Weapons of Satan – Pride Part 1

Mark 8:36 – “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

My most recent bible studies and books I’m reading have all had the same theme – Pride, Self, Ego, etc.  It made sense for me to blog about it since He is blessing me with abundant teachings.  I pray I’m a good student and am learning well.  Some things are taken from scripture, Max Lucado’s Life Lessons on James, and the 3 Battlegrounds from Francis Frangipane.  I highly recommend a reading of my previous postings first.  Weapons of warfare, placing thoughts into captivity, Wisdom and Choice, and so on.  Many of these things come together in this post, so i highly recommend a gathering of knowledge.

I truly believe that I speak Truth here and I also truly believe that Satan does not want anyone to read this.  When I speak to other Christians that truly know God and HIs Word, they agree on these things and they see these things at war within themselves.  These things I speak about are all over in scripture.  I also hear them in sermons from different Pastors and read about them in different books.  The best way for me to see that I speak Truth is when I say these things directly to people, to see the pride take offense, take issue with, or create a battle/disagreement with these things.  How can we discern where we stand on the issue of pride, which everyone has?  – Either A: We stand in agreement with God and see these things within – and we will grow.  Or B: We take issue with it, and the actual pride itself prevents us from seeing it.  The pride will be judgemental, it will point fingers, it will stop reading, it will get upset, it will say “I don’t need to read this, I’m ok.  He’s being stupid.”  Bascially, if self talk begins to point in a direction to stop someone from reading this, then we can be rest assured, it’s satan/self/pride.

Lord, I pray that you and you alone are speaking through my mind and through my hands onto this keyboard.  Lord, I trust that these are words of Truth.  I pray that they go forward and like a double edged sword, they cut through the scales of all Flesh.. They cut through the scales of the reader’s eyes and their minds, so that the Holy Spirit can rise up and minister to their souls.  Lord, I pray that you prepare hearts now to receive this message so that all of satan’s decpetive tools and evil demons/thoughts are bound up and casted out away from the reader.  Lord, I pray that you protect all readers from the information on this posting whereas if anything is not from you or not aligned with your Truth, that you protect the reader from absorbing it into their mind, heart and soul.  Otherwise, I pray that the remaining words from your Truth are deep rooted within them.  And that they are so rooted that they are remembered forever and ever.  That these words continue to minister to them all of their days.  Lord, I know how sometimes we read things and they sound great, our Spirits are lifted up, and then an hour later we are back to regular life.  Lord, I pray that doesn’t happen for myself or anyone else.  I pray that all of your Truth continues to grow, flourish and receive water.  I pray this in your Son’s name, our wonderful Savior and Redeemer.. Our intercessor, Jesus Christ, Amen, Amen, Amen.

Who do you want to please?  The choice is simple, yet hard.  We can please God or Satan/ourselves/the world.  We were created for God’s pleasure and glory, but we will sink into petty selfish behavior if we don’t humbly bow before God.  We can choose friendship with God or friendship with the Satan/ourselves/the world.  As James 4:1-10 shows us, we can troubleshoot almost any challenge we get into by asking, “Who am I trying to please?”

These things derived from satan (the self) are all parts of the flesh that are deep rooted within all of us.  It’s, in my opinion, where the true seed from Adam’s fall is found and when this is found, this is where the root of all evil will be found as well.  This is the part of us that needs to be placed on the Cross in Christ Jesus, and we need to replace it with Christ within, to become Christlike in our lives… clothe ourselves in His Righteousness.

This area of ourselves is the area that has the ‘me’ attitude.  What can I gain, what do I get out of this, how can I advance, how do I view this situation/person (judging), how does this benefit my life, I want, I need, I can’t, I won’t, how can I… me… my.  When we slow down our inward thoughts and bring Christ in as a Watcher, we can stand side by side w/ Christ and watch/examine our self talk and where they are coming from (where are the root drives/motives of our thoughts.  Where do they come from?  We have to examine, watch, evaluate, etc. in order to find out.).  In my humble opinion, they will only come from 2 places: A thought p;rocess that aligns with the Spirit (in-Christ) or a thought process that aligns with the Flesh (Satan/Self).  We must be VERY careful on evaluating/examining.  The prideful self does not want to be uncovered, thus pride will hide itself deeper.  Pride itself will say “i’m ok”.  Pride itself will dodge and weave as to not be found.  Because if it’s found, what would happen?  Our world would come crashing down?  We would have to admit that we were fooled?  I’m certain that pride works against us when self evaluating (we are very use to it and think we are thinking right thoughts, but we are thinking the thoughts of pride).  Pride does this because it protects itself from being uncovered/revealed…becuase once revealed/uncovered, we have just laid all of our cards out on the table, we’re showing our hand, and we must say “I have been fooled..  I have been deceived.  I am a sinner.  Forgive me.”  <–Pride won’t let that happen.. otherwise it wouldnt’ be very prideful,would it?  It would mean we would have to humbly fall to our knees before God and say “I have been wrong.  Forgive me.”  Pride does not want that to happen… or should I say, Satan does not want that to happen.

