teachmevp

2 Corinthians 5:1 - Far too many believers are feeling dirty, worthless and ashamed of themselves; shame is a silent, but deadly disease that pollutes the lifeblood of many believers ambassadorship. As a result, we feel unclean and therefore unworthy to approach God and have the living and intimate relationship that he wants to have with us. 
 Shame prevents us from intimacy with God, because it makes us feel unworthy and distant from him. God’s standard is nothing less than perfection and none of us measure up, if we did or we ever could measure up sufficiently righteous for heaven through our performance, we would not have needed a savior at all. 
 For it is God’s grace, not our striving, that makes us accepted and acceptable. It is God’s performance through Jesus Christ, not our trying hard to perform, that eradicates our shame. Some of us spend most of our life giving up. We are tired, burned out, disillusioned, depressed, addicted to something. People around us feel frustrated by the huge disparity between our capabilities and our performance. 
 They either pep talk us concerning our value, or shame us for not performing. No one can have a close relationship with us; we push people away physically and emotionally, and push God away. We are the ones in families, churches, and society that people take care of-for a while, until we are given up on because of our lack of response.

2 Corinthians 6:4 - God’s basic goal for our life, is character development. The tribulations we face are actually a means of achieving our supreme goal of maturity, because persevering tribulations is the doorway to proven character, which is his goal for us. Perhaps the greatest service performed by trails and tribulations in our lives is to reveal wrong goals. 
 It is during these times of pressure that our emotions raise their warning flags signaling blocked goals, uncertain goals and impossible goals which are based on our desires, instead of God’s goal for our ambassadorship. His plan is for us to hang in there and grow up, and tribulation just happens to be one of the primary stepping stones on the pathway. 
 By preparing our minds for action, we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind, by filling it with God’s truth. We need to practice threshold, first-frame thinking, evaluate every thought by the truth. People may not always live what they profess, but they will always live what they believe. If our behavior is off, we need to correct what we believe, because our misbehavior is the result of our disbelief.

2 Corinthians 10:3 - When we choose to walk according to the old identity, in which we were trained before becoming born anew, such behavior violates our ambassadorship. When this happens, we feel convicted because our behavior is not in keeping with who we really are. We commit sin when we willfully allow ourselves to act independent of our ambassadorship, as our old identity did as a matter of course. 
 So why do we still react as if our old identity is still in control of our behavior? Because, while we served under it, our old identity trained and conditioned our actions, reactions, emotional responses, thought patterns, memories and habits in our brain. Our worldly experiences thoroughly programmed our brain with thought patterns, memory traces, responses and habits. 
 Our brain still generates humanistic thoughts and ideas, and our old identity is that part of us which was trained and determined to succeed and survive by our own abilities. When we became born anew, God did not press the clear button in our brain, our old identity persists in suggesting ways to live independent of our ambassadorship of God’s reconciliation.

Philippians 4:6-7 - We can know on a moment-by-moment basis if our ambassadorship is properly aligned with his truth. God has established a feedback system which is designed to grab our attention, so we can examine the validity of our goal. 
 That system is our emotions. When an experience leaves us feeling angry, anxious, or depressed, those emotional signposts are there to alert us that we may be cherishing a faulty goal. When our activity results in feelings of anger, it is usually because someone or something has blocked our goal. 
 Any goal which can be blocked by forces we cannot control (other then God’s goal) is not a healthy goal, because our success in that arena is out of our hands. Feelings of anger should prompt us to reexamine our ambassadorship, and the mental goals we have formulated to accomplish God’s message of reconciliation. 
 When we feel anxious in a task, our anxiety may be signaling the uncertainty of a goal we have chosen. We are wishing something will happen, but we have no guarantee that it will. We can control some of the factors, but not all of them. 
 When we base our future success on something that can never happen, we have an impossible goal. Our depression is a signal that our goal, no matter how noble, may never be reached. Depression often signals that we are desperately clinging to a goal we have little or no chance of achieving, and that is not a healthy goal.

