One key area of victory for our lives that remains unsolved and untapped for many in the Body of Christ is our sleep time.
More important than a good pillow, firm mattress or weighted blanket, there is a posture that your heart must have when we go to sleep to ensure victory.
Sleep is a Journey
When we go to sleep at night, we embark on a journey.
Every night, when we turn off the lights and drift into sleep, we are not just resting, we are going on a journey of discovery. Yet the enemy works overtime to corrupt our journey, even before we start.
Think about the role of technology, like our cell phones, which the enemy uses to overload our minds, right before we head to bed.
Or how about that television show, where always, in those last five minutes, every chaos conceivable erupts, and now our minds are working overtime to solve if that character lived or that romance survived? This critical time, when we prepare for sleep, is exactly when the enemy hijacks us! If our mind is loaded with everything that happened in the day, and then supercharged with an hour of junk we have just scrolled through, we enter sleep with our subconscious wide open to his attacks.
Processor Overload
In sleep, our heart is processing everything that we study, so basically, after an hour or two on tech, we become a helpless weak person in the realms of the spirit. Divided and distracted, Satan can now manipulate us in our dreams. We find ourselves weak, often unable to respond or react in our dreams, without control, so that when we wake up in the morning, we are then a victim of our subconscious world (See this blog for more on this subject.) If our subconscious is weak, it is because of the choices we have entertained. Remember, if satan wants to defeat a child of God, he will always speak to the subconscious.
How to Avoid Defeat in our Dreams: Start with Purifying our Heart
We need to train ourselves. Prior to our time of sleep, we need to purify our heart.
There will always be thoughts that satan will bring to us that are not holy. When we locate these thoughts, we need to immediately repent and say, “Lord, sorry that I am thinking this. You know this is not my heart.”
As we throw out these toxic thoughts out of our mind, we can replace them with good thoughts for the Lord like, “Thank You Lord for this day, for Your Goodness, for Your kind protection” and whatever else we may wish to express to our Lord. As we enter sleep, as we have purified our stream and protected our sleep, satan cannot enter our subconscious, and the journey begins.
A Cleansed Heart Means a Mind Prepared for Battle
As we daily cleanse our thoughts and govern our mind, a grace is given to us by the Lord for our sleep times. As we humble ourselves before the Lord, we are now equipped for this journey called sleep.
If spiritual attacks do come in our dreams, now, cleansed, humble, alert, our spirit will better respond to the battles. Thus prepared, we will fight, cry, and repent over every temptation that comes, as we demolish these desires which lurk in our hearts.
With training, an alertness to the Lord will develop. As we apply this consistent practice, we will begin to connect deeper with the Holy Spirit during our night hours. Then, when we reject the temptations which come in the night, we will gain great victory over our subconscious and effectively weaken the enemy’s grip on our lives. (Click here for the full sermon.)
Daily Discipline Equals Victory in our Dreams
Through intentional practice, we can reign over our subconscious. May our dream realm become a 24/7 realm of dominion!
Shalom.
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