March 2000

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by Carole Forde

he Mind of Christ is engaged in mortal combat with our hellish host from the netherworld, the Carnal Mind!! But the Anointing assures us "The battle is the Lord’s." (1 Sam 17:47 Again He repeats, "The battle is not yours, but God’s"! (2 Chr 20:15) Through Him, we are able to "Fight a good fight of FAITH" rather than an evil fight of flesh! What is meant by a "good fight"? It is when the Good Shepherd contends with the wolf for His sheep! He is skilled and wise in the wily ways of wolfish warfare! For this cause, God wants us to leave all such combat to His Christ; but there is another reason: we are too easily self-deceived! Because we are so weak in the flesh, we are, without even realizing it, too prone to fight against God, which only exacerbates the problem. Flesh can only beget more flesh! We need to leave the fighting to Christ and devote ourselves to repentant, rejuvenating prayers like: "Create in me a CLEAN HEART O God, and renew a RIGHT SPIRIT in me. Don’t cast me away from Your Presence; and don’t take Your Holy Spirit from me! Restore to me the joy of Your Salvation; uphold me with Your free Spirit; for only then can I teach transgressors Your ways, so that, through me, sinners will be converted to You!" (Ps 51:10-13)
                 Why do we need "clean hearts"? Because our old ones are defiled by carnal-mindedness and the word of flesh it produces! We may think we can trust our old Adamic hearts, but until our thoughts originate from the Heart of God, we can’t know or understand them. But God knows and understands them all too well! He is the one who "shut us up in an evil heart of unbelief; so that he could bestow mercy on us all." (Rom 11:32) He knows that the most wicked, the most devilish, "deceiver" is the HUMAN HEART! In Jer 17:9 He reveals, "The heart is deceitful above all else; and desperately wicked, exceedingly perverse, severely corrupt and mortally sick!" We may think we are fighting for God when we engage in spiritual warfare but we must be careful that we are not actually "fighting against God"! (Ac 5:39) Our Omnipotent, Most High God needs no one to fight "for" Him; but His Mercy permits us to "fight with God"! [The literal translation of "Israel" is "He who fights and rules with God".] Thus God sent forth His Captain of Salvation to train up an Army in divine war strategies; then lead them victoriously into battle!
                How does the Army of Christ perform in battle? To know this, we must understand the King and Kingdom for which we fight the good fight! Let us review a few basic facts:about Him Whom we serve. First of all, 1 Jn 4:8 declares, "God is LOVE"; then Jn 3:16-17 says, "God so LOVED the world, that He gave (into her earthy womb, the Word-Seed of) His only begotten Son so whoever would believe in Him should not perish, but have *Eternal Life (*Jn 17:3 defines this as: "To (intimately) know the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom He has sent."). But God did not send His Son into the (womb of the) world to condemn the (already condemned) world, but that the world (woman) through Him would be SAVED (..."as BY CHILDBEARING)!" (1 Tim 2:15) Let your mind think on these things.

[TO BE CONTINUED]