2 Corinthians 9:8 - Achieving God’s goals for our ambassadorship is learning to distinguish his goal, from his desire. It is a critical distinction, because it can spell the difference between success and failure. His goal is any specific result reflecting his purposes for our ambassadorship, that does not depend on people or circumstances beyond our ability. 
 The only person who can block his goal or render it uncertain or impossible is us, and if we adopt the attitude of cooperation with his goals, his goal can be reached. His desire is any specific result that depends on the cooperation of other people or the success of events or favorable circumstances we cannot control. 
 We cannot base our self-worth or our personal success on our desires, no matter how godly they may be, because we cannot control their fulfillment. When a desire is wrongly elevated to a goal, and that goal is frustrated, we must deal with all the anger, anxiety, and depression which may accompany that failure. 
 Dealing with the disappointments of unmet desires is a lot easier then dealing with the anger, anxiety, and depression of goals, we would do well to distinguish goals from desires. When we begin to align our goals with God’s goals for our ambassadorship, and our desires with his desires, we will rid our life of a lot of anger, anxiety, and depression.

Philippians 3:20 - Satan and his forces are playing a cover up game with Paul’s good news message, because they have a desire to keep people lost. For example, Satan and his forces have deceived a great many people into believing a negative view of the body in contrast to the soul, and a concept of salvation as interior experience rather than total transformation. 
 A great many people have been deceived into believing that their nature is dualistic, that is, consisting of a material, mortal body and a spiritual, immortal soul. Dualism has done such a serious harm in weakening our blessed hope of Christ ‘s appearing and in distorting our understanding of our citizenship in heaven. 
 The Bible never sees the flesh and the soul as two different forms of existence. Rather, they are manifestations of the same person, the ancient Hebrews could not conceive of one without the other. The two are indissolubly connected because the body is the outward form of the soul and the soul the inward life of the body. The body and soul are an indivisible unity; people are seen from two different perspectives. 
 The body is the physical reality of human existence; the soul is the vitality and personality of human existence. The fact that a person consists of various parts which are integrated, interrelated and functionally united, leaves no room for the notion of the soul being distinct from the body and thus removing the basis for the belief in the survival of the soul at the death of the body.

1 Thessalonians 4:14 - Paul did not think the question of the status of the person between death and resurrection was a question that needed to be considered. The reason is that for Paul, those who die in Christ, their relationship with Christ is one of immediacy, because they have no awareness of the passing of time between their death and resurrection. 
 Death as we know it, would indeed be the end of our existence were it not for the fact of the resurrection. The second death differs from the first death, not in nature, but in results. The second death is permeant and irreversible extinction, because there is no awakening. 
 The second death is the death resulting from the final judgment which prevents evildoers from living in the new earth to come, a punishment that ultimately results in eternal, irreversible death. The stern punishment awaiting the enemies of righteousness, whose temporary resurrection results only in a return to death and its punishment, their full and final defeat. The wicked will be resurrected mortal in order to receive their punishment which will result in their ultimate annihilation.

1 Corinthians 3:14-15 - Dying to self, is never portrayed as something optional, it is the reality of being born anew; unless we are willing to see our old lives crucified with Christ and begin to live anew in obedience to him. Dying to self is something you can take very literal; you will die in every way possible in order to be someone you are not. 
 The entire concept seems a bit strange to our natural eyes. Rather, dying to self means that the things of the old life are put to death, most especially the sinful ways and lifestyles we once engaged in. We see that we need to die to self, although our salvation is not dependent upon how well we accomplish this. 
 Yet, as ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation, our witness is dependent upon how well we accomplish this. Dying to self is never portrayed as something optional, it is the reality of being born anew. Dying to self is something you can take very literal, you will die in every way possible in order to be someone you are not. Dying to self is a change in our principle action from what is by nature the exact opposite.
 Dying to self is not fun or easy, but what is particularly difficult about fighting this tendency is that it is not exactly a behavior or action. It can certainly manifest itself in those forms, but underneath them is an attitude. Dying to self is a real change of mind and attitude towards sin itself and the cause of it.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 - People continue to operate today in their thinking, nothings really changed, under the assumption that their sin is separating them from God. Many believe that they have to commit to abstain or commit to perform in order to be acceptable to God. If they sin in their thinking, they think God’s not going to accept them, that is how they reason it. 
 Many think they have sinned too many times to be acceptable to God. Or still others who may have made that “I will not sin” commitment over and over again and then broken those commitments, suppose it is to late for them anyway. Then you have the religious crowd who think their religious practices keep them in God’s favor. There are those who suppose church attendance merit’s some degree of favor with God. Others have I am doing the very best I can. So God will surely take note of my heart.
 If an ounce of new reconciliation in this Age of Grace could be restored for anyone when it comes to the issue of their sins, then the degree of forgiveness that must be obtained in order to restore the reconciliation, is the very degree to which that individual refuses to believe that Christ accomplished it all. Paul’s good news message is hid from those people. They do not understand what reconciliation is all about. 
 They think that new sin needs a new measure of reconciliation, so they seek forgiveness on the installment plan. Is that not the golden thread woven through every denomination out there? The truth is, you could not obtain an ounce of forgiveness if you tried, because God has already forgiven you all. That is why Christ’s ambassadors have the responsibility and privilege of making the reality of the reconciliation Christ has already accomplished known to those who know nothing of it.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 - The first thing we need to know about the battle for our mind, is that the main targets which must be destroyed are the fortresses in our mind, or called strongholds. Strongholds are negative patters of thought which are burned into our minds, either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing. 
 We must capture the tempting thought in the first frame or it will probably capture us. Once our consideration of a temptation has triggered an emotional response, we will act upon that choice and own that behavior. We may resent our actions or claim that we are not responsible for what we do, but we are responsible for our actions at this stage, because we failed to take a tempting thought captive when it first appeared at the threshold of our mind. 
 If we continue to repeat an act for more than six weeks, we will form a habit, and if we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent, and negative thoughts and actions we cannot control, spring from a stronghold. Simply putting on the armor of God at this stage will not solve our dilemma, these strongholds are already entrenched and fortified. 
 If the strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning, then we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind. Anything that has been learned, can be unlearned, but we are also up against Satan and his devil spirits who are scheming to fill our mind with thoughts which are opposed to our ambassadorship.