The biggest word in scripture may be from “If we confess our sins…” – If.  Confessing of our sins and admitting failure is exactly what prisoners of pride refuse to do.  “Me, a sinner?  Oh, I may get rowdy once in a while, but I’m a pretty good person”, “At least I’m not as bad as that other person”, “I’m doing good, God loves me, it’s ok.” – These are words from the prisoner of pride.  We justify, we rationalize and we compare ourselves to others.  These are tools/snares from Satan.  They sound good to us, they are familiar because we have said them before, other people say them.. .but they are hollow in the Kingdom of God because He is not fooled.  We can fool ourselves and convince ourselves of anything.. but He is not fooled and He knows.. He sees.  We should closely examine ourselves and see if satan…see if the pride is hiding under our self talk.  While we are examining, the prideful self will keep talking in our head and we will think we are examining, but we’re fooled.  Be careful… Examine with Christ… Meditate with Christ.. He will help.  Pray – “Lord, please Help me uncover any hidden wickedness within my being pertaining to pride.  Lord, Guide me through examining myself.  Lord, Protect me from being deceived.  Lord, I want to grow more into Your likeness.  I know Your Will is that we grow and learn.  I Trust that You will show me and I surrender my entire self to you.  Amen.”

The sad part of this is that society completely feeds and forms us from childhood, and we become people with a “me first” thought process.  Parents raise kids concentrating on material items, parents show (unknowingly) a me first mentality, TV pounds it in our heads, etc.  If we’re not a gatherer and trying to gain as much in life as possible, then we get casted down in society.  The way I see it and in my humble opinion, the truth is that all of the things we desire of this world turn back to dust, just as our bodies will. We collect, gain, buy, feed all the desires, feed all our wants, and then in the end we die..and the things along with us die too.  Sure, we can collect them for our children, grandchildren, etc.  Well, I hate to break it to everyone, but they die too… their kids die…and their kids die.

So what’s the point of life??  To feed our ego’s while we are here?  To go through a life of concentrated on fulfilling all of our desires, all of our own wants, and then die?  This is exactly the trap, the snare, the evil plot… this is where satan has us just wher he wants us.
If our thoughts are formed around this world and ourselves, satan is winning the war for our soul.  If the things of this world are on our minds more than the Lord, then there’s some work to do.  If our minds/thoughts are on ourselves and our own gain more than they are on other people, then there’s some work to do.  As posted in another entry, from Rick Warren: The fruit of the Spirit begins in your thought life. The seeds must be planted in your mind: The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.

There is a serious war going on behind the scenes for our souls.  On one side we have satan, the flesh, greed, wordly desires, pride, self, ego, etc.  The other side, we have God Almighty, Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Love, Righteousness, humility, a mind of lowliness, etc.  The battle that is going on is for our minds (see my previous posting on placing thoughts into captivity as well as spiritual warfare).  Whoever’s thoughts we choose to occupy our minds.. whoever’s thoughts we entertain and act upon, this determines the winner.  Our choices are what determines the winner of our soul. Praise God for Jesus Christ our Savior and the Holy Spirit our Helper. 2Cor4:¹⁸ while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Here’s a tip to get the mind away from this world, worldly possessions, and a I, me, my, attitude.  This is when we start thinking of others before we think of ourselves, or, when we start thinking thoughts that God/Christ within would think versus what we have been formed to think, what Satan wants us to think.  Everything begins with a thought.  In order to see these thoughts clearly so that we can make choices that are healthy for our souls, we must be born again and start the process of being saved in order to do these things.  We must accept Christ as our personal Savior.  Believe that He died on the Cross for my Sins, and throught His Blood (life is in the blood), atonement has been made for our sins.  We must believe that Christ was raised from the dead 3 days later.  We must accept God’s blessed Everlasting Covenant.  Only at this time will the Spirit within, which is dead, will be made alive again.  Then the Holy Spirit will begin interceding for us to God Almighty, and the Holy Spirit will begin administrating to our soul (our minds, hearts, emotions).  See, if we do not have Christ in our lives, we only have the flesh, this world, and satan speaking to our souls within our mind.  It’s all we have known, it’s all that we have ever experienced, we don’t know any better.  We believe all that we are and all that we have is what life is all about.  It’s the biggest deception in mankind.  Wool over the eyes… we’ve been tricked.  Praise God for His Son and His awesome Plan!  To put His dwelling place right within us, exactly where Satan is at.  When we accept Christ, a new thing starts in us.  The Holy Spirit will start speaking to our soul, and we can see the other side of life.. the glorious side.

