by Pastor Afolabi Oladele

The travails we each face from the escalating negative socioeconomic conditions require being fully armed not to be consumed. You may have heard the saying that what consumes your mind controls your life. How true and how deadly this can be for the unprepared. The first stage of fighting to win is the realisation that the most important battles of life take place in our MINDS, WILLS and EMOTIONS. This is where we IMAGINE and INTERPRET seeming hurts, disappointments even physical challenges over health etc. What Apostle Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6.

For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead, our spiritual weapons are energized with divine power to effectively dismantle the defenses behind which people hide. We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One. Since we are armed with such dynamic weaponry, we stand ready to punish any trace of rebellion, as soon as you choose complete obedience. (TPT)
 
The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity. (MSG)

Please ponder over the highlighted portions of these scriptures, taking note of our spiritual weapons energized with divine power, powerful tools, God tools for demolishing the entire, massive corrupt culture and warped philosophies erected against the truth and promises of God concerning your life and circumstances.
 
You can access and activate this unlimited armoury as Paul admonished in our text for today, Ephesians 3:16—

I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. (MSG)

And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power (TPT).

You don’t need to wilt under the weight of these circumstances, allowing them to manipulate your mind. You can with the power of the Holy Spirit prevail if you take advantage of what is on offer here. Beloved it’s your call to make, to take a hold of the divine promises—2 Peter 1:3-4 (TPT)—Everything we could ever need for life and godliness has already been deposited in us by his divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing him who has called us by name and invited us to come to him through a glorious manifestation of his goodness. As a result of this, he has given you magnificent promises that are beyond all price, so that through the power of these tremendous promises we can experience partnership with the divine nature, by which you have escaped the corrupt desires that are of the world.

Paul caps it up with the declaration to the Philippians and indeed to us in Philippians 4:8 (TPT)—Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always.

Shalom.