Philippians 3:2-3 - Paul warned to guard against those who would promote a righteousness through performance idea. Is it not interesting that the Gentiles had been considered dogs? Now you come to Paul speaking to the saints in Philippi, and it is the unbelieving Israelites who are considered dogs. Beware of Dogs; Beware of Evil Workers; Beware of the Concision.
 Just the fact that they were of the physical linage of Abraham did not cut the mustard as far as their righteous standing with God was concerned. Paul is simply drawing a contrast between those who were relying upon ritual for righteousness and those who place no confidence whatsoever in their flesh for a right standing before God. 
 Paul’s point here is circumcision apart from faith is nothing more than concision. It is nothing more than mutilation. You see, the concision, although it sounds like the word circumcision, the concision is a reference to those false teachers who thought that ritual, who thought they could do something, perform something and the ritual here was circumcision.

Galatians 4:21 - Can a person’s righteous works be added to the righteousness that belongs to Jesus Christ himself, in order to arrive at a greater degree of righteousness than the righteousness already belonging to our Savior? Would more righteousness be needed than the Savior’s righteousness, when it comes to the human race? Is God requiring that we add our righteous works to Christ’s righteousness that we might become righteous indeed, or is Christ’s righteousness the only righteousness from God’s perspective his saints will ever need? 
 The lunacy of desiring to be under the law was in the fact that the Galatians actually thought they could perform the law in a manner that would make them more righteous before God. They were trying to perfect their righteousness, to cap off the righteousness they have in God’s sight. They thought they could enhance their righteousness through their performance, through their rule-keeping, and they were using the law. 
 God used the faithfulness OF his son and the faith of the Galatians in his son’s faithfulness to have resolved God’s justice for their sins as the criterion. If our only righteousness in the sight of God comes through our union with his perfectly righteous son, is it not idiotic thinking to suppose that our righteous works can ENHANCE the righteousness that belongs to Christ, to whom we have been joined? The Galatians were not falling back into sinful practice, they were falling back into law practice. They were falling back into the mindset that their righteousness before God was tied to their performance.

