In Study Three - The Resistance Courses, Jesus will be helping you look at wrong things you are regularly allowing to enter into your life. This has to do with three doors that are usually open to Satan all or most of the time. We have all been trained by the body, the world, and the devil to believe that it is okay to allow these things into our life without resistance. That is how the source of spirituality problems was able to get in.

God is against this open access to these particular things. He can see clearly how much damage these open doors are doing to your character, your circumstances, and your relationships. God has a protective armor that He is going to help you put on. It will protect you from these damaging experiences. However, this armor of God won’t stop anything you PURPOSEFULLY allow into your life.

God evaluates and judges one major thing as you go about your day. When you do something that is wrong, bad, or evil, the number one thing He considers is, did you WANT to do it? As long as you are making mistakes, He will keep your record with Him clean. But, if you willfully, purposely sin, you will have to go immediately to Him and repent. That means you have to tell Him you are sorry, that you never want to do it on purpose again, and then “do what it takes” to never yield to that sin again.

It may not seem like you are allowing spirituality struggles to come into your thoughts and feelings on PURPOSE. But we, as Christians, have new responsibilities and new possibilities. Jer 17:9-10 (NIV) The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.” Whether or not you willfully did it is a job that only God can decide. Take the wrong, bad, or evil word or deed to Him and let Him decide what your motive was.

Prior to you becoming a Christian, you WERE powerless to change certain things. You couldn’t change your desires, thoughts, reactions, patterns of life, feelings, and actions. But, because you turned to God, He has given you freedom and power of choice. You can now CHOOSE what you want and DECIDE what you will allow into your life. He has given you Jesus as your freedom and power to stop these root causes from coming in. All you have to do is learn how to yield to Jesus and He will put a stop to them; and, from then on you will be free from the control of spirituality issues.

If we DON’T WILLFULLY stop these things from coming in, we will forfeit the armor’s protection. Jesus will be using this study to deal with closing these three doors. The key concept He will be dealing with is the fact that, as you grow in confidence in God’s ways, you will lose confidence in the other three ways of living life. You will lose confidence in the cravings of your body, your life-systems of the world, and the lying promises of the devil. That closes the doors to the root causes of spirituality difficulties.

Just because you have always done things a certain way doesn’t mean they are good for you. Just because you have gained some benefits from certain wrong, bad, or evil things doesn’t mean they aren’t doing great damage to you. Just because you haven’t been able to stop letting these things into your life doesn’t mean Jesus can’t set you free from them. You may have tried “everything” to stop allowing these things in; but, now you are trying Jesus. He will keep these things out which will stop them from feeding your problem with spirituality.

Jesus is going to teach you how to put on the armor of financial, relational, emotional, physical, and spiritual protection that God provides. The complete armor of God deals with external things that are trying to get in. Since it won’t stop anything you want to get in, you have to allow Jesus to change your desires, your philosophies, your prayers, what you believe to be true, what you love, and what you put into action in your life.

Jesus’ armor of spiritual protection is preventative; but, you have to see that what you are allowing into your life is wrong. If you allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your conscience, those things that are CAUSING you to have trouble with spirituality will go away. If you allow the Bible to tell you what is wrong, bad, and evil then Jesus will empower you to “do what it takes” to KEEP spirituality struggles out. You have to agree with your conscience, the Bible, and Jesus so you can be convinced that these things should be resisted.

The key concept Jesus will be helping you look at in this study is the fact that God has counter parts (spiritual replacements) to every wrong thing you are allowing to come into your life. These counter parts are opposite but more powerful replacements for the bad things you do to yourself and to other people. These bad things have been flowing into you and then through the words and actions of your body. They have come into you and have caused you to say and do things that are hurting you and those around you. Now you can yield to replacements that will protect you from damaging things you have been allowing into your life.

Because you are suffering from the difficulties you are having with spirituality, this struggle is influencing most of the way you treat yourself and the way you treat others. These counter parts from God are more powerful than the wrong you have been allowing into you.

As you experience the Holy Spirit speaking to your conscience, the Bible instructing your mind, and Jesus giving you power, you will be able to locate God’s replacement characteristics and allow Him to install them as armor. Then they will protect you from these thing flowing into you and flowing out of you against other people. You will be working together with your heavenly Father as you get the victory over each problem you face.

The wonderful thing about God’s replacement characteristics is they form a protective shield around you. They are resistive attitudes and character traits that shield you from those things that were feeding your problems with spirituality issues. This leaves you with a whole new set of attitudes, desires, thoughts, feelings, actions, and words that resist all those things that have been hurting you.