The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32 is a story that shows how the enemy works against our thoughts. In this story, we see how the god of this world seduced an uninformed boy into wasting his substance, time, talent, gifts, ability, and anointing. The son asks for the portion of his inheritance that was to be divided between him and his brother AFTER their father died, but the father gives his son what he asks for. The younger son left home and wasted his substance with riotus living. The fact that he demanded his inheritance before time and squandered if foolishly tells us that something or someone got a hold of his thoughts, telling him lies about what he deserved and that he should not have to wait to receive what is due him. Good parents generally tell their children to be patient, to not grow up too fast, and to use their time and resources wisely. The son rebelled against everything his father taught him, and that is indicative of a demonic spirit at work in his mind.
Ephesians 6:12 says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." It is obvious that this son is not having a fight with his father, nor is his father pushing him out of the house. There was an internal spiritual struggle in the mind that influenced the son's actions, and giving in to that struggle caused his demise. The same is true for us. Our warfare is not with human beings but with the devil and his demons, who propagate doctrines of devils, heresies, Luciferian ideologies, satanic philosophies, and diabolical imagery. Our enemy, Satan, attempts to defeat us with strategy and deceit through well-laid plans and deliberate deceptions and manipulation. When he speaks to our minds in an attempt to derail us from following a path that leads us to the fulfillment of purpose and destiny, he never speaks to us in the second person("you"). He uses the first person ("I") to deceive us into believing that the thoughts running through our minds are our thoughts and not suggestions, projections, prompting, or urges coming from him.
He begins his warfare strategy by bombarding our minds with a cleverly devised pattern of little nagging thoughts, suspicions, doubts, fears, wonderings, reasonings, and theories. He moves slowly and cautiously, deliberately and patiently. He will never say, "You are sick," "you are poor, "you should leave your church," or "you are never going to make it." He will say, "I am sick," "I am leaving this church," or "I am never going to make it," because he really wants us to believe that the thoughts he places in our minds are ours. May the Holy Spirit rise up in you and instruct you to fight against these thoughts of the enemy. May you take on a posture of prayer and spiritual warfare, commanding the spirits to go in the name of Jesus. The thoughts and emotions that you think are yours are really spirits of depression, death (trying to abort your ministry, purpose, and destiny), and frustration. This is how deceptive the weapons of the enemy are. They come to give diabolical counsel to your mind because this warfare is spiritual, not carnal. We must be able to discern the spirit that is at work. Spiritual warfare in its purest form is the council of the human mind by any other spirit other than the Spirit of the Lord. When this happens, we must change our mind toward God and His word, that will change our attitude, which will change our culture, and ultimately change our lifestyle to God's will and way.
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The spiritual struggle presented in the story of this lost son proves the value of our minds. It was nothing outside, physical that caused the son to ask for money. He is at war within himself between the good that God has for his life and the bad that the enemy has strategically planned for him. The mind is the greatest battlefield. Within it the fate of a man's eternity is decided, souls are lost or won, and destinies are filfilled or fizzled out. Here is a simple principle you can apply as you learn about beating the enemy at his own game. If you don't really know what to pray about, observe what the enemy is doing and pray the opposite.
We can assume that the father was confident in the promises of God and knew the truth of II Corinthians 1:20: "No matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God". The promise he must have held on to was, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6). This allowed him to release his son into the world to be taught and rescued by Jehovah-Adonnai. In the end, the son was not overtaken. The Bible says that "he came to himself" (Luke 15:17). He finally came to his senses. His mind was restored. His soul was redeemed. The battlefield of his mind was reclaimed for the kingdom of God.