624 The Spiritual Man
Upon realizing he has been deceived, the believer should next
seek light concerning the ground he has lost and try to recover it.
Since evil spirits maintain their position on the territory surrendered
to them, they shall leave once that area is cleared away.
Because the Christian has fallen into passivity and deception by
not using his will in self-control, he now must exercise his will
actively to resist through the power of God the powers of darkness in
every temptation and suffering and to cancel his earlier promises to
them. Since passivity came in gradually, it will be eliminated
gradually. The measure of one’s detection of his inertia is the
measure of that one’s emancipation. If the duration of his inactivity
has been long, the longer will it take to be delivered. To descend a
mountain is always easier than to ascend it; in like manner, to
become passive is easy but to regain freedom is painstaking. It
requires the cooperation of the total man to retake all forfeited
ground.
The child of God definitely should ask God to show him where he
has been deceived. He must sincerely desire to have all the truth
about himself revealed. Generally speaking, whatever the believer
fears to hear will probably pertain to the ground given the enemy.
What he is afraid to deal with is the very item he should dispense
with, for nine out of ten times the enemy has established his footing
right there. How necessary that the Christian beseech God to shed
light on his symptoms and their causes so that he may recapture the
lost territory. Enlightenment is a “must”; without it the believer tends
to interpret the supernatural as being something natural, the spiritual
(of the evil spirits) as being something physical. And so he provides
ground for the enemy.
The Recovery of GroundOne common principle underlies the way all ground is
relinquished to evil spirits: it is through passivity, the inactivity of