Genesis records humanity’s first sin — and its first cover-up. The pattern Adam and Eve set in the garden is still playing out in addiction today.

Sexual sin is instantly available, deeply hidden, and dangerously progressive — a combination that makes it more addictive than most people realize.

Ephesians 6 gets read aloud in church constantly. Few of us stop to ask what each piece of armor actually means for a man fighting to stay pure.

Addiction isn’t just painful — it’s repetitive. Here’s why the same cycle keeps looping, and what it actually takes to finally break out of it.

Prayer, fasting, and Scripture reading get taught constantly. Accountability, one of the clearest commands in the New Testament, almost never does. Here’s why that gap matters.

The most dangerous enemy in recovery isn’t the sin itself — it’s your own mind’s ability to convince you there’s no problem at all.

Every man caught in sexual sin eventually meets two characters: the one hiding in secrecy, and the one who’s found freedom through honesty. Which one are you right now?

Every man and woman fighting for purity starts here. An introduction to the foundational training behind everything in this series — from destroying denial to breaking the acting-out cycle.

Every wife who calls us asking for help is really asking one question underneath all the others: am I going to survive this? One wife shares what she wishes she’d known from the start.

Your Special Ops mission, should you choose to accept it, is to turn your wounds into wonders so that you can become a spiritual father or mother deeply impacting the lives of those who cross your path and passing on a powerful legacy of transformational healing and hope. Get to work, brothers and sisters, there is no time to lose!

I conclude with tips for transforming yourself from a hapless POW to Christian warrior known and feared by demons. Remember what the demon said to the sons of Sceva (Acts 19:15): Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? Does the devil know and fear your name?

And before you get all modest, fearful, and/or hopeless, remember how screwed up, addicted, and demonized I used to be. If I have a Wanted poster in hell with my face on it, then any Christian can get one! It definitely takes courage, but it isn’t rocket science.

Here are some tips to get you started. But expect much more ammo for the fight in later chapters.

A foothold is not a mindset; it’s a “lifeset,” an entrenched way of life, a behavioral pattern, a repetitive habit that over time opens the door for the literal presence of demons.

A hearthold is all about your passions and your dreams, the secrets of your heart, the things you think about when you fall asleep at night. Maybe it’s a 1964 Ford Mustang, maybe it’s your fantasy football team, maybe it’s the business you want to start, or that novel you always meant to write. Perhaps it’s a co-worker? She’s looking mighty fine, whereas your wife can’t seem to shed those 30 pounds after having your last kid. Demons love to stoke the fires of old flames, reminding you constantly of just how good and pleasing and desirable achieving a particular fantasy would be.

Like Adam and Eve, if demons can get you to swallow a lie (You’ll will never be free…), then they are well on their way to winning the war. Specifically, demons will attempt to control your mind by filling it with Strongholds. A stronghold is a mindset, an entrenched mental pattern of thought, a habitual attitude, a set of beliefs, a paradigm that always has at its core a lie or multiple lies of Satan.

How Does Satan Neutralize Christians?3 Primary Means: Demons, the World, Carnal Christians. As a memory aide, picture the devil’s 3-pronged pitchfork. The primary satanic means of taking out Christians is via Demons, the World System, and Carnal Christians.

Like the Christians in Laodicea, the devil wants you deceived, addicted, immature, and carnal. Even better, he wants you deceiving and/or hurting others, even though you claim to be a follower of Christ. Any of this sounding familiar? The statistics on American Christians, for example, are abysmal. Divorce rates, church attendance, Bible reading, tithing, witnessing, sexual sins and addictions—is it any wonder our country is launching itself off the cliff?

Maybe this is why Scripture gives us this command: Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). And yet you’ve likely lived a life immorally out of control and asleep to any threat posed by the deceiver of heavenly angels. You’ve been schooled by an extremely cunning enemy (2 Corinthians 11:3); indeed, it’s quite likely you are still deceived in some areas! The best kind of deception is the one you never notice! Wake up and smell the Father of Lies, brothers and sisters!

You must personalize the murderous danger of spiritual warfare, because everything you value and love is at play in this war. Your sexual purity, your health, your mental sanity, your job and finances, your marriage, your children, your ministry, your testimony, and ultimately your eternal destiny and reward all hinge upon your effectiveness as a soldier warring on behalf of the God of Angel Armies (the Lord of Hosts). Nothing less than the destiny of the world is at stake, because you live in the last days and thus are called to fight in the Last Battle.

