feed our spirit and our soul and our mind
with what God says about our flesh already.
I know this goes contrary against what some of us do
when it comes to overcoming the flesh.
We think we have to just fight it, fight it, fight it.
And that has it's place.
But the first thing that we do is that we feed our soul, our mind,
our will and our emotions with the truth of God's Word.
Is the flesh is dead already.
Out of that place of death is where we apply discipline,
is where we live disciplined life,
we live crucified life instead of carnal life,
we put to death the desires of the flesh.
Out of the place that the flesh is dead,
we now go and put to death the carnal cravings of the flesh.
One by one we submit now our life to Jesus.
We give our body, our instruments, all the instruments in our body,
meaning all the members as instruments,
all the parts of our body as instruments to the Lord.
But it has to be done out of the place where, "I have been crucified with Christ."
Okay?
So we have to study that verse, Romans chapter six.
Read Romans if you are battling with your flesh right now.
Read Romans so that you can renew your mind
and so that you can feed your spirit and your soul with what God's Word says.
And out of that place, you live a disciplined life.
Out of that place, you fight.
Out of that place, you submit your body members to the Lord as instruments.
Out of that place you put to death the desires of the flesh.
Now, another thing that's important to point out is the Bible says,
"Walk in the Holy Spirit," Galatians 5:16
"and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh."
So though the flesh is dead, many people can still live in the flesh.
You may say, "How's that possible?"
First because their mind is not renewed,
but second is that they are not walking in the Holy Spirit.
That's why I said in order to overcome the flesh, it's not about fighting,
it's about feeding.
Feeding you spiritual life with God's truth,
and then also feeding and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit.
It's almost like you take your eyes off of the cravings of the flesh,
and you fix your eyes on the fact the Holy Spirit wants to spend time with you.
And this goes contrary to how some of us fight against sin and do spiritual warfare.
Yes, we have to come against Satan 100%.
We have to flee the world.
Walk away from the worldly things.
And then we feed our spirit, we feed our soul, we feed our life,
and we fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
And the Lord promises us, if we walk in the Holy Spirit,
it's not that we will not have the lust of the flesh,
we just won't fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Now I used to read this verse like that.
Don't fulfill the lust of the flesh so you can walk in the Holy Spirit.
Meaning, the moment you get a lot of victories,
God's going to give you this amazing badge of honor-
deep intimacy with the Holy Spirit.
Now that you have achieved holiness, you are worthy for the Holy Spirit.
But it's the other way around-
there is no way you can walk in holiness without the Holy Spirit.
And so if you want to overcome your flesh, don't focus on overcoming your flesh.
Focus on feeding your spirit, your soul, and fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit.
And you will see how surrender is the key to spiritual triumph
against not only your flesh, but also against the world and against Satan.
So we fight Satan,
we flee the world,
and we feed our spirit and we fellowship with the Holy Spirit to overcome the flesh.
May God bless you
and strengthen you in your battle against the spiritual forces in Jesus name.
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God bless you
until next time.