Spiritual attacks and temptation are inevitable—but domination isn’t. Walking in the light, staying aligned with Christ, and cleansing our hearts gives the enemy nothing to grab onto. We uncover practical steps to remove footholds of sin and operate in Christ's authority in everyday life.

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See the full episode transcript below.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT - The Authority of Being Clean: Living Beyond the Enemy's Reach

I want to start with a personal moment. There were many seasons in my life when I realized that the enemy of our soul—Satan, the devil, the adversary—had too much access into my life. He had ways and avenues to influence my thoughts, shape my emotions, and steer my decisions toward compromising choices that could have consequences.

I could see patterns, subtle patterns of compromise and sin in my life, and I could feel the weight of the foothold. I could feel the weight of the ground that I had given away. I wasn't falling into egregious sins or earth-shaking major mistakes, but small stuff.

And I could sense that I was being positioned for the potential of further compromise. Sin will take you farther than you want to go and faster. The Holy Spirit, prodding and bringing conviction, was a wake-up call.

A Jesus Tactic for Spiritual Victory

That's what I want to explore with you today—a real Jesus tactic for how to walk in the light and remove footholds from the enemy so that we can live and operate in the authority and success that God has given us.

Spiritual attacks and temptation are inevitable. As John Eldredge says, when you're born again—even when you're born the first time—you're born into a war.

And when you're born again, you're redeemed and saved, placed on a trajectory where you can become Christlike and victorious and share in the inheritance of Christ. You're still in a war, and maybe in a more heightened sense at that point.

Here's the good news: when we're talking about sin and compromise and temptation, domination—you being dominated, me being dominated by that—is not inevitable. It's inevitable that we will encounter it, but I'm talking about being dominated and controlled by it.

Jesus Had Nothing for the Enemy to Grab

Jesus knew, I think it was the evening before His crucifixion in John 14, the enemy was coming. And here's what He said: "The ruler of this world is coming and he has nothing in me." There is no ground in me, Jesus was saying.

If we follow this Jesus tactic, we can really cut off the enemy's opportunity. Like Jesus, if we can say, "He has nothing in me." If Jesus could live with zero access for the enemy to penetrate His life and dominate and control Him, we can follow that same principle. The enemy only has as much access as we give him when we are in Christ.

Walking in the Light

There's an important passage in 1 John 1:5-9. If we can get this right or start getting it right, there is so much downstream stuff we could cut off from the enemy, so much time we could save, so many benefits.

"God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet we're walking in the darkness, we're lying and not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin."

Walking in the light means that we bring hidden attitudes and compromises and sins out into the open. We confess them before the Lord primarily. There may be times where, as it says at the end of James, we confess our faults and sins to one another, and healing comes in that way. We're allowing God's light to do a reset in our inner person.

It's not about perfection. When Jesus said, "You need to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect," the New Testament word for perfection is complete or mature or whole. It's not a perfection complex—totally sinless. What it is, though, is about progressive alignment, moment by moment, with the Lord.

Where Spiritual Warfare Really Begins

Real spiritual warfare starts on the inside. It's not outside of us. True, there are dynamics external to us which are manifestations of spiritual warfare, but it starts on the inside, in the realm of our thoughts, our emotions, and the choices that we make.

Things like anger, bitterness, lust, unforgiveness—all of these things will give the enemy territory in our hearts. And our heart shapes our personal world. Proverbs tells us to pay attention to our heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life.

Paul says in Ephesians 4, when talking about anger: "Be angry, but sin not. And do not let the sun go down on your anger." Come to a place of settled resolution the day of. And he says, "Do not give the devil ground."

Something like anger—if sin were a river, anger is up at the headwaters of it. All kinds of things flow out of anger: unforgiveness, bitterness, even murder. We don't want to give the devil an opportunity. Don't give him ground. Cut him off.

Read the full transcript with all Scripture references and deeper insights at https://jesussmart.com/356

The Authority of Being Clean

In Psalm 19, David says, "The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever." Talk about lasting power. Being clean has lasting power, both now and forever. There's authority in being clean. This is what we're talking about today: dominion in being clean.

We want to be clean because from time to time we have to move in the authority of Christ. We've got to speak to that mountain. We've got to pray over somebody that needs healed. We have to mitigate against some vile thing in prayer.

