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Good Morning! This mornings blog is slightly longer than the others and a little deeper than I like to go this early in the morning. I begin these blogs between 4;30 and 5 every morning, so to take this much time today indicates to me that someone may need today's truth. Thus, I encourage you to take some time with it yourself today, as I did and see if the realizations of these truths will benefit you as they have me this morning.

God designs most everything it seems to me, in three's. He Himself consists of the Father, Son and Spirit. He created the heavens, the earth and the hell beneath. Man himself is designed by God to function as a trichotomy. That means "consisting of three parts: body, soul and spirit.

The spirit of man operates through worship, conviction, and intuition. The body consists of blood, bone and flesh and the soul is made up of our mind, will and emotion.

Then of course, Satan, that angel of light does the same. He has divided His chain of command into three with Himself, powers and rules (of the darkness of this world) and he has designed a system of authority over the world in which he rules that also breaks down into three parts: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

These three lust's, or "things of this world" are the devils system of management. God's system of management navigates in our spirit. The devils system of management navigates in our body (which is where sin dwells). Both parts of our trichotomy are seeking access to the soul, which is where man's freedom dwells.

God's system of management is, as I mentioned before, worship, conviction and intuition (or leading and illumination). So we see that God works from the inside out and Satan works from the outside in. God works through impression, the devil works through oppression.

The word impression means "the affects of images upon the mind". God intention of the Spirit is to stamp images upon our mind that we might pull those thoughts into our meditations for times of urgent need. Once they are brought to our mind, we have a choice to think them or reject them. If we reject them, we will reject the Spirit's leading over the portal to our soul, which is the mind.

If we accept the thought it will influence our will, the second portion of our soul and give us the motivation, or the emotional stimulation we need to accept the leading of the Spirit in our life. This, I believe, is God's system of management designed to influence one or more parts of our tri part soul that we may reject the world and thus crucify the flesh and its affections and lusts. We can then willingly embrace the Christ life.

Satan sees the effectiveness of this model and mimics it in the life of a believer that he may influence our soul to reject God's intuition. If we reject the intuition of the Spirit, which manifests itself in illumination and spiritual leadings for life's decisions, then we will stave His portal for conviction and quench the Spirit. This hinders our worship. So we see the purpose of the indwelling Spirit of God is thwarted when we accept any external influence of the devil's system of management over our soul.

We can conclude that without daily worship there is no conviction and without convictions there is no intuition. The soul is in full control! But not ours, Satan's! He will now manage our lives like the joystick of an arcade game. It's not possession. It's oppression. It's management from the outside-in! He uses outside pressure to control your soul and cause you to reject the life that IS Christ.

With that said, Satan uses each of the tri part "things of this world" to stimulate a portion of the tri-part soul. The lusts of the flesh, that consuming desire to do what we want to do, attack's our mind daily and all day. If he can get our minds, through oppression to "stimulate an impression", we very well may captivate it and place it on our meditator, at this stage he is almost in all control.

Now, remember, God uses internal persuasion that it might produce impressions (images stamped onto the mind) to think Phil. 4:8 thoughts, the devil uses outside pressure in order to produce impressions (images stamped onto our mind) to think that which is untrue, dishonest, unjust, ugly and evil in report.

So at this stage our mind is wise enough to realize where these impressions are coming from. If it is of the devil, we should cast them down and not think them. If they are thoughts that are in line with the obedience of Christ, then we should captivate them and dwell upon them.

But the lusts of the flesh and its consuming desires to do are a compelling oppression (outside pressure). If we are willing to crucify our desires to do what we want, then we will win the battle of the mind. If we are strong mentally, the devil will then turn his attention to our will. The will is attacked by the second part of the tri-part things of this world. It is the "lust of the eyes". The "lust of the eyes" is a consuming desire to have. The devil wants us to believe we could have more than we have ever had with God. Satan is the one who leads us to be so ungrateful. And we allow it when we dwell on the "things of this world" that we don't have! If I can reject the "plea to satisfy me" then Christ will have assisted me in overcoming two thirds of the world and I am on my way to a victory, a victory IN Jesus.

If the devil cannot, over time, get us to succumb to the "lust of the flesh" in our mind, or the "lust of eyes" in our will then he uses the "pride of life" on our emotions. What a ploy that is! The "pride of life" is a "conceited drive to be". It is usually stimulated by the first two portions of the soul. When we think and want to be or do something different, then the devil is given the ability to strum our emotions like a guitar.

Sometimes he will strum us high and we will love life because our soul is satisfied, but then he will strum us low and we will be depressed. Why? Because he has ceased to impress! He isn't stimulating our soul with the things of the world any longer. He does this through temporary or partial satisfaction of our thoughts, wants or feelings. If he can satisfy our soul for a short period of time, then that period of time will belong to him and we will live "after our sin". But we must remember the satisfaction from the "impressions of his oppressions" eventual will lead us to "depression from our regression".

We will see our life is farther from Him than we ever intended and our satisfaction is just not there. If you don't believe me ask Adam. Satan tried it on him and it worked. If you don't believe him, ask the second Adam. Satan tried it on him and it didn't work!

A PRAYER FOR TODAY: "Dear Father, please help me to recognize at the cross roads of my mind today when I am receiving impressions from you that lead to progression in our relationship or impressions from Satan that lead to depressions of regression. I don't want to be further from you at day's end, I want to be closer. My time with you in the morning is so intimate, but I know that I could be closer to you at the end of the day if I spent the entire day WITH you. Overwhelm me to stay with you today in every difficult circumstance. I love you and I pray this in the blood stained name of Jesus, Amen!"

A QUESTION FOR TODAY'S MEDITATION: "Do I disobey God is any area of my life right now?" If so, then why?