Colossians 3:2 - The natural tendency of the flesh is to set our affection on the things of the earth and the things of the flesh and allow those things to rule our mind. We are not to hold the things on the earth so near and dear so as to rule our minds. Paul’s desire is that we refocus our minds, renewing of our minds day by day. 
 Paul would not have us be defeated believers, depression is Satan’s weapon to defeat us. Depression is a rush of negative attitude that results from a vacuum of joy. Joy is the opposite of negative attitude. Depression is negative attitude based on fleshly happenstance in the absence of hope. Is the primary focus of your mind on the circumstances at hand in your life? 
 When it comes to a mind set of joy, Paul takes us to a re-direction of thought and its up to each of us individually. It is our responsibility to focus our own minds appropriately and according to Paul its a redirection of thought based upon the accomplishments of Christ. The cause of depression is almost always related to fleshly circumstance, people, things and worry over those three.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 - The first thing we need to know about the battle for our mind, is that the main targets which must be destroyed are the fortresses in our mind, or called strongholds. Strongholds are negative patters of thought which are burned into our minds, either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. The worldly stimulation we were exposed to was both brief and prevailing. 
 We must capture the tempting thought in the first frame or it will probably capture us. Once our consideration of a temptation has triggered an emotional response, we will act upon that choice and own that behavior. We may resent our actions or claim that we are not responsible for what we do, but we are responsible for our actions at this stage, because we failed to take a tempting thought captive when it first appeared at the threshold of our mind. 
 If we continue to repeat an act for more than six weeks, we will form a habit, and if we exercise that habit long enough, a stronghold will be established. Once a stronghold of thought and response is entrenched in our mind, our ability to choose and to act contrary to that pattern is virtually nonexistent, and negative thoughts and actions we cannot control, spring from a stronghold. Simply putting on the armor of God at this stage will not solve our dilemma, these strongholds are already entrenched and fortified. 
 If the strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning, then we can be reconditioned by the renewing of our mind. Anything that has been learned, can be unlearned, but we are also up against Satan and his devil spirits who are scheming to fill our mind with thoughts which are opposed to our ambassadorship.

Romans 5:8 - So, it is not a question of getting new forgiveness for new sin, we had to have someone take care of that sin issue for us and thank God that he had his son take care of that issue for us; God’s son taking ALL the sins of the human race upon himself and satisfying the Father’s righteous demand for justice for those sins. 
 Sin, or coming short of the measure of who God is, is that which stood in the way, or stood between God and the human race. Christ’s blood dripping on God’s Ark of the Covenant (The Ark Moses was instructed to build) was sufficient to satisfy God’s righteous demand for justice. 
 God’s attitude towards a believer does not fluctuate in response to action, it is not condition on a believer’s behavior. Paul is telling here at the very outset of Romans chapter 5, that being justified results in an unchanging attitude of peace with God for every believer. 
 The avenue of our faith in Christ’s faithful performance on our behalf, rather than peace based upon our performance, results in an unchanging attitude of peace with God for every believer. We now have available for the enjoyment of our everyday experience an everlasting peaceful relationship with God!

Philippians 4:8 - No body loses control to Satan and his forces overnight, it is a gradual process of deception and yielding to their subtle influence. Many of the body of Christ, instead of recognizing that their minds are being peppered by the fiery darts of the enemy, they think the problem is their own fault. “If those foul thoughts are mine, what kind of person am I?” they wonder. So they end up condemning themselves while the enemy continues their attack unchecked. They will watch us to learn where we are most vulnerable and will tempt us in any area that we leave unguarded. 
 They tempt us through the channel of the lust of the flesh, they will invite us to fulfill our physical needs in ways that are outside the boundary of God’s will for us. Whenever we feel enticed to meet a legitimate physical need by acting independently of God, we are being tempted though the lust of the flesh. 
 The lust of the eyes subtly draws us away from God and eats away at our confidence in God. We see what the world has to offer and we begin to place more credence in our own perspective of life. Fueled by the lust for what we see, we grab for all we can get, believing that we need it and deceived that God wants us to have it. Wrongly assuming that God will withhold nothing good from us, we lustfully claim prosperity. 
 The temptation of the pride of life is intended to destroy our obedience to our ministry of reconciliation by urging us to take charge of our own lives. Whenever we feel that, we do not need God’s help or direction, that we can handle our life, that is the pride of life. Every temptation that Satan and his forces throw at us will challenge one or more of these values. 
 Every temptation is first a thought introduced to our mind by our own carnality or the tempters themselves. If we ruminate on that thought and consider it an option, we will eventually act on it. Instead, Paul instructs us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Escaping temptation is to apprehend every thought as soon as it steps through the doorway of our mind. Once we have halted a penetration thought, we need to evaluate it on the basis of Paul’s criterion for what we should think about. 