Do you know how to stand your ground against the cosmic forces of evil? Do you know how to fight against demons? Or how to equip yourself with the life-saving armor of God? “Stage 3: Spiritual Warfare” offers you a specific strategy for winning the invisible war that rages about you, starting with the fundamentals as laid out in this next series of posts.

Hopelessness is the granddaddy of all excuses, because in effect it excuses all other excuses! Think about it for a second. If you’re without hope, if everything is truly pointless, then why bother attempting anything, since you’re doomed from the get-go? Hopelessness is the one excuse above all others that the devil wants programmed into your brain and self-talk, because the man or woman who is hopeless is already defeated. Hopelessness is the dead opposite of faith, and without faith it is impossible to please God. Hopelessness is perhaps the greatest, most devilish lie of them all—because if you embrace it, you have fundamentally rejected the very truth that will set you free.

As you become familiar with your own internal code (read “excuses”), it’s time to get down to the brass tacks of deciphering your internal dialogue so you can rewrite your code, renew your mind, and change your life. Ladies, you seem to be naturally much more self-aware than men, but even so, most of us have received little training or modeling in the art of self-analysis—even though the Bible commands us to “examine yourselves” and “test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

With codebreaking in mind (pun intended), here’s your Biblical Big Picture. In the war for purity, there’s a constant stream of coded messages, words whose decryption will help turn the tide of your personal battle. I refer to your self-talk, the messages you’ve been sending yourself inside your own brain. Many of you have been transmitting the exact same messages for 20, 40, and even 60 years, and yet you remain clueless to your own internal code. These coded messages are vital to your relapse process. Indeed, they are integral to everyone’s relapse process—because, as you’ll discover in these pages, everyone is selling themselves with the same old Lame-Ass Excuses. If we never excused and justified and defended our addictive behaviors, we’d never do them!

In other words, all addicts are con artists at heart, because the first person you must con is always yourself. This is precisely why Scripture commands us to take every thought captive to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)—or in my warfare parlance, why you must decrypt your own self-talk so you can finally hear your own addictive excuses. Mental self-awareness always precedes the destruction of stinking thinking strongholds!

Once the devil has planted the beachhead of perversion in your life and invaded you with 24-7 iAccess, his next step is thought control. This post is sponsored by the words Codes and Propaganda, because you must learn how to decode and expose the addict lies ingrained within your mind. The enemy has been broadcasting his encoded propaganda for so long, you no longer hear the loudspeakers blaring inside your own head. You’ve been programmed to mindlessly obey the devil’s constant commands and relapse for the umpteenth time—and yet you remain clueless to your own brainwashing.

Here’s some brass tacks for filtering/blocking your television, gaming consoles, tablets and cable tv. The following recommendations apply especially to those who have/will have children. It’s your choice to expose your children to the Internet, so likewise it’s your responsibility, no matter how challenging, to protect them. Trust me, I’ve talked with way too many parents on the phone whose children secretly accessed Internet at home. You do not want to have a 9-year-old sex addict on your hands!

Here’s some brass tacks for filtering/blocking your devices—and remember, I’m being general here. The following recommendations apply especially to those who have/will have children. It’s your choice to expose your children to the Internet, so likewise it’s your responsibility, no matter how challenging, to protect them. Trust me, I’ve talked with way too many parents on the phone whose children secretly accessed Internet at home. You do not want to have a 9-year-old sex addict on your hands!

Now before we get to the specifics of closing the door of unforgiveness allow me to illustrate with your required dose of WWII history just how powerful the act of forgiveness can be. Take a moment and return with me to Pearl Harbor…

It’s no coincidence that the final puzzle pieces of my destiny fell into place as I was doing the hard work of both purifying and healing my heart. Indeed, a basic reason why many of you remain clueless as to your calling is that your hearts are still impure and immature. Only a healthy and wholesome heart can see with the eyes of faith. And without faith, you’ll never have the courage to take that leap into the unknown when the time comes. Without purity you can’t mature enough to faithfully pass the Wilderness tests, and therefore your destiny dies stillborn, a Promised Land in promise only. Indeed, failure to live out one’s destiny is an even greater sin than sexual immorality—precisely because destiny, unlike sin, encompasses the very reason you were put on this planet in the first place.