Want to Win? Understand Your Nature.

Today I want to look at how understanding our nature can give us a leg up on satan's attacks and his desire to destroy us as men. Sadly, I believe that our culture doesn't want us to understand our fallen nature because that begins the process of unlocking the truth of the Gospel and puts us on the path of joining God's team. Remember, Jesus came to save us from our sins. We still struggle with the curse from the garden and our sin nature. We are indeed redeemed and no longer under the penalty of sin but our fallen nature is still a struggle. A struggle we are meant to fight in and experiences victories through. We return once again to the garden of Eden to analyze Adam and our original programming to best understand our nature.

Adam and Eve were given paradise at their fingertips, an intimacy with God we won't experience until we reach heaven and a nature that was prime for sin. They were designed to be fully reliant on God and the provision He made for them in the garden. But as we read in Genesis, it wasn't enough for them and they were fooled by satan's first recorded lie. This changed it all for us and how our human nature would effect us from that day on.

The old testament outlines human nature's striving to return to God after paradise was lost in the garden and God's holy separation from His people. When things went south in the garden due to Adam and Eve's disobedience, God had a new system of reward set up - obedience equaling blessings (to be clear the system was always there but simply not needed because sin hadn't yet entered the world!). Because we now see the world as God does after "eating the apple", our intimacy was lost and our striving began to know God intimately again. We read in scripture that God’s word is chock-full of His blessing because of obedience. The nation of Israel enjoyed great blessings because of their obedience and great discipline because of their lack. Where we fall short as men sometimes is a failure to understand that our obedience to God, unlocks His blessing. I truly believe many men are confused in this but plain and simple, when we care about the things God cares about and are obedient to take action and mold our lives to that, God can and does pour out blessings.

Our original programming in the garden can cause us as men to listen to the lies of satan and be fooled. Sometimes without even knowing we are doing it because we have bought what culture and society has told us is important, not what's important in God's word. We must test our thought life against what the word of God says and nothing else. And therefore learning God's word must be a priority.

God has been recently working in my life through one particular scripture in this area:

"...and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5b

This has been a safe haven for me to mold my mind and take action on the things God cares about and maybe more importantly to reject the thoughts and lies that the enemy and society float my way. Remember the word is the sword we fight our battles with.

When we understand our nature, the economy of God's blessing and our ability through the help of the Holy Spirit to take every thought captive and test whether it is of God or the enemy, we now have a leg up on satan's attacks. Make no mistake, as a God fearing, Jesus following man, you're a target the enemy is after. But through this struggle we will be battle tested and trained, and walk in the victorious life, I dare to say, is Jesus' intention and desire for every Godly man.