Excursus, The Enemy Within (Pt 2)

Our mind is the watchman. He is keeping a watchful eye on our lives for the assault of sin from our enemy the flesh.

However, he cannot see the flesh's offensive without a kind of military training. In general, this training comes from getting God's Word into your mind, but specifically, Kris Lundgaard has given us two tactics for training our minds to love God.

First, as outlined in the last post below, we train our minds by thinking hard about pleasing God, about being obedient. I try to do this daily when I journal. Second, what we'll look at here, we train our minds for battle by thinking hard against sin. These are practical steps to train your mind for battle against sin as each step weakens the flesh's grip on us.

His first step is to meditate about God's sovereignty, His lordship, His kingship. This is powerful. He is the king and every sin is an act of treason against Him. This was on Joseph's mind when he responded to Potiphar's wife's advances with "How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?" (Gen 39:9).

Next, think hard about the punishment of sin. God is very clear that He will not tolerate sin in His people when He says "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY " And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE" (Heb 10:30).

Next, meditate on the idea that every sin is committed against your all-loving, all-kind and all-gracious Father. Think about His loving actions as recorded in the Bible, and then get specific and think about His loving actions toward you. Make a list with the idea that every good thing in your life is from God (James 1:17), and then think about sinning against Him.

Next, think hard about the Cross. Again, God's love is on display, but God's hatred for sin is also on display. Paul says the result of being Cross-eyed is that we will no longer live for ourselves but for Him who died for us (2 Cor 5:15).

Finally, meditate on the fact that when you sin you grieve the Holy Spirit who lives in you, defiling His dwelling place and forfeiting His comfort. I long for His comfort and assurance and sin robs me of that.

When you do these practical steps, don't forget that your flesh hates what you're doing. Watch for his sabotage, especially his attempts to make you spiritually lazy.

This watching is not a passive exercise, or one you can hand over to an accountability partner. Each of us is commanded by God to "watch," "be alert," "beware" of sin some 20 times in the NT (Matt 6:1, 16:6, 11-12, 26:41; Mark 8:15-16, 12:38, 13:37, 14:38; Luke 11:35, 12:1, 15; Acts 20:31; 1 Cor 16:13; 1 Thess 5:6; 1 Pet 5:8; 2 John 8). The idea here is that we're "to be diligent to not be surprised and entangled by temptations" (88). Make it your job to pounce on sin before it pounces on you.

However, you know you're not watching, not ready to pounce and becoming spiritually lazy if you aren't provoked by warnings against sin, aren't motivated to do your spiritual duties (me), and are easily discouraged and give up when difficulties come. "A lazy soul realizes he'll never be perfect, so he says, 'Why bother?' and is content with spiritual deadness and apathy" (88). Does any of this describe you?