Spiritual Warfare: The Battle for Heart and Mind

Spiritual warfare is not fought with worldly weapons of physical might and power. It is not a battle for geography, wealth, status, position, or recognition. It is not a legal battle fought in courts; therefore, it cannot be won by might of arms or legal rulings. Spiritual warfare is the battle for hearts and minds—what we believe; who we trust; who or what we love, value, esteem, worship; what motivates us to action; and what methods we internalize into our hearts and minds to live by.

Spiritual warfare is ultimately a battle happening inside each one of us between truth and lies, fear and trust, selfishness and love, freedom and coercion. It is a war being waged by our Creator God of love to free us from fear, guilt, shame, selfishness, and every false and distorted belief upon which they are based. It is a battle that happens on the platform of thoughts and feelings, over ideas, concepts, and arguments that center on one primary question—the “knowledge of God!” As the Bible states:

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3–5 NIV84, emphasis mine).

Who do we understand, believe, and conclude God to be? If we believe lies, our belief in those lies does not change God—for He is eternal and never changes; they change us! Believing lies breaks trust within us and immediately causes fear, which causes the survival desperation that shapes our inner world around self-protection rather than love and trust.

Just imagine you believed a lie that your loyal, loving, and trustworthy spouse was cheating on you, even though they are absolutely faithful; if you believe the lie, what happens inside of you? Your belief in the lie does not change your spouse and cause them to be untrustworthy; it causes you to distrust them, which incites fear within you, forming more fear-based thoughts—they might now have a disease; they are going to take all our hard savings and give it to their lover—which further inflames fear and drives you to accuse your spouse, flee from them, put up barriers to protect yourself, and seek to take the assets for yourself. This is just as the Bible describes Adam acting after he distrusted God: he ran and hid because he was afraid, blamed Eve, and tried to cover himself.

Spiritual warfare is the application of the divine weapons of truth and love to our own hearts and minds to free us from fear, selfishness, guilt, and shame, and to establish us firmly in trust to our Creator God. When we do this, we experience a change in spirit, which changes our brain’s activity from survival, restriction, suspicion, and self-protection to peace, love, joy, openness, expansion, growth, health, and life. The Bible provides specific armaments we can bring to bear on ourselves that will aid us in being victorious in this war, in healing our hearts and minds. Over the next two blogs, we will unpack these weapons and discover how we can employ them to gain victory after victory and grow healthier with each passing day. (You can read the entire list of this armor in Ephesians 6:10–18.)

Ephesians 6:10
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power (NIV84).

When you think of God’s mighty power, what comes to mind? Do you think of physical might and power, such as winds, earthquakes, and fires? Elijah had an encounter with God, and the Lord said to him,

“Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:11, 12 NIV84).

Was the power of God physical, or did Elijah discover that God’s power to change hearts and minds, cleanse sinners, and restore love and trust is something else, something gentle and reassuring?

Paul wrote to the Romans, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16 NIV84, emphasis mine).

What is gospel power? It’s the power of good news, but what power does good news have? It is the good news that directly counters and destroys Satan’s power! And what is Satan’s power? Lies about God that we believe and cause us to break trust, which incites fear that leads to selfishness. What power destroys lies and purges fear? Truth and love! Thus, the gospel power is the power of truth and love, the good news that God is love and truth and is not like Satan has alleged.

The truth of God’s character is the power that sets our hearts and minds free from lies and distrust and restores us to trust, and in that trust, we open our hearts and receive the indwelling Holy Spirit, who brings us the life and love of Christ. As we embrace the truth and open our heart in trust, we are empowered by a new motive, a new energy, the love for God and others (Romans 5:5).

This is the power of truth and love that restores trust, and this power cannot be accessed and wielded by imposed law and law enforcement! Can God convert hearts from fear and distrust to love and trust by using threats and force of arms? Of course not! God’s divine power is the power that works inside of us; it is the power that restores trust and frees from fear, and this cannot be done through external means or legal rulings, but only by each person being fully persuaded of the good news about God for themselves (Romans 14:5). In other words, this is the power that recreates, cleanses, heals, and restores living beings back to God’s design for life and health. Notice what comes next.

Ephesians 6:11, 12
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (NIV84).

We do not war against flesh and blood, which means we are not in a physical war. It is not over might and power, law and law enforcement, but against fallen angels on a plane of operation that is not physical.