Again – Mark 8:36 – “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

At this point, we can recognize the 2 thoughts – Thoughts that align with God and thoughts that align with this world/the flesh/satan.  Then, we personally make the choice on which thought we continue with.  Again… I must repeat: The fruit of the Spirit begins in your thought life (this is the Holy Spirit). The seeds must be planted in your mind: The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.  So let’s put it this way – If you don’t feel good or if an outward action is not a good thing (for instance, feeling depressed, sad, angry, or having outward action like eating unhealthy, drinking, smoking, swearing, paying attention to worldly things, breaking His commandments, etc) – then it’s because we chose to think the thoughts of satan.  It all starts with a choice of who we allow to occupy our minds – God or Satan.  Then, as that statement went: The way we think determines the way we feel and the way we feel determines the way we act.  I should rephrase it and state – The way we choose to think determines the way we feel…

Romans 12:² And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Here is another tip to get our minds off of ourselves – When we realize that all that we have, all that we have had, and all that we will have, comes from God and God alone, then the twisted view starts to change.  We start treating things differently, we start treating people differently, we start looking at our belongings differently, and we start counting many more blessings.  For instance, I have food in my stomach right now, praise God.  I have a shirt on my back, praise God.  I have a roof over my head, praise God.  When we start to complain about the things that God provides for us, such as a job, a family, a home, clothing, vehicles, friends, family, food, and so on… We are basically complaining against God and His providence.  Since God doesn’t change, and since He didn’t like people complaining about His blessings in the wilderness (Exodus), we should consider that He doesn’t like our complaining today either.  Remember, all that we have, we only have because the Lord has blessed us with His belongings.  Everything we have is His and comes from Him blessings us with these things.  We should be good stewards with His belongings. For instance, the money we have, it is His and He has blessed us with it.  Does He want us going out and buying a pack of cigarettes with His money?  Does He want us purchasing alcohol with it?  Does He want us concentrating on a “me first” mentality with it?  Does He want us to fulfill all of our selfish desires with it?  Absolutely not.  Yes, He wants us to enjoy ourselves, but we have to remember that everything we have is His.  All of the people we experience are His.  Then we take a different attitude towards His belongings, His money and His people.

This should give us all a different perspective on the things we have in this life and how we put the “I” into relation with them.  As I also read in bible study… Evaluate everything that we are thinking and doing, ask yourself during every situation: “Who am I trying to please here?”  God (Spirit/Christ) or Satan (self/others/the world).  The answer is one or the other.. there’s no in between.  God or Satan.  Our choice of where we set our minds – which will be who we declare to be the winner of our soul.

From Francis Frangipane’s – The 3 Battlegrounds:
“God can never entrust His Kingdom to anyone who has not been broken of pride, for pride is the armor of darkness itself.”

“For us to succeed in spiritual warfare, our self-preservation instincts must be submitted to the Lord Jesus; for Christ alone is your true advocate.”is

“Since God is opposed to the proud, and if we are too proud to humbleourselves (admit we are wrong), then God is opposed to us!”

I highly recommend a complete study and read on James 4 as well as checking out my part 2 follow-up on this topic.
Pride Promotes Strife: James4:¹ Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?
– They come from our desires for pleasures that war in our “members”.  Members = Holy Spirit and Self, or – God and Satan.  The war of the thoughts in our heads.

James 4:⁴You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. (NIV)

James 4:⁶ But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”

James 4:⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

James 4:⁹Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

God bless you and yours.  Lord, I pray, I pray Lord.. .I pray that these things are in accordance to your Truth.  Lord, if they are not, please show me so that I may correct and edit this posting.  Lord, if any of my own pride/self is coming through, I pray that you help me see it and correct it.  I pray this in Your Sons name, Yoshua.  Amen, Amen, Amen.

Please see His further teaching on this topic here: Part 2

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