“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”
2. Corinthians 10:4-6
Greg Violi’s sermon
“Ein Geheimnis, wie man Freude in einer schlechten Beziehung haben kann“
(In both english and german)
http://www.onlinepredigt.de/viewtopic_play.php?t=987&forumid=1&fileid=2221
There is a realization that is required to live a victorious christian life: Thoughts will mess you up but you have power over them.
Let me elaborate. The above sermon confirmed the process of temptation that leads to sin. In order for sin to happen, temptation has to be brought into our minds through a thought conveyed by the evil one. He can stick thoughts into our heads and we may think, they are coming from our own imagination. After all, we deserve better, they left us out of the event, or they did us wrong. Whenever we put ourselves in the center, we are in the wrong. Our focus should always be God in the center of all we do. Whenever we elevate ourselves to the throne of our hearts, which is what we do when we lament how badly people are treating us, it is rebellion. What this preacher said was simple to understand. He said temptation in itself is not sin, but when it mates with an area of our lives that we have not crucified and completely surrendered to Christ, it conceives sin. Sin is the product of temptation and our lust. It takes two to conceive, and it is a voluntary matter. If we take the queue from satan that we should feel sorry for ourselves or take matters into our own hands, we have had unlawful intercourse on a spiritual level. It is that simple. When we look at the fact that Jesus was tempted and did not sin, we clearly see proof that temptation alone is not sin, but what we do about it can make it so. So what do we do to remain sinless in those tempting times? Simple again: Go to the source. God gives us spiritual gear to use in those times of warfare. Read Ephesians 6 for the whole armor of God that we should put on daily. What we may need to focus on is that those thoughts that creep into our minds are truly spiritual warfare. Identifying the enemy is half the battle. Then we have to throw ourselves on the mercy of our God who has already defeated the evil one. We just have to remain faithful and strong in Christ. HE will be faithful in return and carry us through those battles, unscathed. That’s where victory happens. If we do not identify these situations as spiritual warfare and either go along with the temptations or just try to white knuckle it ourselves, failure is inevitable. Let us not be deceived, the evil one is trying to keep us from being effective for God. Let us live victorious lives with our eyes wide open and our hearts pure for our God!
References:
1. John 1:8-10, James 1:2-15, Isaiah 59:4-5, 2. Corinthians 10:3-6,
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