We all go through seasons of spiritual growth, thriving, as well as attack. These attacks can be small and derail us for a brief moment, or they can come at a larger scale. Large enough to the point where you feel like you at war over control of your own mind, and you may even feel like you’re losing. Unless we are aware of what God’s truth says, and the reality of what Satan is capable of and not capable of, we run the risk of giving the enemy more credit than he deserves. We also risk not being able to properly defend our minds and capture thoughts before we create a weapon ourselves and hand it over to Satan to use against us.
The enemy wants us either hot or cold. He wants us to believe one of two extreme lies; he’s weak and insignificant, or he is all powerful and we are helpless against his inevitable attacks.
Take it back to the garden in Genesis. Satan did not tell Eve a lie, he simply posed a question that questioned what God said; “Did God actually say, ‘You should not eat of any tree in the garden?’”. Satan manipulates and plants seeds of untruth and doubt that our flesh has the choice of believing. By tempting our flesh, Satan can use fear, doubt, worry, etc. to invoke, influence, and persuade our thoughts. Our human nature and sin are like a doormat, welcoming him in to take advantage of our weakness. He is great at predicting behavior because he has seen human nature at its best and worst for so long, since the original fall. He sees how you respond and react, and will manipulate those areas of insecurity or unsteadiness to cause you to fall all over again. However daunting and discouraging this may sound, that we face a capable and real enemy, we have to remember his limitations. Satan is first and foremost, an angel, and angels are not omniscient (1 Peter 4:12). He does not have claim over our minds and thoughts, only God is omniscient and “discerns our thoughts from afar” (Psalm 139:1-2). Satan and his demons are just skilled at predicting behavior and manipulating it for evil.
Satan manipulates and plants seeds of untruth and doubt
that our flesh has the choice of believing.
So how do we determine this evil and recognize these intrusive and toxic thoughts for what they are, manipulative tactics to turn us from God? We hold them up to a mirror of exactly what God’s truth says. Philippians 4:8 gives us a beautifully simple list to help us stay guarded and armored up for this daily task, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. If we would be mindful enough to arm ourselves with the Holy Spirit on a daily basis to remember this truth, we could capture these thoughts, hold them up to this list, and decide their influence. But it’s not enough to noticing that these thoughts are lies and attacks, we need a plan for counterattack.
The last thing Satan wants is for us to turn to the Lord for strength, council, or defense. And prayer is the means of which we have unlimited and guaranteed access to all of these by being able to go directly to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (and yes, the King and Lord over Satan himself too, let us not forget!). The second we call on our Father, Satan knows his manipulative tactics are losing their foothold. We don't have to be hesitant or unconfident in our conversations with God either. Though the enemy can hear our prayers, he has no authority or power to come between us and the Lord. Take that thought, turn it into a prayer and lift it up into God’s hands.
The second we call on our Father, Satan knows his
manipulative tactics are losing their foothold.
We see Jesus openly pray to God, and in Matthew 6, he teaches his disciples to do the same. This is the first confidence we can have in our prayers, and the enemy's ultimate inability to keep God from hearing us. If Jesus himself was confident to pray to God for all he needed, then we can be too. Next, Satan will play off of our behavior and fleshly desires, and so we must make sure we are aligning our hearts and requests with God's will. If we are seeking this kind of righteousness, we can be confident that God's will has always and will continue to triumph over the enemy for us. Finally, when we call on Jesus and utilize our access given by him to turn to God in prayer, the enemy has no place to interfere. James 4:7 tells us to "submit yourself, then, to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you". When we resist giving into the devil's lies by turning to God to reveal to us His truth and way, the devil has nowhere else to turn but away from God's inevitable glory to be revealed. We don't have to whisper for fear of the devil hearing our prayer, we don't even have to pray in our head. We have the ultimate weapon that, as hard as he might try, the devil can not overpower. Rather we can turn the enemy’s weapon of manipulative lies and turn it against him with God's truth., don’t sharpen it for him and hand it back.
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