The Holy Spirit’s Role in Spiritual Warfare
The foundation of Spiritual Warfare: God’s Holy Spirit IN US!
If we can grow in our connection to God’s Spirit…We win the warfare!
If we properly believe in and leverage the Power of God’s Spirit in us…
Romans 8:1-14
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.
- Forgiven sin can still cause condemnation, keeps you from seeking God’s will
- What it means to belong to Christ (Biblical Truth you consider reality)
All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged. ~ Screwtape
- The Indwelling of God’s Spirit at Salvation gives you the only weapon you need
The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
- The law represents what we can do by our own goodness / righteousness
- Law was given for the express purpose of showing us we need God against sin
- Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection provides the power (we have to use it)
He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit. Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.
- If we surrender our life to God and let His Spirit lead us: Not condemned!
- God empowers but doesn’t force us
- If we surrendered our lives to Christ, why would we not seek God’s will?
- What are we focused on? Our will or God’s will? Who is setting the priorities?
Once you have made ‘The World’ an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. ~ Screwtape
So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
- Who controls you mind / heart?
- This is about habits, training, lifestyle, priorities, attitudes, wisdom
- Once we recognize our specific sinful nature we then leverage the Spirit
He (God) made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. ~ Screwtape
- At salvation we make a big picture decision but daily we make choices
- What is having input on those decisions? God’s Spirit or YOUR sinful nature?
- When we yield to temptation instead of The H.S. We are OUT of God’s will
- Being out of God’s will is a dangerous place
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)
- We can constantly reduce the danger by trusting God’s Spirit in us to control us
- IF we have truly surrendered our lives to Christ and the Gospel we are HIS
- Is that your all encompassing reality? If not, ask God to make that happen!
And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
- The indwelling Holy Spirit is essentially Christ in You / You in Christ
- At the point of surrender / salvation God creates a permanent spirit connection
- That connection gives you GOD”S POWER over sin
Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself we are defeated, but there are ways to prevent them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him to themselves. ~ Screwtape
- We are Spiritually Alive (living desiring God’s will and Spirit control)
- THIS is how we fight our sinful nature, The Devil & the sin controlled world
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
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We do not have to yield to temptation, but if we do we are not condemned
The Enemy has, for the time being, put a forcible end to your direct attacks… consequently you cannot use again what is, after all, our best weapon – the belief of ignorant humans, that there is no hope of getting rid of us except by yielding. ~ Screwtape
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Spiritual Warfare is the fight to stay ‘Spiritually Alive’ (Hard Wired 2 God)
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To please Him (which is to do His will) makes us who we are supposed to be!
When He (God) talks of their losing their ‘Selves’, He only means abandoning the clamor of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all of their personality and boasts (I am afraid sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever. ~ Screwtape
Application Questions:
What role does condemnation play in your Spiritual Battles?
How do you specifically trust Christ’s sacrifice to end sin’s control of your life?
How is yielding to God’s Spirit and seeking His will ‘Spiritual Warfare’?
What convinces you to be controlled by God’s Spirit rather than your sinful nature?
How does your connection with God’s Spirit empower you to defeat temptation?
How can you bring an eternal perspective based on Scripture into Spiritual Warfare?
How can ‘A Child of God’ specifically leverage spiritual power over sin everyday?
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. ~ C.S. Lewis
Jargon, not argument is your best ally in keeping him from the church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, progressive, courageous…the philosophy of the future. ~ Screwtape
The Enemy does not want men to give the future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with Eternity (Him) or with the Present – meditating on their eternal union with or separation from Him OR obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace or giving thanks for the present blessing. ~ Screwtape
As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. ~ Screwtape
Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of church going, the next best thing is to send him all over looking for the church that ‘suits him’ until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches. The search for a ‘suitable’ church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil. ~ Screwtape
You must therefore zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own’. Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours… The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged… We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. ~ Screwtape
The thing to do is to get a man at first to value ‘Social Justice’ as a thing which the Enemy demands, and then work him on a stage at which he values Christianity because it produces ‘Social Justice’. ~ Screwtape
What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call ‘Christianity And’. You know – Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Vegetarianism. ~ Screwtape
Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian coloring. Work on their horror of ‘The Same Old Thing’. The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart – an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage and inconsistency in friendship. ~ Screwtape
False spirituality is always to be encouraged. On the seemingly pious ground that ‘praise and communion with God is the true prayer’, humans can often be lured into direct disobedience to the Enemy who (in His usual flat, commonplace, uninteresting way) has definitely told them to pray for their daily bread and the recovery of their sick. ~ Screwtape
Prosperity knits a person to the world. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it’, while really it is finding it’s place in him. ~ Screwtape
The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are ‘Real’ while the spiritual elements are ‘Subjective’. ~ Screwtape