Two Strategies
Dearly beloved of God, your life is worth the wealth of the world to your Heavenly Father. The angels of God rejoice over one sinner that comes unto God through Jesus Christ. You are a pearl of great price to Him. You are dearly beloved by Him, and highly favored in His sight. You are a child of God!
We have the victory that overcomes the world because we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God. We have eternal life because we believe in the Son of God.
Our adversary the devil is a liar. He would have us to believe that we are worthless, and that we are victims, not victors.
His strategy in this evil age deals with blinding the minds of those who do not believe so that they do not see the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
He is the deceiver that deceives the world.
As the serpent deceived Eve through his craftiness, he works so that our thinking is corrupted from the integrity and purity that is in Christ. He works to deceive God’s people with a different gospel from the gospel of the grace of God.
Dearly beloved of God, it is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The adversary wants you to believe who you are in the flesh, not in Christ. He wants you to be beaten down with sin-consciousness, not son-consciousness. He wants to mold you to the thinking of this evil age, not to be transformed by the renewing of your mind to who you are in Christ.
As the children of God we should believe who we are in Christ. We are to grow up in him, who is the head, even Christ. The life we now live in the flesh we live by believing concerning the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us.
God exhorts us in Ephesians to walk worthy of the calling with which we were called. We are to walk in love as Christ walked. We are to walk as children of light. We are to walk accurately, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. We are not to be foolish, but understanding what the will of the LORD is.
Ephesians closes with the exhortation to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the strength of his ability.
Clothe yourselves with the whole armor of God so that you are able to stand against the strategies of the devil, because we wrestle not with flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this present dark ness, against the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly realm.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God so that you are able to resist those things in the day of the wicked, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having your loins girded with the truth, and clothed with the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet bound with the readiness of the gospel of peace.
With all these things, take up the shield of the right way of believing, with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the wicked one.
Take the head covering of salvation [deliverance in the spiritual fight] and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with every prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance for all saints.
God’s strategy is the opposite of the adversary’s strategy. God wants the eyes of our understanding enlightened with His Word. He wants us to be clothed with the full armor of God; to be clothed with the new man, with who we are in Christ.
God’s strategy is that our loins are girded with the truth of His Word, while our adversary tells us the Word of God is not necessary.
God wants us to be clothed with the breastplate of righteousness. The adversary does not want us to believe that we are righteousness of God in Christ.
God wants our feet bound with the readiness of the gospel of peace. Jesus Christ made peace between us and God, and between the Judeans and the Gentiles. If our feet are bound with the readiness of the gospel of peace we can run to serve. The adversary doesn’t want peace, he wants chaos, anxiety, fear, and worry to rule our thinking and living.
God wants us to take up the shield of the right way of believing so that we are able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the wicked one. The wicked one wants us to believe wrongly so he can play havoc in our lives.
God wants us to pray in the spirit. Jesus Christ gave us access to the Father by the gift of holy spirit we received in the new birth. He delights in our prayers. The adversary does not want us to utilize prayer in the spirit, and get God to intercede on behalf of the saints.
The two strategies become obvious when the Word of God is our reference for truth.
God our Father would have us to be wise unto that which is good and unmixed with regard to the evil. The God of peace will quickly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.