There are three enemies that we face while living in this life: the devil, the flesh and the world.  Any problem that you have in your life can be summarized into one of these three areas. 

The Bible tells us to fight the fight of faith.  This is our real fight. 

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

1 Timothy 6:12 KJV

These enemies will try to steal your focus, your confidence and your effectiveness for the kingdom of God if you let them.  

You cannot allow yourself to be sidetracked by these enemies.  

To be clear, we aren’t talking about heaven or hell here.  You could be going to heaven though feeling like your life is in hell right now.  God doesn’t want that for you!  

Many times I see so many people simply saying, “Man the devil sure is attacking me today…”  

When in reality many times we ourselves are to blame for the situations that we are in. 

After this post today, you should be able to tell the difference among the various attacks and learn about the weapons we are supposed to use to respond to these attacks.  

If we don’t have the right tool to fight the enemy, we’ll end up getting our brains beat out thinking we are doing the right thing. 

Paul talks about this in Romans when he describes the Jews.

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.  For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Romans 10:1-3 KJV

The Jews were doing what they thought was right, but they were acting without any knowledge.  They didn’t realize that Jesus already made a better way!  

I’m here to tell you that Jesus made a better way for you too!

Enemy #1: The Devil

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12 KJV

This is the enemy that everyone wants to focus on.  

It’s true that the devil is out there seeking whom he may devour, but here’s the truth, he’s harmless to the man or women who knows their rights in Christ!

My pastor used to say “The devil giving you fits?  Then why are you hanging around him?!”  

In other words, make your permanent abode with Jesus and the devil won’t even cross your mind. 

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

James 4:7-8 KJV

So here are the steps to keeping the devil away.

1. Submit to God. That means follow what God tells you to do in every situation.  Our post last week was talking about this very thing.  (See Doing the Right Thing Affects Hearing God’s Voice).
2. Draw near to God.  Make your abode in the secret place.  That just means you are talking to, thinking about, consulting with and obeying God in every possible way that you know how.  You’re doing your absolute best to be pleasing to God in every area of your life. 
3. THEN Resist the devil. When the devil comes to you with a thought and you say “where did that come from?”, RESIST the devil with the scriptures that you’ve been feeding yourself. The Word of God will come out of your mouth like a sword and WHACK! the devil right over the head and he’ll go running back away from you.

Jesus in the Wilderness

Do you remember what Jesus did in the wilderness?  

Jesus – filled with the Holy Spirit (the revelator of the scriptures and one responsible for bringing the Word alive) – went into the wilderness.  

While there, Jesus meditated on Deuteronomy chapters 6 and 8.  

You might ask, How do you know what Jesus was thinking about?  

Simple.

In verses 4, 8 and 12 of Luke 4, Jesus responded to a temptation – a thought – that the devil gave him with the scriptures that contradict that thought. 

And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Luke 4:3-4 KJV

Jesus spoke the scriptures that were deposited in His heart right back to the devil as the sword of the spirit.  

He combatted the attack of Satan with THE WORD.

Solution #1: When the devil tries to tempt you, combat his attacks with SCRIPTURE. 

This is why it’s so important to meditate on the Bible daily. Find scriptures that will apply in your life in various situations and think on these verses until they get down in your heart.

If your mouth feeds your heart when you don’t need it, your heart will feed your mouth when you do need it.

Perfect example of this is when you stub your toe and you let a few words come out that are less than Godly.  Your meditation on those words caused them to slip out in the heat of the moment.  

We want this same concept to operate in the positive.  So that when the attack comes your knee jerk reaction is to fallback on the Word of God. 

1 of 3 Enemies to our Faith Walk

In this blog post we covered the first of three enemies that try to attack us.  They try to steal our life from us and make us ineffective for the kingdom of God.  This is a battle we are fighting in. 

It’s time we start remembering that we are in a spiritual war.  The weapons that we use to fight this war are powerful when used appropriately.  Use the wrong weapon on the wrong thing and you won’t live a very victorious life.  

For completeness I’ll include all three enemies and their solutions, but I encourage you to read the other two blog posts linked below for a complete look at what it takes to fight this war.

1. The Devil is fought with the spoken Word of God (sword of the spirit).
2. Overcome the Flesh by Walking After the Spirit
3. Defeat the World’s System with your Faith

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