Before you can fight any battle, you have to know who your enemy is.  Your Man of Sin is so familiar and so subtle that you have heard his voice many times and thought he was you.  So it is impossible to fight him either with natural tools or by reading books or sitting in a conference.  You can’t defeat him by having him cast out.  You can’t cast out your carnal nature and he isn't removed at Salvation.  He is a part of your mortal body until your flesh dies. (See the man of sin, your carnal nature.)

That is one of the reasons that it is such a big deal that we will one day receive a spiritual body.  It’s not just so we can go to Heaven or walk on Earth like Jesus did. In that day, we will finally be free of the presence of the Man of Sin in our lives.  Until that time, he is a constant source of irritation to our soul but he is an integral part of our training to become sons of God, because to overcome him you have to learn to be led by your spirit.

Rom 8:12-14  Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.  

Rom 8:1,2  There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Maturity is the ability to hear, understand and obey the voice of God.  As God draws you to hear His Voice and to obey what He tells you, you will be able to discern the lies and deception of your Man of Sin as he tries to pull you contrary to what the Spirit of God is speaking.  The Holy Spirit leads you on a Path of Perfection to maturity, for that is what Jesus sent Him to you for.  He speaks to you through your spirit.

John 14:16,17  And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. 

Joh 15:26  But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

John 16:13,14  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

The resident Man of Sin that lives in you hides in darkness, doing battle with your soul and blinding the eyes of those who are lost.

2Co 4:4  In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

As your soul learns to discern the image of the Christ that lives in you, you begin changing to become like that image that you see!  This is what it means to learn to walk in the spirit.  Whose voice are you following?

1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 

After Salvation (and in our case, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit), the first thing God teaches us is to hear His Voice.  Along with this God taught us to become aware of Christ's Presence in us.  We came to it by different paths, but both of us were shown that God is Alive in us regardless of whatever situations and circumstances we encounter and that He will never leave us, nor forsake us.  It is one thing to read Bible verses about this, but it is quite another for it to become reality to your soul.  Over time, we learned God's Presence is always available to us, day or night.  We can hear His voice and follow him daily.  This awareness is a necessary change in your understanding. 

The next step for us was to recognize that we have a personal man of sin and are in battle with him daily.  He never stops, not even when we sleep.  Unless you can learn to recognize the originator of the voice you hear in your head, you assume it is you, but is it God or you or your man of sin or your spirit speaking?  We were shocked to realize that many of the words that came from our mouths originated from our man of sin!

Once you recognize him, the next step is to learn to walk in dominion over him.  Your man of sin is a defeated foe because Jesus Christ defeated him on the cross. You do have dominion over him but it is a delegated dominion that belongs to Christ.  He is The Overcomer.  You are an overcomer as you learn to live and walk in Him.  So as you learn to walk in the spirit, you also learn to overcome your man of sin.  

The next step on our journey was to comprehend that God is in Control of Everything, Everywhere, All the Time.  No matter what is happening around us or what the man of sin is telling us, God is in Control and your man of sin is His servant given to help you reach maturity.  When you realize this, you start to ask, "What are you showing me now, Lord" rather than "Why me?"  When you begin to ask the right questions, God releases Truth for you to stand on.

“By the simple act of hearing and obeying, you become enabled by My Holy Spirit to gain a better comprehension of who you are, where you are and what’s in your future.  Old concepts are ripped apart and new ones take their place in your thought process. ”