We want to have the authority of the Lord, and being clean is a prerequisite to moving and living in the authority of Jesus Christ.

I love this thought from Francis Frangipane in his book The Three Battlegrounds: "Victory begins with the name of Jesus on our lips, but it will not be consummated until the nature of Jesus is in our hearts."

It's one thing to say His name, to confess Him as Savior and even Lord, but it's another thing to allow His nature through time to be progressively conformed to His image. Every thought, attitude and choice—the Holy Spirit begins to put His finger on things and ask for change and maturity. As the nature of Jesus is built into our hearts and lives, that's the consummation of victory.

Operating from Spiritual Authority

The devil's realm is dust level. He's not in your head. He can't be in your life. He's not above you. Our authority is above him in Christ. Ephesians 2:6 says that we've been raised up with Christ and seated with Him in the heavenly places. So as we walk in alignment with the Lord, as we really game up our obedience and purity, we operate from a position of spiritual authority.

We can pray down into earthborn situations from our authority of being seated with Christ and out of the enemy's reach. We don't want to compromise that. Our prayer life can be crimped and hindered by sin. We want to be able to pray from our true authority of being seated with Christ in heavenly places. We're living above the line.

John Owen, the Puritan theologian, wrote in his famous book 'The Mortification of Sin': "Simply be killing sin or it will be killing you." There is no third option. It's very binary. Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Be encouraged with this: our obedience to Christ is where the enemy's domination ends. Our obedience to Christ is not where temptation ends. It's not even where spiritual warfare ends or spiritual attacks.

But it is where the controlling domination ends, where we do not yield, where we live victoriously. The more we do this, the easier it will become. We can step into our position and watch his grip collapse.

Get the complete episode breakdown and practical action steps at https://jesussmart.com/356

Three Practical Steps to Remove Footholds

How can we do this practically? Here are three takeaways:

1 - Do a Personal Spiritual Audit

Do daily and weekly reflection. How are you doing? Is there something that needs to be brought into the light and confessed and abandoned? It can be thought sin, attitudinal sin, motivational sin, or actual conduct. Sin is not only sins of commission; there are also sins of omission. What should we be saying that we're not saying? How should we be acting?

David put it this way in Psalm 139: "Lord, search me, know me, see if there's any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the everlasting way." We want to be open to allowing the Holy Spirit to do audit work in our lives.

Be in connection with sound core members of the body of Christ where you can develop trust and communication, fighting for each other, helping each other win. As James 5 says, "Confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed." There is power in that. There is victory.

2 - Be Self-Aware and Notice Footholds

Notice footholds in your life. Is there bitterness, anger, any kind of repeated compromise? What is your speech like? What are you doing or not doing that you should be? How are you relating to people?

Identify areas where the enemy is trying to get a hook into you, trying to get a door open into your life. In Genesis 4, when God confronts Cain, He says, "Sin is at the door and its desire is for you."

In the Hebrew language, it's a word picture of a crazed animal that can hurt you. God said, "Its desire is for you. But you must master it."

That thing is not to dominate you and me. We are to dominate it. Everything is on the line. You may have some patterns you've seen in your own life where you know this is a particular weakness or vulnerability. Notice footholds.

3 - Lock the Door and Replace with Obedience

Lock down those doors. Close off those openings. Actively replace them with obedience. Use the power of confessing God's Word out loud. Use the power of praying Scripture—prayer architecture. Lay it over your life and pray the inspired, authoritative words of God.

And what about worship? Get your hands up in the air. Praise God. Declare His dominion. One of the ways we can trash-talk the enemy is finding the scriptural language that actually declares the dominion of Christ as King and speak that over the situation and over your life. What you're doing is reminding darkness what the future holds. We're on the winning side.

Use the power of God's Word. What did Jesus do in the wilderness? He used God's Word. Every time three waves of temptation came against Him, three times He confessed Scripture from Deuteronomy and declared it out loud to the enemy.

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Do something today. What is one little thing today? Look for one area today and then this week that you can progressively align with God and remove footholds from the enemy in your life.

If this episode encouraged you or challenged you, share it with someone you think would value it. Subscribe to Jesus Smart everywhere podcasts are heard. We're seeking to uncover Kingdom dynamics that empower our walk with Christ. Let's live in victory, and I'll catch you next time.

Expanded show Notes & Resources: https://jesussmart.com/356

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