“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” 1 Peter 5:8…………………….
Is it not true any good sportsman knows just as it’s exceedingly important to have a strategy, or game plan, to win, it’s also extremely important to have a really strong defensive plan to prevent the opponent from making advances, or headway, and ultimately winning? And is it not true it’s enormously helpful to know in advance what tactics the opponent might use to win?
So what about when it comes to the biggest, and greatest, and most significant, most dangerous and potentially deadly opponent in the universe, the devil? Is it not exceedingly important to have a strategy to win, and extremely important to have a plan of defense based on what tactics the opponent, in this case the enemy of our very souls, might use against us? Absolutely yes! The Bible contains within it the strategy for victory, as well as the plan of defense. And included in its pages, and within the pages of our own lives, are what I believe to be some of the tactics the devil uses against us.
One morning the Spirit of God warned me about three tactics the enemy would try to use that day against me. It didn’t take long for me to see what He warned me about come to pass. The enemy was coming hard at me with the very three tactics the Lord had warned me about! And these strategies of the devil were not ones he had never used before, nor were they ones he would never use again. In fact, day after day, the devil has been known in my life to use these three tactics against me. And I am quite sure I am not alone in this. So I share with you the Lord’s warning to me with the hope you might keep your eyes wide open and stay on the lookout for these very same three tactics should the devil attempt to use them against you – or perhaps already is!
What are they?
- To get us discouraged
- To get us angry
- To get us distracted
Why would he use these three tactics, what is our best defense against them, and what should we do if we find the enemy is gaining ground against us because we have allowed him to make advances with one or two or even all of these tactics?
- The devil would use discouragement to bring us down and keep us from having the desire and energy and passion and steadfastness and perseverance and wherewithal to move forward in following the Lord including in serving Him; because anger grieves the Holy Spirit and casts a shadow over His love and equipping in us to love and serve the Lord and others; and because distraction gets our focus off God and His Word and His calling for us and onto ourselves and this world such that as with discouragement and anger we can become down, wrongly focused, disheartened, and off track, ill-equipped to press on in our personal relationship with Christ and in fulfilling the calling God has given each and all of us.
- We need to be born again spiritually by repenting of our sins, believing Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is Lord and died for us and was raised from the dead, & committing our lives to Him & asking for and receiving the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. We need to spend time with the Lord daily in His Word, loving Him, praising and worshiping Him, seeking, hearing, obeying, and serving Him. We need to be solidly immersed in the Body of Christ, assembling regularly with Christ’s followers to worship Him, learn of Him, fellowship with and teach and serve one another in Christ’s love. And we need to fight in faith and achieve victory day by day in Christ through Christ for Christ.
- If we find we have already fallen into discouragement, anger, and distraction, we need to repent and turn to God and His Word, to come up from down in the pit into which we have fallen, and to press forward as the Spirit of God leads us ahead.
For the glory of the Lord, let us watch out for the danger of the devil’s ploys to get us to fall into discouragement, anger, and distraction! The Lord will give us the strength when we seek Him and live in obedience to Him to secure the victory through Christ and to defeat the enemy no matter what tactics he uses against us – discouragement, anger, and distraction included. Above all else, live for Christ!