I conclude with tips for transforming yourself from a hapless POW to Christian warrior known and feared by demons. Remember what the demon said to the sons of Sceva (Acts 19:15): Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? Does the devil know and fear your name?

And before you get all modest, fearful, and/or hopeless, remember how screwed up, addicted, and demonized I used to be. If I have a Wanted poster in hell with my face on it, then any Christian can get one! It definitely takes courage, but it isn’t rocket science.

Here are some tips to get you started. But expect much more ammo for the fight in later chapters.

A foothold is not a mindset; it’s a “lifeset,” an entrenched way of life, a behavioral pattern, a repetitive habit that over time opens the door for the literal presence of demons.

A hearthold is all about your passions and your dreams, the secrets of your heart, the things you think about when you fall asleep at night. Maybe it’s a 1964 Ford Mustang, maybe it’s your fantasy football team, maybe it’s the business you want to start, or that novel you always meant to write. Perhaps it’s a co-worker? She’s looking mighty fine, whereas your wife can’t seem to shed those 30 pounds after having your last kid. Demons love to stoke the fires of old flames, reminding you constantly of just how good and pleasing and desirable achieving a particular fantasy would be.

Like Adam and Eve, if demons can get you to swallow a lie (You’ll will never be free…), then they are well on their way to winning the war. Specifically, demons will attempt to control your mind by filling it with Strongholds. A stronghold is a mindset, an entrenched mental pattern of thought, a habitual attitude, a set of beliefs, a paradigm that always has at its core a lie or multiple lies of Satan.

How Does Satan Neutralize Christians?3 Primary Means: Demons, the World, Carnal Christians. As a memory aide, picture the devil’s 3-pronged pitchfork. The primary satanic means of taking out Christians is via Demons, the World System, and Carnal Christians.

Like the Christians in Laodicea, the devil wants you deceived, addicted, immature, and carnal. Even better, he wants you deceiving and/or hurting others, even though you claim to be a follower of Christ. Any of this sounding familiar? The statistics on American Christians, for example, are abysmal. Divorce rates, church attendance, Bible reading, tithing, witnessing, sexual sins and addictions—is it any wonder our country is launching itself off the cliff?

Maybe this is why Scripture gives us this command: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). And yet you’ve likely lived a life immorally out of control and asleep to any threat posed by the deceiver of heavenly angels. You’ve been schooled by an extremely cunning enemy (2 Corinthians 11:3); indeed, it’s quite likely you are still deceived in some areas! The best kind of deception is the one you never notice! Wake up and smell the Father of Lies, brothers and sisters!

You must personalize the murderous danger of spiritual warfare, because everything you value and love is at play in this war. Your sexual purity, your health, your mental sanity, your job and finances, your marriage, your children, your ministry, your testimony, and ultimately your eternal destiny and reward all hinge upon your effectiveness as a soldier warring on behalf of the God of Angel Armies (the Lord of Hosts). Nothing less than the destiny of the world is at stake, because you live in the last days and thus are called to fight in the Last Battle.

Do you know how to stand your ground against the cosmic forces of evil? Do you know how to fight against demons? Or how to equip yourself with the life-saving armor of God? “Stage 3: Spiritual Warfare” offers you a specific strategy for winning the invisible war that rages about you, starting with the fundamentals as laid out in this next series of posts.

Hopelessness is the granddaddy of all excuses, because in effect it excuses all other excuses! Think about it for a second. If you’re without hope, if everything is truly pointless, then why bother attempting anything, since you’re doomed from the get-go? Hopelessness is the one excuse above all others that the devil wants programmed into your brain and self-talk, because the man or woman who is hopeless is already defeated. Hopelessness is the dead opposite of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God. Hopelessness is perhaps the greatest, most devilish lie of them all—because if you embrace it, you have fundamentally rejected the very truth that will set you free.

As you become familiar with your own internal code (read “excuses”), it’s time to get down to the brass tacks of deciphering your internal dialogue so you can rewrite your code, renew your mind, and change your life. Ladies, you seem to be naturally much more self-aware than men, but even so, most of us have received little training or modeling in the art of self-analysis—even though the Bible commands us to “examine yourselves” and “test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

With codebreaking in mind (pun intended), here’s your Biblical Big Picture. In the war for purity, there’s a constant stream of coded messages, words whose decryption will help turn the tide of your personal battle. I refer to your self-talk, the messages you’ve been sending yourself inside your own brain. Many of you have been transmitting the exact same messages for 20, 40, and even 60 years, and yet you remain clueless to your own internal code. These coded messages are vital to your relapse process. Indeed, they are integral to everyone’s relapse process—because, as you’ll discover in these pages, everyone is selling themselves with the same old Lame-Ass Excuses. If we never excused and justified and defended our addictive behaviors, we’d never do them!

In other words, all addicts are con artists at heart, because the first person you must con is always yourself. This is precisely why Scripture commands us to take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)—or in my warfare parlance, why you must decrypt your own self-talk so you can finally hear your own addictive excuses. Mental self-awareness always precedes the destruction of stinking thinking strongholds!