Romans 3:24 - What made Adam’s sin such a catastrophic loss for the human race is heightened by the fact that people are unable to do anything to alter their sinful condition. Human wisdom, human reasoning would say, “Give us a law. Give us some way to perform. Give us a few balls of our own to hit, so that we might earn back what we lost through Adam.” 
 God would have to do for the human race, what the human race was totally incapable of doing for themselves. God would of necessity have to credit the righteous faithfulness of someone else to the account of hopeless and helpless human race. 
 The human race was given a Redeemer and the price the Redeemer paid through the shedding of his blood to ransom the human race was a satisfactory payment to take those sins off the table of God’s justice forever! However, the fact that Jesus Christ became a Redeemer of ALL the human race, does not mean that ALL the human race will accept the gift the Redeemer purchased on their behalf. 
 To be justified, does not mean to BE perfectly righteous in performance. It also does not mean to become perfectly righteous or even MORE righteous in performance through time, it means having Christ’s perfect righteousness freely credited to the account of the ungodly who believe. 
 Christ’s faithfulness was the only faithfulness sufficient to merit God’s favor. God used our faith in Christ’s faithfulness as the means whereby he would credit Christ’s righteousness to our account.

1 Corinthians 3:10 - Romans is the doctrinal foundation upon which believers are to be established in the age of grace. Truth designed to give us stability, is truth designed to give us security. God did not intend that believers be insecure, so the security doctrines come first in God’s building process for his grace-age saints. God stabilizes us in the book of Romans. 
 Only when we come to see ourselves as God sees us and are able to fully appreciate and understand who God has already made us to be and who he has made us to be in Christ, can we become in our behavior what he wants us to be in that aspect of our lives. When a believer’s behavior is consistently inconsistent with what that believer professes to believe, the answer lies in a failure to fully appreciate one or more aspects of the foundational truths in this blueprint in the book of Romans. 
 If we understand the foundational concept as we see it presented by Paul here in the book of Romans, that will go a long way in our understanding ourselves and others appropriately. An insecure foundation will always show stress factorization somewhere along the line. 
 Sound doctrine is the means by which God transforms the thinking of those engaged in the study of his Word rightly divided. As we understand what God accomplished for us, and build upon that foundation the truths of who he has made us to be by placing us into his son, we begin to view ourselves as God views us, and there is great security to be found in doing so.

Ephesians 6:17 (B) In addition to believing it and thinking it, the Word of God is the only offensive weapon mentioned in the list of armor. Satan and his forces are created beings, and they do not perfectly know what you are thinking. By observing you they can pretty well tell what you are thinking, but they do not know what you are going to do before you do it.
 Satan and his forces can try to influence you by planting thoughts in your head, and they will now whether you buy their lie by how you behave. If you are going to resist Satan and his forces, you must do so outwardly so they can understand you and be put to flight. We are defend ourselves against Satan and his forces by speaking aloud God’s truth. 
 You can not expect God to protect you from Satan and his forces influences if you do not take an active part in his prepared strategy. The armor that we must take up to protect ourselves from Satan and his forces attack: the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. The first three are established because of our identity in Christ, the last three help us continue to win the battle.

Ephesians 6:17 - The fact that the helmet is related to salvation indicates that their blows are directed at the believer’s security and assurance of being placed into Christ. This helmet covers our mind, intellect or reasoning. The two dangerous edges of Satan and his forces broadsword are discouragement and doubt.
 We can become vulnerable to Satan and his forces deception in this area if we fail to daily put on this helmet of salvation. They are committed to fouling up our life through their deception that nothing really happened when we were born anew. They may disrupt our daily victory, but they can do nothing to disrupt our new identity in Christ. 
 The only ones who can take up any piece of God’s armor, and the only ones who are involved in this struggle against Satan and his forces, are those who have been placed into Christ. Putting this helmet on daily is important, because God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation, to tell the world God is not imputing their trespasses unto them; so we see the world still thinks he is.

Ephesians 6:16 - When our faith in God’s omnipotence and care is strong, it is impossible for Satan and his forces to break through our shield of faith and land an attack. Satan and his forces are actively involved in trying to distract us by peppering our mind with their thoughts and ideas. The main targets which must be destroyed, are the strongholds. Strongholds are negative patterns of thought, which are burned into our minds either through repetition over time or through one-time traumatic experiences. 
 That is why Paul insists that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Strongholds in our mind are the result of conditioning. Satan and his forces have no power over us except what we give them by failing to take every thought captive and thus being deceived into believing their lies. If Satan and his forces can get us to believe a lie, they can control our life. 
 Since Satan and his forces primary weapon is the lie, our defense against them is the truth. Dealing with Satan and his forces is not a power encounter; it is a truth encounter. Satan and his forces know just what buttons to push to tempt us. They have observed our behavior over the years and they know where we are vulnerable, and that is where they will attack.
 The important process of renewing our mind includes managing our emotions by managing our thoughts and perceptions. Satan and his forces are always hurling their fiery darts of fear, doubt and worry in our direction, but the only time they can hit us is when we let our shield of faith down. 
 A shield deflects; it keeps the darts of the enemy away from our mind, the shield moves with the attack. When we allow doubt to creep in, an actively raised shield of faith prevents this otherwise inhibiting fatigue, so the shield is the first line of defense, the enemy has to get past the shield first.

