The Battle We Wage - Part 3: Understanding How Our Enemy Works

In my last post I said that original sin makes us weak, the pull of the flesh is strong.

The enemy of our soul knows our weaknesses.

 He is crafty.. remember this is the most intelligent being that God has created. His  knowledge of Heaven and Creation is vast.. he was present when God created the world and man.(Ezekiel 28:11) He knows how our minds think, how our emotions work. He even dared to tempt Jesus in his weakened human state.

He whispers lies into our ears constantly. He preys upon our thoughts. 

Our mind is the great battlefield where he wins most of his victories over us. (Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer is a must read.  There are e-books available for free downloading. I'm not sure what is trustworthy so I didn't put up a link)

He divides to conquer.

Did you know that there are spirits of religion? They cause dissension among people within a church, causing false doctrines to be created and more and more people to become dissatisfied within their church. He pits each person's faith against the other and removes the central focus from God Himself. People argue over doctrines and forget that the true purpose is to honour and worship God in how we live our lives. They also make people 'fanatic' about religion and cause some to abandon their true calling from God (families, commitments) to pursue heavily active roles in church causing resentment and undermining family ties. I know of people who have been divorced because of over-zealous spouses.

He desires the downfall of righteous people

 He knows how difficult it is to cause a righteous person to sin, yet he targets us for more than one reason. One being that when we fall, we cause others to think "look at those hypocritical Christians again". They see no need for organised religion or they feel justified in maintaining their atheist or agnostic statuses.  He also delights in turning servants of God off the path He chose for us, thereby stealing what God had for us and putting a spoke in the wheel of God's Divine Plan. When the righteous are taken from their true purpose there are less to work in the vineyard.

He breaks us down systematically:

• he attacks our finances, health or relationships to weaken us with trial.
• he tempts us to have thoughts that are prideful, envious or greedy to open a window of sin.
• he reminds us of situations where we hold on to unforgiveness or bitterness or resentment to start. flames he will later fan into an inferno that will consume us.
• he taps into our old insecurities, fears or doubt as this will snowball if we are weak.
•  he attacks our self-esteem - this one is a biggie.

We may be strong in our prayer life and manage to take control of our thoughts that are envious, prideful or bitter and resentful. We may recognise when our health etc is under attack, but the area he gains the most ground  in is our own insecurities.

If he can convince us of our worthlessness, unattractiveness or how unlovable we are, he has won major points. We can become convinced that we are unworthy even in the eyes of  God. We sink into despair.

His arrows are poison. 

We may not feel the initial prick of his attack.. it may be as gentle as the planting of a seed of  doubt or fear, but slowly the poison seeps into our souls, attacking all our weaknesses, dragging us deeper and deeper until we are crushed beneath the weight of his lies.

We may become so stuck in the mire that we cannot even lift our eyes to see that our Saviour is standing over us with His arm outstretched to help us up.

Are you convinced of the power we hand over to Satan yet?

Let me tell you a little story. In the midst of a painful trial, I experienced the crushing burden of Satan's lies about my worthlessness among other things.  I was so broken that my sister came to pray with me. In the middle of the prayer, she exclaimed that she could see me lying on the floor with Satan's foot on top of me and I was under a giant rock.

This is the truth.. we do not see it with our eyes. It is time to open our spiritual eyes to this truth and time to do spiritual warfare to claim back what is rightfully ours... God given to us.

I hope you will come back to visit when  I address how we go about doing this in my next post.

Meanwhile, here's a very interesting article you might like to read on spiritual warfare

Praying God will bless and empower you to shine brightly for Jesus!