"And take the helmet of salvation. . ."  (Eph. 6:17a).

The helmet of salvation speaks of the mind renewed by the Holy Spirit.   We have once then chosen to put on the whole armor of God, when we believed in Christ at salvation.  The Holy Spirit put Christ into us and us into Christ and His full armor at the Spirit rebirthing.  That was salvation by and for the Spirit.  However, the salvation of the soul and mind is renewed by the Holy Spirit in a continual process throughout our earthly walk.  Only with a renewed heart and mind, will we have His strength to choose day-by-day in situation-by-situation, and stand by letting Christ express His life through us by His finished work of the cross.

Satan and his demons comes against Christians with a flood of lying words and deceptions, to get us off focus, to discourage us, and ultimately to defeat and destroy us. Satan really has no power over a Christian, except that which a Christian allows or lets him have through lying deceptions.  We need to always be seeking to keep our love and our focus on Christ.  We need to be hearing the Holy Spirit teaching us of Christ and renewing our hearts and minds in Him.  Trying to be a better Christian, seems to be a good focus.  However, what the Christian really needs, is to let Christ be expressed more and more in a better and bigger way through them.  He must increase, and I must decrease (John 3:30).  And that is the order and the way it happens.  I need to so love and focus on Him and let the Holy Spirit renew my mind until He increases in me and pushes out all the old flesh of me, the selfish me.  Take heed to this truth.  When I try, I fail.  When I trust, He succeeds!  The body of Christ needs so much today to be so full of Christ that all we will be able to see in Christians is Christ successfully doing and expressing the Father's will and glory.

Someone once said that insanity is doing the things over and over that you know doesn't work, but yet expecting a different result.  Do we relate to that statement in any way?  How many Christians try and attempt to live the Christian life in their own flesh, and get frustrated and almost want to quit and give up.  I have heard many remark, "I can't live this Christian life!"  "It is too difficult to live!"  Brothers and sisters, that is true.  The Christian life is an insane proposition, if you try to live it in the flesh.  Brothers and sisters, you'll never be good enough.  You could never keep the law.  God knew all of that.  That is why He sent His Son to be our Savior.  That is why the Holy Spirit, Spirit rebirthed us and placed Christ in fullness in us for life, while putting us in Christ for eternal salvation.  There is only one Christian life, and that is the life of Christ!  I was never told to live it.  My Father put Christ in me, so He can live His Christian life in me as me.  He may come out of me in my personality, but all the Person, Spirit, nature, and character is His life and expression. That is the liberating secret of the true gospel.  That is what Paul wanted all men to see and know.  That is the revelation and the revolutionary mind renewing truth, that will become His helmet of salvation for our minds and our sanity! V