Ephesians 6:15 - The shoes of peace become protection against the divisive schemes of Satan and his forces when we act as a peacemaker among believers, but we should not try to rationalize or explain the believer’s behavior, forgiveness deals with our pain, not another’s behavior. 
 We put on the shoes of peace, because we are to forgive as we have been forgiven, and we must base our relationships with others on the same criteria. If we fail to speak the truth in love and manage our emotions, anger which turns to bitterness and unforgiveness is an open invitation to Satan and his forces. 
 Instead of insisting on the unity of the mind, we need to preserve the unity by taking the initiative to be the peacemaker in our relationships. Bitterness and unforgiveness toward other believers is the most widespread stronghold that Satan and his forces enjoy, and if we do not let offenders off our hook, we are hooked to them. 
 Relationally, forgiveness is crucial to our maturity, it is the glue that holds the body of Christ together. Satan and his forces use unforgiveness more than any other human deficiency to stop our growth and our ministry of reconciliation, because the unforgiving believer is yoked to the past or to a person and is not free.

Ephesians 6:10-14 (B) It is absolutely vital that we put on the breastplate of righteousness, so that we can resist the persistent accusations of Satan and his forces, they never give up trying to get us down and keep us down by hurling one false accusation after another. The insidious reality of Satan and his forces relentless assault of deception on our mind can keep us from experiencing maturity and freedom, because our past has shaped our present belief system and will determine our future unless it is dealt with.
 Our understanding of the identity that Adam had before the fall, that identity has been restored to us, that restored identity is the critical foundation for our belief structure and our behavior patterns. Many people that are of the body of Christ have obsessive-compulsive behaviors because of this relentless battle for their minds, and the battle for our mind can only be won as we personally choose truth. 
 Those who put on the breastplate of righteousness know that we have peace with God, for a person to have to make their own peace with God would be nothing more than an exercise in futility, it could never be done. We could not make peace with God, to say that anyone could make peace with God, would be to limit God to his mercy, because grace is the foundation on which Paul’s entire ministry was built. There is a glory that belongs to God’s grace, and it is to be praised on the bases on what God’s grace has accomplished. 


Ephesians 6:10-14 (A) When we put on the armor of God we are really putting on Christ, and when we put on Christ, we take ourselves out of the realm of the flesh, where we are vulnerable to attack, it is not wise for us to live on Satan and his forces level. Since their primary weapon is the lie, our belt of truth is continually being attacked. 
 We are more vulnerable to Satan and his forces deception than to any of their other schemes, because when they tempt us or accuse us, we can recognize it, but when they deceive us, we do not always know it, that is their strategy, to keep us in the dark. If they can disable us in the area of truth, we become an easy target for their other attacks. 
 We cannot expose their deception by human reasoning; we can only do it by the light of the truth, it is the only valid piece of the armor against the darkness of deception. It is critical that when we put on the armor of God, we start with the belt of truth. If Satan and his forces can deceive us into believing a lie, they can control our life in that area. God’s protection is that our role is not passive, God requires us to be active participants in the defense that he has provided for us. 


Philippians 4:9 - Paul was no stranger to adversity, to calamity, to distress, to stress, for that matter, everywhere he went, they were right under his heels. Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today, because Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ. 
 How did Paul face adversity? Paul assessed the situation, he made statements such as, “I have learned” and “I reckon,” he reasoned things through. We are to access our situation. Why would we need to reason out the source of the problem? There are avoidable suffering circumstances and there are unavoidable suffering circumstances that come our way. 
 Avoidable suffering has to do with the choices we make in our lives. When we sow an inappropriate choice, we can count on the fact that sooner or later, we are going to be faced with an unfortunate circumstance. Many problems come our way simply because of our insistence upon having our way. How many problems would disappear if we could all conduct ourselves in a more Christ-like manner when it comes to the sacrifice of self in preferring others over self? 
 Satan was working far more fervently in Paul’s life than he is working in our lives today. Paul was God’s initial conduit for the relaying of the gospel of Christ. Paul was the chosen spokesman for God to relay the information for this entire dispensation. Satan had for more reason to give it his all when it came to Paul.