Jesus
taught us to pray that God would lead us not into temptation but protect us
from evil every day. Most of us do not
deeply connect with the spiritual reality that is around us all the time. We don’t consider the reality of
temptation. We don’t recognize that we
have an enemy of our soul whose main goal is to destroy any connection we might
form to the love and protection of God.
This is how we become our own worst enemy. We do not recognize what is at stake every
day.
There is
an invisible foe to conquer every day.
This mostly undetected force of evil is very skilled at remaining
anonymous. He comes to steal, kill and
devour (John 10:10) but most of the time in the most subtle of manners. Since we are creations of God and bear His
image, it is difficult for us to stoop so far as to openly worship evil. The types of people that openly worship Satan
are not attractive or tempting to the average person. Yet the enemy of our soul is present every
day. Once we connect deeply with God we
become aware that there is a difference between the times our souls feel the
peace with God and the numbing from the world.
It’s then that we see how we can become our own worst enemy by not
forging into the fight against evil moment by moment.
I heard a
speaker say once that we should be the kind of woman that when our feet hit the
floor in the morning the devil is saying—“Oh no, she’s awake again.” The way we become that kind of a woman or man
is that we wake up each morning recognizing the battle within our soul to fight
off the temptation to connect more deeply to the world than to our loving God.
The worst
of the worst places to be when it comes to temptation is to create a world of
self-virtue like the Pharisees. Once
your soul has deceived itself into believing you are in perfect communion with
God, you give incredible sacrifices that are admired by men but mean nothing to
God because there is no love (1 Corinthians 13). In the book Unseen Warfare, the author
writes: “After this it is impossible for any man to turn such people, except,
through God’s special influence. An
evident sinner will turn towards good more easily than a secret sinner, hiding
under the cloak of visible virtues.” A
soul in this state is so committed to their own idea of godliness that they
have become unaware of the genuine love of God.
The Pharisees looked into the literal eyes of God when they approached
Jesus and told Him He was the son of the Devil.
I can see
why Jesus taught us to ask God daily for protection from temptation. We must stand our guard over the holy,
intimate relationship with God. A soul
that connects to God every day and throughout the day is on track to carry out
God’s will. That kind of soul is
dangerous to the enemy. This is why our
souls need protection from temptation.
Paul
taught us to see our spiritual life as a battle, and he gave us battle imagery
to fight the spiritual fight. He told us
in Ephesians 6 to wear the amour of God which consists of truth, righteousness,
standing in the gospel, faith, salvation and the word of God. He writes: Stand firm then, with the belt of truth
buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and
with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In
addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can
extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians
6:14-17).
The enemy
of my soul has been exposed by Jesus; he has no power over me (1 John
4:4). It’s not the enemy of my soul that
I need to fight against; rather it is within myself and whether I turn my soul
to God in order to fight my unseen enemy.
Copyright © 2018.
Deborah R Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com
All Rights Reserved.
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