Under Attack

¹ Come with great power, O God, and rescue me!
    Defend me with your might.
² Listen to my prayer, O God.
    Pay attention to my plea.
³ For strangers are attacking me;
    violent people are trying to kill me.
    They care nothing for God. Interlude

⁴ But God is my helper.
    The Lord keeps me alive!
⁵ May the evil plans of my enemies be turned against them.
    Do as you promised and put an end to them.

⁶ I will sacrifice a voluntary offering to you;
    I will praise your name, O Lord,
    for it is good.
⁷ For you have rescued me from my troubles
    and helped me to triumph over my enemies.

Psalm 54

Going along with the testimonies I will be sharing, I wanted to talk about something I have noticed in my life just recently, and hopefully will be a reminder for those who need it as I did. As we seek after God, we are going to be attacked. We are living in the world that does not want to follow God. It is full of innumerable sins that ultimately are led by pride, hate, selfish ambition, greed, jealousy, and much more. It's destructive. So that's one enemy we have, the world. Another is our flesh that constantly is battling physical desires, as well as mental and spiritual ones too. Pretty much anything that threatens to replace God in our hearts because of physical, spiritual, and mental desires we have from our mortal bodies. (1 John 2:15-17)

The third enemy is, can you guess it-- Satan. Yes, that evil dude people dress in red to look like on Halloween is someone to worry about. He probably doesn't look anything like that or what we have seen in the movies. He's not in a cheap red suit with a set of horns on his head. He is not creepy looking like Freddy Kruger or that girl from the movie The Ring. No, he is actually described as being beautiful. Probably more beautiful than we can imagine since he was after all in the heavenly realms before his fall. Type in a search engine Ezekiel 28:12-28 for a description. God made him be near him on his throne. He was said to be perfected in beauty and wise in the sight of God. Eventually the power Satan, or Lucifer, was given was what puffed his pride, making him seek to be like God, and ultimately led to him being cast out of heaven. Still he was beautiful and wise. Two very deceiving features for evil to have, when you think about it.

The Bible says Satan masquerades as an angel of light (2 Corin.11:14). That's a little scary to think about, isn't it? That the enemy of this world can appear to be good? I think this is how we are seeing Satan work today in the world. We see a bunch of movements and riots happening all around hoping for a better world, but in all reality, it just may be leading to the end. In the Bible it talks about how dandy everything will look before all hell breaks loose, so knowing that fact, it only makes sense that Satan will deceive in various ways by using the "hope" card for the world to be striving so hard to achieve. Also we have to consider the fact there are false teachings in the world. In general, they are the teachings that corrupt the gospel of Christ. Anything from excluding the idea of a sin nature to defaming who God is by ignoring what Scripture teaches about Him. We see people believing in prosperity gospel, where you will be blessed with car for obeying God, or people believing taking God's wrath in their own hands is the way to obey God. Those things are ridiculous. This is lightly covering the idea of Satan's beauty that is so deceiving.

Now let's talk about his wisdom. You do not trick people for thousands of years and do not learn some new tricks. With everything going on in our lives, Satan is watching us to see where the door with the broken henge is. Meaning, he is going to use our weaknesses for his strength. The difference between when God does this is Satan is glorified and we lose; when God is glorified, we are blessed. God is God, even with Satan's reign in this world. God ultimately has control whether or not if Satan is to continue to exist. Remember he created him. He allows him to continue his reign on earth just for a short while because it strengthens us who have trusted in Christ, and therefore won't be lacking anything in him.

So being wise, Satan lies to us so we believe lies which in turn can hinder our walk with the Lord or keep us from having a relationship with him altogether. This is one thing I have noticed recently in my own life. 

As I start to grow deeper in the Lord, Satan attacks with one sin that I struggle with the most, fear. If he cannot get me the way I was before I was saved, he'll throw me some curve balls with fear, doubts, or just plain confusion. I have realized during times like that in my life I need to separate the truth from lies, and remember this--Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44). I seek after the Lord in prayer and in through his Word. Jesus said the truth will set you free (John 8:32), and I can tell you it has for me.

Today, if you are struggling with something in your life, consider the truth of God's word compared to the lies you maybe believing now. Satan could be attacking you right now and you don't even have your guard up (Eph. 6). James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." Seek God, and you will find him. Resist believing in Satan's lies and he will leave you alone until there comes another opportunity for him to come after you. Then seek God once again. It's a vicious cycle, but the more you do it, the more stronger you become. Trust me!

For now, seek after God and let him protect you. Let him be God. Let him be the one in control in your life. Let me rule over you, this world, and Satan who threatens us. Soon enough, you will win by being obedient to him. Trust in him and he will help you. God bless.