Revelation 12:7 tells us that there was “war” in heaven. The Greek word translated as “war” is polemo, from which we get the word polemic: a verbal argument. Thus, the war we are in is not physical; it is a war of words, ideas, and concepts, with Satan being the father, the originator, of lies. And when lies about God are believed, they break the circle of love and trust and cause fear and selfishness. Thus, God’s perfect design and creation are corrupted by introducing lies into the hearts and minds of living beings.

Just as entering malicious code into a computer’s perfect operating system causes it to degrade, malfunction, and break down; just as entering mutations into the DNA of a living organism causes sickness, disease, infirmity and death; so also lies entering into our hearts and minds corrupts our spirit with fear and selfishness, severing our connection with the source of life and causing death. Just as Scripture teaches: the wages of sin is death; sin when full grown brings forth death; and those who sow to the carnal nature from that nature reap destruction (Romans 6:23; James 1:15; Galatians 6:8). And this is why the truth is what sets us free (John 8:32), because the truth is what counters the lies and restores us to trust.

Lies cannot be defeated by imposed law and law enforcement, by bullets and tanks, by inflicting punishment on people who don’t trust, or by inflicting punishment on a trusting substitute in place of those who don’t trust—in fact, teaching those methods perpetuates the lies and keeps hearts and minds enslaved to fear and selfishness.

Trust cannot be established by any means other than truth and love presented in an atmosphere of genuine freedom—why? Because that is how reality, truth, and love work. And Paul knows it, so before listing the various elements of the armor, he repeats his admonition:

Ephesians 6:13
Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand (NIV84).

So let’s examine this spiritual armor: What is it really? How does it function? Where does it have its impact? And let’s see for ourselves that our weapons are not weapons of this world, but they have divine power to demolish the mental and emotional strongholds that hold hearts and minds captive, and free us from fear and selfishness, turning us into mighty warriors of love and truth ever-advancing God’s kingdom!

Establishing a Healthy Self Upon Truth

Ephesians 6:14
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist (NIV84).

What kind of weapon or armor is truth? Is it physical? Can you force people to do what you want by truth? We can force people with guns and knives to sit, or stand, or get behind bars, but can we force people simply by speaking truth?

Where does truth exert its power? In hearts and minds.

So why the symbol of a belt?

A belt was used in Paul’s day to “gird up the loins,” meaning to pull the tunic up between the legs so one could move without tripping. Additionally, belts were used like we use pockets; people in Paul’s day would attach tools or wallets to them. And the belt could also be used to support the back at work and, if ornamented, as a sign of power.

Buckling truth around us means to gird our minds in reality, upon the truth of God’s Word, character, creation, which means design law. And from truth, integrated truth, harmonized truth, we are able to move through life more efficiently, solve problems more quickly, trip up less often, and attach more and more effective coping tools to God’s foundational truths and more riches of His kingdom to share with others.

As our minds are girded in God’s truth, the reality of who He is and how He built life to operate, we are empowered to stand firm because the various godless theories, fictions, traditions, claims, and distortions are recognized for what they are—unhealthy and destructive!

Reality reveals that everything God has created is good and that life only exists and thrives in harmony with the design laws of health that He built it to operate upon. We then are girded in the truth of God as our Creator; we understand that every breach of His design laws causes sickness, injury, and ultimately death—unless healed by our Designer and Creator. This truth frees us from the fear caused by the lies that God’s laws are made-up rules that require Him to punish. In other words, we no longer live in fear of what God will do to us because of sin, but we realize that He longs to heal us from the sin-sick condition with which we were born (Psalm 51:5).

And we see this truth revealed in Christ, who, though all-powerful, refused to use physical power to stop His creatures from abusing and killing Him! He revealed that He would rather let His creatures kill Him than take away their freedom and stop them. Why? Because God is love, and love only exists in freedom!

When you gird your heart and mind with this truth, in the reality-based love and freedom manifested in Christ, then you understand how incredible you are! You are a being created in the image of God, with your own individuality, your own ability to think, feel, and choose! You are not a robot, a puppet, a simulation—you are a being with freedom to think and to act, to love or hate, to trust or distrust, to believe truth or lies. You are designed by God to be like Him, and if you trust Him, He will restore you fully to His original design. It is through truth believed that we are won to trust, and in that trust, we open the heart to receive a new spirit of love and trust that frees us from the enslavement of fear and selfishness with which we were born.

So stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your heart and mind!

In part 2, we will examine the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and the power of prayer.