David once praised God for being wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).  Indeed, we are all wonderfully made.  Nothing accentuates the power of God more than the human body.  The heart of this body that God created is the mind.  It is the essence of who we are as individuals.  It is with our minds that we make the decisions of life.  How we live, and, more importantly, how we serve God, or even whether we serve Him at all, is all determined by our minds.  It is no wonder that our minds are constantly under satanic attack.

I want us to concentrate this week on securing our minds.  We must protect our minds against the attacks of the devil.  This begins with resisting him when he comes after us.

James 4:7 (ESV)
⁷  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

There are at least two points of encouragement when we think about resisting the devil.  First, we know that if we put up resistance, he will flee.  That is the promise of God.  Now, the devil is not fleeing in fear.  In fact, we must know that at some point he is going to come back.  He flees when we resist because it is not worth his time to pursue us since there are so many others he can attack without resistance.  So, we must put up a fight.  Fortunately, James tells us how to resist the devil

James 4:8 (ESV)
⁸  Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

We obviously cannot draw near to God physically; thus, James is referring to drawing near to Him with our biblical hearts, that is, our minds.  We draw near to God by filling our hearts with God, and the things of God.  There is no better way to secure our minds than by making sure that God is always in them.  One tangible way to do this is by prayer.  Can you pray to God without having Him on your mind?

Hebrews 4:16 (ESV)
¹⁶  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.      

The fact that we have plenty of weapons with which to resist the devil is the second point of encouragement concerning resisting him, and these weapons begin with prayer.  The more we pray, the closer to God we are, and the more He fills our hearts.  Let us all determine to pray more.  When the devil sees us praying, he just walks away because he knows he cannot infiltrate our hearts while we are praying.  What a great way to resist him.

For the rest of this week, we will look at other ways we can secure our minds, and all of them will help us to resist Satan.  Remember, we can never let our guards down.  We can never relax because the devil “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  So, let’s resist him every day.

 As you wind down for the night, think about these things.