Flesh vs. Spirit

I’m starting to wrap my brain around the idea of living out of your spirit. Mostly because I’m encountering a lot of problems from failing to do so. Like learning what my demons are. Coming to identify and know them by name. The ones that have been around for quite some time, settling into my mind and making it home.

My demons. They reside in me and continually taunt me. They do their job quite well, distracting and leading me far astray. I’ve felt them tug and pull me away from intimacy with God and awareness of my spirit. They’ve got muscle to be sure, and we all have our own. But mine are very clearly showing themselves as fear, doubt and anxiety.

They are clever, and they’ve had me fooled for quite some time. Camouflaging into my own thoughts. Even presenting themselves as the Holy Spirit at times. They have occupied my mind, but only because I’ve let them. I’ve allowed them to do so by putting my faith in them, believing in them, trusting them. Ultimately, I’ve agreed with them.

Every agreement has empowered them to remain in control with possession of my thoughts. Giving them more reign over me than my spirit has. Slowly, fear, doubt and anxiety have become the voices I know and trust. Shrinking my spirit and its influence over my thoughts, beliefs and actions.

It’s as if I handed over the key to my mind and gave my demons the ability to unlock the door, turn off the lights, and rearrange my thoughts like tiny furniture. Hiding what threatens them, replacing what defeats them, and dimming what reveals them to be only mere demons.

As I’ve empowered my demons, I’ve disempowered myself. It’s now a struggle to live out of my spirit. Instead, they feed my flesh, causing me to live out of fear, doubt and anxiety. Which often makes the world look darker, God seem smaller, and hope appear to be far off in the distance. They feed me lie after lie, and I quickly gobble them up like tiny bites of truth.

Whatever mountain is standing before me would be a lot smaller and far less scary if I would simply come out of agreement with my demons and into agreement with my spirit.

A couple months ago, when trying to decipher if I had heard God right or if I was off in what I thought He’d spoken over me, I heard Him whisper ever so slightly: “Trust your spirit. It’s more credible than you think. It knows me, sees me, and hears me. It’s looking at me. Trust your spirit. It’s more credible than you think.”

My spirit sees God show up before my eyes can. It hears Him speak before my ears are able. It feels Him move before my body can notice. It’s looking at Him, following Him, pressing into Him, and becoming more like Him. And because of that, it’s more trustworthy than I think and far more powerful in the fight against my demons than I give it credit for. My spirit is more on the right track than my flesh will ever be.

And so I have to stop living from the flesh and instead live out of my spirit. But in order to do so, I must to come out of agreement with my demons, and into agreement with Truth. Transformation comes when we renew what we think on.

I will choose to think on God’s word, His goodness and His promise. His faithfulness and His truth. I come into agreement with all that He is and all that He has spoken over me. I accept it as the only Truth worth living by.

And I come out of agreement with fear, doubt and anxiety and any other form they may take. I take back the key to my thoughts, and hand it over to my spirit. My demons cannot reign without my permission, and I revoke all power and privilege I’ve given to them in the past.

I will trust my spirit more. I will agree with God’s truth, lean not on my own understanding, but take Him at His word, and live out of my spirit. Fear, doubt and anxiety, you no longer get to control me. You are no longer welcome here in my mind or in my heart. It’s time to pack up and leave. Now.

Like my demons feed my flesh, You, Lord, feed my spirit. I pray that You continue to feed it more of You and Your truth. Empowering it to lead me in the right direction by reigning over my thoughts, beliefs, emotions and actions. Feed my spirit until it grows to fill and occupy every space in my mind and every particle of my heart. Until I have shed so much flesh that the only way to possibly live is out of my spirit.